Sunday, June 26th, 1983

SEMINAR at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

June 26, 1983

PB PARAS; WORLD-MIND

TOPIC: PB Paras

SUBJECT: World-Mind

SUBSUBJECTS: Cosmic Soul/Solar Logos, Cosmology, Asmita, Individual Soul, World-Idea

CONTENTS:

COSMIC SOUL: HIGHER AND LOWER PHASES

SOLAR LOGOS AS IMAGE-BEARING LIGHT

TWO PHASES OF SOUL – INDIVISIBLE AND DIVISIBLE

UNIVERSAL SOUL; NO CESSATION OF MANIFESTATION; COSMIC ASMITA AS SOURCE OF THE WORLD-IDEA

KARMA AND THE WORLD-IDEA

CYCLIC/ SPIRAL REPETITION IN THE UNIVERSE

INSIGHT; OVERSELF AS GURU

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Paul Brunton, Notebooks. 16 vols; Vol. 1 entitled Perspectives [Persp.], published 1984-1988. One Paul Brunton Notebook para in this transcript is unpublished, noted as such.

• Paul Brunton, "Insight," in Essays on the Quest (republished as Instructions for Spiritual Living)

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

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: III.4.6, IV.3.5, V.7.1

DIAGRAM embedded in this transcript:

• FIGURE 1983 0626-1. Ishvara and Its Three Phases.

TRANSCRIPTION/TYPING NOTES:

• RETYPED PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT (V13.1). From 1983 0626 PBP F06.PDF and JF Notes. THERE ARE NO AUDIO CASSETTE TAPES EXTANT.

• 1983 notes were originally typed by JF for Anthony immediately after this seminar.

• Retyped by JRM, proofread by JF.

• Reformatted 2019-20 by JRM/JF with a few copyediting corrections, such as spelled out numbers, one, two…; hyphenations; it's; etc. Subheads and Table of Contents added by JF 2020.

• PB paras in this transcript version were copied from PBPF online Notebooks, with "Published" identifiers; old identifiers from WG library volumes also kept such as (RED XVI, p. 30 #18).

• Astrological glyphs and small in-line diagrams in square brackets, i.e., [Mercury] or [small in-line drawing: circle with 12-fold division].

• In 2024, IT updates prefatory matter and footer, alters one Subsubject, alters some Subheads to make more accurate, adds Plotinus quotes section, fixes errors/typos, adds new notes within transcript, reformats to accord with new conventions.

OTHER NOTES:

• While comments in this transcript are generally not attributed to Anthony, JF thinks most is close to his actual words.

• On the previous day 1983 06/25 there was another seminar on World-Mind.

1983 06/26 SEMINAR at Wisdom's Goldenrod

PB Paras; World-Mind

COSMIC SOUL: HIGHER AND LOWER PHASES

[File 1983 0626 PBP F06.PDF Begins]

SEMINAR, 6-26-83, ON P.B. QUOTES ON THE WORLD MIND with Anthony's commentary.

PB [27.3.65 & Persp. p. 374 (RED XXX, p. 50 #45)]: It would, however, be a mistake to consider the World-Mind as one entity and Mind as another separate from it. It would be truer to consider World-Mind as the active function of Mind. Mind cannot be separated from its powers. The two are one. In its quiescent state it is simply Mind. In its active state it is World-Mind. Mind in its inmost transcendent nature is the inscrutable mystery of Mysteries but when expressing itself in act and immanent in the universe, it is the World-Mind. We may find in the attributes of the manifested God--that is, the World-Mind--the only indications of the quality, existence, and character of the unmanifest Godhead that it is possible for man to comprehend. All this is a mystery which is and perhaps forever will remain an incomprehensible paradox.

The Cosmic Soul's higher phase is in the Nous; its lower phase is manifesting. What we call the I AM of the Cosmic Soul is what PB calls the World-Mind. The [Mercury] or Asmita phase of the Sun is Mind. Its active power is the world that is manifested. All we can know of the Asmita phase of the Sun is the sensible world. The logos of the Asmita principle is World-Mind--the Asmita principle itself is Mind, or your Isvara. The principle called the Logos is the manifesting power of the Mind itself. If the Cosmic Soul has three phases--Atma, Manas, Buddhi--then the Manas phase of a Cosmic Soul is Mind, that Mind manifests the World-Idea which is its active phase. The active phase of Cosmic Soul (the Asmita principle or Mind) and its active phase (World-Mind) cannot legitimately be separated--this leads to the theory of non-absolutes.

[FIGURE 1983 0626-1. Ishvara and Its Three Phases. I.P. = Intellectual-Principle. Facsimile scan from 1983 0626 PBP F06.PDF.]

TEXT INSIDE DIAGRAM [as typed by jf] [Note: Left side of picture seems Macrocosmic: Ishvara; right side = as more pertaining to Microcosm.]

"Of our Ishvara", on left, referring to entirety of soul

"phase in the Nous" referring to Saturn in Leo, Jupiter in Virgo, second quadrant, soul ring

"Atma = phase of I.P." = Saturn in Leo

"Buddhi" = Jupiter in Virgo

Bottom of what is a Mercury glyph, left side of figure: "[Mercury] Manas, inside is the World-Idea, the active phase.

Right side of diagram:

"Our Isvara has 3 phases:"

[Saturn in Leo Jupiter in Virgo Mercury in Pisces] -- The higher 2 are part of the I.P. The lower emanates from it, manifests the world, is your Isvara.

SOLAR LOGOS AS IMAGE-BEARING LIGHT

PB [28.1.52 & Persp. p. 382 (ORANGE XVI, p. 1 #8)]: The Mind's first expression is the Void. The second and succeeding is the Light, that is, the World-Mind. This is followed by the third, the World-Idea. Finally comes the fourth, manifestation of the world itself.

That light that comes from the I.P. [Intellectual-Principle] is the image-bearing Light--it is the logos principle and contains all that follows after.

Between the Cosmic Soul and Isvara distinctions don't exist--they are only noticeable in the individual.

Plotinus points out that the Absolute Soul is the origin of all souls--that all come from it. [Note: See Plotinus, IV.3.5.]

There is the Asmita principle itself, but what it manifests will be distinguished from it. There can be samadhi or concentration on the Asmita itself.

TWO PHASES OF SOUL – INDIVISIBLE AND DIVISIBLE

PB [8.1.104 (RED XVI, p. 55 #42)]: Advaita Vedanta's tenet that the divine spirit has been overpowered by ignorance is unacceptable to philosophy. What the latter would say is that something has come out of or emanated from the divine spirit and it is this that has been overpowered by ignorance. But the divine spirit itself remains quite untouched. That "something" is the ego and it is like the image in a mirror. Although the image is not the object itself, yet it draws its existence from the object. But whatever happens to it does not affect the object.

The Vedantist tenet that the Divine Spirit has been overpowered by ignorance is unacceptable to philosophy. The I AM principle has to evolve the representation it made of itself. It gets to know itself through that (representation). If the Asmita is a universal consciousness, it gets to know itself by particularizing itself in a particular way.

The ego is becoming more gnostic, but the Asmita principle is getting to know itself through its image. The I AM, in that it is particularizing itself through an evolving ego comes into an awareness (of itself). The ego can be evolving; it can be destroyed, but the I AM would not be.

The ego is a combination or complex of the part that comes from the Soul divisible about bodies (I AM) and the body itself. The I AM principle isn't overpowered by ignorance but its ego is. "Overpower" means to subjugate to the functioning of the body; this ego part is in ignorance. It is only the part divisible about bodies, not divine part, which is evolving, which is learning through bodies.

That part of the Soul which is divisible about bodies, and seeks always to be body, is the principle of reincarnation. This part is responsible for the urge to procreation, also to seek life again and again. This evolving part is the reproductive soul, which is eventually withdrawn or "drawn in".

See [Plotinus, Ennead] III.4.6. "Emancipated souls . . . have taken up with them the phase divisible about bodies . . ."

Bodies in their own nature cannot receive Soul except in its partitive mode. Part of your mind is in the body, and the divisibility of mind is because of body -- remove the body, you have one mind.

Wherever (the Soul) is present, it is present entire. The unity is never sundered, no matter how divisible it appears. Where it is divisible, it is present in its entirety. Divisible and indivisible is the very nature (of Soul). Where Soul is, the individual is totally present, and carries the whole definition with it. The sage's divisible phase is withdrawn, so that he has to force himself willingly to reincarnate.

UNIVERSAL SOUL; NO CESSATION OF MANIFESTATION; COSMIC ASMITA AS SOURCE OF THE WORLD-IDEA

PB [27.2.48 & Persp. p. 375 (BROWN VINYL, p. 272)]: The point which appears in space is a point of light. It spreads and spreads and spreads and becomes the World-Mind. God has emerged out of Godhead. And out of the World-Mind the world itself emerges--not all at once, but in various stages. From that great light come all other and lesser lights, come the suns and the planets, the galaxies, the universes, and all the mighty hosts of creatures small and great, of beings just beginning to sense and others fully conscious, aware, wise. And with the world appear the opposites, the dual principle which can be detected everywhere in Nature, the yin and yang of Chinese thought.

Space is used in the original sense, it's not a qualified space--It's the receptacle, an arena.

This quote is referring to the [Sun in Aquarius], the light from the Universal Soul. The Demiurge is a combination of the 8^th house Idea and the Ideas he has formulated. The 10^th H. and the [Sun [in Aquarius]] that belongs to the Ring is a kind of functioning that's going on. From the combination of the 10^th H. and the 11^th H. [Sun [in Aquarius]] is thrown out all the Suns and galaxies and stars.

The Universal Soul is logically prior to the appearance of galaxies and stars. There's no beginning or "big bang" -- that's like saying that at some point Universal Manifestation or the body of God has ceased to be. However, there can be pralaya of our solar logos.

PB [27.2.51 & Persp. p. 376 (BROWN VINYL, p. 271)] If the divine activity ceases in one universe it continues at the same time in another. If our World-Mind returns to its source in the end, there are other World-Minds and other worlds which continue. Creation is a thing without beginning and without end, but there are interludes and periods of rest just as there are in the individual's own life in and outside the body.

There is no cessation of universal manifestation. Each solar logos can withdraw into itself in thought, but there's never a period when some solar logos isn't manifesting.

There are these two phases, the Demiurge, when it creates the Absolute Mind, and the functioning that organizes that substratum. The material substratum among the starry hosts never goes into pralaya; when the manifestation of one solar logos has withdrawn, the body given to it by the Demiurge does not manifest but does not cease to exist. The material body of God does not disappear.

This body of our Sun is superimposed by the Isvara of our universe and takes on an appearance. When the solar logos withdraws its qualities it does not mean the body given to it by the Demiurge does not disappear--it is unmanifest insofar as those qualities superimposed upon it are withdrawn.

Modern physics (E=MC²) confirms this--the transformation of matter and energy ensures that the "material" never disappears. The forms or "matter" can disappear, but the energy is the eternal substrate from the Demiurge.

PB [27.3.66 (BROWN VINYL, p. 272)]: Mind active and mind in quiescence are not two separate beings, but two aspects of one and the same being as they appear to human inquiry. Mind active expresses itself in the heart of man as his higher self and in the universe as the World-Mind.

The active phase of the Asmita principle of Isvara manifests in the heart of man and as the World-Idea. They have to be seen as one aspect and not as two.

The individual soul is not getting its essence from the Cosmic Soul--only its world from the C.S.--its own higher self is its Asmita principle.

If the Infinite did not include the finite, it would not be infinite. The finite alone excludes the Infinite, not vice versa.

KARMA AND THE WORLD-IDEA

PB [9.3.439 (ORANGE XIV, p. 55 #131)]: Whatever happens to a man is in some way the consequence of what he did in the past, including the far-gone past of former births. But it may also be in part the imposition of the World-Idea's pattern upon his own karmic pattern. If it comes, such imposition is irresistible for then the planetary rhythms are involved.

Vic's assumption: The individual's karma is absolutely the result of conditions in the world and the individual has no free choice in the things he did.

The individual in a variety of incarnations did certain things not in conformity with the World-Idea, and has built a karma not in conformity with the World-Idea--this is a possibility. If there were all of a sudden a change in the circulation of the planets or the World-Idea, the individual would have to conform to that change, like it or not. There's also the case of accidents that happen to large numbers of people, which has to be corrected later on.

All the time it's happening that the ego and the World-Idea are seldom in conformity with one another.

CYCLIC/ SPIRAL REPETITION IN THE UNIVERSE

PB [Unpublished (26c-b.0 (13v/21/104)) (RED XIII, p. 21 #104)]: In this universal movement which is the outcome of the World-Mind's thinking, everything and every event eternally repeats itself and every event eternally recurs, but everything and every event calls its opposite into existence. Not only is cyclic repetition an essential feature of the cosmic process but cyclic contrast is an essential feature of each repetition.

Plotinus said that Socrates would come back again, and likewise the archetypes of all individuals will recur. Another universe will appear; another Socrates will come back but it won't be the same Soul--This is the theory of eternal recurrence in the universe. [Note: See Plotinus, V.7.1.]

These same vehicles and situations are similar, will [be] repeated in another Manvantara, as other souls will go through similar experiences.

According to Plotinus, there's discord even in the higher spheres; one Sun kicks another out of its spot.

Cyclic means spiral. But the Absolute doesn't evolve, the planetary spheres are manifestations of the Absolute, but are not the Absolute. The whole of universal manifestation can be taken as a stairway up, but these levels within it are spiraling and spiraling in lesser cycles and greater cycles. For instance, our solar system is a unit within itself, but it is within a larger unity and so forth. However, the Absolute doesn't change.

PB [27.3.19 (BROWN VINYL, p. 272)]: The act of creative meditation which brings the universe into being is performed by the World-Mind. We, insofar as we experience the world, are participating in this act unconsciously. It is a thought-world and we are thought-beings.

In a wider sense this refers to the formulation of the whole universal manifestation, the pouring out of galaxies, solar systems, etc. Though insofar as PB brings in the human being, the restriction is to our world. In other words, we participate in our Cosmic Soul's (Isvara's) Asmita, not in universal manifestation. We're restricted, we only take in our Comic Soul's Asmita principle.

INSIGHT; OVERSELF AS GURU

Commentary on "Insight" from Un-revised Essays*:

No man becomes the Divine Godhead, he can only stand in the light of the Godhead, which reveals all else. Thereby the whole universe becomes available to him as divine thought. To accept insight without working for it is as ridiculous as wanting to be an engineer without ever handling an engine. One who expects to attain by handing oneself over completely to a master fails to realize the importance of their own efforts. A master only tries to help disciples recognize what is within them. Insight can never be a gift; it must be spiritual evolution. The appearance of a guru will come at the right moment in history, but that moment will be determined by his Overself, not another man's.

No embodied intermediary can do it for anyone else. Instruction must come pure and undefiled by human limitations. Only the Infinite can reveal the infinite to a person. Groundless, he must stand alone before God, for God's deputy, the Overself, is a real being; his cry for help will not be ignored.

*[Notes from jf: This essay was published as Paul Brunton's "Insight," in Essays on the Quest (republished as Instructions for Spiritual Living). What is typed above (from the scanned 1983 transcript) is similar to published "Insight" essay, pp. 130-132 in Essays on the Quest; some phrases identical, but the version read from, and typed, in 1983 was prior to editing (in which Anthony was involved prior to his death) and publication, perhaps accounting for the differences.]

[File 1983 0626 PBP F06.PDF Ends]