Wednesday, April 13th, 1983

WISDOM'S GOLDENROD, ALAN BERKOWITZ CLASS NOTES

(TYPED)

APRIL 13a, 1983

PB PARAS; MENTALISM

TOPIC: PB Paras

SUBJECT: Mentalism

SUBSUBJECTS: Senses, Solipsism, Hume, Sage

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Paul Brunton, Notebooks, published and unpublished

• David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

TYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2022

NOTES:

• RETYPED HANDWRITTEN NOTES (V13). From Classnotes AB 1983 0309 to 1983 0427.PDF.

• This is 1983 04/13a, a PB class on Mentalism, the first event associated with this date. 1983 04/13b = Plotinus; there appears to be or have been two audio cassette tapes, but there is no more information on it — might refer to something misdated.

• Anthony is Anthony Damiani (AD).

• All spelling, capitalization, and punctuation corrected, abbreviations spelled out.

1983 04/13a at Wisdom's Goldenrod

PB Paras; Mentalism

[Classnotes AB 1983 0413 Begin]

4/13/83 PB Notes -- Mentalism

1) "Our experience of the world is but experience of the workings of our senses." [PB, unpublished Notebooks, 21b.0 (10v/59/214)]

Anthony -- Did you ever have the desire to experience the world without taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing? (If not, I guess you're not bored of it yet.) The World-Idea can only be converted (interpreted) into these five senses. When the mind is given the object, it can only present it in five ways.

2) "This thought that we are hermetically sealed in our five senses, that our sense-world is but a mere fragment of the total existence, and that such existence is itself a mere shadow of reality, is enough to awe us [into a feeling of utter insignificance and helplessness]." [PB, V13, 21:1.6]

Anthony -- When the five sense awarenesses start [to] bring you repulsion, you start feeling you're in prison.

The World-Idea includes everything but your soul.

The realization that you are alone (you can only know your own thoughts) = existential dread.

PB's quotes are aphorisms.

The solipsistic point of view is a good place to start -- from the point of view of reason it is irrefutable. All you know of another person/thing and of your own ego is your idea.

Hume -- "Nothing is present with the mind but its perceptions. . . . We never really advance a step beyond ourselves. . . ." [PB, V13, 21:4.207] [Note: See also David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, p. 67.]

I can't get out of myself no matter what I do. Pain makes mentalists out of all of us (it's your pain).

* "The whole universe is within you" *

This idea is so big that you won't be able to live with it. When you have the mystical experience of this, you won't believe it or accept it.

Only the Sage, whose mind is identified with the cosmic mind, can also say the world is his creation.

The mind exists and develops on its own latent resources without anything outside. There is nothing outside.

[Classnotes AB 1983 0413 End]