Wednesday, February 2nd, 1983

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

February 2, 1983

PB PARAS; MENTALISM

TOPIC: PB Paras

SUBJECT: Mentalism

SUBSUBJECTS: Dream analogy, Epistemology, Materialism, Mind, Sensations, Senses

CONTENTS:

PB'S ESSAY ON MENTALISM

THE RATIONAL UNDERSTANDING OF MENTALISM IS NOT THE SAME AS THE RELEASE FROM THE COMPULSIVENESS OF THINKING OF THE WORLD AS REAL—RATHER THESE ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

WHAT KNOWS? IS IT THE SENSES OR THE MIND?

WHEN YOU SEE A DREAM, YOU SEE IT WITHOUT USING ANY SENSES

ALL SENSATIONS ARE MENTAL

"SIGHT IS ENTIRELY SUBJECTIVE"

WHAT IS THE NATURE OF YOUR EXPERIENCE? THE BASIC PREMISE MUST BE THAT IT IS YOUR MIND THAT YOU EXPERIENCE

WHAT IS GIVEN TO THE MIND IS AN UNKNOWN OBJECT, AND THE MIND CHANGES THAT INTO THE WORLD, WHICH INCLUDES YOUR BODY AND ALL ITS PHYSIOLOGICAL PROCESSES

THE MIND SEES WITHOUT USING ANY SENSE ORGANS—PERCEPTION IS IMMEDIATE

THE UNIVERSAL MIND OR SOUL IS NOT OUT THERE INFORMING SPACE; IT'S NOT OUT THERE AT ALL

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Paul Brunton, Notebooks

• Paul Brunton, The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga

• Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself

• A. Trevor Barker, The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett

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

NOTES:

• PB's Unpublished Mentalism Essay in Early Writings 2 (EW2) read in class.

• Quotes not found should be sourced and 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, IT updates audio file markers to match new REP audio. Archival verbatim transcript – V14.1a.

AUDIO FILES: 1983 0202a. [Note 1: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files. Note 2: We are missing the second audio file for this class. Note 3: In 2025, REP Studio cuts dead air and improves sound quality.]

1983 02/02 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

PB Paras; Mentalism

Archival verbatim transcript

[Audio File 1983 0202a Begins]

RC: See you just change(d) words when you start calling it mind instead of matter. What's it-- what's it mean, what are the implications.

DR (in background): Louder.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

[couple seconds of faint background student talking]

S: What is it? (laughter)

S: Thank you [one word inaudible]

VM: I think he's up by the barn [one/two words inaudible] (laughter)

S (faint): Uh-hm.

VM/S(?): He never is, I'm used to [one word inaudible]

[short pause with faint background student words]

PB'S ESSAY ON MENTALISM

PB [Early Writings 2, pp. 253-257, Mentalism Essay, The Realization (unpublished), RC reading]: "No matter what effort the intellect puts forth it can never construe to itself the Brahman as it is, but only an idea of it, but few people come to the point of thinking deeply on this matter.

"Can we probe behind this ever-changing appearance of the world to its veiled actuality. We must begin by analysing the fabric of the world from a little known standpoint. Experience is the activity of the mind in consciousness, and the whole universe, like time and space, arises and collapses with our thoughts of it. For mind is prior to it.

"Comprehending this we comprehend that the world derives its reality for us only because and to the extent that we realise it in the field of personal consciousness.

"If the universe comes out of one's own mind we must remember that one's own mind comes out of the cosmic mind. Thus the final impulse is not our own. If we regard the world as having no independent existence outside our own finite consciousness then we have misunderstood mentalism. The latter does not merely say that we know nothing outside our [own] consciousness but it also says that the waking world rests independently in the consciousness of the Cosmic Mind. It avoids the dilemma of solipsism by pointing out a way of escape through ultra mystic contemplation which expands the finite consciousness into a point within the infinite, thus enabling man to prove this latter truth for himself. The doctrine of mentalism needs only to be understood in order to be accepted.

"The student must not only imbue himself thoroughly with the truth that everything is Mind, but must have practised the second meditation which produces the realization of this truth. Whoever persists in perceiving the world's form alone and not its essence is a materialist enshrouded by illusion, no matter how religious or how spiritual he believes himself to be. Whoever continues to regard mystical experience as being something abnormal and exceptional, reveals his profound ignorance of this.

"Sometimes the whole history and existence of mankind (including your own) will be bereft of reality and [RC adds: will] take on the character of a dream – vivid and lucid but still only an enchanted dream cast like a great spell over the mind of man. Then you will not merely intellectually know but [RC adds: will] experientially verify the truth of mentalism.

"The practice reduces itself to this, that our old habit of thinking everything to be matter must gradually break down and be replaced by the new habit of thinking everything to be mind.

"Thoughts are subjective only until we begin to enquire; then we find they are objective to pure thought. Each individual wave separates itself, i.e., objectifies [RC adds: itself] from the ocean to the extent that it takes separate shape but when it falls back and merges then as ocean it remains unformed and unseparate. So too each idea is a rising wave lifted out of the known mind and the quest seeks to reduce it back to the primal state. Ordinary yoga and mysticism seek to effect this by artificially shutting out the world which originates all the ideas by achieving the trance state. As this latter [RC adds: state] can never be a permanent one, success must always be followed by relapses, just as sleep must always be followed by waking. It can be achieved permanently only by inquiry which lays bare the true nature of Mind and the world. For that ordinary yoga is not necessary, it is but [RC reads: but it is] a preparation for the [RC reads: this] higher system.

"Pure Mind can never be visualised in our world of time and space, our field of view is too limited to contain it. Reality belongs to the realm of the formless, the matter-less. Everything that has shape, that has objectivity belongs to the world of illusion.

"And yet whoever would take this seeming void for actual nothingness would be mistaken. For it is the essence of Mind, which is itself the very ground of all our varied human existence.

"It is true that thinking cannot take hold of the transcendental awareness, that reason cannot touch it and imagination cannot represent it to us, but it is equally true that without the preparatory work of thinking, reasoning and imagining, we cannot arrive at this awareness.

"Such advanced ideas must seem like paradoxes to the intelligentsia, and must necessarily be dressed in parable for the simple. But we ought not to run away from a paradox; it is really a cloak which covers the deepest and therefore the most valuable thought.

"When we receive a letter from a distant continent we know the fact of the latter's existence without feeling its general characteristics. Similarly we may know the fact that the table is an idea without feeling it to be so. If it be [RC reads: is] said that the fact being a true one we ought to feel it also as an idea, the answer is that such feeling is possible, but can come only at the very end of a long course of re-educating the mind and its habits. We must think constantly that the world is an idea until it gets so firmly fixed in our mind that the final test of our grasp is met satisfactorily, which is when in our dreams [RC reads: dream] we say to ourselves [RC reads: ourself] that even they are but ideas.

"Through such constant practice man slowly actualises his true nature. He begins to distinguish his individuality from the universal being which lies at its root.

"When you know that a mirage is nothing more than a mirage, you do not travel towards it to drink its imaginary water. Nevertheless you do not and cannot stop seeing the mirage. Similarly when you know that the world is an idea this does not mean you will no longer be able to see the world, for it is there, but it means that you will regard it with the same insight as you would regard the water of a mirage. [RC reads: Similarly when you know that the world, for it is there-- Similarly when you know that of the world, for it is there, but it means that you will regard it with the same insight as you would regard the water of a mirage.]"

[18 second pause]

CDA: Randy, where is that from?

RC: From Early Writings, the brown book.

CDA: Oh.

VM: Randy, I realize it's long but I think it deserves to be reread.

S (faint): Yeah.

S (faint): Oh, just read it.

[students assent, very faint]

S (faint): (You/I) should probably read it.

[student assents, faint]

[short pause]

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 253, Mentalism Essay, The Realization (unpublished), VM reading]: "No matter what effort the intellect puts forth it can never construe to itself the Brahman as it is, but only an idea of it, but few people come to the point of thinking deeply on this matter.

"Can we probe behind this ever-changing appearance of the world to its veiled actuality. We must begin by analysing the fabric of the world from a little known standpoint. Experience is the activity of the mind in consciousness, and the whole universe, like time and space, arises and collapses with our thoughts [VM reads: thought] of it. For mind is prior to it.

"Comprehending this we comprehend that the world derives its reality for us only because and to the extent that we realise it in the field of personal consciousness.

"If the universe comes out of one's own mind we must remember that one's [VM reads: our] own mind comes out of the cosmic mind. Thus the final impulse is not our own. If we regard the world as having no independent existence outside our own finite consciousness then we have misunderstood mentalism. The latter [VM: mentalism] does not merely say that we know nothing outside our own consciousness but it also says that the waking world rests independently in the consciousness of the Cosmic Mind. It avoids the dilemma of solipsism by pointing out a way of escape through ultra mystic contemplation which expands the finite consciousness into a point within the infinite, thus enabling man to prove this latter truth for himself. The doctrine of mentalism needs only to be understood in order to be accepted."

RG (faint): (This is good.) (bit of laughter) Uh-hm.

VM (simultaneously): If I understood it, that's true.

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 253, Mentalism Essay, The Realization (unpublished), VM reading]: "The student must not only imbue himself thoroughly with the truth that everything is Mind, but must have practised the second meditation which produces the realization of this truth. Whoever persists in perceiving the world from a-- alone…"

VM: I'm sorry, I misread it.

PB [Early Writings 2, pp. 253-255, Mentalism Essay, The Realization (unpublished), VM reading]:"Whoever persists in perceiving the world's form alone and not its essence is a materialist enshrouded by illusion, no matter how religious or how spiritual he believes himself to be. Whoever continues to regard mystical experience as being something abnormal and exceptional, reveals his profound ignorance of this.

"Sometimes the whole history and existence of mankind (including your own) will be bereft of reality and take on the character of a dream – vivid and lucid but still only an enchanted dream cast like a great spell over the mind of man. Then you will not merely intellectually know but experientially verify the truth of mentalism.

"The practice reduces [itself] to this, that our old habit of thinking everything to be matter must gradually break down and be replaced by the new habit of thinking everything to be mind.

"Thoughts are subjective only until we begin to enquire; then we find they are objective to pure thought. Each individual wave separates itself, i.e., objectifies from the ocean to the extent that it takes separate shape but when it falls back and merges then as ocean it remains unformed and unseparate. So too each idea is a rising wave lifted out of the known mind and the quest seeks to reduce it back to the primal state. Ordinary yoga and mysticism seek to effect this by artificially shutting out the world which originates all the ideas by achieving the trance state. As this latter [VM: the trance state] can never be a permanent one, success must always be followed by relapses, just as sleep must always be followed by waking. It can be achieved permanently only by inquiry which lays bare the true nature [VM reads: the truth] of Mind and the world. For that ordinary yoga is not necessary, it is but a preparation for the higher system.

"Pure Mind can never be visualised in our world of time and space, our field of view is too limited to contain it. Reality belongs to the realm of the formless, the matter-less. Everything that has shape, that has objectivity belongs to the world of illusion.

"And yet whoever would take this seeming void for actual nothingness would be mistaken. For it is the essence of Mind, which is itself the very ground of all our varied human existence.

"It is true that nothing cannot take hold…"

VM (faint): I'm sorry.

PB [Early Writings 2, pp. 255-257, Mentalism Essay, The Realization (unpublished), VM reading]: "It is true that thinking cannot take hold of the [VM reads: this] transcendental awareness, that reason cannot touch it and imagination cannot represent it to us, but it is equally true that without the preparatory work of thinking, reasoning and imagining, we cannot arrive at this awareness.

"Such advanced ideas must seem like paradoxes to the intelligentsia, and must necessarily be dressed in parable for the simple. But we ought not to run away from a paradox; it is really a cloak which covers the deepest and therefore the most valuable thought.

"When we receive a letter from a distant continent we know the fact of the latter's existence without feeling its general characteristics. Similarly we [may] know the fact that the table is an idea without feeling it to be so. If it be said that the fact being a true one we ought to feel it also as an idea, the answer is that such feeling is possible, but can come only at the very end of a long course of re-educating the mind and its habits. We must think constantly that the world is an idea until it gets so firmly fixed in our mind that the final test of our grasp is met satisfactorily, which is when in our dreams we say to ourselves that even they are but ideas.

"Through such constant practice man slowly actualises his true nature. He begins to distinguish his individuality from the universal being which lies at its root.

"When you know that a mirage is nothing more than a mirage, you do not travel towards it to drink its imaginary water. Nevertheless you do not and cannot stop seeing the mirage. Similarly when you know that the world, for it is there, but means…"

S (faint): Gotta help it down.

VM: This one's strange.

S: Again.

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 257, Mentalism Essay, The Realization (unpublished), VM reading]: "Similarly when you know that the world…"

S (faint): It's not--

TS(?): Of the world.

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 257, Mentalism Essay, The Realization (unpublished), VM reading (simultaneously with TS(?) above)]: "…for it is there…"

RG (faint): If should be "know that of the world".

VM: Ok.

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 257, Mentalism Essay, The Realization (unpublished), VM reading]: "Similarly when you know that the world is an idea this does not mean you will no longer be able to see the world, for it is there, but it means that you will regard it with the same insight as you would regard the water of a mirage." [VM reads: Similarly when you know that of the world, for it is there, but it means that you will regard it with the same insight as you would regard the matter of a mirage.]

S (very faint): The what?

S: Huh.

AH(?): What kind of matter? (RG laughs a bit)

RG: It's the same thing.

RC: It is.

RG: It's--

[18¾ second pause with faint background student talking]

S: I have a question.

S (faint): Does anyone have it?

S: Is the second medita-- is that what you're asking me?

RG (simultaneously): Yeah.

S: Oh.

S: Is the [RG simultaneously: Do you know what it is?] inquiry that he's talking [S simultaneously, faint: No.] about-- no I don't know (what/where) it is.

RC (simultaneously): I think it's just that there [S simultaneously: The inquiry?] should be a comma there.

S: A what?

RC: I think it just needs a comma. (bit of laughter)

RG: Really?

RC: Yeah, [AS/S(?) simultaneously: (That's it?)] I think that's all it is.

S (very faint): What do you mean?

S: What?

S: I don't get it.

S (simultaneously): What?

S: I don't either.

BS (simultaneously, very faint): (It's right there.)

S: It's just "the second", comma.

S (faint): Yeah.

RC (simultaneously): The second requirement is that you practice the meditation.

S (very faint): Oh it's not [one/two words inaudible]

RC: Yeah.

S: It's not a second meditation.

RC: Yeah.

S (faint): Oy vey.

RC: You practice the (seventh) meditation which--

S: He did talk about it being beyond ordinary--

S (faint): (Which one?)

[student assents, very faint]

S (faint): I don't know.

[student assents, very faint]

RG: Why don't we read-- if you read it with a comma--

[student assents, very faint]

VM: How about if you bracket "meditation" in commas, then it reads a little (clearer).

S (faint): Yeah.

VM: Let's just read it.

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 253, Mentalism Essay, The Realization (unpublished), RG reading]: "The student must not only imbue himself thoroughly with the truth that everything is Mind, but must have practised the second, meditation, which produces the realization of this truth."

VM: It's a pair of commas that's needed.

S (very faint): Yeah.

AS: Maybe that's the first?

RG: So what did Linda say?

DB: [one word inaudible] we talking about the [few words inaudible]

S (very faint): (Right.)

S (very faint): I don't know.

RG (faint): Well I think it's [one word inaudible] when (he puts/you put) the idea of the second meditation. I mean if you took it--

DB: Well I mean, he goes on later to make a big point of how the ordinary yoga and mysticism is a requirement for this but, I mean, as a preparation for this insight but-- and it-- it in itself won't deliver.

RG: Anthony, is there an occult second meditation (RG laughing) we don't know about or is--

AD: No, I-- you-- [one inaudible VM word simultaneous with AD] It's right what you said. Comma goes there.

RG (simultaneously): Huh, yeah.

VM (faint): That's pretty hard to say.

S (very faint): I thought you had to be [one/two words inaudible]

VM (simultaneously): [couple words inaudible] something.

AD: All those exercises in the Wisdom are ultramystic and they-- they produce mentalism.

VM: [couple/three words inaudible]

THE RATIONAL UNDERSTANDING OF MENTALISM IS NOT THE SAME AS THE RELEASE FROM THE COMPULSIVENESS OF THINKING OF THE WORLD AS REAL—RATHER THESE ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

AH: You know, there's something that was a bit confusing, he said on-- in one passage he said that if mentalism is-- is understood is it-- it is accepted. [RC assents] And then the rest of the passage talked quite clearly about the distinction between an understanding of mentalism and the experience of mentalism, which is its final verification.

RC: Yeah I think you need both to really understand it. 'Cause we had a quote last week where he said you can have the experience but if you have the wrong preconceptions you won't understand [AH assents, faint] [one word inaudible]

VM: No but it still seems that for PB the understanding is really primary because he does make the point that the-- let's say the mysticism and so forth is nice preparation but it's not absolutely essential.

RC: I think this will help. This is like a response to a critic.

PB [V8, 12:5.111, RC reading]: "He announces that we deny the existence of the external world. Such a man is not really criticizing our doctrine but only his [own] misconceptions of it. Therefore we are [RC reads: we're] not called upon to answer him. If we do [RC adds: not] put pen to paper, it is [RC reads: it's] an act of grace in recognition of the difficulty of comprehending this doctrine, not [as] an act of controversy in refutal of absurd ideas upon which we cannot waste our time."

RC: That many of the people who do not accept it, what they're criticizing is not the doctrine but [VM assents] misconceptions of the doctrine. So that if-- I think if we can get a number of these things out and see that most of the things that prevent us from being able to accept it are misconceptions that we have about it, it does become a lot more acceptable. Even at the conceptual level.

VM: No but-- isn't the point though, genuine understanding of it is sufficient for its acceptance. Maybe you can't feel it like the distant continent. [student assents] But the point is he's basing it in a rational framework.

RG: Uh-hm.

RC/S(?) (simultaneously): (Right.) Yes, definitely.

AH: There seems also Vic, just to follow that a little, that quite clearly the final verification of the truth of mentalism is not possible unless there's this refined sort of acceptance at the level of understanding. Like, it's almost like a prerequisite to the mystical insight. Did you get that from the passage?

VM: Well you know it's funny and then when you-- when you say verification, the final verification is mysticism, that seems like a-- you're copping out in a way. You know, you first start out-- I'm not-- I'm saying-- "you" is rhetorical Andrew, not [AH simultaneously: Ok.] necessarily you. You first start out by saying, you know, if you really understand it, if your rationality flows with sufficient vigor and so forth, you can come to accept it. However, out of the other side of your mouth you say yeah but, that you'll really believe it, it'll really be verified when you have the experience. I don't know, [student assents] which is it?

RC: I think [AH simultaneously: It is--] [couple words inaudible] support that [one/two words inaudible]

LR (simultaneously): Is the understanding different from the experience?

VM (simultaneously): Maybe it's true on both [one/two words inaudible] I don't know.

RG: Yes, he seem--

LR (simultaneously): Is the real understanding gonna be different from the experience of it?

RG: He seems clearly here to state that there are two things, there is the understanding of it and [student assents, faint] there is the further experience of it.

LR: [couple/three words inaudible]

S: [couple/three words inaudible]

RC (simultaneously): I mean it seems (to go with--)

LR (simultaneously): I don't know what you mean by understanding.

RC: I don't want to cut the discussion short but--

AD (simultaneously): You can't-- you can't equate real understanding with the experience of being released from the compulsion [LR simultaneously: I thought no one was (being)(--/.)] to experience the world as--

RC: Yeah, I think I can--

LR: Oh no, you're still going to see the world as other.

RC: Do you want to know what PB says about it?

AD (simultaneously): No, I'm not saying that.

S: Yes!

AD: I'm saying this. I'm saying that you have to understand it rationally. The rational understanding is not equivalent to nor identical with the release from the compulsiveness of thinking of the world as real. The two of them are two sides of the coin, you can't separate them. [student assents, very faint] No matter how rationally thoroughly you understand it, it is not going to be equivalent to the release of the compulsive feeling, alright. In a mystical meditation, the world as let's say being compulsively felt, alright, is removed. At that moment you recognize all-- all appearances to be ideas. That let's say would be the actual experience, alright. But the understanding that the world is idea, is another thing, it's the other side of the coin. You have to understand it with your logical intellect all the way that you can and thi-- only the two of them together will really give a convincing, you know, blow. They would-- they would ultimately convince you, the two of them together.

S (faint): Yeah.

AH (faint): Right.

[students assent, very faint]

AH: Anthony, is that-- is that so because just the mystical insight into that truth might-- might not be made a part of one's experience, you could lose that, uh-- I mean you could have that experience and--

AD: And misinterpret it.

AH: Misinterpret it. Yeah.

AD: Well I really brought that for Lauren.

S: Uh-hm.

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

S: (Right.)

[10¾ second pause]

RC: Ok, here's a couple on the same theme.

PB [V13, 21:4.74, RC reading]: "It would be better to keep silent than to make concessions out of weakness to the multitude's bias or incredulity. For mentalism is admittedly hard to apprehend until the last stages of meditation alters its level. The ego's heavy weight falls off his shoulders then [RC reads: then falls off his shoulders]: it imperceptibly lets go."

[short pause]

RC: It says--

AD (simultaneously): In other words you actually feel light and gay. (bit of laughter)

PB [V13, 21:3.68 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #9, RC reading]: "Since the world is never found to be apart from our own minds, we are [RC reads: we're] forced to relate it to them. And since it is equally obvious that the surface part of them does not deliberately bring it into existence we are further forced to deduce, first, that the deeper and unconscious part must do so and, second, that this second part must be cosmic in nature and [RC adds: must] hold all other individual minds rooted in its depths. This deduction, arrived at by reason, is confirmed by experience but not by ordinary experience. It is confirmed by sinking a shaft down through the mind in mystical meditation and arriving at our secondary cosmic self."

[students assent, very faint]

S (faint): Read that quote again. (bit of laughter)

S (very faint): Just don't tell him that he can't read it.

[short pause]

DB(?): Randy, (is that--)

S: To everybody Bo.

S (very faint, possibly part of background): How do you [one word inaudible]

VM: Yeah, read it aloud (then).

S (faint): Yeah [one/two words inaudible] too. (bit of laughter)

[13½ pause after laughter, faint background student talking]

PB [V13, 21:3.68 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #9, BC reading]: "Since the world is never found to be apart from our own minds, we are forced to relate it to them. And since it is equally obvious that the surface part of them does not deliberately bring it into existence we are further forced to deduce, first, that the deeper and unconscious part must do so and, second, that this second part must be cosmic in nature and hold all other individual minds rooted in its depths. This deduction, arrived at by reason, is confirmed by experience but not by ordinary experience. It is confirmed by sinking a shaft down through the mind in mystical meditation and arriving at our secondary cosmic self."

[short pause]

S: Would you read that please?

BC: Page 34, number 3.

S (faint, possibly part of background): That's on ego.

S (faint, possibly part of background): Yes, right.

S: [one/two words inaudible]

RC (simultaneously): Volume 10, the red one.

BC: Red, red 10.

AD: It sounds like codes over here, red 10, orange, green, blue, and yellow. (bit of laughter)

RG: Hm?

AD: I said it sounds like a code system.

S (faint): Yeah.

S: What'd you say?

DB: Randy, is the implication of that first quote that you read that the whole-- I don't want to call it idea (because it's) [half/one word inaudible] the whole fact of materialism is a consequence of egoity? [short pause] I mean that the two aren't-- that the two aren't separate? But that if you eliminate the one, that is, the notion of materialism, you've basically freed yourself from your ego? And the other way around.

RC: I don't know, I really don't. I don't know if someone that hasn't formed an ego yet has the experience of a mentalist universe.

DB: Well, could you-- could you just read the last-- the last quote? I mean the last line of that quote? 'Cause I found myself asking myself earlier today, "Oh great, let's go and do mentalism," and then I s-- I was trying to figure out what materialism was because I didn't-- you know, like I never read about it anywhere. They never taught it to me in school(,) (and/it)--

VM: That's not (solid).

DB (simultaneously): Alan--

VM: It's an integral part of the curriculum.

DB: No, they never said "This is materialism" in kindergarten, that's-- [VM/S(?) simultaneously, faint: No.] I mean I feel pretty much the same way I do now as I--

S (simultaneously): That's how well they taught it, David.

DB: --I did then.

RG (simultaneously): Right. (laughter)

DB: Exactly. But where did they learn it?

BS: 'Cause you worry about grades. (bit of laughter)

DB: That's what you think. (some laughter)

S (simultaneously, amidst laughter, very faint): Now he's going to wonder why the house is still [couple words inaudible]

S (amidst laughter): You did Wednesday. (S laughing, bit of laughter)

RC: You just got another [RG: No I (didn't/know).] message.

RG: [one word inaudible] (bit of laughter)

S: (Right.)

S: (Push.)

AD: Step by step.

VM: It's The Mahatma Letters. [Note: A. Trevor Barker, The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett.]

RG: Alright. (laughter) Force-fed here.

[short pause]

WHAT KNOWS? IS IT THE SENSES OR THE MIND?

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 207, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RC reading]: "It is impossible to eliminate the mental reference in our world experience. Indeed no experience can arise for us unless it arises in our mind. We cannot estrange ourselves from thought and yet remain within the confines of conscious objective experience.

"We only know what the senses tell us. The senses can tell us only what the mind can bring into consciousness. The mind can bring only its own creations into our consciousness. Our experienced world is a mental one."

AD: Alright. We'll stop there and go over that? [short pause] Reread please.

S (simultaneously, very faint): (Once more.)

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 207, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RG reading]: "It is impossible to eliminate the mental reference in our world experience."

AD: Now, you read that Richard? Is there something in your experience that you could speak of as being outside of the mental realm?

RG/VM(?): No.

AD: Granite mou-- mountains, lead bars?

RG: No, as long as you're experiencing a world there's got to be a knower of it.

[short pause]

AD: There might be some exceptions? Any-- could you think of any exceptions? (some laughter)

S (amidst laughter, very faint): Can't think of it.

[student assents, very faint] (bit more laughter)

RG (faint): You can't think of it. (laughter) Well, you could only be [couple/few words inaudible]

AD/S(?): Is that a joke? (laughter)

AD: Continue reading.

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 207, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RG reading]: "Indeed no experience can arise for us unless it arises in our mind. We cannot estrange ourselves from thought and yet remain within the confines of conscious objective experience."

[short pause]

S (very faint): Yes (we do).

S: (What?)

RG (simultaneously): Thinking and the world arise together.

VM: The other side of that coin is if we do estrange ourselves from thought, then we cease to be in objective [RG assents] finite experience and I suppose that's one of the goals of meditation, at least one phase of it let's say.

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 207, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RG reading]: "We only know what the senses tell us. The senses can tell us only what the mind can bring into consciousness."

AD: In that case, when I touch this, [AD hits something] alright, the senses are telling me it's hard? [S, very faint: Yeah.] Or is it the mind telling me it's hard?

RG: The mind is clearly telling you it's hard.

AD: Re-- you may have some disagreement.

S: Why did he put-- why to put--

RG (simultaneously): Well it's a funny way to say it, "We on--"

S: Why did he put it that way?

RG: Right, "We only know what the senses tell us."

BS: Yeah but they're strange.

AS: Well--

VM: Yes, [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with VM] but the sensations are given to the mind, [student assents] I mean that's the point.

S: Really?

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 207, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RG reading]: "The senses can tell us only what the mind can bring into consciousness."

RG: Well, I mean if you're already a mentalist then you could allow that I think because the mind here could be the sense that organizes all the sense-data. And then the sense would-- could tell you about that [one word inaudible]

[students assents, very faint]

S (faint): Right, (it can).

AH (simultaneously): He does say that the mi--

RG (simultaneously): A funny way to start.

AS (simultaneously): What, what?

AH: The mind-- the mind may be the source but it's restricted to what the senses can know. The on-- the-- knowledge is restricted to the-- that which has to occur sensory.

S (faint): Yeah.

VM: Modes of the mind's functioning.

S: Yeah.

AD: Read it again, Dickie.

RG: Yeah.

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 207, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RG reading]: "We only know what the senses tell us. The senses can tell us only what the mind can bring into consciousness."

RG: I think it's like the line in the "Secret of the I" where he says the senses are the way the mind canalizes [student assents] experience or the projecting out.

S: I'd get-- he almost gives the impression like the [S simultaneously: Oh.] mind is this (band) within consciousness, (to say) what would give a certain (persistence now). The next sentence following it too there's the same-- same scene.

[student assents, faint]

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 207, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RG reading]: "The mind can bring only its own creations into our consciousness."

S: Yeah.

BS: Perhaps one of its own creations is the senses and that's the exit and entrance there.

RG: Uh-hm.

AH: Anthony, in the example you gave of the pole, and you said that you know that it's hard, is it the mind that knows that it's hard. And, I think everyone agreed that would be so. But, there would be no pole or knowledge of it or its hardness without the senses functioning.

AD: Is the color that you see in your brain?

AH: No.

AD: It's subjective. Something only the mind knows.

AH: But-- yes, that's so.

AD: Well, and what could the senses tell you?

AH: There could be no color, there could be no notion of color except as a referent of the sensory experience of color.

RG: That's not true. If-- I mean--

AH: Well then we don't need a body.

RG: You could understand it that way. You would have to allows for that possibility.

S (faint): What possibility?

AH: For what?

RG (simultaneously): That you could experience directly essences without a body, I mean--

VM: Yes but, [AH simultaneously: Well--] do you think he's saying there's no sense images without senses, that's all he's saying.

RG (simultaneously): No sense images, yeah.

VM: Well I think that's-- I'm just [AH simultaneously: Well is color--] twisting it a little bit to I think--

AH (simultaneously): Is color a sense image or is color an essence?

VM: Well it's both.

RG: Depends what school you belong to.

S: [one word inaudible]

[short pause]

AH: I--

DB: My--

AD (simultaneously): You have to deci-- (you/you'll) have to decide now, what knows. Does my finger, the nerve attached to the finger going up to the brain, alright-- [intensely] What knows? Is it the senses or the mind? Decide now.

AH: The mind knows.

AD: Ok.

AH: The senses can't know.

S (faint): Yeah.

AH: But, the mind does not know without the senses.

WHEN YOU SEE A DREAM, YOU SEE IT WITHOUT USING ANY SENSES

AD: When you're in a state of dream and you work out a nice mathematical calculation, alright, take out all your reports and do all these things without senses. [intensely] When you see the dream, you see it without senses. You don't see it with your eyes.

AH: But the--

AD (intensely): Seeing is subjective.

AH: But the images, the images in the dream, I am able to fabricate them in the dream because I have-- I'm-- I've been privy to waking experience. Like, you know, when I dream about a bear it has the same sort of physical configuration as the one that I see while awake. The image of the dream is a referent to the waking image. Otherwise we gotta be care--

AD (simultaneously): You're going-- you're go-- you're going around in a circle, the question is still: who sees the bear in the dream?

AH: The mind.

AD (more intensely): It's not the eyes of the dream subject?

S (faint): No.

S: You've already established the sense of looking [couple/three words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Wait, wait, wait, wait, one at a time, huh?

[student assents, faint]

AH: The content--

AD (intensely): Andrew, you're in a dream, a bear is chasing you up a tree, you see the bear. Who sees the bear? Dream Andrew or you?

[short pause]

AH: There's a visual image of the bear that dream Andrew sees through his dream eyes. And there's knowledge of the bear that the mind knows.

AD (intensely): You really believe that, that dream Andrew sees the bear?

LR: Yeah, or else you wouldn't get scared.

S (very faint): That's right.

AH (simultaneously): The whole context-- the whole analogy [couple/few faint inaudible student words simultaneous with AH] is of waking consciousness. (laughter) There's-- there's a-- there's time, there's space, albeit in the [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously, intensely): And who sees it?

RG: Who sees dream Andrew in the dream?

S: Yeah.

S: What do you mean?

AH: My question is-- (much laughter, student words)

AH/S(?) (amidst laughter): Anthony--

AH: No, I just-- I-- the question, the question is specifically directed to the quote, you know? And, it seems that-- it seems that the quote is-- is saying something about the senses that I've not heard before or I've not understood. Would you mind reading that [student assents] one sentence?

RG (simultaneously): Could I-- Yeah I will, but let me j-- could I just read this one paragraph that really speaks to this point?

AH: Sure.

RG: This is (really) [one word inaudible]

ALL SENSATIONS ARE MENTAL

PB [source of quote not found, RG reading]: "It comes to this, that our sensations of the body are really activities of the mind. Sight, hearing, taste, and smell are simply localizations of these activities. The senses are really the limiting and defining conditions under which mind works…"

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1983 0202a Ends; Side 2 Begins)

PB [source of quote not found, RG reading]: "…and do not themselves create the images. All the five forms of sense experience are like spokes radiating from a single common center. A single consciousness is behind them. This consciousness is presupposed in seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling, a consciousness which unites all the isolated impressions into an orderly whole. Therefore it is also the basis of our bodies. What we understand by body is in reality something pertaining to the mind." [Note from jf: As of 2018, NOT in PBPF versions of Early Writings PB Mentalism Essay, not in published or unpublished PB paras (motherlog/monster.srt). Possibly a piece of paper attached to PB's original Essay around page 205-207, now lost... or ?]

RG/S(?): Ok.

RG: That's what I think.

AH: I don't think I was suggesting anything different from the quote you just read.

RG: No, I don't remember.

MB: Dickie, Richard--

AH (simultaneously): I'm, you know, certainly willing to posit the mind as being fundamental to experience and the-- the hardness of the pole is known by mind and not known by the tip of a finger. But, I thought that the earlier quote was referring to the senses as being--

RG: Organs of knowledge you mean?

AH: Yeah.

RG: Well in some sense I think and in the sense that that other quote spoke of it I think you could think of it that way. And, he-- you-- the next paragraph speaks that way.

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 207, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RG reading]: "The green colour, rolling surface, and noisy waves of yonder ocean are actually present within our consciousness, although we blindly believe them to be outside it. They are known by the senses, through eye and ear, which means that they are really known by the mind."

AH: Yes.

[student assents, faint]

RG: So, if you have the view that a sense is an organ of the mind's a-- of the mind, then you can understand it that way. [AH assents] But only in that special way. You're already a mentalist understanding it that way.

AH: Could you say you think that in that-- in the case of the example of the ocean, yonder ocean, the senses are presented in the same way that the ocean is? This part--

VM (simultaneously): We spent a lot of time one night saying how the hearing and that which is heard are presented simultaneously, and I think that's-- I think that's what you're touching on.

[student assents, very faint]

DB: Yeah but there's a-- there's a kind of--

VM (simultaneously): The organ and that which is seen David, the organ [DB assents, faint] and its content are presented simultaneously within the-- within the functioning of the mind.

AH: Would you go so far Vic as to conclude that the presentation of that ocean and a presentation of an individual sensory apparatus as being at the same status?

VM: I would say yes, they're both the same status in the sense that they're both mental constructions presented through the unfoldment of mind. On the other hand it's quite clear you normally identify more closely with your senses than you do with the objects that-- that you perceive using the senses. [AH: Well that--] Alright, I mean I don't-- even though I'm a Pisces I don't usually identify with the ocean.

AH: Well that's really the next issue I think, when mind is associated with that presented ocean and sensory vehicle, something happens where it becomes an individual kind of experience.

VM: Well, it's alright.

RG: I think we'll get to that in a-- in the analysis.

AD: Yeah, let's follow his analysis and now we'll just try to make certain points very clear and that you have to go through the consequences for yourself.

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 207, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RG reading]: "Our experienced world is a mental one. Hence it is written in the [first verse of]"Dhammapada" - "In everything mind is the first, mind is pre-eminent, by mind all things are made."

"The green colour, rolling surface, and [noisy] waves of yonder ocean are actually present within our consciousness, although we blindly believe them to be outside it. They are known by the senses, through eye and ear, which means that they are really known by the mind.

"When we denude a thing of all its qualities, the thing itself disappears. For we know nothing more of it than as a bundle of qualities. Take any other thing you like and you will find it susceptible of exactly the same analytic treatment: your knowledge of it is confined to your sensations of it, nothing more."

AD: Now, if your knowledge is confined to sensations, what are sensations? Are they mental?

S: Yes.

AH: Yes, [S simultaneously, faint: Yeah.] ultimately.

AD: You sure?

AH: Fundamental.

S (simultaneously): Yes.

AD: I mean you're sure now?

S (faint): No.

AH: Well--

AD: Sensation of hardness, colour, smell, taste. You sure now that they're mental?

AH: Because the sensory-- the sensory end of the pole is presented in the same way that the experienced object is.

AD: Well, the sensory end of the pole just like we experience object, they're both objects.

AH: Yes, to the mind.

AD: Yeah.

AH: [one/two words inaudible]

AD: So that-- so all sensations, all sensations are mental. And your experience of the world is based on sensations. Anything that you know of the world is based on sensation. So when you're looking at a cloud, alright, it's white. Where's your mind? That's it.

AH: That's it.

AD: That's it, yeah. That's a manifestation of your mind, where the white cloud is. And where your head is. That's a manifestation of your mind. If you think of the mind in your head you're in for real trouble. [couple inaudible student words] The sensation of white is right there where you see it.

[short pause]

AH: The earlier issue that I was--

AD: What shape does the mind have?

AH: It doesn't have any shape.

AD: No-- no shape at all. If-- if you go through a process of introversion, what's the last attribute that you're left with?

AH: Space.

AD: Uh-huh. So mind is formless, [AH assents] shapeless. But it could, so to speak, take on any form, any shape. So if you have a sensation, or we should say if the mind has a sensation, that becomes the world for you, the object. [10 second pause] Let's read a little more, Richard.

"SIGHT IS ENTIRELY SUBJECTIVE"

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 207, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RG reading]: "The retina reports only different patches of light, shade and colour. Actually we behold the things themselves. Therefore, something more than the retinal image is the basis of our [RG leaves out: experience. That"something more" is the mind's subconscious] working. The retina is unable to report depth but only distance. Yet we certainly see things as possessing depth. Here again mind has been subconsciously at work in making the percept.

"We see a fountain pen when we are aware of the light image which it evokes on the retina of the eye, not before.

"The retina will always show a coin as elliptical in shape whereas we perceive it as circular. Whence the difference? The answer is that mind at its subconscious level has corrected the retinal impression and thus actually manufactured part at least of [RG leaves out: what we behold. Not only that, but we are able to behold] externally what has been created internally."

S: Wait.

RG: "…ma-- manufactured…" Why am I (talking)?

S (very faint): [couple/three words inaudible]

RG: "…manufactured part ext--" I don't know-- "externally at least of what has been created internally." You get the idea.

S (faint): Ok.

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 207, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RG reading]: "We have to isolate and pick out the separate sensations for the purpose of theoretical examination, but let us not forget to form finished percepts. For us, therefore, a conception is only a conceptual aid." (some laughter)

S: Us.

S (faint): (Nice/Us).

PB [Early Writings 2, pp. 207-209, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RG reading]: "That the mind does not directly become aware of the retinal image is easily proved for the latter is inverted so that the lower part of the thing seen appears in the upper part of the image whilst [RG reads: while] its left side appears on the right side of the image. But such inversion of the external object is something which nobody is aware of, consequently the image in the retina cannot have been transmitted directly. [RG adds: It] The image fulfils its part by supplying the data to the mind which constructs its own image upon this data.

"Not only do we never see a material object but we do not even see the retinal image of the object. Sight is entirely subjective."

VM: I mean there's some nice experiments that have been done where they take these glasses and they put them on people, invert the image. So that when you first put them on, everything's upside down. [student assents, faint] And then I guess, I don't know how long it takes, I don't remember, [JB simultaneously: Two days.] maybe just a few days, how--

JB (simultaneously): Within two days, yeah.

S (faint): Yeah.

VM: Within two days you flip everything around the right side up.

S: Oh.

S: Oh.

VM: And then I guess you take them off and the next couple of weeks-- (laughter) So it just drives home PB's point that the-- you know, it's not the retinal image that's primarily source of your world but it's sort of a-- the material with which the mind uses to build up [student assents, faint] the image of the world.

DB: Yeah but-- but what kind of status--

AD: Can I be more drastic now? What's the meaning of that sentence?

RG: "Sight is entirely subjective"?

S (faint): Read it again.

S (faint): What?

AH (simultaneously): Which sentence?

S (faint): (Which sentence?)

AH: Which sentence?

RG: "Sight is entirely subjective."

DB: Isn't-- isn't the meaning of that sentence that what we know as the visible world is our own-- I mean if-- that is our mind, I mean, that there isn't anything other than our mind in the perception (of) physical objects?

AD: I'm not going to disagree with that but that's-- that's not what I want to know from that sentence. What does that sentence mean? Sight is subjective. We go back to Andrew's dream. (bit of laughter, student assents, faint) Andrew, how did you see the dream?

S: [couple/three words inaudible]

AH (simultaneously): Subjectively. (bit of laughter)

AD: You mean you didn't use your eyes? Well how'd you see it?

AH: Through the mind.

S: Yeah.

AD: That what he means by sight is subjective?

S: Doesn't he mean that the-- when you see something, what you see is not out there but is subjective.

S: He was able to see as if he had eyes and he didn't have eyes in the dream, there are no eyes in the dream seeing the dream. And yet he saw the dream as if he had eyes.

DB: Yeah but the eyes-- the eyes-- I mean that [S simultaneously: Yeah.] just to see through the eyes, (ears, or) our bear.

AD (simultaneously): Well, then what would it mean to say that sight is subjective?

S: That if the mind wanted to it could--

AD: The mind sees.

S: Right, it sees.

AD: It wasn't the eyes that saw [S simultaneously: No, it didn't them to see.] the dream, it was the mind that saw the dream.

S: Right.

LR: Doesn't he say in that same page though that--

AD (simultaneously): Did you ever hear of transposition of the senses?

S: Yeah.

RC: You mean one sense doing the other sense's job?

AD: Yeah.

S: Yeah.

S (faint): Uh-hm.

AD: You know like, your skin [couple/three faint inaudible student words] could smell odors.

RC: Yeah. That's actually one of the technical definitions of that term 'synesthesis' that Deck uses. This plurality of sense data being handled in a single order.

LR: But isn't there a sentence in what you just read that said that the mind will only know after the sense registers the data?

RG: Yeah. It uses the data.

LR: No, before.

RG: Yeah. It's in--

PB [Early Writings 2, pp. 207-209, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RG reading]: "The image [RG: the retinal image] fulfils its part by supplying the data to the mind which constructs its own image upon this data."

LR: Yeah, it was even before that that the [three/few words inaudible]

AH (simultaneously): Did it have to do with the qualities Linda, that the-- the notion that the only thing the mind can know is qualities? Is that what you're referring to?

[students assent, faint]

AD: What would be the import of that last sentence he just read for instance, Linda?

LR: Which one, the one that the--

AD (simultaneously): He just read it.

LR: The one that the [student assents] retinal image supplies data that--

AD (simultaneously): Upside down, yes, supplies the data and it's all mis-data.

LR: Right, and the mind adds to it.

AD: The mind adds to it?

LR: Corrects it.

AD: I thought the mind simply presented the image and practically ignored the data.

LR: If it ignored it, why do we have it?

VM: No, it can't ignore it entirely.

RG: There is-- there is purpose. Even if you allow that the data is the stimulus, knowledge has nothing to do with it. In the sense of pure knowledge, the knowledge of the form of the image is completely within one's own mental framework and has nothing to do with objectivity, any object outside that image.

AH: Actually--

DB (simultaneously): Yeah but [one/two words inaudible]

DB/S(?): See--

RG: Causally it may but in terms of epis-- epistemological knowledge, the knowledge situation, it's given as matter. [students assent, faint] And [LR simultaneously: Wait.] you can't get out of that box.

LR: I don't see what you're saying. What's the-- what's--

RG: Well we're trying to understand why sight is entirely subjective. It's not partially subjective. What does it mean "entirely".

S: Yeah.

VM (simultaneously): How about if you go a little farther and you say-- I can't be doing this too often Dave.

DB: That's alright, go ahead [couple/three words inaudible]

VM: If you-- if you take the idea that even the retinal image is a long way from what the inner parts of the organism actually experience, it gets translated into let's say neural impulses and broken down into some sort of electro-chemical impulses, that surely is not the world you experience. That may be an impulse upon which the mind then works or with which it works. But the actual unfolding of an image doesn't seem at all to correspond to any kind of neurological impulses. So in that way you see the primacy or supremacy of the mind.

DB: I have no-- I have no dispute with the-- with anything that's being said, I just don't understand in what context I'm supposed to understand the functioning of retinal inversions and subcutaneous, you know, acrimony and all the rest (VM laughing) of this business that's going on before--

RG: Acrimony is not in question. (bit of laughter)

DB: --that is going on before the mind enters the picture.

S: Yeah but--

RC (simultaneously): I think this mind he's talking about here is what we talked about as the ego's image-making faculty.

VM: No but see, I [student assents] think I understand what David is concerned with. In some ways when you attack a problem it sounds like there's a temporal sequence: first the image-- first the light, you know, falls on the image and then the light comes to the eye and the retinal image and you go back, back and so on. And that sort of approach always g-- at least gets me into a-- you know, the physiologist's gap and all that. And the only way that seems possible to keep all the pieces of the puzzle together is to have the mind functioning simultaneously in both directions, so to speak, projecting a world outward and receiving impulses from the-- that already projected-- the external world.

LR (simultaneously): Is it the same mind you're speaking of in both [HE simultaneously, faint: It's the cosmic mind.] cases, is it the same mind that presents the world as that which apprehends by the senses?

VM (simultaneously): I mean we went through a whole week saying they're not two minds, and I'd like to say it's the same mind.

[student assents, very faint]

WHAT IS THE NATURE OF YOUR EXPERIENCE? THE BASIC PREMISE MUST BE THAT IT IS YOUR MIND THAT YOU EXPERIENCE

AH: I think if you say sight is entirely subjective, you're positing World-Mind as the presenter of-- [LR simultaneously: Yeah that's-- that's the problem.] of senses as well as object sensed. I don't think there's any reference here to individual mind. Or do not-- not necessarily.

VM (simultaneously): Oh no.

S: Not a problem.

RG: I think [VM simultaneously: No, no.] there's only a reference [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with RG] to individual mind.

VM (simultaneously): I think it's (only/wholly)-- no-- yes I agree.

RG: By saying sight is entirely subjective you're only limiting the discussion to individual mind and the stimulus part which you may relate to the World-Mind is not even yet needed to be understood.

DB: Yeah but you know what that does to the mind?

AH (simultaneously): If you understood(--/,) it would've said entirely subjective, the "entirely" refers to the fact that the physical senses are presented as part of a-- the experience of seeing.

VM: Sure.

RG: Fine.

AH: Ok, now--

RG (simultaneously): By an individual mind.

AH: Now, you're going to say the individual mind presents the senses?

RG: You bet.

VM (simultaneously): Yes, yes, along with the-- along with the objects of sense.

AH (simultaneously): No, no. I think the body and the senses has-- has an ontological status equal to the [one/two words inaudible]

RG (simultaneously): You mean the individual mind presents the perception of the world and the-- [student assents] and the cosmic mind presents your senses and your body?

AH: No, I say World-Mind presents a world that's a real one and the body's part of it.

S: Yeah.

AH: Now what we do with that in terms of our individual experience of that world through time and space and qualities is something else. But the senses, the physical senses, the nerves in the tip of your finger, have as much validity as the hardness of a s-- the stone.

RG: No-- nobody ever questioned the validity of them.

AH: I mean ontologically we're talking about the presentation of a world, body included.

RG: But if you cite eyes, ears, nose, they're in a temporal-- they're in a spatial locus to each other, you've already brought in an individual space-time making faculty which is the individual mind. I mean to allow that the body and the world exist in a World-Mind that is non-temporal or spatial is fine but that still doesn't deal with the problem of space-- the spatio-temporal manifestation.

DB: Well the-- it seems that the spatio-temporal re-- relation has something to do with the functioning of the individual mind. But whatever it is that is bringing about this stimulus to the individual mind which is going to provide for itself everything that it knows, I mean what-- and what it boils down to apparently is what the body is.

RG: But no, you see, I think that's missing the point [DB simultaneously: (No.)] he's trying to get to in this paragraph. The point is all you know is what's in your mind and resorting to arguments of what goes on in the physiology is really irrelevant to the point he's making here [SC simultaneously: Except--] which is all you ever know is what's in your own mind, period.

SC: Except that the [student assents, faint] whole paragraph [S simultaneously: Yeah but you--] up till the last sentence speaks about the physiological process.

RG: Only to negate it. Only to negate it.

SC (simultaneously): If you wanted to-- if you wanted to read the last sentence and just say that seeing is subjective, therefore you-- the body and the eyes as well as the object seen are all a subjective presentation, I could say great, that's fine. But when you go through an analysis that gives you a sense of a retinal image and then you show that that retinal image isn't what you actually see, but that the retinal image leaves you with some-- he says it [RG simultaneously: Isn't that--] takes something and brings it to the mind, right? Could you read a few words there? The retinal image presents whatever it presents to the mind, [RG: Yeah.] which then makes its own picture, but there's certainly a strong sense there that there is a retinal image and there is therefore a whole physiological process before the mind's subjective [RG: Now--] creation.

RG: It certainly has (that--/it.)

SC (simultaneously): So that seems peculiar.

RG (simultaneously): But isn't that the paradox and the beauty of bringing us that way as he does in the Hidden Teaching, that the paradox stands out at that point instantly? That it's ridiculous [SC simultaneously: That's right, I--] to talk about anything that goes on in the brain independent of a mind that knows it?

SC (simultaneously): Well at this-- at this point in this paragraph I would say that it-- the paradox is striking. (bit of laughter) I don't see the resolution in this paragraph, I could remember--

VM (simultaneously): It's a paradox only for intelligentsia. (some laughter)

AH: I was trying to respond to like David's question, in what context, in terms of what mind are we talking about. And I would hold that we're talking at this level--

RG (simultaneously): It doesn't-- any mind, it doesn't really matter, any (mind).

DB (simultaneously): No Dickie, you're clearly not paying attention.

AH (simultaneously): Well I-- I wasn't used to [one word inaudible] mind, I was trying to answer David's question.

RG: Really David?

DB: Yeah!

RG (simultaneously): Show me how I'm not.

DB: Alright.

VM: (Well), I want to move now. (laughter, student words) Come on Dave. You guys are going to get acrimonious sub-cutaneously. (some laughter)

RG: Let's go on.

S: Getting under my skin, is that what you're [one word inaudible]

LR (simultaneously): No I don't want to go on.

AH (amidst laughter): Actually I'd like to-- actually I'd like--

DB (simultaneously, amidst laughter): No, (just read) the point-- just read the point Dickie of what Andrew's trying to say.

AH (simultaneously): I'd like to-- I'd like to talk to my friend David and respond to his question, if that's alright. Now if it's not alright we can do something else.

RG: I don't care.

AH: I think--

VM: You people meditate [one/two words inaudible]

AH: --context of this whole discussion is from the point of view of World-Mind.

DB: Yeah. (bit of laughter)

S: Well, I [few words inaudible]

AH (simultaneously): It's not necessary [S simultaneously: Yeah.] to posit an individual mind if you say that sight is entirely subjective.

AD: Andrew, do you experience World-Mind or do you experience your mind?

AH: I'm talking about my experience.

AD: Well then why bring in the World-Mind now? [AH simultaneously: Well I was--] We just want to understand your experience or my experience. So the only thing I got a right to speak about right now is my experience from my mind [AH simultaneously: I can't understand--] and within my mind.

AH: I can't understand my experience within my mind unless I understand at the same time how those senses are part of that presented experience. I mean, if not I'm left with this gap, you know, of--

AD: Well when you project a dream, don't you project a dream Andrew with a complete set of senses and the bear?

[student assents, faint]

S (very faint, possibly part of background): [couple/three words inaudible]

AH/S(?): Definitely.

AD: And are the senses that Andrew has in the dream, are they-- are they anything else but ideas just the same way as the bear that he's looking at is an idea? Aren't they both on the same level?

AH: Yes and that's the point I'm trying to make, that when waking--

AD (simultaneously): What point are you trying to make?

AH: That in waking consciousness, the whole-- the whole situation is on the same level.

AD: Yeah.

AH: And if you're going to put it on one level, that level cannot be individual mind.

VM/S(?): Why not?

AD: Well who's mind [S simultaneously: Why not?] is it? Who is it that experiences the [AH simultaneously: Oh, oh.] hearing and the sound as together?

AH (simultaneously): Oh that's my mind, that's my individual mind.

AD: Yes!

AH: But I can't understand that experience and in-- in terms of the first quote unless I-- I sink this shaft into a deeper level of mind.

AD (simultaneously): Well-- no, no, no, no, no, [S simultaneously: No.] that wasn't the first quote, that was something else, that was a different quote, [AH simultaneously: Positing two levels of mind.] how you could-- how you could metaphysically and mystically prove this here. Right now we're only on the metaphysical side, the reasoning side of this. Now the reasoning side, if you-- you're going to have to make up your mind once and for all because if you don't make up your mind here, you're going to be in trouble all the way, all the time. Is this(,) the experience that you have(,) your mind? Is it your mind that you're experiencing?

AH: See, if I say yes, which I have to-- (some laughter)

AD: Then make that, make that, alright, a plank on which you stand.

AH: Yes, now, that's true, for sure it's my mind. But at the same time the context of this analysis has to posit another level of mind or else-- or-- or else each of us can choose which color we want to see.

AD: We're not inquiring into what orders and relates the manifold in the way it does so that all of us have a similar experience. All we are enquiring into is the nature of your experience and must the ba-- basic premise be that it is your mind that you experience.

AH: Is it my mind that provides me with senses so that I can experience qualities of objects?

AD: As far as you know now, that's all you have the right to say.

AH: Even though I know that that can't be so logically.

AD: Why [one/two words inaudible]

RG (simultaneously): You know it to-- I don't un-- I'm going-- you know it to-- I don't understand this, what do you mean you don't know it to be so logically? (bit of laughter) You spent 15 years understanding that that's so logically. [AH simultaneously: That my mind--] I don't understand what you're talking about.

AH: That my mind is presenting my senses.

RG: You bet. If it's presenting anything in your experience, it has to also be presenting your senses as part of that experience. Why are you resorting to a cosmic mind when last week you wanted to deny any-- any poss-- possibility of metaphysical thinking, now I don't understand.

DB: Yeah but, [three/few inaudible AH words simultaneous with DB] I think the whole quote there says that the individual mind is not conscious of the functioning of senses. I mean that-- I mean the part just before the business about vision is subjective, the whole thing goes on and says that the individual mind is not conscious of the functioning of the sense organs.

VM: Yes, yes, I agree. Just because we're not conscious of it though David doesn't deny the fabricative power of the individual mind.

DB: Oh I'm not-- yeah but I mean we're talking about our experience. I mean that's all we're talking about.

AH/VM(?): Well--

VM: I agree.

LR: Why wouldn't-- David's saying I think why-- if it's my-- the mind I'm familiar with which is presenting the senses, how come I don't know it?

AD: You don't know what? Don't you know your senses as a thought in your mind too just like you know the white cloud? [short pause] In other words, isn't your body as much as the thought as the cloud? And aren't they both in your mind? I think he used the word 'apperceptive mind'.

AH: That's really all we have the right to say based on our experience at this point.

AD: That's enough for now. That's plenty for now.

AH: That may not be the bottom line in the situation but that's the context here.

AD (simultaneously): No, it's not the end of the chapter. [student assents] And there's many many more years for you in store. But we're just discussing one point and that's all-- I only want to stick to one point that he makes and then go to the next point he makes.

LR: But, the quote was read about the physiology. That was the quote that was read.

AD: Yeah.

AD/S(?): But--

LR (simultaneously): And it did seem to be, and I'm with Sam, I mean-- I apologize. I know you've been trying to do this for twelve years and I don't understand. So--

RG: But listen--

LR: Sorry.

VM: What is it that you don't understand?

AD (simultaneously): Alright, let it flow for a while, let it flow for a while.

LR (simultaneously): Yeah, I've been letting it flow for a [couple words inaudible] (laughter, student words) He do-- I mean it seems like the whole brunt of the quote is to describe the importance of the physiological senses. And then to dismiss all that--

AD (simultaneously): How could they be that important when you can take some men, cover-- that are blind and [LR simultaneously: How many?] that could drive through the (sea/see)--

LR: How many?

S: All you need is one.

AD (simultaneously): But the-- if--

AS: One is enough.

LR (simultaneously): How many are there in the world [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): --if this-- one is enough.

AS: One is enough.

AD: One is enough.

LR (simultaneously): Oh, one isn't enough!

AD: Sure. (laughter) One shows you.

AS (amidst laughter): One proves it.

VM: How about you take two?

AD (simultaneously): If you're interested you can pick up these studies [AS simultaneously, faint: One proves it.] in abnormal psychology--

LR: I don't want-- I'm not interested in that, that's what I [AD simultaneously: Well-- well--] just said. I believe it's possible but it's not--

AD (simultaneously): Well then-- Linda, I'm only trying to give you a side illumination and that is to show you that it is through habit that you think that you see through your eyes. It is through habit that you think you hear with your ears.

LR: Ok.

AD: And-- here, you know, you're going to brush that aside.

LR: No, no.

AD: You don't want to hear about it.

LR: No I do, it's just that everyone in the world except one person has that habit. (laughter) But now you want to say that one person's [AS simultaneously: And he's nuts. (AS laughs)] the one we should think about. (some laughter)

AD(?): Well, Linda, I--

LR (simultaneously): I'd rather think about the rest of the people in the world [couple words inaudible] (laughter) Do you know what I'm saying, is if one person--

AD: Everyone [AS simultaneously: Democracy (couple words inaudible)] at night, everyone at night sees with his eyes closed when he's dreaming.

RG: Right.

S: Uh-hm.

AD: Everyone.

LR: Dream eyes.

[student assents, faint]

AD: And what are-- what are they, dream eyes?

LR: They're (something).

AD: What's that, the name of a song? (laughter, student words)

S: An-- Anthony?

LR: You just want us to sub--

AD (simultaneously): You see, you're just rooted in the notion, alright, and you won't-- you won't accept this, you're just rooted in the notion that you hear through your ears, see through your eyes, and feel with your-- with your fingertips. And the whole purp-- purport of that passage is to tell you you don't! Because the mind simply ignores the data presented by the eye and creates and fabricates the image it wants to see!

S: It ignores [LR: I said--] that.

S: Yeah.

AD: Of course it ignores it, otherwise it would duplicate it!

S (faint): Yeah.

LR (simultaneously): So what is it there for [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with LR] if the mind doesn't need it?

AD: Well, why don't we wait till we get to that, what the body is for?

LR: Ok, I'll grant you that everything I know is in my mind. Great, I can-- you know, great, that's wonderful. (laughter) You're not-- that-- sure, that's terrific. [JL: But is--] It doesn't bring me any new knowledge, I'm sorry. Everything I know is in my mind, ok, I'll go along for another 12 years. But I don't understand what all this means.

S (possibly part of background): Yes.

JL: Is-- isn't the [one word inaudible] (laughter, student words)

LR: I'm sorry I--

VM (simultaneously): Now I'm going to come back in t-- I'm going to come back in twelve years.

S: That's right.

[couple seconds of inaudible student talking, laughter]

AD: Vic, make it sooner, huh?

VM: Ok.

LR: No, I mean maybe we-- (bit of laughter) are we going to [AD simultaneously: Alright, let's continue a little more.] try to get into mentalism or not?

AD: Yeah, we're going to try, let's get into some more.

RG: It's tough, um--

LR: And I-- Dickie you said you were-- you-- (you're likely) [RG/S(?) simultaneously: What (one word inaudible)] to understand it that way. (bit of laughter)

VM: Oh.

[few seconds of background student talking, laughter]

WHAT IS GIVEN TO THE MIND IS AN UNKNOWN OBJECT, AND THE MIND CHANGES THAT INTO THE WORLD, WHICH INCLUDES YOUR BODY AND ALL ITS PHYSIOLOGICAL PROCESSES

RG: What Linda?

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 209, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RG reading]: "Why is it that we do not see…"

S (simultaneously, possibly part of background): There's no new knowledge in there though, right?

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 209, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RG reading]: "Why is it that we do not see things as pictures upon the retinal screen but projected and extended in space. This is because of the mind's own creative activity. Why is it that…"

AD (simultaneously): And that don't help either, does it Linda? Why is it that the world you see is not something on a retinal screen? Because if your mind is being presented with the data it should be presented with the retinal screen, the background of the retina, the eyeball and everything else should be projected as what your-- your mind sees. (bit of laughter)

S (whisper, possibly part of background): Oh, far out.

S: But it's not even set-- (laughter, student words)

BS: But why-- Anthony, why is--

VM (simultaneously): See my eyeballs.

BS: I'll have a question, I have a question. Why is that whole physiological process that is observed by certain minds through analysis a proof that the mind changes what is given to it? What is actually given to it? How could you say that the image on a retina is given?

AD (simultaneously): No, no. That's not what's given to the mind. [VM simultaneously: That's right.] What's given to the mind is let's say for now the unknown object. And it turns that into the world which includes your body in it.

BS: I'll agree with that but the other process (baffles me).

AD (simultaneously): And that-- that-- that will also include all the physiological processes that you're going to try to use to account for--

BS: Ok, try to use.

AD: But, there's no sense me talking.

BS: I'm sorry [one/two words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): [couple/three words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Because if you people can't concentrate on what I'm saying, I'm not going to wa-- waste my breath.

BS: I apologize.

AD: No, not a question of apologize, you must concentrate on what is being said now.

LR: Say it again. (bit of laughter)

AD: Next time around.

LR: That way, that way [RG: Can-- could I read--] the mind is presented with an unknown object and through-- from that it projects the entire world including your body and your sense organ. And that's no problem, that's very Plotinian.

AD: That's very very much like a dream that Andrew and I have been discussing.

S: In this context are mind--

AD (simultaneously): It's exact analogy.

LR (faint): I understand, I can follow that.

S (simultaneously): Are mind and the senses the same as what we call psychosomatic? What's the distinction between mind and the senses, in the way you've been speaking of them, and psychosomatic?

AD: Well, you're going to complicate the problem again.

S: Well I'm just trying to (understand).

AD (simultaneously): Look at the simple way that it was just presented, the mind is going to present the object, which includes bodies. These bodies are going to have processes going on within them just like the tree has sap flowing up and down [S simultaneously: Ok.] its veins, alright. You don't then go investigate the sap in a tree to s-- to understand its apprehension of its world.

S: No. When you use "mind" [AD simultaneously: Now--] in that way it sounds like consciousness there.

AD: I'm going to use them indiscriminately.

S: Why?

S: 'Cause he used it in that quote like prior.

THE MIND SEES WITHOUT USING ANY SENSE ORGANS—PERCEPTION IS IMMEDIATE

AD: I would be satisfied if you understood (either/even) one. [student assents] We're saying that the mind presents the world and that includes your body and the tree that you're looking on and the physiological processes that are going on in that body. Now you want to take those physiological processes that are going on in the body and account for the perception of the world that is taking place to the mind. Now that's all PB does in the Hidden Teaching, he goes through that physiological analysis, not so that you could duplicate it, to show you how absurd it was and that you couldn't start like that. You're not going to come to an analysis of experience by understanding the way the senses function.

RG: Right.

LR: Right.

S (faint): We're all [one/two words inaudible]

AD: Would-- would we have it again?

PB [Early Writings 2, p. 209, Mentalism Essay, Sensations (unpublished), RG reading]: "Why is it that we do not see things as pictures upon the retinal screen…"

AD (very intensely): Now, if you understand the import of that. If you saw things the way your eye pr-- has them, you would not see the world! What do you want, a comic book!? Just stop and think! Is the world that you see the one that is in your retinal image? Well if it isn't then what is it that you're looking at!!? Go back to the dream. You're looking at it. The world is presented without any intermediaries. It's immediate. You don't see it through your s-- your nose and your eyes. Now you gotta stop and think about this, you not going to understand it [AD snaps fingers] off the bat! You take the analogy of the dream. Do you see that dream with your eyes!? [short pause] Do you? Andrew, maybe you do.

AH: No you don't-- you don't see the retinal image.

AD (very intensely): Do you see a vision with your eyes!?

AH: No.

S: Uh-hm.

AD (very intensely): But you see it, don't you!?

AH: You see it, yes.

AD (intensely): Then why do you think seeing and the eyes are synonymous?

AH: The eyes are--

AD (intensely): Because you've been doing so for a hundred thousand lives.

AH: But, it is-- I think has been agreed that the eyes do function as canalizations of the mind.

AD (intensely): I even throw that out! I even throw that out.

AH: If we're going to speak about (qualities/quality)--

AD (simultaneously, very intensely): I'd throw even that out. I'm telling you you see without your eyes that dream, you don't need it. And when you see clairvoyantly you see without your eyes. And I'll go further now, when you see the world you see it without your eyes.

[short pause]

AH: So the eyes then are part of the world.

AD: You bet your life. They're part of the thing that's presented with the object that is presented. Just like the tone A you hear and the ear that you need to hear the tone A are presented together or not at all. If you don't take the point of view of apperceptive reflective consciousness, you're going to keep falling into one or the other, what do they call them, pigeonholes?

S: Do we build vehicles or are they (come in) whole [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Talk louder!

S: What?

AD: Can't hear you.

RG (faint): I don't know [couple words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): I'm getting "no's" not to ask the question so maybe I'll stop now.

S (simultaneously): Right.

S (very faint): Why is that?

MB: Uh-hm.

S (simultaneously, faint): Let's go back to [couple words inaudible]

MB (simultaneously): Did it pass?

[student assents, faint]

DB(?): Tim [one word inaudible]

S (simultaneously, faint): Between--

RG: Randy there's-- well just one question.

THE UNIVERSAL MIND OR SOUL IS NOT OUT THERE INFORMING SPACE; IT'S NOT OUT THERE AT ALL

PB [V13, 21:5.121, RG reading]: "Whoever continues to regard the world as a material thing continues to obstruct his own efforts to attain the higher mystical experience. This obstruction is only reduced but not removed if he believes the Universal Mind to be behind the material world. Only when he resolutely discards all materialistic and semi-materialistic standpoints, only when the world ceases to be something outside the mind and becomes directly present to it as a thought…"

[something falls in background]

AD: Hold on.

PB [V13, 21:5.121, RG reading]: "…can [few inaudible VM words simultaneous with RG] he end this groping in the dark and begin to move successfully forward." (laughter)

S: Oh that's a trip. (more laughter)

AD: A good is-- example of that for instance in studies of Plotinus, if you think the Universal Soul is, so to speak, laying down a groundwork for universal manifestation as something out there, alright, then you misunderstood Platonism from the word go.

S: Right.

AD (intensely): Universal Soul isn't out there informing space, it's not out there. There's nothing out there, there's just your mind out there.

S (very faint): Yeah.

S (very faint): That's true.

S (very faint): That's good.

DB: So-- but then--

AD (simultaneously): But, that's difficult, let's go on a little more.

DB: Could I just ask one question concerning this? Having-- having hopefully conceptually eliminated the notion of any objective materiality which is out there, can it then be said that anything that is not within the province of our experience, our (experienced) vision, all the other senses being subjective, that anything that lies outside that that is-- that is not known to us is a content of the Universal Mind and is in some sense not outside the Universal Mind.

[short pause]

AH: David, could I reply? I think the suggestion was we--

S (faint): [three/few words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): Your-- it's your question.

DB: Yeah, go ahead.

AH: There's no out there.

DB: Right.

AH: See.

DB: Yeah.

AH: So, (when/whether) you're talking about something potentially being outside of the mind, [VM/S(?): Right.] it-- it cannot be according to the discussion.

VM: Right.

AH: I thought you were positing a potential existence outside of the sphere of what can be known.

LD: And if you're doing that you're positing a potential knower outside the sphere [AH assents] that you know.

DB: Well, no, [sounds like student assents, faint] I didn't understand (it). (laughter)

S (amidst laughter, very faint): That's (crazy) [one word inaudible]

DB: I thought I understood the first one but I didn't under-- [S, faint: Good work.] Go ahead Louis.

LD: No.

DB: No just-- just repeat it.

LD: You can't say something's outside of your mind, say the North Pole is there but I don't know it, but you're postulating a knower that knows the North Pole or you can't even speak of it. How can you speak of something as completely unknown? It's just out of the question.

RC: Well the way you [JB(?) simultaneously, faint: It is, yeah.] said it before was better, you said you're [LD simultaneously: Yeah.] positing the knower out there that you know.

S: Uh-hm. (laughter)

S: Uh-hm.

DB/S(?): Wait a minute.

DB: Now-- now let me just-- didn't-- in what I said, didn't I say Universal Mind?

S: You did.

S (simultaneously): Uh-hm.

S: Yeah.

DB: Ok.

S (faint): You said it.

DB: Now what does that have to do with what was just responded? I mean the--

LD (simultaneously): Well what do you mean by Universal Mind? I mean, it seems in a way out of the context of what we're speaking about. You're s-- you're speaking of Universal Mind as completely outside of you out there.

DB: Yeah. I'm not-- All I'm saying is it's--

S (faint): Let's focus.

DB: The pro--

LD (simultaneously): I misunderstand you, I--

DB (simultaneously): There are processes that are going on that-- that are independent of my knowledge of them that go about [few faint inaudible student words, possibly part of background] to make my knowledge possible. Now I'm not trying to say these processes are materia, ok, you know. I wouldn't assert that.

RG: Yeah but-- There are two possibilities, it could either be in the Universal Mind or it could be in other layers of your own individual mind that you're-- you consciously don't happen to know about. Right?

AD: Would you read the reference Dickie, what he's referring to?

RG: I don't know what it is.

S: [one/two words inaudible]

RG: Which one are you referring to there?

S: The last one.

AD: That if you posit a Universal Mind behind the object you are still a materialist.

DB: Right.

S (simultaneously): (Right), yeah.

DB: Yes. [student assents] But I'm so--

AD (simultaneously): Why would he say something like that?

S (possibly part of background): Steve--

DB: What I was trying to do was not try to posit an object behind which the Universal Mind was but that there had to be something to account for-- I mean this is-- I mean this is something we've gone over many times. There'd be something outside of our experience to organize--

AD: No but look, look at what he said, would you read that?

DB: Where?

AD: What does he say there?

DB: I don't-- [S simultaneously: Dickie--] I don't have it.

RC: He says--

AD (simultaneously): Well read it.

PB [V13, 21:5.121 RC reading]: "Whoever continues to regard the world as a material thing continues to obstruct his own efforts to attain the higher mystical experience. This obstruction is only reduced but not removed if he believes the Universal Mind to be behind the material world."

AD: You know what he's saying there? [DB simultaneously: Said--] What is he saying there?

DB: He's saying that the--

AD: If you think there's a Universal Mind out there supporting the material world, you're still mistaken!

DB: Right, but if [S simultaneously: Or--] you think there's a Universal Mind out there and no material world--

AD (very intensely): No, the point is that there isn't a Universal Mind out there, there's only your mind out there!!!

S (faint): Yeah.

PB [V13, 21:5.121, RC reading]: "…only when the world ceases to be something outside the mind [RC: And this is small"m".] and becomes directly present to it as a thought can he end this groping in the dark and begin [to move successfully forward]."

[Audio File 1983 0202a Ends. We are missing the second audio file for this class.]