Wednesday, February 16th, 1983

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

February 16, 1983

PB PARAS; MENTALISM

TOPIC: PB Paras

SUBJECT: Mentalism

SUBSUBJECTS: Epistemology, Materialism, Matter, Illusion, Space and Time, Insight

CONTENTS:

TO SAY SOMETHING IS AN ILLUSION MEANS IT IS A PRODUCT OF MENTAL FUNCTIONING, NOT THAT IT IS NON-EXISTENT

TIME AND SPACE ARE THE TWO FUNDAMENTAL FORMS THE MIND MUST OPERATE WITH

THE EXPERIENCE OF THE MENTALNESS OF SPACE, TIME, AND CAUSALITY IS NOT THE SAME AS THE INSIGHT INTO TRUTH, WHERE ALL FORMS ARE DISSOLVED

THE WHOLE OF THE WORLD IS WITHIN YOU, BUT YOUR BELIEF IN ITS MATERIALITY BLOCKS YOU FROM EXPERIENCING THAT

PB PARAS ON THE UNREALITY OF MATTER AND THE FALSITY OF MATERIALISM

MATERIALISM IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH RECENT SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT

IS PLOTINUS'S DEFINITION OF MATTER THE SAME AS PROCLUS'S?

ALTHOUGH A SAGE'S PERCEPTION OF THE WORLD IS LIKE OTHER PEOPLE'S, THEY ALSO HAVE INSIGHT THAT EVERYTHING IS AN APPEARANCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

BOOKS / MAGAZINES 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 Some Paul Brunton Notebook paras are, as of 2018, unpublished, and are noted as such.

• Times Literary Supplement, May 12, 1945

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

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: III.3.4

NOTE: Unpublished PB paras, even if sourced, should be proofread.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, adds Plotinus quotes section, fixes typos, 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 0216a. [Note 1: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files. Note 2: We are missing the first audio file for this class.]

1983 02/16 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

PB Paras; Mentalism

Archival verbatim transcript

TO SAY SOMETHING IS AN ILLUSION MEANS IT IS A PRODUCT OF MENTAL FUNCTIONING, NOT THAT IT IS NON-EXISTENT

[Audio File 1983 0216a Begins; this is the second part of class]

AD: --[manife]station of mind I think will be more accurate than to say it's an illusion.

S: Yeah.

RC: What do you mean more?

AD (simultaneously): 'Cause when you say this is a manifestation of mind, you're going to have to fall back on understanding that the whole epistemological process, all the categories of thought, even if they are mechanical but you have to get-- get to them, it'll involve you in tracing back, alright, the genesis of this object. Then-- then if you do that and you want to call it illusion, alright. But if you call it illusion without understanding all the prior, I-- you know, I wouldn't pay attention to you.

RC: I think part of his reason for calling it illusory is in that you don't see it as a manifestation of mind. But if you did see it as a manifestation of mind-- Let me back up. That what's illusory about it is that you think it's other than the mind, you think it's external from the mind, you think it's independent of the perceiver. That all of those things are illusory but they do have the-- a real mental manifestation as their basis. They're a misinterpretation of the real manifestation.

VM: He seems to go farther than that though in a way, doesn't he Randy, he's saying even the manifestation of the Mind with a capital M, I thought he's considering that illusion in the technical way he's using it.

RC: Well I think that is involved in imposing upon us the ideas of externality, [VM simultaneously: Yeah, fine.] the ideas of separateness, and so on. I just don't know at this point that-- that he would say if you saw it as mental, that that seeing of it as mental would itself be an illusion.

S (faint): Yeah.

AH: 'Cause I think-- I think the notion of illusion does not refer to any cosmological base but it's-- illusion refers to our experience of the world.

VM: If you see it as mental, you're still seeing it at least in terms of the categories of space and time. Ok, maybe you've dismissed the materiality of the world and you now see it as mental, it's not coming from the outside and so on. Nonetheless, the world must be unfolded, if I understand what's meant to see it mentally, in terms of the categories of space and time which he contends are illusion, so his use of illusion must go much higher than just seeing the world unfolded as a mental construction.

AH: Vic, I think space and time--

VM: Huh?

AH: I think space and time would collapse with a perception of the world as mental.

VM: Oh I don't think so. I mean, maybe some levels of that realization Andrew but the way we've been speaking about it in here the last few weeks, you know, you could be walking down the street and you get the experience of-- of the mentalness of the world. That doesn't mean that it's a total homogenous mass of consciousness and there's no space and time.

AH: I think (Louis--)

VM (simultaneously): I mean that maybe can [one/two words inaudible]

AH: I don't think it's a mass.

LR (simultaneously): No becau--

AH: I don't think it's a homogenous mass but I think space and time are collapsed into that-- into that insight.

LR: (No), from what Anthony said before about the taijasic state(--/.)

S: Yeah.

VM: Yeah. There's space and time there.

LR (simultaneously): In the taijasic state there's a di-- it may be a different kind of space [VM simultaneously: But it's there.] and timing, it's certainly there in [VM simultaneously: Sure.] a different way.

RG: And I think he's going above that here.

VM: Yes, he is, that's the point I'm trying to make.

LR (simultaneously): Oh yes, for the source of the illusion he's going above.

RG: Well, so while any form of time and space, if you're operating within it you're operating within what he's calling an illusion.

LR: Yeah.

RG: Right. Imposed by the cosmic mind.

AH: See, if you divest the world of (its/his) materiality, you only do that by divesting the individual point of view from the experience. And we also know that time and space are expressions of an opinion, according to PB. Time and space are projections from that individual mind's perspective. So-- I mean maybe this is not really a point that we need to discuss now but it seems that--

RG: But what's interesting Andrew, he doesn't call them individual, time and space are not individual illusions, they're universal illusions, which is funny. I mean we would normally think in that understanding that it's the individual mind which provides time and space. But I think here he's saying something different. And time--

VM (simultaneously): Time and space are forced on the individual mind.

[students assent, faint]

RG: That matter, time, and space are three universal illusions. It's weird.

AH: It seems that all three of those things are necessary in order for-- in order to maintain the individual perspective. You know like, in co-- normal experience of things as concrete and real, it seems you have to have all three of those.

VM: Yes. In fact all--

AH: You couldn't take one away without taking the other two away. That actually is what holds the world together, those three illusions.

JC: I think you could take the materiality away [student assents] without taking time and space away.

VM: Yes, you could.

JG (simultaneously): Good.

JC: 'Cause, if you're in a taijasa state there may still be some spatial temporal reference but the materiality has been retracted.

AH: I don't understand that but that's-- you know, that's just-- [S simultaneously: In a dream.] I don't understand how that could be so, like-- like logically I don't understand.

PC: It's like a dream if you knew that it was a dream.

JC: If you know it's dream it's still temporal s-- spatial temporal appearance.

PD: But you still have (a) sense qualities which are materia now.

AH: What happened to time and space of the dream when you know it's a dream?

S (faint): They're not material (there).

S: There's not-- it's not material.

AH: The time and the space and the matter in the dream are all one [student assents, faint] tissue.

S: No.

BS: (That's what he said) [one word inaudible] by saying about this--

AH (simultaneously): From the point of view of waking consciousness, you're no longer afraid of the bear 'cause you realize it was an idea.

AD: But it doesn't make it a featureless entity.

AH: No, I didn't say that.

S (faint): Yes you did.

S: Uh-hm.

S (simultaneously): You did.

AD: Well that's what you're saying if you want to collapse the three universals. It doesn't become featureless, there's still the features there that make it to be what it is. It is an alogical whole but they-- it still has a sequence of images.

AH: And you would call that what?

AD (simultaneously): And it still has a locus within which it is operative. [student assents] [AH simultaneously: And you would call that time and space?] So the space and time is still there.

AH: That's time and space?

AD: Yeah.

AH: The one like we experience now?

S (faint): No.

AD: Sorry, I didn't hear you.

AH: Is it the same one that we experience now?

AD: No, of course not. [short pause] But Dickie, what would be the point if I can get back to that quote, what-- what was the point we were trying to make?

RG: That as long as you're op-- well, as long as any kind of thought or mental activity is operating we're under this universal illusion. And that to free yourself from it you have to stop thinking.

AD: If you want to free yourself you have to what?

RG: Stop thinking.

AD: Where does he say you have to stop thinking?

RG: He says you have to "stop such mental activity and thus the illusions which accompany it also must stop."

PB [V13, 19:1.65, RG reading]: "…he must achieve conscious control of the mind's activity. This he can succeed in doing through Yoga; concentration on a single thought theme or object, when persisted in to the bitter end, [RG reads: This he can succeed in doing through Yoga; and if he follows it through to the bitter end and] stops such mental activity and thus the illusions which accompany it also stop."

S: Uh-hm.

[9¼ second pause]

RC: What about when the outside-- I mean, when the outside [one/two words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Do you think that individual mind could stop the cosmic illusion from manifesting?

RG (simultaneously): No but it stops its own. No, no, I don't think (so here).

AD (simultaneously): So then what is it the yogi does?

RG: He [student assents, faint] stops his own mental function.

AD: And then walks around in a blank?

[short pause]

RG: If he doesn't take the world into him.

S (very faint): I guess, uh-hm.

VM: I don't see how he walks around. (laughter, student words)

PD: Maybe somebody else walks around for him.

VM: Put him in a wheelbarrow maybe, push him around. (laughter)

PD: Just maybe a higher consciousness does the walking for him Vic.

VM: Could be.

AH (simultaneously): Well another-- another place he says he had-- that yogis-- a yogi's task is to stop individual mind's function. Then it has a grander task to accomplish and that's to stop the World-Mind's function.

AD: Well you just go ahead and try it. (laughter)

VM (amidst laughter): That sounds like [one/two words inaudible]

AH: I'm not-- I'm not [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with AH] recommending it. (laughter, student words)

RG: No, I understand that to be so. I mean I think the meaning is that one-- through that process one tries to detach one's identification from the mental activity, not that he could stop the cosmic activity.

AD (simultaneously): That was quite different, isn't it. [RC assents, very faint] In other words, he perceives the subliminal processes of mental functioning that brings about the illusory manifestation that he's working with, alright, but he's not going to stop that.

RG: No.

AD: He would be able to see it, yeah, if he-- if he goes through to the bitter end. That means he will ultimately achieve a thoughtless state. [student assents, faint] And then retracing himself back he'll see how that whole thing is manifested. Well, the point I'm simply getting at here is notice the very special way in which he uses the word 'illusion'. It is not a non-existent. It is something which is the product of mental functioning, whether individual or cosmic or both, alright, that's the point I'm making. The very special way in which he uses the word 'illusion', and it should not be confused the way the Vedantists use the word. When they say the world is an illusion they mean it's non-existent, [student assents, faint] which is, you know, nonsense.

PD: Well, I can't--

VM: Anthony, isn't he saying-- just I'm going to have a brief point. Isn't he essentially saying that the realm of mentalism and illusion are co-extensive? [short pause] May-- maybe that's just said too simply and you can't-- can't relate to that.

RG: Say it again Vic.

AD (simultaneously): I-- I don't see that identity-- identity.

VM (simultaneously): Well, if you think of the realm of manifestation as being--

AD: Yes, but mentalism is also something that transcends [VM simultaneously: Ok, so you say-- if you extend--] manifestation so how could you say it's co-extensive [VM simultaneously: Alright.] with manifestation?

VM: So if you say mentalism extends to the Intellectual-Principle, then you wouldn't want to say that's illusion, his use of the word.

AD: No.

VM: Ok, fine. Sorry Paul.

PD: No. You could take it as being very similar to the Vedantist meaning of illusion. 'Cause illusion has its basis in Brahman for a Vedantin and here it has its basis in Reality or pure Mind, I mean-- I don't necessarily-- I see them as being almost identical. [student assents, very faint] If you keep in mind when-- the true meaning of the Vedantic position that maya isn't free-floating and any object of experience is grounded in a reality.

AD: Yeah I-- I know, I've heard that too but the majority of texts refer to the world as non-existent, in the Vedantic text(s). And I-- I think you'd have to argue with Dickie about that.

VM: Empty husks of reality, remember that one, Dickie?

AD: We went through that once before. The basic texts describe the world as non-existent, illusory. And in a previous point he made out that you could only say that when you are not in the body functioning through the senses, then you can say that. But is-- if you are in the body functioning through the senses, then there is an illusory manifestation. And the whole point I'm making is that the illusory manifestation is the result of this complex mental functioning which brings it about and which requires a sagacity and wisdom which is beyond our comprehension. And I don't like the world to become non-existent as a result of all that activity. Illusory, yes, because it's not the fundamental reality. Illusory in the sense that it doesn't exist, no. [VM/S(?): Ok.] And that's all I'm saying.

TIME AND SPACE ARE THE TWO FUNDAMENTAL FORMS THE MIND MUST OPERATE WITH

JL: Anthony, why-- why the specific reference to time, space, and matter? Is it because those are constituents of the-- that the individual mind [short pause] supplies that creates the-- the-- the extension, the-- the substantial nature and the sequence of the experience?

AD: They're the two ultimate forms that the mind must operate with, time and space. Time, insofar that we speak about the presentation of the images in sequential form and the rete-- or receptivity of mind to the content, whatever the content may be, a thing-in-itself or a thing-not-in-itself, alright. These are the two fundamental forms that the mind must operate with, space and time. So they-- they're universal in the sense that every mind must operate through those forms.

JL: Yeah but they're not constitutive of the world-image, they're (constitutive/constituted) by the individual mind, isn't that correct?

AD: They are constituted by the-- they're not-- Well, I don't know that I would say they're constituted by the individual mind. They are forms by which the mind must operate. If the mind is to receive the World-Idea, alright, it must have a locus or a spatial referent, that is, it-- it has the form of space or it is formless. Every mind, therefore, will be of that nature, formless. [JL assents] Insofar that they must present a World-Idea in terms of images one after the other, then time must be the other ultimate form it must operate with. These two are universal in the sense that any mind that functions must have these two forms. No matter how subtle. If it functions at all, it must have these two forms. That's what I think he's referring to as universal forms, time and space.

[student assents, very faint]

RG: Which [JL simultaneously: Yeah, I--] include-- which include the mind that has the World-Idea within it.

AD: I'm sorry?

RG: Which includes the mind that knows-- that knows the World-Idea, right?

AD: Which includes the mind--

RG: Which includes the World-Idea, I mean John's distin-- he wanted to make a distinction between a category of time and space that was independent of working on a world-image say but only worked by the individual mind to produce our images. But in this understanding it seems to me he means for that mind too has to have a form, a much subtler form of space or time. [student assents, faint] But it-- but yet there-- you could conceive of it in a space form and in a time form.

[short pause]

AD: You can conceive of mind as having a--

RG: You could conceive a-- would you conceive that the World-Idea-- the world-image also can point to this kind of space and time, a much subtler one but still some kind of space-time understanding or not? Or is it below that level?

AD: No.

RG: No what?

AD: The World-Idea doesn't conform to our space-time image.

RG (simultaneously): Not ours but to a-- some space-time. Or is it [one/two words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): It would not--

PD: Didn't the quote you read before say it contained all the orders?

RG: Which one? Which quote? You don't know? I don't know.

RC: The one we were just reading?

S: What--

PD (simultaneously): No you're-- something about the w-- the world-thought contain--

AD (simultaneously): The World-Idea would contain all spatial orders, [RG simultaneously: Ok.] all temporal orders. Now, I don't follow what you were stating.

RG: I meant-- well that very ordering could also be thought of as-- as kind of space.

AD: As kind of space?

RG (simultaneously): Or a kind of time.

AD: No, I--

RG: That ordering in some sense can be thought of as its se-- at-- of its-- as its time, its sequence. It's not that important, I mean I don't know.

AD: No, it's just that I don't understand.

RG: You know how the-- how the-- how Samkhya talked about time and space, that time is the form of the-- of changes? So in other words, it's almost like you could have an idea of time that also applies to this Idea. Can it be-- In other words, it's the form of sequence of all the manifestations that follow upon it.

AD: That would be the form of mind?

RG: That would be the form of the World-Idea, say.

AD: Well then aren't you really saying that the Idea-- the World-Idea is what is determining the forms within the individual mind and the [RG assents] sequence of those ideas.

RG: Uh-hm. But-- well ok.

JL: Well, are you speaking of it as an objective constituent of that World-Idea then.

AD: As an objective I'm speaking of it?

S: Space and time?

JL: Space, time, and--

AD: Matter.

JL: --substance as an objective constituent of that World-Idea. Rather than what the individual contributes. And that what we must divest ourselves of is-- is our own misconception of what that is.

[12 second pause]

AD: Try again John.

JL: Well, I mean you can speak of space, time, and substance as being constitutive of the World-Idea. It's an objective--

AD: I don't understand you.

JL: It's characteristic of the World-Idea.

AD (simultaneously): It's different than-- how is space and time constitutive of the World-Idea? Isn't it the other way around, that the World-Idea provides the space-time?

S (very faint): Yeah.

JL: Yeah, yeah, that's what I was-- [S simultaneously: Ok.] that's what I meant by it. That it is-- not that it constitutes it but that it is-- it is a constituent of the World-Idea. Ok.

AD: Alright, it's provided by the World-Idea, yeah.

JL: And we have-- we have-- we have our own--

AD: And the m-- and the mind must translate that Idea.

JL: It translates it into an individual experience.

AD: Yeah.

JL: Ok.

[short pause]

THE EXPERIENCE OF THE MENTALNESS OF SPACE, TIME, AND CAUSALITY IS NOT THE SAME AS THE INSIGHT INTO TRUTH, WHERE ALL FORMS ARE DISSOLVED

AH: Now, when an individual experience that individual mind stops through yogic practice, how do those universals function? They only function if a mind is functioning.

JL: No, if they're universals they're always functioning.

AD: Well, Andrew, you want to get back to bringing the mind to a halt and it no longer functions and there's no more manifestation of a space-time continuum. And you could do that in Nirvikalpa samadhi. But then it doesn't continue. You come out of that thought-free state and the World-Idea goes on.

AH: Anthony, if-- if someone was so fortunate as to have the experience of the world as mental, would-- they could talk about that happening at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. But, from within the experience, how would you speak about the time factor?

AD: Within the experience there's no speaking about it as time because it's not time.

[student assents, very faint]

AH: Well I-- that's the point I tried to make earlier where I said that if the world was known as mental, all three, substance, time, and space-- matter, time, and space would collapse, and it seemed-- the point seemed to be made that although materiality disappears, you wanted to hang on to some notion of time and space. Wasn't that-- wasn't that the conclusion we came to about ten minutes ago?

AD: No.

JL: They become-- they become mental, Andrew. They don't become external to the mind. Those aspects become aspects of the mind.

AH: In the very same way that matter becomes mental.

JL: Or it's the power of the Idea.

RG: But-- but just going along Anthony's track here, I think you would say that time and space don't collapse. That they still are the forms of experience that the world takes, and that in your-- in your experience you free yourself from experiencing through those-- you don't take yourself to be those forms. And that realization allows for you to see the world and those forms as ideas. But not that they collapse. I mean-- If they collapse and that was the realization then you could never have it while-- while you were walking around.

AH: 'Collapse' is certainly the wrong-- the wrong word. No I was just trying to understand why there was a distinction being held between the materiality of the world and its presence in time and space. There seemed to be like a clear distinction between matter and then time and space as somehow being distinct from each other from the point of view of the experience of mind.

S: (Uh-hm.)

RG (simultaneously): And I-- I don't think that was clear in the quote Andrew, I don't think you could really separate time and space in any way, I mean they seem to come together somehow. It'd be real hard to do it and I-- I don't know that you could really separate those out.

DH (simultaneously): Well-- but the quote was separating, you know, the materiality and the time and space [RG simultaneously: No it wasn't.] in the sense of saying that right now modern science has shown the mental nature of matter.

VM/S(?): Yeah.

S: Yeah.

DH: But [RG simultaneously: Right. That's true.] still to come or just starting now is the mental nature of time and space.

RG: That's right.

DH: Even-- I think that's-- I think it's improvement and our-- (our science is working on that one).

RG (simultaneously): Right.

[student assents, very faint]

DH: Um--

VM (simultaneously): But also isn't--

DH: What?

VM: I'm sorry, go ahead, I'm sorry.

DH: Yeah I reckon that the mental nature of time and space is still to come [students assent, faint] [possibly another student, one/two words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Is still what?

DH: It's still to come, I mean that this-- [AS assents] it arising out of-- out of science. I can see it-- I think I see where it's coming through, but I had some ideas, but it's-- it's definitely not-- not there (yet).

AD (simultaneously): But, I think the problem Andrew, is he keeps-- keeps confusing these thing-- two things. [students assent, faint] The experience of the mentalness of space, time, and causality, alright, is one thing. The understanding or let's say the insight into truth, where all forms are dissolved, is another thing. They're two different things that he's talking about. You can have the experience of the world as an idea, that means space is an idea, time is an idea, causality is an idea, alright. But if you have insight, alright, and you see into That, in other words, the foundational consciousness, the insight and the foundational consciousness are one and the same thing. There are no forms to see. You don't even talk about mentalism there because we're not interested in the world as an idea.

AH: Anthony, I--

AD: You have to keep these two things separate.

AH: I'm sorry, uh-- I don't think that's what I was saying. From the point of view of the experience of the mental nature(,/--) I thought we were talking from the point of view of experience of mentalism. And I was making a point that causality, time, and space are qualitatively alike from the point of view of that experience. And I thought there was a distinction being held qualitatively between causality, and time and space as a unity.

VM: Where did causality come from all of a sudden?

S (simultaneously): Yeah, uh-hm.

RG: You mean materiality.

AH (simultaneously): There's some-- materiality, I was using Anthony's [one word inaudible]

RG (simultaneously): Andrew, if there is one, it's a lot less important than the overall distinction or the understanding. If there happened to be (some/sub) distinction between mater-- materiality and time and space they're not that important in the face of the whole view.

VM (simultaneously): No but I would speculate that materialism really can be distinguished from space and time. Let's just take the-- let's say you have the-- an experience of Witness-consciousness. There there's a certain liberation from this compulsive nature, from your involvement in the world, from the intensity of your consciousness directed towards the objects and so on. And I would say that that is-- that is the breaking down of this materialistic illusion. But still in Witness-consciousness I-- I would guess, [RG simultaneously: Yeah Vic, tell them.] by reports I've heard, (RG laughs) that there's still a sense of space and time. Granted it's probably very different.

AD (simultaneously): And content.

VM: Yes. There's very different from--

AD (simultaneously): That's the same as materiality but now you've changed [RG or another student assents] the content.

RG: That's right.

AD (simultaneously): That's all-- that's all I did.

RG/S(?): [one/two words inaudible]

AD: That's why I use the term 'causality', it's more abstract.

VM: I'm sorry, I didn't get the point you just made Anthony.

AD: If-- you may be released from the concept or let's say the notion that there is a materiality but there's-- alright, that's no longer available to you but the notion that there's content is still there.

VM: So it's a subtler form of materialism you say.

AD: No, it's not a subtler form of materialism.

VM: Then what is it?

S (faint): It is [one/two words inaudible]

S (faint): No it isn't.

AD (simultaneously): I'm just saying that space, time, and causality will be there even when you [VM simultaneously: Oh.] realize the mentalness [AS: Right.] [VM: Ok fine.] of a-- of the world.

VM: But by taking out the word 'materialism' and using 'causality', now you can apply that to any presentation.

AD: Yeah.

VM: It doesn't have to be a very materialistic presentation.

AD/S(?): Right.

VM: Fine.

RC: Yeah but, I-- there is a point I think that Andrew's sort of getting at that is valuable in the sense that, like the quote that we read before in terms of when the outside becomes inside. That to use the same word(s), space and time, as if there hadn't been a dramatic change, would-- would miss a certain point. That it certainly isn't the kind of space and time that-- that we would take to be an illusory imposition of the mind upon the real being.

[short pause]

S: So you're saying it's like taking the objective aspect of the illusion, and that still remains, but the subjective portion of it has been dissolved or somehow (contained).

RC (simultaneously): No, I wouldn't say it that way.

AD: Well you have to try again because I didn't hear you.

S (faint): Yeah.

S: Well I was--

AD (simultaneously): When the outside is like the inside?

S: (No/Oh).

RC: Well, in that quote that we read before where his-- when the outside becomes inside in this mystical--

AD: Yeah, that's the experience of the world as within oneself.

RC: Yeah. That seems to-- I mean that-- that comes with the lapse of the belief in its materiality. And also it seems that the conventional experience of space and time also lapses. Not that there isn't-- not that it's undifferentiated. But the apprehension isn't done through the same spatio-temporalizing mode.

THE WHOLE OF THE WORLD IS WITHIN YOU, BUT YOUR BELIEF IN ITS MATERIALITY BLOCKS YOU FROM EXPERIENCING THAT

AD: Don't you get that feeling when you understand relativity? That somehow you have to bring in the whole notion of space-time within yourself? Make the outside like the inside.

S (very faint): Yeah.

RC: But there is a-- like in--

AD (simultaneously): The whole of the world is within you. It's like-- it's like-- it's like the experience of dream where the whole dream is within you, you have the experience of the whole world, the world that you're looking at, as within you. The space-time-causality attributes are still there. And you may feel differently about them but they're still there. Let's take a scientist who is studying space-time-causality, alright, and let's say he has the experience of the Witness-I. It doesn't stop him from understanding the mathematical equations necessary. But the experience of all of it being inside him rather than outside him is what that's referring to. [RC assents] But it's still there. The world is imaged as though it's within oneself. This is the hardest thing for anyone to believe without the experience, that the whole world is within you.

RC: Yeah. I think what Andrew-- at least I'm thinking that what Andrew is picking up on is the sense of space as if there is something over there that's in some other space than the space that I'm in.

AH: Yeah, Randy, what-- I'm satisfied with what Anthony just said.

RC: Ok.

AH: I was really looking for, if there's a qualitative change in consciousness as a consequence of seeing the world as mental, it has to be like a totally qualitative change. [RC assents] And all of our experience would be altered.

AD: It all what?

AH: Like you would say the materiality of the world is seen as mental, time and space would have to be seen-- I was looking for some sort of uniformity [student assents] in that experience and that's really all-- I mean, I use the word 'collapse', and that was-- that was inappropriate.

AD: Well you have-- you have tremendous difficulty imagining that the whole world is inside of you, alright, if you think that a hundred-pound weight is material. [student assents] If you think of it as an idea, then, alright, then the possibility that the world arises within you can be let's say encouraged or its possibility might arise. But as long as there's a belief in your mind that there's a material world out there and that there's a matter underlying that hundred-ton colossus, alright, then of course you cannot imagine that the world is within you, it-- the very belief would block that. But if you understand that that hundred-pound colossus is nothing-- is only ideas, and ideas can be hard, heavy, round, square, when you really comprehend that, then the world can be within you. Because you've made the necessary changes in terms of your beliefs. The prerequisite change, alright, permits it to happen, that is, that the world is within you. If we go back to something we said before. As long as you think that matter does exist, that there is such a thing as matter out there, as long as you believe that, alright, that very belief in matter makes you think that reality is out there. Try to follow that. See if you can understand that in depth. If there is such a thing as matter, then reality is out there. [RG assents] But if I change that and say that's an idea out there, alright, then I could put it in the mind. If I say it's a matter out there, I can't put it in the mind and that very belief will stop that from happening. [student assents, faint] But once you intensely understand and believe that it's only an idea, and like we said, an idea could be hard, heavy, round, sharp, angular, could be astringent, it could have all these qualities, alright, that idea, that that's an idea, then it could be in your mind.

AH: You know Anthony, when I think about this over the last few years, (it/if)-- I-- I think easier to see the pole, the way that I externalize the pole and make it be out there. But like to go-- to take another step back and see myself as being(--) the belief in external matter, [AD/S(?), faint: (I'm sorry.)] you know, the boundaries of the senses and the body.

AD: I'm sorry, repeat that.

AH: Like, it's (easy/easier) to understand what you said I think in-- if we look at the pole, you know, it's out there. But to see oneself in the context of being out there, like what we know of ourselves, you know, the physical mind-body complex, to see that as being external is harder. 'Cause the referent for external, for me anyway, is in terms of my senses.

S: Why?

AD (simultaneously): Well, make it in terms of your mind. If you want-- if you want to come-- if you want to make that experience possible or available, you have to stop thinking of yourself, alright, in terms of bodily identification. If-- if you place apperceptive mind, alright, properly, then things must happen within that mind and that would be the body, alright, and its relation to objects. But as long as you keep thinking that hardness is something in your head, you're going to think the pole is out there!

[students assent]

AH: As well as my head being out there.

S: Yeah. (bit of laughter)

AD: Yeah.

RG (faint): Yeah, him being on it.

S: Yeah.

S: [one/two words inaudible]

BS/S(?): [couple words inaudible] (laughter)

PC: Andrew, isn't everything that you know of the body known through the senses also you would say?

AD (simultaneously): No, it's known through the mind!

PC: No, but I mean in-- in the same way that you think you know a pole through the senses, you think you know the body through the senses and why can't you do the same thing with the body that you do with the pole [S simultaneously: (one/two words inaudible) mind.] in your understanding? (laughter)

RG: It is a lot harder.

PC: Yeah. But it's [AD/PD(?) simultaneously: Sure.] essentially the same thing.

PD: Yeah, 'cause when the-- the pain in your-- in your foot isn't like the pain on the pole. (laughter)

S: True.

RG: Except when you kick it. (RG laughs)

AH: No I was-- I was just-- for myself Peter I know like when I think about this, I always have to stop-- I always have to stop and force the understanding to include the body as being external. 'Cause, [S: Right.] [possibly one/two words inaudible] we tend to think of materiality as being ex-- external in a-- in a-- in a limited sense, but materiality, externality is everything. [student assents, very faint] Everything is out there. There's nothing that isn't out there from the point of view of conventional consciousness. There's not one thing that isn't out there. I mean even ideas, even the mind's function is out there from this point of view. Feelings, thoughts, volitions, it's all external.

S (very faint): External to what?

AH: External to mind's functioning.

RG: Hm.

LR: I thought it was mind's functioning.

AH: It is mind's functioning, yeah.

BS: External to the mind.

PC (simultaneously): External to the mind as known.

AH: Yeah.

S (faint): Yeah.

S: (Yeah//Hm).

RG: But internal to the mind as (right here).

AD (simultaneously): Well if it's external to the mind as knower, how could it be known?

RG: But intern-- right. [S simultaneously, faint: It's not external.] Yeah, it can't be, it's a contradiction.

LR (simultaneously): It's not extern-- I mean you keep saying that.

PC (simultaneously): No, it's an object-- [S: Oh Andrew--] it's a content to.

S (faint): I think it's not the object [one word inaudible]

RG: But that doesn't mean external.

BS (simultaneously): That would go back to my other question.

AH: I was just pushing the definition of externality a little, you know.

TS: And there's a whole group of quotes here on-- on matter that might--

AD: Let's hear them, let's hear them, sure.

S (faint): Yeah.

TS: Some of them are rather short and some of them are not.

[9 second pause]

PB PARAS ON THE UNREALITY OF MATTER AND THE FALSITY OF MATERIALISM

PB [unpublished, (10v/60/272), TS reading]: "The hour will certainly come when materialism will be recognised for the absurdity that it is."

S (faint): Ok, very good. (bit of laughter)

PB [unpublished, 21b.1 (10v/86/47), TS reading]: "The word"matter"…" (RG laughing)

AD: He didn't put down the time, did he. (laughter) I mean, for my benefit. (AD laughing)

VM: Well look around.

S: Never did, (no).

RG: We just know it isn't here yet.

TS: Yeah. Seems like (a piece about) an understatement, uh--

S: Uh-hm.

VM: [one/two words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): Of course in the culture.

TS: British reserve. (bit of laughter)

[PB [unpublished, 21b.1 (10v/86/47), TS reading]: "The word"matter" will one day be expunged from my dictionary…" (laughter)

S: Awww.

AD: I already did that. (bit of laughter)

PB [unpublished, 21b.1 (10v/86/47), cont., TS reading]: "…or else restricted to its narrower meaning of that which is observed by the senses."

PB [V13, 21:4.243, TS reading]: "Bergson said that philosophy must start with the problem of the existence of matter."

PB [V13, 21:4.58, TS reading]: "Every philosophy must start with things as they are, as we find them, and then it ascends up to higher and ultimate truths. We find matter to be real. So we do not assume its unreality, but proceed to prove that on the initial basis of its reality. But blind dogmatists reverse the process and start with unproved dogmas."

S: Redo that one.

TS: Yeah

PB [V13, 21:4.58, TS reading]: "Every philosophy must start with things as they are, [TS adds: and] as we find them, and then it ascends [up] to higher and ultimate truths. We find matter to be real. So we do not assume its unreality, but proceed to prove that [TS adds: unreality] on the initial basis of its reality. But blind dogmatists reverse the process and start with unproved dogmas."

[short pause]

PB [unpublished, 21b.0 (10v/67/57), TS reading]: "The belief that matter has an existence of its own quite apart from mind is a chimeric-- [couple/three inaudible VM words] chimerical one."

S (faint): Hey Tim--

S: Uh-hm. (laughter)

S (amidst laughter): [three/few words inaudible]

PB [V13, 21:4.151, TS reading]: "Half of our puzzling problems follow in the train of our naïve but erroneous belief that matter is itself an ultimate reality."

PB [V13, 21:4.123, TS reading]: "We must understand that matter is not a thing but a thought within consciousness."

PB [V13, 21:1.125, TS reading]: "How can you convert solid lumps of matter into unseen intangible spirit? It is impossible without converting them into ideas first. (bit of laughter) For otherwise, you cannot [TS reads: can neither] get rid of their mass, volume, tangibility, and so on [TS reads: and so forth], nor reduce them to unity."

S (very faint): Yeah.

PB [V13, 21:2.77, TS reading]: "Matter is merely something we imagine. Causation is merely succession and coexistence."

PB [V13, 21:1.20, TS reading]: "The fact that we do not perceive more than the world's appearances, never its realities, should alone be enough to dispose of old-fashioned crude and naïve materialism."

S: Well Tim, could you-- the succession and coexistence, the one right prior, the one just before--

TS (simultaneously): Yeah.

S: Would you mind [one word inaudible] that?

PB [V13, 21:2.77, TS reading]: "Matter is merely something we imagine. Causation is merely succession and coexistence."

SD: What kind of causation do you think he's talking about there?

TS: I don't know.

S (simultaneously): This is (a sticky one).

LR: Read it once more Tim.

VM (simultaneously): Sounds like the Buddhist, "this being, that is".

AH (simultaneously): That's a Buddhist causation, yeah.

VM: Yeah exactly.

LR/S(?): Would you?

S (simultaneously, faint): [one/two words inaudible] causation.

AH: This being, that occurs.

PB [V13, 21:2.77, TS reading]: "Matter is merely something we imagine. Causation is merely succession and coexistence."

PD: It's like coughing during meditation, one person coughs, then another person coughs [few words inaudible] (laughter)

TS/S(?): (It's nice of you.)

S (simultaneously): Something like that. (bit of laughter)

S (faint): Yeah.

RG (faint): That's (cute/true).

[few seconds of laughter, background talking]

PB [V13, 21:4.263, TS reading]: "The materialist[ic]…"

RG/S(?): Oh no, they had a question.

S: Yeah.

JL (faint): Yeah.

RG (faint): Tim? Somebody had a question.

TS (faint): Oh, yes. Somebody [one word inaudible]

JB: I can wait but it just seems that right after Andrew was satisfied that materialism, time, and space collapse all at once, all of these quotes suggest that materialism has to be seen to collapse first, even in time even to the point of saying the day will come when materialism collapses.

TS: Well that seems to be a difference-- he's speaking here specifically to matter and there's not many quotes in that batch which speak to time and space, I went through them a couple of times and they don't seem neither to affirm or deny the simultaneous position of time and space with matter. [one/two words inaudible]

JB (simultaneously): Well I-- I would stand for that it's easier to come, just as apparently the history of-- of human science has come, to regard matter as collapsible before we can regard time and space as collapsible, and want-- and I want to both enquire as to Andrew's wish to have them collapse together and in what way that's-- you know, or on the other hand to find them as different to understand why (emphasis--) matter first, I mean--

TS: Well but, (I--)

AH (simultaneously): I think-- I think that if you took the point of view of the quote that we read earlier where the historical perspective in terms of the understanding of science [student assents] is the level of conceptual understanding, first there's a-- an insight into the nature of matter and now as like a deeper insight into the nature of time and space, I guess all at the level of understanding. And I was trying to talk from the point of view of the experience of the mind, not at the level of understanding the nature of matter or understanding the relativity of time and space in terms of concepts, but this experience of the-- of the-- of the truth of mentalism. From that point of view, you'd have to see those three categories in some sense being uniform.

JB: Oh, I see. You were suggesting that it was all done. And at that time is there still a distinction between matter and time and space. Is that--

AH: From the point of view of the insight into mentalism rather than a chronological historical development of the understanding, it would first devalue matter and then [JB assents] like as a consequence lead to a devaluation of time and space.

JB: Don't you acknowledge that-- that the individual goes through the same procedure, or is likely to, as-- [AH: Sure.] as human history (have/has)?

AH (simultaneously): Oh of course.

JB: So an insight into medi-- mentalism could consist of just the disappearance of materiality and still have no inkling about the disappearance of time and space, do you acknowledge that?

AH: I wouldn't use the term insight, an understanding of the nature of matter could-- I think the ex-- the insight I would equate with the experience of mentalism.

JB: The total thing where it's all gone. Is that-- that's a-- so--

AH: It doesn't go. But all three are understood as mental.

JB (simultaneously): I just mean that you restrict-- you restrict insight to the point where you make all three become known as mental.

AH: The qualitative change in consciousness is total.

JB: Uh-hm. Ok. (bit of laughter, student assents) Fine. (laughter)

PB [V13, 21:4.263, TS reading]: "The materialistic position, that there is nothing in the world but matter, is as utterly devoid of justification as the most baseless theological dogma.--[Thomas H.] Huxley"

S: Yeah.

AD: Again Tim, I didn't hear you.

PB [V13, 21:4.263, TS reading]: "The materialistic position, that there is nothing in the world but matter, is as utterly devoid of justification as the most baseless theological dogma.--Thomas [H.] Huxley"

PB [unpublished, (10v/66/48), TS reading]: "If we make a close analysis of the doctrine of materialism, we find it to be quite self-contradictory. We are so accustomed to regarding matter as real that a contrary belief comes as a shock."

TS: Now these-- these next set I think are more detailed.

PB [V13, 21:3.46, TS reading]: "Only when we wake from a dream do we begin to grasp its significance, but before then we may be utterly deceived by it. [Only when we wake from the dream of materialism do we begin to see how utterly it has deceived us.]"

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1983 0216a Ends; Side 2 Begins)

TS: --(notion). I'd like to read it again.

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #1, TS reading]: "The materialist's mistake primarily consists in this, that his mind considers its impressions and sensations--entirely dependent as they are on its own presence--as external realities, whilst dismissing its own independent reality as a fiction."

AH: It misses its own independent reality as a fiction.

S: Dismiss.

TS (simultaneously): It dismisses.

AH: It dismisses its-- the mind's own independent reality?

TS: As a fiction, yes.

AD: So what's the primary mistake of the materialist?

AH: It takes these impressions as being external.

TS: As externally real and as itself as not independently real.

S: But, it isn't independent, I mean it's integral to the presentation, I don't understand what he's--

TS: The mind is not independent of its presentation?

S: Well isn't-- I mean all-- its presentation is contained within it so--

TS: Yeah.

S: What-- why make it an independent thing?

TS: [couple words inaudible]

HE (faint): It could exist [S simultaneously: I mean--] without the sensation(s) too.

S: Excuse me?

HE: Couldn't it, (the knowing), it still exist without the sensation but sensations couldn't exist without the mind.

S: Yeah.

LR: Independent of sensations in (that/a) sense, not independent.

AH: Tim would you read--

S: Ok.

TS: Ok.

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #1, TS reading]: "The materialist's mistake primarily consists in [TS reads: of] this, that his mind considers its impressions and sensations--entirely dependent as they are on its own presence--as external realities, whilst dismissing its own independent reality as a fiction."

RG: Right, so then--

S (very faint): Right.

RG: Right. [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with RG] This thought taking the objects to be independent is the error. But the simultaneous error is to not to take the mind as independent of its manifestation. And we have a double-- there's a doub-- a dual error that's s-- that's symmetrical. The mind takes itself to be not independent [S simultaneously: And the objects are.] and it takes the object to be independent and it should be reversed.

AH: Takes the objects to be real but what's real is the mind.

RG: Right.

S (simultaneously): Yeah, yeah.

TS: (Now/No) two would have to go to him. Ok, that seem-- the next batch of [one/two words inaudible]

MATERIALISM IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH RECENT SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT

PB [unpublished, 21z-sm.0 (10v/40/25), TS reading]: "The old materialism is not compatible with new physics."

RC: There's one where he says that physics is close to [couple/three words inaudible]

S: Hm.

AH/S(?): Yeah, yeah, in terms of--

TS: (Next one's strong.) (laughter, student words)

EM (amidst laughter): Never mind, I got the astrology quotes here. (laughter)

PB [V13, 21:4.147, TS reading]: "It is important to note that"matter" has gone out of scientific thought but materialism has not gone out of popular life."

[short pause]

PB [unpublished, (10v/27/4), TS reading]: "A scientist said that the development of atomic research…"

TS: I'm sorry.

PB [unpublished, (10v/27/4), TS reading]: "A scientist said that with the development of atomic research the word"matter" has gone out of use, the concept "matter" has been discarded. Hence, it is now actually out of date to attack the belief in matter. (some laughter) Avoid it, but replace the term by some other one. What one?"

TS (very faint): That's pretty funny.

S: Will [one word inaudible] stick?

JB (simultaneously): Well it's not a bad question because it's energy that you've replaced it with and are we prepared to go up against energy, that's (what) I'm hearing the--

TS (simultaneously): Well that's the next three quotes here.

JB: Ah.

S: That's good.

TS: Um--

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #2, TS reading]: ""Recent scientific theory calls attention not to the uniformity but to the indeterminacy of nature which, by transferring probability from human thought to objective reality, suggests that matter is mind externalized." --Times Literary Supplement, May 12, 1945." (laughter)

VM: I just couldn't remember that one. (student assents, laughter)

SD: Try it again.

TS: Ok. I'm sorry Jonathan, the next three (some laughter) after this one.

S: [one/two words inaudible]

JB (simultaneously): I hon-- I'm not in a hurry. (some laughter)

S: That's right.

VM(?): That's right.

S (simultaneously): But you should be.

S: That's right.

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #2, TS reading]: ""Recent scientific theory calls attention not to the uniformity but to the indeterminacy of nature which, by transferring probability from human thought to objective reality, suggests that matter is mind externalized." [--Times Literary Supplement, May 12, 1945.]"

S: Hm.

PD: How does it lead to transfer of probability?

JB (faint): Hm.

HE: And who does it, Nature?

VM (simultaneously): Yeah. Probability is often thought of as a state of ignorance or a state of, let's say, partial knowledge. But the actual Schrödinger's equation is the probability waves that you are now attributing objectively out (and to) and making your calculations on the basis of those things and so on and so forth, I think that's what's meant in that somewhat brief phrase.

DH: But I think that also points out the thing about space in (that) it's-- you're just talking about matter there, and that it's still putting something external. And the way that science is still thinking about the um-- the physical universe, it-- there's still some-- there's still stuff external. [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with DH] And space-- that's still thinking of space-- I don't mean just physical space but the-- the space in which these mathematical equations make sense, [RG assents] you know, any of those spaces, [RG assents] are still thought of as being [RG simultaneously, faint: External.] external, not inside.

RG (simultaneously, faint): Uh-hm, yeah.

VM: Yes, until mathematics is seen as a branch of psychology. (laughter, student words)

RG: Ah. Now we have the physicist verse the mathematician verse the astrologer here. (laughter)

S (amidst laughter): Yeah, verse the astrologer. (bit of laughter, student words)

PB [V13, 21:2.74 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #4, TS reading]: "If Matter has any existence at all, it is as the externalizing power of the mind."

S: [faint] Yes. Right.

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #3, TS reading]: "The mysterious power of the mind, which makes us feel the world to be outside of and separate from ourselves, disappears during certain ultra-mystical experience."

VM: Yeah.

S: What was the first sentence again?

PB [V13, 21:2.74 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #4, TS reading]: "If Matter has any existence at all, it is as the externalizing power of the mind."

S (simultaneously): Ok, ok.

TS: Now this is my favorite.

S: Hm.

PB [V13, 21:4.173, TS reading]: "The bomb, whose shadow darkly threatens the whole planet in our time, is itself the last and latest demonstration that matter is an illusion. The atomic physics which alone made the bomb possible has penetrated to a level where matter has disappeared into radiation. There is no matter there, only radiant energy."

S: Oh. Louie, (stop that).

S: Will you read it again?

S (simultaneously): The one right-- the one--

TS (simultaneously): There's two more [S: Huh?] and that's it-- that's all there are.

VM (simultaneously): Well let's finish now.

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #5, TS reading]: "Matter cannot be honestly denied by the ordinary man since it is fully real to his senses. Its reality but not its appearance can be nie-- can…"

TS: Bother.

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #5, TS reading]: "Its reality but not its appearance can be denied by the scientist, since it is a compound of invisible and intangible forces to his intellect."

TS: And last--

VM (simultaneously): Read that again, I--

S: Yeah.

TS: Ok.

VM (simultaneously): Well it's just this [one/two words inaudible] (for/or) something, you know.

TS: Yeah.

LR: Or finish and then read the last three here [couple/three words inaudible]

TS: Ok.

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #5, TS reading]: "Matter cannot be honestly denied by the ordinary man since it is fully real to his senses. Its reality but not its appearance can be denied by the scientist, [student assents] since it is a compound of invisible and intangible forces [VM assents] to his intellect."

S (simultaneously): [couple words inaudible]

TS: So you can deny the appearan-- the reality [couple student words inaudible simultaneous with TS] of matter but not the [VM: Right, yeah.] perception. And last and least--

PB [V13, 21:4.200, TS reading]: "No scientist knows what matter is in itself."

TS (faint): That's (all those aspects).

LR: And the first of those three?

TS: The one about the bomb?

AD (faint): No, no.

TS (faint): The first of those three.

PD: The one that defined matter as the externalizing power of the mind.

S: Yeah, that one.

TS (simultaneously): That one? You guys want that.

S: What--

TS: Well it just says that.

PB [V13, 21:2.74 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #4, TS reading]: "If Matter has any existence at all, it is as the externalizing power of the mind."

S: Stop. What seemed-- what--

S (very faint): What?

AH: Seems to be giving-- [S simultaneously: If--] it seems [few inaudible student words simultaneous with AH] to be giving the presence of matter a certain ontological status.

S: As the externalizing power of the mind.

AH: Yes. [S simultaneously: What?] That's the-- that's its only reality.

VM: No, I don't see why you say that it's ontological.

S: See (Vic--)

PD (simultaneously): Instead of taking it out of the s-- out of the scientific realm anyway, I mean, [S simultaneously, faint: Yeah, it's just--] (it's) no longer a scientific concept and that definition there--

VM (simultaneously): Right, but that sounds very much like the way we used the receptacle as being space, matter at that level.

AH: But that's the existence of matter that the scientist can never know as (if--)

VM (simultaneously): Yeah, I'm not worried about the scientists now, I-- somehow this doesn't seem to be speaking to that issue.

TS: No.

VM: But, [S: Right.] (legitimately) the idea is somehow thinking of matter as being space, like the space that the mind unfolds in the dream is the matter which underlies the dream. It seems like he's talking about that level of matter now.

PD (simultaneously): But, [student assents] you know, if we go back to that quote before where he spoke of those three universal [student assents] forms that are inherent in our way of thinking. Space was one of them so it's something different than that too, Vic.

[simultaneously] [students assent]

VM: Well, I'm not sure, is (it's/its)--

PD: He spoke of space, time, and matter as these universal forms implicit in all human cogitation.

VM: Well, I-- we've always been cautioned about trying to tie one quote to another. See maybe it isn't appropriate to make the bridge between these two quotes, I don't know.

AH: [couple words inaudible] an example now(?/.)

S (simultaneously): But it--

S: It sounds different.

AH (simultaneously): If we could just pursue that quote, the one we were talking about a minute, that if matter has any existence at all, [S simultaneously: If matter is--] it is the externalizing--

RG: Yeah if, if.

S (simultaneously): Yeah he's saying is--

LR: No, don't put-- don't put too much on the "if" (Andrew).

AH: Well, I--

RG (simultaneously): I put a lot on the "if". (laughter, student words)

AH: That's the only-- that's the only existence it can have from the point of view of-- of understanding those principles of its-- of its presence.

S: Do we understand existence here technically the way we speak of it or is existence a broader term for him? [AH/S(?) simultaneously: I think, I think--] I mean we have a real technical term.

AH (simultaneously): I'm interpreting it as a much broader term Lauren.

S: If it has any reality? You'd say existence here is the same as any reality or is it--

AH: Yeah, because the things do exist, I mean there's no question about it.

S: Wait a minute, what? I don't know what you-- when you say that (S laughs) I don't know what you mean.

S (faint): No but--

AH: I heard the quote as [S simultaneously: Which one?] verifying existence.

S: Ok.

AD: Can you read the quote?

RG (simultaneously): If you have to think of matter as having [S simultaneously: If you--] some existence, you really have to, then the-- then the only way you can think about it legitimately is to think of it as-- as this pure ener-- as this energy of mind. [student assents, faint] But that's not thinking of matter at all in the way you would-- you would cr-- you would think of it.

S: Energy of mind.

RG: So that's alright.

S (simultaneously): I can't--

TS: I don't know, [S: Then--] uh-- I thought that what was being said by these three or four quotes in a row here was that the apparent [one/two words inaudible] experience of matter is ordinarily available and that that persistence of that apparent experience is dependent upon the power of the mind itself which is-- one of its powers, which is to externalize itself. And if that is recognized as such then that apparent experience of matter was no longer viable.

S: In other words--

TS (simultaneously): But insofar as [S simultaneously: Makes sense.] he's saying, given that there is some experience of matter which is available to the ordinary man, it isn't a real matter that he's experiencing. But what he is experiencing is an externalizing act of the mind.

S (faint): Yeah.

LR: And insofar as he sees or thinks matter, then he's not seeing the mind in process but the mind as externalized.

LDS: He doesn't appreciate [TS simultaneously: Yeah.] the external (as thought).

LR (simultaneously): In other words, the product of that-- that power is [LDS assents] what is normally thought of as matter.

LDS (simultaneously): Gives rise to this belief in matter. Not to appreciate that.

LR (simultaneously): But if you see it as the externalizing power then you see it as a process rather than a fact [LDS assents, faint] or something.

AH: You'd also of [LR/S(?) simultaneously: That's alright.] necessity see it as mind.

LDS: Yeah, the mind, that [student assents] it's mental.

IS PLOTINUS'S DEFINITION OF MATTER THE SAME AS PROCLUS'S?

LD: Can't this be interpreted also in a Plotinian sense of matter, the way-- I mean how mind or the Ideas they [one/two words inaudible] contain-- as the Ideas external-- or not externalizing themselves but [LDS simultaneously: The reason-principle.] going out in a way, is that matter?

AH: The instantiation of the Ideas?

S (simultaneously): [couple words inaudible] Louis?

LDS: Plotinus speaks of the reason-principles as containing their own matter for manifesting themselves, and I think that may be the parallel you're asking for. There's a quote [S: Yeah.] about that, the reason-principles containing their own matter for-- [Note: See Plotinus, III.3.4, fourth para from end.]

LR (simultaneously): But then he wouldn't be speaking of the existence of matter, would he?

LDS: No it wouldn't really-- it's not a true existence of matter but it-- it seems to be a power of this, in the same way that PB's speaking of externalizing itself or manifesting itself in some kind of space or locus.

AH: But it is also the way that matter truly exists.

S (very faint): What?

LR: What is?

AH: It's-- it's the true existence of things is the externalizing power of the mind. Any other existence is illusory.

BS: He would like another word, PB seems to like-- would like to have another word for it and we seem to be keeping thought-- reinforcing the word 'matter'.

AD: Well use the term 'projecting', the mind projects its idea, is that--

S: Yeah.

AD: The projected idea gives rise to a belief in matter.

S: Did-- (uh-hm).

AD: And at the same time insofar that the mind projects its ideas and the ideas are the offspring of a mind, then you could re-- return them back to the-- the mind, then you'd have the notion of non-dualism. Here's where non-dualism is really applicable I think. The ideas are mind. And that's why you can speak of non-duality.

PD: So whenever any philosophy has a hypothesis of a-- of matter or analogous to matter in this light, it implicates-- well let me see. Dualism is fundamentally equivalent to-- to materialism. If there's dualism there's materialism, by definition.

RG: Uh-hm.

AD: Yeah, yeah.

RG: Yeah.

LDS(?): Yeah because external.

RG/S(?): Has to be.

S (faint): Uh-hm.

S: Right.

S: Right.

AD: That's why we don't get along too well, Proclus and I. (He/We) basically adores-- He believes that there is such a thing as matter. [student assents, very faint] Is Jeff here? I wanted to throw something at him.

JC (simultaneously): So does Plotinus. (laughter, student words)

AS(?) (amidst laughter): Boo, [S simultaneously: Pretty good.] boo, boo, boo. (laughter, student words)

JC (amidst laughter): Dualism can be resolved-- dualism is resolved only in the One, not before.

S: Yay [one/two words inaudible] (S clapping, laughter)

PD: I think [RG simultaneously: Yeah that doesn't count.] you should see that it's just a point of view. (laughter, student words)

LR: That was previews to Friday's class. (some laughter)

S (amidst laughter): I hope-- hope so. (bit more laughter)

LR: Stay tuned.

S (very faint): Yeah.

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

BS (simultaneously, faint): But did she read it again?

AD: Do you think the definition of matter that Plotinus has and that Proclus has is the same?

LR/S(?): No.

RG: Another six hour class here.

S: So you're [one word inaudible] (S laughs)

JC (simultaneously): Which one, you mean as the indeterminate substrate?

AD: Yeah, or the principle of authentic falsity compared to the notion of matter that Proclus (has/had)? You think they're the same notion?

JC: Well, you see a difference and I haven't examined it enough.

[students assent, faint]

AD: Alright.

RG: Ok, here's one more.

LR: Stay tuned?

AD: Stay tuned, further developments. (bit of laughter)

ALTHOUGH A SAGE'S PERCEPTION OF THE WORLD IS LIKE OTHER PEOPLE'S, THEY ALSO HAVE INSIGHT THAT EVERYTHING IS AN APPEARANCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

PB [V13, 21:5.142, RG reading]: "The world looks just as it did before; being understood for what it is--a thought-series--does not alter its appearance. The sage's perception of it is like other men's; his senses function like theirs; but he knows that his experience of it depends on the ever-presence of Consciousness; he is never without this awareness. This is the large first difference."

AD: You see there's the concomitant functioning of insight and the psychical. For the Sage, he has insight that everything is an appearance of Consciousness, that's insight. Consciousness is the underlying ground for this appearance. That appearance continues in that ground. In order for that to be available to him he has to function like other men. They're both there for him. And that of course means that the space-time-causality continuum is there for him too. [RG assents] Although I always had difficulty trying to figure out why PB had at least a half dozen watches around. (AD laughs, laughter)

LR: Were they set at different times? (bit of laughter)

AD: What's the difference? [PD simultaneously: Different time zone.] He never knew the time anyway. (bit of laughter)

LR: Well different daylight, different--

S: Time zones tell time. (laughter, student words)

PD (amidst laughter): And he kept different sheets at different times.

AD: And Tim, if I remember they always broke for him, didn't they? They never worked, watches.

CDA (simultaneously): It's probably why he had to have so many.

[few seconds of background student talking, laughter]

DR: Well at least--

RG: And they cut(--/.)

LR: You probably would be careful with any separate time-piece.

RG/S(?) (possibly part of background): [one word inaudible]

[student assents, very faint]

VM (faint): [one/two words inaudible] PB's gonna need it.

AD: And what about when they asked Ramana, you know, he asked him what-- what time it was. I think he asked somebody what month it was. And they told him, he says, "What year?" (AD laughs, laughter, student words) He didn't know the year. (laughter, student words) I don't know what space-time continuum he lives in. (AD laughs, laughter)

RG (faint): Not in ours. (bit of laughter)

S (faint): Didn't know the year.

AD: Alright, thank you.

VM: It's 1983, in case anybody forgot. (laughter)

TS (faint): 'Cause you-- 'cause you normally would(--/.)

[Audio File 1983 0216a Ends]