Wednesday, March 9th, 1983

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

March 9a, 1983

PB PARAS; MENTALISM

TOPIC: PB Paras

SUBJECT: Mentalism

SUBSUBJECTS: Epistemology, Perception, Master Image, World-Idea, Thought, World-Mind

CONTENTS:

YOU CAN GET RID OF REFLECTIVE THOUGHT BUT NOT THE WORLD-IDEA

THE UNIVERSAL MIND THAT FABRICATES THE WORLD-IDEA IS NOT SOME SORT OF CRAFTSMAN, ALTHOUGH IT UNFOLDS ITS OWN CONTENTS IN AN ORDERLY FASHION

YOU HAVE TO START OFF WITH INDIVIDUAL MENTALISM

OUR MIND IS NOT THE SOLE WORLD-CREATOR, BUT IT PERCEIVES THE WORLD-IMAGE THAT THE WORLD-MIND CREATES AND HOLDS

BECAUSE YOUR MIND IS ROOTED IN THE IDEA OF THE WORLD, SOMEONE WHO IS A KNOWER OF THAT IDEA CAN KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS

PB PARAS ON MENTALISM

WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE STIMULUS THAT PRODUCES IN US OUR VERSION OF THE WORLD-IDEA?

A HYPNOTIST SUGGESTS YOU SEE SOMETHING, BUT THE SUGGESTION ITSELF IS NOT AN IMAGE THAT THE HYPNOTIST IMPOSES ON YOU

DOES THE WORLD THAT IS SUPERIMPOSED ON YOU HAVE ALL THE SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS THAT THIS PARTICULAR OBJECT HAS?

IS THE STIMULUS THAT THE INDIVIDUAL MIND RECEIVES IMAGE, OR POWER, OR IDEA?

IS THE WORLD-MIND'S MASTER IMAGE AN IMAGE OR A THOUGHT?

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Paul Brunton, Notebooks. 16 vols; Vol. 1 entitled Perspectives, published 1984-1988. Some Paul Brunton Notebook paras are, as of 2018, unpublished, and are noted as such.

• Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself

• Plato, Timaeus

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

• Vyasa, Bhagavad Gita

• Arya Maitreya, Aryasanga, The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation, Being a Manual of Buddhist Monism, tr. E. Obermiller

• Maitreya-natha, Asanga, Madhyantavibhagakarika, or Verses Distinguishing the Middle and the Extremes

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: III.4.3, III.4.6

PAPER read in class:

• "'My' Mind: Individual Universal Mind," by Paul R. Cash. Retyped as 1983 0309b V09P. PB Paras - Mentalism. This paper was read at the beginning of class, for which we are missing audio.

NOTES:

• This is 1983 03/09a, PB Paras; Mentalism Class, and the first entry associated with this date. 1983 03/09b = PB Paras; Mentalism Paper.

• Unpublished PB paras, even if sourced, should be proofread.

• Older transcript versions exist.

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, updates prefatory matter and footer, updates audio file name, fixes/completes Book List, adds Plotinus quotes section, adds new notes within transcript. In 2025, MW expands Subsubjects and alters Subheads to make more accurate. Archival verbatim transcript with Paper – V14.1ap.

AUDIO FILES: 1983 0309a. [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 03/09a at Wisdom's Goldenrod

PB Paras; Mentalism

Archival verbatim transcript

YOU CAN GET RID OF REFLECTIVE THOUGHT BUT NOT THE WORLD-IDEA

[Audio File 1983 0309a Begins; this is the second part of class]

AD: --there is that the ultimate essence of the reflective thinking that you carry on in-- in your mind and the-- the thought of the World-Idea, that in essence they're the same and I'm not disagreeing with that. All I'm saying is, though, that you can get rid of the reflective thought which is going on in your mind but you cannot get rid of the World-Idea.

RG: Right, I-- sure.

AD: That's all I think the remark was saying, that's all. There's no way that you're going to get rid of universal manifestation. It's going to be around for a while.

S: Ok.

AH: But are we-- are we allowed--

RG (simultaneously): But-- but I thought David-- I thought the point was though that Dave's-- that-- [VM simultaneously: (couple/three words inaudible) knowledge here.] but is that presentation of the World-Idea still a product of the individual mind?

AD: I don't see how else it can be.

RG: Right, ok, fine. [S simultaneously: Any--] It seemed to me David was saying something else.

DB: David was saying that the individual mind is contained within the unfoldment of that World-Idea.

LR: David was saying [S: Right.] that-- [S simultaneously: Ok.] that the reason you can't get rid of it is the mind that wants to get rid of it is part of it.

DB: Yeah.

LR: That's what David's saying.

DB (simultaneously): And I still haven't-- I still haven't-- [AD simultaneously: No, no.] don't have [LR simultaneously: No one's-- no one's talked to that.] a reason to d-- to change [S simultaneously: Anthony did.] that point of view.

JfL: So the ego I think is the production of the World-Idea, and then the World-Idea is subsumed under the--

AS (faint): But he's saying [one/two words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): [couple words inaudible]

DB: I'm saying-- Well, in the-- in the first place what I mean by World-Idea, I don't buy that, I-- I don't take it to mean the fact that my senses perceive a certain limited spectrum of sight and sound and so forth. But, beyond that-- I frankly, if we're going to-- if we're going to make this identity between-- that Randy started out with, with, what, mind (as/is) individual and mind (as/is) universal, I don't see what the problem of saying that the-- that the-- that the-- the world-- the individual mind is a-- is-- is within the functioning of the universal mind, anymore than it would be to say the universal m-- the--

AH/S(?): [couple/three words inaudible]

RG (simultaneously): Are you equating World-Idea with universal mind? Is that what you mean to do? Then I-- then I can agree but that's usually not how you've used the term 'World-Idea', [DB: Yeah but, well--] to mean universal mind.

S (faint): But see--

AH: Or would the converse be true, that universal mind is within the individual mind.

DB: Yep.

[student assents, very faint]

AH: Individual mind is within the universal mind and vice versa.

DB: Right, and why, [S simultaneously, faint: No.] because [S simultaneously: You can't say within.] the whole discussion of--

RC (simultaneously): No. That's not what I would say, I mean, I wouldn't-- I wouldn't just say that-- Within this framework of what we now sit here and speak of as my mind, [student assents, faint] we have to discover the truth of both the individual and the universal perspectives, not to put one [S: Within.] within another that way.

DB: If we put-- if-- I mean-- it's a-- it's a-- it's a pathetic way of speaking because there isn't any within and without at that level but--

RC: That's the point.

DB: Yeah, but-- but-- but nonetheless, I mean from-- I mean unless you're going to abolish all distinction, you do have to speak of the relationship of the two terms from the-- from a point of view within each term that does not contradict the other.

AH: But we (were/are) restricting (it).

DB: And that's all I'm trying to get at.

AD: Alright, let's throw out a few more [one word inaudible]

THE UNIVERSAL MIND THAT FABRICATES THE WORLD-IDEA IS NOT SOME SORT OF CRAFTSMAN, ALTHOUGH IT UNFOLDS ITS OWN CONTENTS IN AN ORDERLY FASHION

PB [V13, 21:3.77, TS reading]: "The language of the workshops is meaningless when applied to the world. The question of who"made" it simply does not arise for the man who has pushed philosophical enquiries to their farthest conclusion."

AD (very faint): (Alright.)

[short pause]

AB: Tim, I don't understand the reference of workshop.

TS: Making things.

AB: Yeah, ok.

S (faint): (Is that all?)

AH: You think-- you think we could apply to the discussion of that quote that it's inappropriate to speak of universal mind making individual mind or individual world experience? Do you think that follows?

AD: I think the reference here is to the Timaeus where Plato speaks about the Demiurge is the craftsman. And he [AH simultaneously: I'm sorry?] doesn't think that that's suitable language.

AH: The Demiurge you (say/said)? [possibly student assenting, very faint] So, the Demiurge didn't make it but someone else did.

AD: Yeah but the word 'Demiurge' means craftsman. And I think he's criticizing this kind of language, that it could be very misleading. And as a matter of fact it is.

AH: Your explanation last week of this quote was that it unfolds out of the (ether). It's unfolded but it's not made.

AD: Yeah, [student assents] intelligence is self-directive and self-determining and it doesn't put out a set of metaphorical hands to build a universe.

AH: I was trying to understand this in relation to the discussion we've been having tonight of mind as universal and mind as individual. There seems to be ongoing necessity to describe individual mind as coming out of or being made by.

AD (simultaneously): Well he's speaking-- he's speaking about the World-Idea, the fabrication of the World-Idea. Evidently it's-- it's really universal mind that has to be regarded as fabricating the World-Idea, and that this universal mind should not be looked upon as some sort of craftsman, someone who's building something, table, chairs, etc. [AH: Ok.] And it would be wiser in our age to think of it the way we spoke of it last week, as an intelligence which is self-determining and self-ordering and unfolding its own contents in an orderly and lawful fashion without any interval between itself and its products.

[students assent, very faint]

AD: Let's go on to the ne--

TS: And the next one I think is simply a corollary to that one.

PB [V13, 21:2.51, TS reading]: "The existence of the world is not a testimony to the existence of a divine creator, but to the constructive capacity of the mind."

AD (very faint): Uh-hm.

TS: It seems to be this-- he's saying the same thing there. And then he says--

PB [unpublished, 21z-wm.0 (10v/65/17), TS reading]: "How did this world idea come into existence?"

S (very faint, possibly part of background): [few words inaudible]

TS: What? Then he says--

YOU HAVE TO START OFF WITH INDIVIDUAL MENTALISM

PB [unpublished, 21z-wm.1 (10v/62/292), TS reading]: "Our world is truly a product of our mind. But it would be a grave error to believe that it is a product of our own mind alone."

S: Hm.

S (faint): Well-- (bit of laughter) (Oh no.)

RG(?): Well Randy, (you're wrong). (RG laughs, laughter)

S (amidst laughter): It's your board, go for it. (more laughter, student words)

AD: No, his premises still say, you've got to start with the individual mind as the premises of mentalism or you can't go anywhere. If in introverting into the individual mind you can deduce that there's a more universal aspect to it, that's alright. But you have to start off with individual mentalism. And whatever-- whatever that leads you to is another story.

[short pause]

RC: It's obvious that, for me I think in that context, he says it'd be a grave error to consider a product of our mind alone, that he's definitely (leading you) to what we ordinarily in unreflective manner take to mean when we say "our mind".

AD: Well, if you remember the ancient Greeks, and they were pretty smart, huh? They didn't put down "Know the ma-- World-Mind," they said "Man, know thyself". Start off with yourself. And if there's a universal mind in your mind you'll find out about it. Let's read another one.

PB [unpublished, 21z-wm.0 (10v/79/12), TS reading]: "It is true that the world is an individual creation, but it is not the whole truth."

[13 second pause, flipping pages]

PB [unpublished, 21z-wm.0 (10g/24/28), TS reading]: "The human world-experience may be illusory. But it is certainly not hallucinatory, for in that case it would have no cause or source outside the experiencer's own private fantasy."

[9¼ second pause, possibly student assenting, faint]

PB [V13, 19:1.29, TS reading]: "A"delusion" is wholly false and untrue, whereas an "illusion" has some kind of basis beneath it."

S (very faint): Yeah.

S: Hm.

[short pause]

OUR MIND IS NOT THE SOLE WORLD-CREATOR, BUT IT PERCEIVES THE WORLD-IMAGE THAT THE WORLD-MIND CREATES AND HOLDS

PB [V13, 21:3.66 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #50, TS reading]: "A popular misconception of mentalism must be cleared. When we say that the world does not exist for man apart from his own mind, this is not to say that man is the sole world-creator. If that were so he could easily play the magician and reshape a hampering environment in a day. No!--what mentalism really teaches is that man's mind perceives, by participating in it, the world-image which the World-Mind creates and holds. Man alone is not responsible for this image, which could not possibly exist if it did not exist also in the World-Mind's consciousness."

S (very faint): Repeat that one again.

TS: Read it again you say?

S: Yes.

TS: Ah.

PB [V13, 21:3.66 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #50, TS reading]: "A popular misconception of mentalism must be cleared. When we say that the world does not exist for man apart from his own mind, this is not to say that man is the sole world-creator. If that were so he could easily play the magician and reshape a hampering environment in a day. No!--what mentalism really teaches is that man's mind perceives, by participating in it, the world-image which the World-Mind creates and holds."

LR: Read that sentence again Tim.

S (faint): [few words inaudible]

LR: Man's mind proceed(s)?

TS: Per-ceive, per--

S: Perceives.

LR (simultaneously): Perceives?

TS: Perceives.

PB [V13, 21:3.66 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #50, TS reading]: "…[TS adds: what] man's mind perceives, by participating in it, the World-Mind-- the world-image…"

TS: Ok, I'll start over.

S (very faint): Yeah.

PB [V13, 21:3.66 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #50, TS reading]: "No!--what mentalism really teaches is that man's mind perceives, by participating in it, the world-image which the World-Mind creates and holds."

LR: Participating-- man's mind perceives by participating in the world-image?

S (very faint): Yeah.

TS: That seems to be the grammar here.

LR: Man's mind perceives by participating in it, so "it" refers to the world-image.

S (simultaneously): Yeah.

TS: "…which the World-Mind creates and holds."

AD (faint): You've had it before, he's simply--

LR (simultaneously): Yeah, no, I just didn't understand the remark.

PB [V13, 21:3.66 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #50, TS reading]: "Man alone is not responsible for this image, which could not possibly exist if it did not exist also in the World-Mind's consciousness."

[12¼ second pause]

AH: I think it's possible to see each of these quotes in the light of Randy's paper, that this notion of-- of my individual mind. [Note: Reference is to paper by Paul R. Cash read at the beginning of class for which we are missing audio. It has been retyped as 1983 0309b V09P. PB Paras - Mentalism.] None of these quotes is going to separate that from a larger context of mind.

[10 second pause]

AD: Alright, let's have some more.

PB [V13, 21:3.70 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #53, TS reading]: "The individual mind presents the world-image to itself through and in its own consciousness. If this were all the truth then it would be quite proper to call the experience a private one. But because the individual mind is rooted in and inseparable from the universal mind, it is only a part of the truth. Man's world-thought is held within and enclosed by God's thought."

[short pause]

AD: That's basically the same like Plotinus put it, the Intelligible World is in each individual soul. [Note: See Plotinus, III.4.3 (last para), III.4.6 (sixth para from end).] And insofar that that's so, I can see you and you can see me. That's the presupposition, not an external world of objects [one/two words inaudible]

TS: Yeah this-- the next quote says the same thing, I mean there's-- these three quotes seem to be addressing the same thought. Um--

PB [V13, 21:3.64, TS reading]: "It is asked why, if the world is like a dream or a hallucination, we all have the same dream or suffer the same hallucination. Why do we project it in common instead of independently, since we all do have quite different dreams when asleep at night or quite different reveries when awake by day? The answer is that there is another and vaster Mind behind our personal minds which imposes the same world-image upon them all, so that all see it and live in it. Moreover, they are of necessity themselves projected by this mind so that this image is not less real for them than their own selves."

BECAUSE YOUR MIND IS ROOTED IN THE IDEA OF THE WORLD, SOMEONE WHO IS A KNOWER OF THAT IDEA CAN KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS

AD: Now let me ask David a question. David, if I-- if I understood or was a knower of the Nous, could I know your subjectivity?

RC(?) (faint): You mean--

S: [couple words inaudible]

DB (simultaneously): I would-- I would think that you would be aware of its-- of its existence as within that, within the Nous, ok.

AD: Then I would even be able to read your thoughts, wouldn't I?

DB: At that level.

AD: At that [DB simultaneously: Oh.] level? How about this level, because I would be here, I wouldn't be somewhere else.

LR: And in fact--

DB: Well, now, now-- (laughter, student words) No. (more laughter) No, it's-- excuse me but I think, I think that you--

AD: Let's see if you understand this Dave, I'm saying that if your mind produces the world for you, alright, and because it's rooted in the Idea of the World which is part of the World-Mind, and I am a knower of that Idea, [DB simultaneously: Right, yes.] alright, then what's to stop me from knowing your thoughts?

DB: I don't think there would be anything to s-- to prevent you from knowing my thoughts.

AD: (Steve and/Steven) I'd be able to help you in understanding or getting acquainted with your subjectivity, [DB simultaneously: But both--] of which you have a trifling acquaintance.

DB: Yes. But now is it [S, faint: No.] through-- (laughter)

AD: Just a joke, just a joke. (AD laughs, laughter)

DB: We have only four planets in Leo. But uh--

AD: Alright, you understand then the rationale behind so-called the fact that the Sage very often could read your mind.

DB: Oh yes, yes, but [AD simultaneously, faint: Alright, that's fine.] An-- There is one thing though just about this particular issue that I've never really understood, that-- I can see how-- how that would be, as-- as far as our development seems to be concerned, almost a necessity, but, would his-- would his awareness-- I mean, it inclu--

AD (simultaneously): His awareness would not be your awareness.

DB: Right. And would it-- would it--

AD: If that's what you mean by subjectivity, then of course [DB: Yeah.] I would not know it (objectively).

DB: Ok, alright.

AD: But you know, it will be like having a master-plan, alright, you can go into this building and you got a blueprint. Now you know, "Oh, room 28, I know where that is" and you follow the master-plan, right? So a Sage has like a master-plan--"Oh, I know the World-Idea. No, what you said was wrong." (some laughter) It's-- it's just humorous, go ahead. (some laughter, student assents)

S: Tim? Where was that quote from?

TS: It says here P88-7.

RC: That means volume 10, red. (laughter) Page 8--

AD: This is all very private stuff. (AD laughs)

RC: Page 88, number 7.

S: Thank you. (bit of laughter)

DB/S(?) (very faint): Ok.

TS: Shall I finish that quote or no?

AD: No, let's go on to the next one, you got the point.

TS (faint): Fun part, ok. Um-- [flips pages]

AD: "You know, he answered my question without me even asking it." How many times I heard that remark. [S: (Hm/Yeah).] As though you had to ask it. Go ahead.

S: Anthony, I have a question that's (very mental). Doesn't-- doesn't the Sage have to choose to do that though? I mean it's not like he's aware of everyone's thoughts [AD: It's--] at every moment.

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, no, it's not, it's-- it's something that's spontaneous and usually would be significant [student assents] (for/in) that-- you know, for that occasion, that circumstance, but it isn't that he's-- he goes around the streets reading people's minds.

S (simultaneously): Right, well the [few inaudible student words simultaneous with S] point I'm trying to understand-- (laughter, student words)

S (amidst laughter): Not that he has to.

S: Actually that did happen to PB for [LR simultaneously: Yeah, he talks about it, (right/yeah)?] a while and it was-- [few students at once, few words inaudible] it was a horrible experience for him.

VM (simultaneously): Yeah.

LR: Said it was during the war, and it was awful because he experienced all the suffering.

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, you're open and receptive to everything that's going on around you, just take it in, but you're speaking about a Sage and they have control over (it/that).

S: Well the point I'm trying to understand is it seems though that we have heard that each Sage or enlightened person would have a different piece of--

AD: The scenario?

S: Yeah.

AD: Yeah?

S: They don't all have the same one.

AD: Well sometimes it's [S simultaneously: Because they--] reduplicated.

S: Yeah, it could be, but they bring something of their own individuality into--

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, and also the karma of the individual that's involved with them. That's involved too, whether [student assents] they would be intimate with you or not.

[student assents, faint]

LR: You mean only [couple words inaudible] (Plotinus).

AD: Take it in the context of the whole World-Idea. If it's meaningful at that time for him to answer you without you asking, it will be done. On another occasion he may tell you, "Speak up, I can't-- I don't know what you're thinking unless you tell me." [student assents] It will vary, the circumstances. [student assents] Well [couple/three words inaudible] (Jung), he had to listen to everyone else's thoughts.

RG: Hm?

AD: Never mind, let's go on.

[few faint background student words, bit of laughter as TS begins to read]

PB PARAS ON MENTALISM

PB [V13, 21:3.62, TS reading]: "All these little minds which people the universe and are active in Nature's kingdoms could not have come into being unless there were a universal originating Mind. They point to its existence, silently speak of their divine Source. The materialistic notion that individual centres of intelligent life could have been produced by non-intelligent"matter" is an utter absurdity [TS reads: is utterly absurd]."

AD: I-- [S: Be--] I don't mean to add anything to this but I think when he says "being produced" I think you have to think of that in a sense of eternal generation. It isn't something that at a certain point in time your-- your mind is born, you know, and it starts at 4,000 B.C.

[student assents]

TS (faint whisper): Yeah, but this will be (kind of Source--)

[flipping of pages]

S (very faint): Yeah.

PB [Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #55, TS reading]: "Our idea of the external world is caused partly by the energies of the World-Mind. It is not caused by a separate material thing acting on our sense organs."

[10¾ second pause]

PB [V13, 21:3.95, TS reading]: "We experience the world through the activity of a Power greater than ourselves, yet, in another sense, it is still our own activity."

TS (faint): And then it goes in your coffee. (AD laughs)

[short pause]

PB [V13, 21:3.80, TS reading]: "The individual person participates in this making of his world (although unconsciously and involuntarily) in this projection of the mind."

[9½ second pause]

[TS laughs a bit]

PB [V13, 19:3.50, TS reading]: "The unconscious is very conscious." (bit of laughter)

TS: Lest we assume.

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

PB [unpublished, 21z-wm.0 (10v/19/125), TS reading]: "He shares his world-image with the World-Mind. It is the World-Mind's master image, but it is an image reflected through and limited by the individual mind."

[19¾ second pause]

PB [V13, 21:3.60, TS reading]: "The world-image is duplicated in our individual mind but this duplicate image is entirely our own."

[short pause]

PB [V13, 21:3.67 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #54, TS reading]: "The precise shape which the idea will take when it reaches consciousness will depend on the general tendencies of the person."

[13½ second pause]

AH: Which-- which idea is being referred to in that quote?

TS: Yeah.

[student(s) assenting, faint]

AH: I mean, maybe just any idea, however-- however you want to think of it-- think of it?

TS: Well, it seems from the previous two quotes where he says that "The world-image is duplicated in our own individual mind but this duplicate image is entirely our own," that there is some-- that the-- that-- this next quote which is that "The precise shape which the idea will take when it reaches consciousness will depend on the general tendencies of the person," that the idea could be seen to be read as the World-Idea, [AH: Yes, and--] and that the shape that it's taken is that reflected image [AH: Yes.] that the individual mind, by its own innate tendencies, is crafting in its manifestation or projection of that, in some ways.

WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE STIMULUS THAT PRODUCES IN US OUR VERSION OF THE WORLD-IDEA?

HS: In this context how you understand the World-Idea? What do you mean, if you could-- if you will.

BS (very faint): Why is--

[10¾ second pause]

AD: Well Herbie, it seems that you have to try to answer your own question. [students assent, faint] What do you think the World-Idea is?

HS: I think it's this world that you're seeing. And the sights and the sounds and the smells, so on.

[simultaneously] [student assents, very faint]

AD: Uh-hm. What about the fellow who gives it to you, [HS simultaneously: Fellow who give--] power that gives it to you--would it be the same way?

HS: Would it be the same way for that fellow?

AD: The way you see it and perceive it?

HS: Actually I don't know, (but), I think in that it's perceived through me, by me, it would be the way it's perceived. But for that fellow here, [S: Yeah.] I don't think you could talk to that fellow over there so-- I (wouldn't/would) speak of that person knowing it in-- in any way that I know.

AD: But there has to be, let's say, some commonality between the tree you see and the tree I see.

HS: Yes, that's right.

AD: Well then, is there one tree that is being perceived by many of us? [HS simultaneously: Or--] Or is it that each one makes his own tree?

AH: Both are true.

AD: Well, that's a good one-liner.

AH: Well, according to the quotes both would have to be true. There's an image tree-- I'm sorry Herbie.

HS: No, no, go on.

AH: There's an image(d) [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with AH] tree in the same way that there's an imaged room that I'm sitting in now. And that's mine, and I'm in some sense creating that. But there's also a room that I'm sitting in that belong(s)--

AD (simultaneously): That's not yours? (bit of laughter)

AH: What?

AD: That's not yours?

AH: That belongs to all of us.

AD: Yeah, well, what con-- of what nature is that I think is Herbie's question.

AH: Well that one's real I think.

AD: Yeah, that-- that still doesn't help me. You got as far as saying that is. (bit of laughter)

[short pause]

AH: Well that-- I think that was perhaps, pardon the presumption, Herbie-- Herbie's [AD simultaneously: No I'm not.] suggesting that the World-Idea is--

AD (simultaneously): No, it's alright to-- well we're just-- we're trying to follow what-- [AH simultaneously: Herbert--] what is this World-Idea. We're saying [AH simultaneously: Her--] that the cosmic thinker, alright, so to speak, imposes upon you a stimulus and you convert this stimulus into your perceived world. Now we're tr-- we're a-- I think what you're asking Herbie, what is the nature of this stimulus?

HS: Yeah. (Well/When) we use the term World-Idea I don't understand [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, what is the nature of this stimulus that produces in us our version of the World-Idea. Isn't that what you'd like to know?

HS: Yes.

AD: Good.

HS: That was all. Now, we start the discussion and we say outside or objective world. And, we're not permitted to say objective world in [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Well that could be suggested to you from within, doesn't have to be outside.

HS: Ok, so world.

AD: Yeah, the World-Idea is suggested to you, [HS assents] alright, and your mind takes it and makes a picture for itself.

HS: Ok, when you say your mind takes it and makes a picture, is that other than the suggestion? Is that other than the suggestion?

AD: Is what other than--

HS: Is the-- is the individual mind's taking it and making a picture other than the suggestion from within.

AD (simultaneously): Well that's what we're trying to understand, what is the nature of that stimulus or that suggestion. Is it the same as the tree I'm perceiving?

AH: One of the quotes suggested that we could interfere with that stimulus. It's possible to interfere with that stimulus. [one/two words inaudible]

LR (simultaneously): You'd have to say--

AD (simultaneously): But we're not discussing that, we're trying to understand what is the nature of that stimulus.

LR: You have to say it's--

A HYPNOTIST SUGGESTS YOU SEE SOMETHING, BUT THE SUGGESTION ITSELF IS NOT AN IMAGE THAT THE HYPNOTIST IMPOSES ON YOU

AD: Here look--I'm a magician, alright?

AH: Yeah.

AD: No, let's say I'm a hypnotist.

AH: Uh-huh.

AD: And I'm talking to you. [S, faint: Right.] And you're looking at the room and you're looking at me and I say, "Now, imagine a beautiful landscape--white clouds, mountains," alright? And you see all this. But what was the nature of the stimulus?

S: Thought.

HS: The power of your mind to impose onto my mind your picture.

AD: I mean it wasn't a picture, I didn't say "Now, you see this picture that I have in mind, you make sure you see its--"

HS: Right.

AD: You're saying it's the power of the mind--

HS: Of your-- of the mind (though/there) to stimulate (prayer) or to stimulate--

AD: I'm the stimulant, (stimu--) (laughter)

VM: Source.

HS: Ok, so now--

AD: So then--

HS: Go on, please.

AD: No, you go on.

HS: See, I would say when you-- when you pose the question, is the tree that one sees and a tree that another sees same tree, or is the tree that's given from within by the stimulator and my unfoldment of that as a perc-- as a perception, is that the same, I would say that, according to the discussion we've been having, that it's not even a question.

AD: It would seem that, let's say that there's this one hypnotizer, alright, and he hypnotizes us, he says "There's a tree [possibly half/one word inaudible]" alright. Now your mind has to make the tree for you, my mind has to make the tree for me because my experience of the world is my experience, your experience is your experience, alright. But it seems that the commonality of tree in both perceptions is the suggestion that he is, let's say, imposing on us.

HS (simultaneously): Single suggestion.

AD: Yeah. Now, if we go a little further, the nature of this suggestion you said was the power of his mind.

HS/S(?) (faint): Yeah.

DOES THE WORLD THAT IS SUPERIMPOSED ON YOU HAVE ALL THE SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS THAT THIS PARTICULAR OBJECT HAS?

HS: Ok, one thing about that-- the-- this thing, this power, is that it has to be brought-- well, in terms of the tree it has to be narrow enough in terms of-- of its specificity to give the perception "tree" to different people, yet in some way not necessarily characterized by the human-- the particular human nature of perception. That's [student assents] how it would be given to you.

AD: Well what do you think?

LR: You mean broad enough? [student assents, very faint] What do you mean narrow? [S simultaneously: Sarah?] You mean inclusive.

HS (simultaneously): Well you got-- you got a particular tree, so it's a-- so you-- the function would be made into particular energy.

LR: Oh.

AD: Well we--

LDS (simultaneously): In other words, there's a certain inde-- indeterminate aspect to the suggestion but the indeterminacy must have enough specificity in it that allows for a common perception of-- of many human beings of this one tree. But, for me to use my determinations, let's say the human determinations of my perception, to speak about the suggestion in and of itself would not be fair or valid. But you're saying [RC simultaneously: Well--] there's got to be something specific about the suggestion to allow for a common perception.

HS: I personally would say that it's very fair and valid for a human being to use his own perceptions to understand objects because it's the only tool you (have/had).

LDS: Yeah but we're discussing two things, we're discussing his perception and we're discussing the suggestion of that(--/.)

AD (simultaneously): What we're really discussing the nature of the stimulus.

HS: Yeah.

LDS: The nature of the stimulus before the image is produced.

AD: In other words, [LR simultaneously: 'Cause--] the nature of the World-Mind's Idea which you're interpreting as your perceived world.

LR: Yeah see, that power is one of--

AD: Now--

S: Uh-hm.

AD: Yes, that was one term he used, he says it's the power of this mind to superimpose itself on your mind, alright, power is a good word.

LR: What else?

HS: Well, it seems that it's a [one word inaudible]

AD: And, if it-- i-- if it's-- can we say that-- could we say that there is a tree that is imagined forth by this cosmic being, [S: Yeah.] all it's specificity and characteristics and attributes?

HS: By the cosmic being.

AH: See, if [one word inaudible]

VM (simultaneously): I'd like to say there's a certain potential. Because if you say a tree I-- I really can't help but put it in space-time. There's a certain potential which is actualized by the individual mind.

S: Would you repeat that Vic?

AD: But then when you're imagining the world for yourself, alright, you're not imagining a specific tree, an actual tree, you're imagining the potentiality.

VM: No, it becomes specific because it's a combination of that potentiality and my own vasanas, if you like, or my own unique historical continuum. And it's the-- it's the [LR simultaneously: Did he--] complex of those two [LR: He said that--] that give me my individual tree.

AD: Well, [VM simultaneously: Did I misunderstand you or--] the point I'm trying to get at, when he says that it was the power of the mind to superimpose itself, alright, we would say that this cosmic being with the power of his mind images a world and this is the world that is superimposed on you. [RC(?): Ok.] Now this world that is superimposed on you has all the specific characteristic that this pa-- particular object has. [AH simultaneously: Anthony?] Or shall we say it's a general tree?

S (faint): No, (it's) specific.

AH: Anthony--

S: No.

VM (simultaneously): Well it's gotta be specific too, I don't just see the-- the general tree. I see individual unique trees. [AH: But does this--] On the other hand I bring a certain contribution to that event as well.

BS: But how? Doesn't the World-- well--

VM (simultaneously): Maybe because I-- I hate trees.

BS: No, no, (some laughter, student words) what I mean is, doesn't the World-Mind's image include your whole sensory apparatus within it at each moment it's producing this?

VM/S(?): Well that certainly would be true, I mean--

BS: In that case wouldn't it be a specific object that's produced?

AH: Does the stimulus have the nature of trees?

AD (simultaneously): Well, that doesn't-- that doesn't help the question, bringing in the sensory apparatus and the body and all that, the question is still the same because I could ask you about this sensory apparatus and the body [VM assents] that you're talking about, [S, faint: And you say out there.] which is being manifested by your mind to you. You can leave the question in this general way--when the Idea is imaged forth by the cosmic being, what is the nature of this stimulus which is superimposed on your mind? Now if I was-- if I was a hypnotizer and I told this man to look and he would see a beautiful landscape, what I communicated to him was let's say a certain power of my mind to override his mind, alright, and insist that he sees this. But I didn't have that landscape in my mind, did I? [S, very faint: Uh-uh.] Well now you have to decide.

S (simultaneously): And you-- you wouldn't even have the power over the very specific [AD: Hm?] landscape. Even the hypnotist or the suggester wouldn't have the power over the specific landscape that's seen.

S (faint): Maybe a little bit.

AD: Well it [S simultaneously: Would it?] would be, it would be, you're saying now, somewhat organized and according to the peculiarities of that person's mind.

S (simultaneously): Yeah, that's all I'm saying.

AD (faint): Yeah.

AB: Yeah but--

AD: Alright, but that still doesn't a-- that's true but that still doesn't answer the question, what is the nature [S simultaneously, faint: And what's the stimulus.] of the stimulus that is perceived by an individual mind [S simultaneously: And is being (one word inaudible)] and converted into the perceived world.

DB: Could it-- [AH simultaneously: Well could you answer (one/two words inaudible)] could it be spoken of as being-- as being itself an intelligent living being?

[short pause]

AD: Could it be spoken-- could the tree be spoken of as an intelligent li-- living being?

DB: No, the stimulus which is given to the mind, this power, as-- the World-Idea as-- I'm just wondering, could it be understood as itself an intelligent living being.

AD: The stimulus.

DB: Yes.

[short pause]

AD: Well he just spoke about it as a force, now you want to speak about it as a being.

S: What's the difference?

LR: You're addr-- you're addressing its substantial aspect David?

DB: Me? No, no, just because it's an intelligent-- I don't know, substantial or intelligent, but it just-- it seemed to me that-- I mean insofar as this Idea is the product of Mind, first of all it has to be intelligent. Second of all it has to be living, I mean, it-- the World-Idea stimulus certainly has to be considered as being vital, and that's its-- the power aspect. And insofar as it's this-- insofar as it can be specified, I'm just curious as to whether or not that's coming from the fact that in some sense it is a being.

AD: Well you-- if it is a being then we have a plurality of beings that are being communicated to this individual mind with which he has to make a transcript for himself.

AH: Anthony, you put forth the question of what--

AD (simultaneously): It-- but isn't this the crux of mentalism?

S (very faint): Definitely.

S: Uh-hm.

S: But when you speak like this you're-- you're putting in that distinction again of a universal mind giving a stimulus to an individual mind.

AD: Yeah, it's alright.

S: It's alright, well--

LR (simultaneously): It's just that-- that's what he's trying to do.

AD: I'm trying to understand what is the nature of that stimulus which the mind receives and converts into the world that it perceives, that it pictorializes for itself, or if you want you can call it its World-Idea. What is the nature of that stimulus?

LR: So we have it has power-- the nature is that it has power and being and particular characteristic, (that/but) (it's--)

AD: Well, one of the things was suggested it's a certain power, ok? The other thing that was suggested is that it is the imaged world.

AH: That-- that's [S simultaneously: Yeah.] the question I had, if he speaks-- does that stimulus include the imaged world? Does it provide the imaged world as well? You know, you speak of a stimulus to a mind. Are you going to talk about that stimulus as including that mind that it's presenting itself to?

[short pause]

AD: I don't see why I have to do that, I mean. You're asking me to incarnate myself in the words in-- that I'm sending to you in order for you to catch the meaning. And I'm saying that if I just send you the words that'll be enough.

S: Yeah.

S: Isn't it thought?

AH: I--

AD: Thought? Yeah.

AH (simultaneously): I'm asking an abstract kind of question, I--

AD: Yeah I know but I-- I'm trying to say that the thought of that question you're asking is, I think, a little besides the point right now.

AH: Anthony?

AD: You know, whether the Idea, whether the World-Mind is involved in the Idea which it is superimposing on your individual mind, alright. Whether the cosmic mind is involved in that Idea is irrelevant right now. The question is, what is the nature of that stimulus which is being superimposed on your mind?

LDS: In the quotes that Randy read and also in the Wisdom he speaks of the World-Mind having two-- two aspects, an aspect of power or karma and an aspect of imagination, the two funoya-- fundamental aspects of the World-Mind. So it does sound as if he's saying very definitively that the par-- this suggestion or impulse of the World-Mind, this Idea, has these two aspects, a power aspect and an image aspect. But for us, from our standpoint to try to speak of--

AD (simultaneously): What would be the nature of the image that the World-Mind has?

LDS: Ok, but what I'm going to say, [student assents, faint] I think that we would have to leap out of our individual mind's framework to try to speak of that image in itself that's-- that's contained in the World-Mind and I don't-- it's almost like a-- an impossibility. [student assents, faint] How-- for me to characterize the image devoid of my individual mind's contribution to it is, you know, like talking about an x. Even though I call it--

AD (simultaneously): Well, if you remember in one of the chapters in the Bhagavad Gita, alright, Krishna granted Arjuna a vision of the world and he saw a certain section or a period of history, alright. They were things that happened or things that will happen. Was that an image or wasn't it?

S (very faint): Yeah.

LDS: Yeah. Well I would question what-- Arjuna's knowing of that vision, was he employing anything in the way of an individual mind's--

AD: Well let's say that-- he was employing his individual mind, you would say that all vasanas were erased from it so that he could perceive that cosmic vision.

LR: Anthony, [couple/few inaudible student words simultaneous with LR] would you have [VM simultaneously: (couple words inaudible) all got scared after a while.] to bring in light as a attribute of that?

AD: Well, no [couple/few words inaudible] he-- he'll be spreading out.

LR: The nature of that stimulus.

LD: Aren't you asking what the universal is before it is particularized or what the idea of circle--

AD: But why-- why make it more difficult than the way I just presented it? [AH: I think A--] Does it make more sense to say what is the universal before it's particularized?

LD (simultaneously): No, I'm just-- I'm just asking, can you know that other than its particularization?

AD (simultaneously): Well, I gave the example where Krishna gra-- was-- granted Arjuna a vision of the world before, alright, and it's granted to various people, one or two people a century.

S: [couple words inaudible]

LDS (simultaneously): And it's specific-- it's specific and it's determined and it's historically valid or true.

S: Yeah.

AD (simultaneously): Yeah.

LDS: So all those qualities are in there.

IS THE STIMULUS THAT THE INDIVIDUAL MIND RECEIVES IMAGE, OR POWER, OR IDEA?

AD: So then, what is the nature of the stimulus? Is it an image and power or is it just power? Is it just the Idea?

LDS: No, I think [RG simultaneously: No, it's gotta to include (the image).] we have to grant that it's both, it's both power and it's both a specific-- it's also a specific image.

AD: Then if nobody was at the North Pole to see it, alright, there would still be this image of the North Pole there?

S: Idea.

AD: Huh?

S: Idea.

AD: This Idea of the North Pole or image of the North Pole now? [student assents, very faint] This isn't a multiple choice, you know. (bit of laughter)

S: [few words inaudible]

LDS (simultaneously): And I think rationally that's the only-- that's the only position you could-- you could live with.

AD: Well what-- [student assents] what position?

S (simultaneously): Why?

LDS: The position you just stated, that the North Pole is there whether there's an individual observer of it or not because it's part of the imaged [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): But then again what about that quotation where he says that the image(d) world is a product of brain functioning?

AB: Yeah but that--

LDS: Well, I'd have to hear the [AD simultaneously: Yeah but--] context, I'd have to hear the context [AB simultaneously: Now--] of the quote.

AB: See--

AD: Well, the context of the quote--

RG: Well there is no context.

S (simultaneously): That's some--

AH (simultaneously): Oh yes.

TS: That's it.

RG (simultaneously): It's a one-line quote.

S (simultaneously): [one word inaudible] paraphrase it then.

S (faint): It's a one-liner.

TS (simultaneously): He makes-- there is (a/uh)-- (bit of laughter)

PB [unpublished, 21b.0 (10v/79/4), TS reading]: "The world that is seen is a cerebral creation."

LDS: Oh, the world-- well he's implying that it's seen by an individual human being.

RG: No but--

LDS: Cerebral, I mean the World-Mind doesn't have a cerebral aspect I don't--

VM: Big brain.

RG: No. (laughter, student words)

DB (amidst laughter): [couple/three words inaudible]

S (amidst laughter): Big brain, yeah.

S (amidst laughter, faint): Very big brain.

S: Big brain statement.

VM: Good. (bit of laughter)

TS: What we read earlier he said--

PB [V13, 21:3.66 and Perspectives, Chapter 21: Mentalism, #50, TS reading]: "…what mentalism really teaches is that man's mind perceives, by participating in it, the world-image which the World-Mind creates and holds."

AB: Now, would whatever--

LR (simultaneously): Again, once-- [S simultaneously: Once again Tim?] I'm sorry, once more? (bit of laughter)

S (faint): Why Linda--

TS (faint): I'll read it backward.

[student assents, faint] (bit of laughter)

TS/S(?): [couple faint words inaudible]

TS: No. [three/few words inaudible]

AD: You all feel something in your gut? (some laughter)

LR: Tim read it again?

AD: 'Cause I'm telling you this is the crux, you got to understand this.

[9¾ second pause]

S: Insofar as we know it it's an image.

S (very faint): Yeah.

RG: And I'd so-- I'd say insofar as any-- as any center of consciousness knows it, which includes the mind that-- a cosmic mind that has it, it also is an image. (It isn't) just--

AD (simultaneously): I'm sorry Dickie, would you say it louder?

RG: It isn't just the fact that we know it makes it an image. [S simultaneously: It's not.] The facts of its image quality is because the mind that produces it also knows it as it i-- as(--) for it, as-- and that's the mind of the-- of the knower.

AB: There seems to be a difference in scope.

RG: What-- what--

AD: I don't want to agree or disagree because then that'll give away, you know.

RG: And that the mind--

AD (simultaneously): But would you say it once more Dickie?

RG: That the quality of its image-ness does not depend on a-- on a human knower, that it's quality of image-ness is dependent on [AD simultaneously, faint: (Perception.)] any knower, and in-- and in order for to speak of a prior-- a stimulus to experience, mentalistically(,) it has to be an image to a cosmic knower.

AD/S(?) (very faint): (Yes.)

TS: You're saying something like this.

PB [V13, 21:3.61, TS reading]: "We receive as by hypnosis the World-Mind's master image because we are so intimately rooted in it. But we receive it only within the limits of our particular capacity and only upon the plane of our individual perceptions. [AB: Right, so it--] That is, we think only a minute fragment of the whole thought as it exists in the World-Mind's consciousness."

[student assents, very faint]

TS: Is that what you're saying?

AD: Now didn't he leave you in perplexity, what is it, thought or image?

S (very faint): Yeah.

S (faint): What-- what's the difference?

[students assent, very faint]

LD: Last week we ended that there are not two worlds, the ideal world and the imaged world.

VM: Yes, but I don't think he's talking about the ideal world now.

AD: No, you're on the wrong track.

S: Yeah.

AB: But what's the difference in those two terms as you're using them, thought--

AD (simultaneously): I'm sorry.

S (faint): Thought and [one word inaudible]

AB (simultaneously): How are you using those two terms 'thought' and 'image'?

AD: No, ask him. (bit of laughter)

AB: No, you asked the question, are they the--

AD: Ask him. Read the quote.

AB (simultaneously): Who's him?

[short pause, faint background student talking/whispering]

PB [V13, 21:3.61, TS reading]: "We receive as by hypnosis the World-Mind's master image because we are so intimately rooted in it. But we receive it only within the limits of our…"

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1983 0309a Ends; Side 2 Begins)

AD: --one?

AB: The World-Mind's thought is an image.

AD: Master image, (yeah/yes).

AB: A master image. And then my mind thinks that into existence for me. So whatever I think into existence has to be derived from the World-Mind's master image or thought. However, because my mind is finite, it doesn't think the totality of the World-Mind's master image into existence so therefore--

AD: A fragment of it.

AB: A fragment, so what's left out-- what I leave out--

AD: Is more than what's included but (students assents, some laughter) we're still not at the [S simultaneously, faint: It doesn't (few words inaudible)] point, Alan.

IS THE WORLD-MIND'S MASTER IMAGE AN IMAGE OR A THOUGHT?

TS: Right. But then what [AB simultaneously: Well the--] you do think-- is what you do think part of that world-image [AB: Yes.] or is it a by-product of the individual mind's stimulus by some abstract World-Idea?

AB: Right, but what the individual mind thinks of the world-image is-- or of the-- is from the world-image.

RG: And it isn't other than the world-image. It may not be the totality [AB simultaneously: Just that I don't--] of it but it's not--

AD (simultaneously): Well then what does it, what does (it/he)-- what does he mean when he says we have to think that master image, is that what you're saying?

AB: Uh-hm.

RG (faint): Yeah, we have [AD simultaneously: Yeah(?/.)] to think it. I mean, you have no experience of anything if you didn't think it into existence for yourself.

[students assent, faint]

AB: So the image which I think into existence is subsumed in (a--/it.)

AD: Then we do not imagine with the master image, we have to think the master image into our perceptions.

[short pause]

VM: But, I didn't get the first part [one word inaudible]

RG (simultaneously): Yeah well, what do you mean we don't imagine with it, what would that be like, (I mean--)

VM: Yeah.

AD: Well, we're [LR simultaneously: We're not--] saying that we have a master image, ok, the [student assents] World-Idea, that's the master image, alright. And then he says we have to think this master image. Which means that our mind has to grasp that master image and convert it into a perception.

RG: Right.

S (faint): Yeah.

LR: It isn't-- in other words, it doesn't come as perceived.

S (faint): Yeah.

RG: Not for us.

S (faint): Yeah.

LR: And it's-- and you're saying also that it's not ta--

AD: I'm not saying it, he's saying it.

LR: No, you just made a statement, that-- that it's not taken for granted that because it's there we-- you necessarily think along with it. In other words, our mind isn't necessarily producing-- reproducing the image.

[student assents, very faint]

AD: Yeah.

LR: That it's (an) actually an act of volition, of some kind of volition, an act that it will be perceived.

AD (faint): Yeah.

LR: You're saying that? But that still doesn't say what it is.

S (faint): Uh-uh.

AD (simultaneously): No, but that's why-- that's why what he was saying was-- I think was more to the point. Dickie, would you repeat it?

RG (faint): Well, which-- which part?

LR: That it was also an image.

AD: We have the master image, the World-Idea, alright, and we have to think that master image in order for it to become the perceived world for an individual experiencer.

S (simultaneously): Uh-hm, right.

AD: Isn't that what you said?

[RG and another student assent, faint]

S (simultaneously, faint): That's what Alan said.

RG: Well--

S (faint): Who did?

AB: Doesn't matter.

S: (The/World) image.

LR (simultaneously): Then that's-- it seems to me that that does say something about what that image is, namely that it seems to be that our contribution to it which makes it appear as solid, hard--

AB: Well--

LR: And it doesn't have the quality, I guess that's what I want to say, that it has actually a different quality, a more fluid or [VM simultaneously: Taijasa.] taijasic quality.

VM: And the individual transforms it into what we call waking consciousness by its--

LR: It seems that that's what's [one word inaudible]

AB (simultaneously): See, but doesn't it have to be potentially inherent in the image before we think it?

LR (simultaneously): That it will be or could be?

AB: That it could be.

LR: Sure.

VM: It could be what?

LR: But--

RG: Ok but is that--

S (simultaneously, faint): Which means that the North Pole isn't there.

AB (simultaneously with RG and S): Space-time, five senses. Right.

RG: But you know, I-- I would just--

AD (simultaneously): No, no, the North Pole is there.

[simultaneously] [student assents, faint]

RG: The North--

AB: Yeah, we're not denying--

RG (simultaneously): And the North [AD: The North Pole is there.] Pole is there because there are other centers of consciousness besides humans that imagine it [VM: Yes.] into existence.

VM: There's a lichen on the rocks [couple words inaudible]

RG: No, no, but there's-- (laughter, student words) there's the Mind of the Earth too that is [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): But isn't the North Pole, isn't the North Pole included in the master image?

RG: What?

AD: The North Pole would have to be included in the master image.

RG: Sure.

AD: Alright.

RG: And the Mind of the Earth as always imagining the Earth's existence, it also has to be there.

AD: Yeah well we don't have to complicate it.

RG: Right.

S: What--

JC: I don't understand though why you call-- or why it's-- the master image is spoken of as an image, or saying that the Mind of the Earth has an image of it.

VM: 'Cause I think it's what you mean by manifestation, I mean it really does have some kind of a space-time existence, not perhaps the space-time that we normally experience.

S (simultaneously): Well, what do we call it then?

JC (simultaneously): Well, I'm not so sure. I call [one/two inaudible student words simultaneous with JC] it a thought and say that all possible images of it are contained within it, all [couple inaudible RG words simultaneous with JC] the particularities of the images, the hardness, the size, shapes.

RG: And what meanings are you going to give to the distinction then of thought and image here?

JC: The image is something spread out in--

DB: Time.

JC: No, in s-- well, even space is kind of-- i-- [one/two inaudible RG words simultaneous with JC] I would say in space at least.

RG: And then what do you mean by thought, the thought, this th-- what would the thought be other than that? Would it have no quality, would it have no shape or have no--

JC: Yeah no sh-- no sensible shape in itself.

RG (simultaneously): Well, would it have imaginal shape?

JC: No, I-- well-- see I wou--

AD: Jeff, I think you want to say that the master image is just a thought.

JC: Yeah, but-- the thought which includes all the particular possible perceptions, all the par--

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, ok, but just a thought.

JC: Yes. The-- yeah, it's more in the order of essence rather than image.

AD: Well, let's not confuse it for the others, alright? It's a thought. You're saying the master [JC simultaneously: Thought, yeah.] image, the World-Idea, is a thought.

RG: But I don't yet know the difference between thought and image yet.

S (simultaneously): So in that sense why is the North Pole there then if there's nobody to image it?

JC: The word 'image' implies sense-- sense.

AD (simultaneously): Well, is the North Pole there if no one's there to see it or--

S: In thought, it's not an image.

AD: In other words, then you would be saying that the North Pole, if I'm there, there will be a brain activity which will give me an image of the North Pole, if I'm not there, there will be the North Pole. Now, is it in the form of an image or is it a thought?

VM(?): I--

S: A thought.

VM: Well, you gotta distinguish, you gotta distinguish those two terms.

RG (simultaneously): I don't know what you mean by the difference, I really don't.

S (faint): Yeah.

AD: There's no difference?

RG: To me-- [S simultaneously: Yeah.] I don't [S simultaneously: Well (it) seems to be.] yet know, I'd like [S simultaneously: Yeah this--] to understand the distinction.

S: Yes [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Well, no, I didn-- I don't want you to understand, I want to explore all the possibilities. [S: Of what?] What's there? Is it a thought or is it an image? (bit of laughter)

RG: I would say in a mentalistic understanding the words are interchangeable here.

S (very faint): (No/Yeah).

S: Well-- no, this is always--

AD (simultaneously): Well, I don't think so [RG simultaneously: I don't know where you--] because-- because I think what we're [few inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] saying is something like this: you have an image of the world, let's say the very world-- the world as image, [RG simultaneously: (few words inaudible) yeah.] not as thought, but as an image, alright. And then we have to re-imagine that image.

RG: Ok.

AD: Alright?

AS (simultaneously): That's one view.

AD: Or, the other version is that the world-- the master image is just a thought that includes all the particularities that can be transcribed and translated by an individual mind.

RG: Uh-hm.

AD: So we got two ways of looking at it. Either as an image, the world is imaged by the cosmic being, or the world is thought by the cosmic being, or perhaps the third, the two of them together.

[student assents, very faint]

RG: I'm sorry, I'm-- the distinction still eludes me what you [S simultaneously: Yeah me too.] mean by thought, [few inaudible student words simultaneous with RG] [S simultaneously: It's reflection.] the distinction between thought and image.

S: Alright.

S (faint): (Uh-uh/Uh-hm).

AD: Between a thought and an image?

RG (simultaneously): Thought-- yeah.

S (simultaneously): Yes.

AS: Well the-- the magician example I thought was an example. When the magi-- the-- the hypnotist. Now, whether or not the hypnotist has in his mind-- the question (is), does he have in his mind an image of a tree. You have in your mind an image of tree. Now maybe what he has is just a suggestion. Now the question is do you--

RG (simultaneously): And-- well isn't that suggestion an image also?

AS: No, but there's quite a difference because it's not like there's an image first and then you make an image of an image. It's not like the hypnotist has in his mind an image of a tree and you're perceiving-- re-perceiving or re-producing the image of a tree that he has. You're only taking the suggestion and the first place where it's an image is in your mind.

RG: (Well/No), I mean--

S (faint): How do you know?

S: Are you sure?

RG: You can distinguish semantically the idea but I don't really get--

AS (simultaneously): I'm just trying to be-- I'm not saying [couple words inaudible] I'm just saying that there's--

RG (simultaneously): By suggestion what do you mean?

AS: --an example.

RG: What is a suggestion?

VM (simultaneously): I don't know good magician(s).

AS: A non-sensible-- [VM, faint: (It's just) an image.] [S to VM, faint: Yeah.] a non-sensible transmission.

S: [few words inaudible]

DR: Avery, so are you-- are you explicating the--

AS (simultaneously): So it's not a se-- he's not transmitting to you a sensible image of a thought-- of a [student assents] tree.

DR: Is that [RG simultaneously: Is it the feeling-tone, what is it?] the side where it's a thought and then becomes an image?

[student assents, faint]

JC (simultaneously): Yes it--

AS: It's like energy.

DR (simultaneously): Are you explaining where it--

AS (simultaneously): It's like a television receiver, I mean you could use the television receiver too.

DR (simultaneously): Where-- where the World-Idea is a thought and then it becomes an image, is that what you're explaining?

AS (simultaneously): Look, the World-Idea's (bit of laughter) master whatever could be like a tel-- a radio transmitter. Now you take that radio transmission and you say, "Is that a tree?" No, it's not a tree until my television receives it. [AB(?): So--] I'm just giving an example, that's one-- that seems to be one-- in other words, this World-Mind's--

DR (simultaneously): And now there's another possibility to ex-- to explain [AS simultaneously: No, that's just--] also, what does it mean to be an image first and then to be re-imagined?

RG (simultaneously): Right.

AS: All I'm saying is that it's possi-- that you can conceive of something like a radio transmission or whatever where-- in the form of some kind of energy, and I don't-- I'm not saying that is what the World-Mind's Idea, master Idea's like but-- but that's a conceivable thing, it's not like trees get transmitted through the air. It's only the sh-- the sensible form of the tree when you produce it in your imagination. Now the [S simultaneously: The--] other view is that the World-Mind already has this image, a sensible-- an entire sensible image of the enti-- and I'm equating image with sensible.

RG (simultaneously): You're equating-- yeah but I don't-- [student assents] PB [AS simultaneously: Yeah, I am.] uses the word 'world-image' through edem-- the entire-- in his whole work, so I don't--

AS (simultaneously): Well, then we gotta distinguish between sensible and non-sensible. [BS: Wait, Avery--] If you're talking about non-sensible images, that's what you mean by thought. [BS simultaneously: No, no (one word inaudible)] When you speak about a sensible image, that's what you mean by-- [RG simultaneously: If you want to define it that--] when you talk about a sensible thought you mean image.

RG: If you want to define it that way that's fine.

AS (simultaneously): That's what I'm trying to [RG simultaneously: That's fine, I don't care.] define this because otherwise you don't-- you're not going to dis-- I think you won't distinguish between thought and image.

RG: So you're defining thought as non-sensible image and sensible image as image.

AS (simultaneously): No, I'm-- I'm defining thought as a non-- as a non-s-- as non-sensible, and [RG simultaneously: What is non-sensible?] image is a sensible thought. Image is a thought too so that's not--

BS: But what-- but your first statement seemed to imply to me that the World-Mind had an image, I'm not saying it was sensible, but had an image, but what was transmitted to the particulars like us would be thought.

AS: No. No, I was-- I was [BS simultaneously: And that's just (one word inaudible)] suggesting that that's all there was was that transmission. [couple inaudible student words] [BS simultaneously: Because that thought is a suggestion!] As long as the World-Mind pictures it and then it breaks it up into little pieces and sends it off, you know, I wasn't thinking of it that way. [student assents, faint] The--

BS (simultaneously): No, I wasn't thinking of it that way either.

[students assent, faint]

AB: Avery, you're the--

BS (simultaneously): But it has its world-image, its World-Idea or-- or whatever.

S: Maybe.

BS: Let's say image, [student assents] but there is a transmission of some-- the hypnotist has a suggestion, he says "Think tree," or "See a tree." [student assents, faint] Well that's not a visible sensible image of a tree, that tree that's going-- being transmitted to the air to you from the hypnotist. Ok? [student assents, faint] But there is a suggestion.

AD (simultaneously): So, I make the tree, I make the tree for myself, [BS: Yeah.] right? And according to the idiosyncrasies of my own mind's functioning, it will have the peculiarities that those idiosyncrasies put-- insist upon. But we're still not-- we're still moving away from the central issue. What is it that the cosmic being or the cosmic thinker gives to the individual mind?

AS: Right.

AB: According [RG simultaneously: And I don't think it--] to Avery's terminology it would be a thought, not an image.

AS: No, I just-- I wasn't claiming--

RG (simultaneously): And I don't think if you call it a world-thought, a world-image, a tiny seed-like thought-form [VM simultaneously: It sounds sensible to me.] [one/two words inaudible] that helps us at all to know what it is.

S: Yeah.

S (very faint): Doesn't really help me.

AD: It doesn't?

RG: Doesn't.

AS (simultaneously): I--

S: Yeah.

AS: Well I--

RG (simultaneously): I agree with Louis, I don't-- I don't think it (can).

AD (simultaneously): I mean, I mean if my mind doesn't function, alright, then the green on the tree, will it [student assents] still be there?

S (faint): Yes.

S: Sure.

AS: That's the question.

AD: Not my tree.

S (simultaneously): They're not-- not (at/if) this-- you would know when they're the same.

RG (simultaneously): No but I-- right, not for you. But not for you.

AD (simultaneously): Yeah but not my tree.

RG: Not your tree, granted. It's not your tree. (bit of laughter)

AD: Alright, now you look at the tree, ok? But you're color-blind so [RG assents] you see red leaves instead of green leaves.

RG: Right.

AS: The-- the leaves [student assents] on the tree may not be green at all.

RG: Yeah, right.

AS: When you speak about the tree the way that the World-Mind know-- the question is, what is the nature of the tree the way the World-Mind knows it?

RG: Right, and I don't see that we as hu-- as-- as [AS simultaneously: Well, ok.] humans could ever know until we stop being human, [students assent] perceiving through s-- our senses. (RG laughs a bit)

AD: Well I think it's important to try to understand what is the nature of the stimulus which is being given to the individual mind [VM assents] that transforms it into its perceived world and then this individual who's included in that perceived world speaks about my experience in my mind, all my experience is of my mind.

RG: Uh-hm.

AS: I think it doesn't make-- if the original stimulus is of the same nature as ex-- is the same as the tree as I reproduce it in my imagination, I don't see what would be the point of having to re-- of [RG simultaneously: I'm not saying--] my mind having [student assents] to externalize itself as a tree.

RG (simultaneously): (Well listen), of course there's a difference. Obviously it isn't spatialized in a-- [S simultaneously: What was that (Avery)?] in the space-time world. What do you-- what's the point?

S (simultaneously): Why (wouldn't) you see the point?

AB: Didn't we say that--

AS (simultaneously): Because I wouldn't-- my imagination [S simultaneously: What's that?] wouldn't have to transform itself into a reproduction of a [VM assents] tree if there was already a tree and then I reproduce the tree.

[student assents, very faint]

VM: That's a xerox theory.

RG (simultaneously): That isn't necessarily true. There could be the tree and you have to reproduce it for you-- for you to know it.

AD: But then if you think of the variety of different creatures.

RG: Right, and they all reproduce 'em through their own sense-apparatus and their own mind's-- in their own-- in their own individual way.

AD (simultaneously): And according to their own (senses) right?

AS: Yeah.

AD: But then what would be the status of which we're saying is the same in the World-Mind?

RG: It's a co-- it's a vast [AS simultaneously: Thought.] Tho-- Idea that I certainly can't conceive of that contains all the possible ways that any-- any--

AD (simultaneously): Creature could perceive it.

RG (simultaneously): --center of consciousness could perceive it.

[students assent, faint]

DB: Insofar-- [AB: Now--] [one/two inaudible student words] like that would seem to exclude the possibility that it was an image in some sense because that would limit it to one of those--

RG (simultaneously): That's only how you're defining the term [student(s) assenting] right now, there's no fixed [AS: But that's--] definition of the word 'image', we could use [one/two words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Well, we could make ourselves a definition. [S: Right.] I mean definitions are just words.

DB (simultaneously): But inso-- Richard, insofar as we're talking about images we're just saying [S simultaneously: (World.)] it's some thing.

RG: PB in the Wisdom--

AD (simultaneously): Let's make-- let's make a definition. [RG simultaneously: Alright.] What is the definition of image?

RG: I would say, I would say any--

AD: This-- this ought to be to Vic's delight.

S: Uh-hm.

VM (simultaneously): Yeah, I like [one word inaudible]

RG (simultaneously): I would say any mental form that appears to a-- to a knower is-- is an image. Well I give it a very wide definition.

VM (simultaneously): Wait a second, mental form-- mental form can cover almost anything.

RG: I-- and I would, I would use it any mental product is an image. Now you can--

AS: Then you're saying that image equals thought.

RG: Yeah, that's what-- [VM simultaneously: Good.] my first [S simultaneously: Yeah.] claim.

AS: Well, that [couple/few words inaudible]

RG (simultaneously): But that distinction doesn't help.

RC: How about if we use [couple/three words inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): Right, then you have to find another one because if [student assents] image equals thought, [few inaudible RG words simultaneous with AS] then you u-- then image could be anything all the way up to--

RG: If we're going to follow PB--

AS: [one/two words inaudible] thought.

AD (simultaneously): Intellection.

RG: If we're going to follow PB's understanding, he does use the world-image--

AD (simultaneously): Well we are trying to understand PB, [AB simultaneously: Ok.] I am.

RG (simultaneously): Right. No, no but he does use world-image and he does use world-thought and he uses seed-like thought-form. He seems to use a variety of words [S: Yeah, in the--] that seem to refer to the same idea, I'm just saying I don't know [student assents] that the word here is going to help us.

AB: So Dickie, what word--

AD (simultaneously): Well, over here for instance if you use the term, if you use the term 'image' in the usual sense, you know, the shape, contours, the dimensions, the size, the qualities of an object, if we use the image in that sense, then to speak about seed-like thought-forms, you know, going from the heart to the brain, I mean you'd have to imagine them all of a sudden get dwarfed or reduced to microcos-- cosmic size and inserted into (you/one).

VM: Yeah.

AD: That-- that don't seem to make sense.

VM/S(?): No, [student assents] [couple/three words inaudible] yeah.

DB (simultaneously): Could it be spoken of as an intelligible representation [S simultaneously: Uh-hm. Tiny seed-like thought-form.] of the eternal contents [S simultaneously: Why doesn't that make sense?] of the World-Id-- [S, faint in background: Yeah.] the [S simultaneously: Wait.] World-Mind?

RG (faint): That's good.

[simultaneously] [students assent in background, faint]

DB: I mean there does seem to be a distinction but if you speak of image, it is an image of something generally higher than that-- than that which it is, than that--

AD: I'm sorry Dave.

DB: Well, in-- insofar as we employ the-- the word 'image', it seems to be used as connoting an existent which is a representation in some sense of something higher.

AD: Alright.

DB: Ok? Now, if we want to speak of the World-Mind's production of an image, I don't think we have to-- we're determined-- the-- I'm-- I don't think we have to think of it as a sensible image, but I'm wondering if we could look upon it as some kind of representation of a fixed eternal Idea in the World-Mind.

AD (simultaneously): You're wriggling like an eel. (laughter)

DB: Well, no, I mean-- I mean, let me see if I can--

AD: You don't want to make it a sense-image, alright, [DB: Yes.] and you don't want to make it pure Intellection but somewhere in between you want to get there and "This is what an image is." [DB simultaneously: Well--] I'm not disagreeing but-- fine.

DB: Yeah I mean, I mean it--

AD (simultaneously): What-- what kind of image is that?

DB: Well, you see the problem is, the problem is that, in order to think of it that way I have to think of in some sense a higher being's organ of-- of its perception, alright. I mean, all we can say from our point of view is that all we know of it is contained within this-- the-- the particu-- the particular form we have of apprehending that is contained within it but it in itself contains--

AD: A matrix of possibilities.

DB (simultaneously): A matrix of possibilities.

AD: Uh-hm.

LR (simultaneously): But isn't it precisely between those--

VM (simultaneously): Now I would like to take a-- a more radical point of view.

AD (simultaneously): Huh?

LR: So--

AD (simultaneously): He wants to take a more radical point of view, let's listen [student assents] to this radical.

VM: I don't think any-- any discussion of images that have anything to do with the world that we know, at that level doesn't make any sense to me. If you said something like-- maybe this will make less sense than anyone else but-- if you said that this tiny seed-like thought-form was a-- [S, faint: No laughing.] a combination, a mathematical combination of certain forces, or, if you want to use the astrological example, there's a certain matter--

AD (simultaneously): I like the first one.

VM: Alright, I can go with the first one but I was thinking for the other people that might be astro-- astrological idea but, let's say it's a mathematical-- a collection or collocation of forces, and they're very precise mathematical relationships and you can figure this is the arithmetization of the Ideas if you like, whatever. Now to talk about that level in any kind of-- using the five senses and so on, that doesn't make any sense to me. Perhaps PB is using 'image' for that level. But it seems that the individual mind's job is to take that structure, that non-sensible arrangement of forces and unfold that in-- into a primordial image.

[student assents]

DB: Vic, would--

VM: Now that's-- I don't know, that's one (hour).

AD (simultaneously): Well that's one, sure, (sure/yeah).

VM (simultaneously): I mean, you know, what do I know, I haven't experienced it but [DB simultaneously: Would this-- would this mathematical--] it just-- it seems a plausible possibility as anything else.

DB: Would this mathematical [VM: Just--] arrangement, [VM: Yeah.] is that an Intelligible-- some kind of rational or Intelligible representation of an Idea that the World-Mind has?

VM: Yeah, I was-- [AD simultaneously: Yeah, that's what he's saying.] I was talking about it as the arithmetization of the Ideas, there's-- you know, there's a sort of step-down process and--

AD: You remember, you remember the quotation from one of the sutras Avery, the one that we quoted, where they had this big sheet spread out, you know, it's [AS assents] very very big, and they got the whole universe painted on it? And then they reduced it and made it very very small? [students assent] Remember?

AS (simultaneously): Yeah, I remember it.

AD: Remember that?

AS: Yeah, it's from the--

LDS(?) (very faint): Sublime Science. [Note: Arya Maitreya, Aryasanga, The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation, Being a Manual of Buddhist Monism, tr. E. Obermiller.]

AS: The Sublime Science.

AB (simultaneously): It's from the Madhyanta-Vibhanga. [Note: Maitreya-natha, Asanga, Madhyantavibhagakarika, or Verses Distinguishing the Middle and the Extremes.]

AS: But it's actually a-- it's a re-quote from that other one, from the [one/two words inaudible] (bit of laughter) yeah, I remember the quote.

S (very faint): Doesn't matter.

AD: Well there he seems to-- [couple inaudible AS words simultaneous with AD] they seem to be saying there that actually it is the imaged universe but made very microscopic.

VM: This is this microfilm version (that is--) I-- I find it very--

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, microfilm version.

AB (simultaneously): Yeah, but the point to what Vic is saying it's different.

VM: I [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with VM] don't care for it, I'm sorry.

AD (simultaneously): Ok, next week.

[someone rings bell]

S (faint): That's kind of cute.

VM: There's the microfilm, the xerox version, I like the mathematical version.

[background talking as students get up to leave]

AD: Maybe-- maybe Randy you can get some more quotes on this, I'd like to see them lose a little hair over it. (laughter)

TS: There's two (pages) [VM simultaneously: Please.] [couple/three words inaudible] I just took one out of this [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Huh?

[bit of laughter, background student words]

[Audio File 1983 0309a Ends]