Wednesday, July 6th, 1983

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

July 6a, 1983

PB PARAS; PHILOSOPHY; FALLACY OF DIVINE IDENTITY

TOPIC: PB Paras

SUBJECT: Philosophy

SUBSUBJECTS: Fallacy of Divine Identity, Overself, Insight and Intuition, Double Knower, Sage, Reproductive Soul

CONTENTS:

PB PARAS ON THE FALLACY OF DIVINE IDENTITY

UNION WITH THE INDIVIDUAL OVERSELF VS. UNION WITH GOD

THE SAGE CAN BECOME AWARE THAT THE ONE IS; INSIGHT

MORE PB PARAS ON THE FALLACY OF DIVINE IDENTITY

CORRECT AND INCORRECT INTERPRETATIONS OF MYSTICAL UNION

INSIGHT AND INTUITION

FINITE MINDS AND INFINITE MIND; MORE PB PARAS ON THE FALLACY OF DIVINE IDENTITY

ERROR ON THE PART OF THE LOWER KNOWER; WE MUST TEACH OUR SOUL; THE FACULTY OF UNDERSTANDING

IMPENETRABILITY OF THE GODHEAD

THE SAGE CAN WITHDRAW THE REPRODUCTIVE SOUL

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 Some Paul Brunton Notebook paras are, as of 2018, unpublished, and are noted as such.

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

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: V.3.4, V.3.6

NOTES:

• This is 1983 07/06a, PB Paras; Philosophy Evening Class, and the first entry associated with this date. 1983 07/06b = Western Tradition; Coomaraswamy; Time & Eternity Seminar.

• 1992-93 transcribers thought might want to use some with Overself transcripts.

• PB paras are from Red Volume 18v.

• Earlier transcript versions exist.

TRANSCRIBED from Audio Cassette Tapes (and also using the original Pat Campbell 1983 transcript as a basis) by JF, MS, EM et al. in 1992-93 as part of the set for Living Wisdom. V11 version 2018. Reformatted from V11 version by JRM & JF 2019-2020, with Subheads and Table of Contents added by JRM. In 2024, IT updates prefatory matter and footer, replaces tape markers with audio file markers, expands Subsubjects, alters some Subheads to make more accurate, completes Book List, adds Plotinus quotes section, fixes errors/typos, adds new notes within transcript, reformats to accord with new conventions. Readable edited transcript – V14.1r.

AUDIO FILES: 1983 0706c, 1983 0706d. [Note 1: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files. Note 2: In 2024, REP Studio improves the sound quality of both audio files, though still hard to hear in places, and cuts off non-class related material from end of file d.]

1983 07/06a at Wisdom's Goldenrod

PB Paras; Philosophy; Fallacy of Divine Identity

Readable Edited Transcript

PB PARAS ON THE FALLACY OF DIVINE IDENTITY

[Audio File 1983 0706c Begins]

RC: . . . But I think as you can see it's going to be all targeted towards one particular misunderstanding. These are quotes that Anthony picked out. They haven't really been put in any kind of order, I'll just read them. There are a lot of them, more than we're going to get read tonight for sure. So maybe the best way to start in is reading, and if one comes up that seems to be particularly discussion-worthy, we might as well work on it. But it's one of those blocks of material that the more that we can get, the better we'll understand it.

Also, I think it's a block of material that we really have to forget about anything else we've read--and not associate this with anything else--just take these quotes in themselves for now. Focus on this one point.

There's a section in here entitled "Fallacy of Divine Identity" and there are several pages that address themselves to the fallacy of divine identity.

PB: "How presumptuous is he . . ." (unpublished, 18v/12/1)

PB: "Whatever knowledge a mystic . . ." (25.1.138)

PB: "An error of mysticism . . ." (25.1.95)

PB: "I find no more me . . ." (unpublished, 18v/12/4)

PB: "It is not for the philosopher . . ." (25.1.163)

PB: "When, however, the content . . ." (Perspectives p. 343 only)

PB: "We exist always . . ." (25.1.73 & Perspectives p. 342)

PB: "If the mystic really attains . . ." (25.1.66)

PB: "The Real is wholly . . ." (25.1.114)

PB: "When they assert that they have united with God, they have, if truly attained, united with God's deputy, their higher self, their own divine soul--which is not the same. And if they have deceived themselves then they have united only with their conception of God. That is, they have never gone outside the enclosing circle of their own thought." (25.1.131) (repeated)

PB: "The World-Mind transcends . . ." (unpublished, 18v/13/12)

PB: "But if it is impossible . . ." (25.1.142)

PB: "The realization of the Overself . . ." (25.1.107)

PB: "This condition . . ." (25.1.72 & Perspectives p. 343)

AD: Shall we discuss (inaudible)?

RC: Should I read those four again?

AD: Take them one at a time.

PB: "When they assert . . ." (repeated)

(long silence)

AD: There's enough material (inaudible).

Student comments and: We can't hear you.

UNION WITH THE INDIVIDUAL OVERSELF VS. UNION WITH GOD

AD: Well, some people can receive insights (Q: PC transcript = deceive themselves) and they speak about unification or union with God, and that's something that's going on in their imagination.

You see, the first part-- (silence)

(RC reading)

PB: "When they assert that they have united with God, they have, if truly attained, united with God's deputy, their higher self, their own divine soul--which is not the same. . . ."

AD: The distinction that's being drawn out here is that when there is "union with God," what you really mean is union with your own Higher Self. You don't go beyond that Higher Self or what he calls the Overself. And that's, properly speaking, union with God. Now it is YOUR God; it is not God in the sense that we say the Intellectual-Principle is God. So it is equivalent to what we were speaking about last week when we said that when union takes place it's the lower self becoming completely absorbed, or aware, of this principle in it, which is absolute and which I refer to as "Absolute Self," or PB would call it the Overself.

[Note: AD copyedited the above paragraph (only) of the Pat Campbell transcript to read as follows: "The distinction that's being drawn out--is that when there is"union with God," what we really mean is union with our own Higher Self or soul. We do not go beyond that Higher Self, the being-consciousness that we are--the Overself. And properly speaking, that is union with our God. It is not God in the sense that we would say the Intellectual-Principle or World-Mind is God. When that the union that takes place is the lower self or that consciousness which is partial and identified with the organism introspecting into itself and tracing or intent upon discovering its source in it, which is Absolute and which I refer to as "Absolute" . . ."]

AD, cont: This is what the union is with. Now when people speak about "union with the Supreme," or the Ultimate, they don't understand--at least philosophically they don't understand. That's your Overself, the absolute I AM, is God's deputy. This is what you achieve union with.

St: (inaudible)

AD: There's something beyond that, too. (inaudible) I'm not saying there's no God. That's not what's being discussed. What's being discussed is, what is the union with what principle. And to speak about union with the Supreme Principle is beside the point and shows that the person hasn't philosophically understood what is happening.

CdA: At that higher level-- (inaudible)

AD: Well, there are divisions. The cleavage between the Universal Mind and the soul, or the Overself which is a ray coming forth from it, is one that could never be obliterated or erased. It will always be there. The individual Overself will never, under any conditions, become God.

CdA: (inaudible)/AD: (inaudible)/CdA: (inaudible)

AD: We could say that between the ego, the way we are now, and the Higher Self there is a cleavage, and ultimately we want to align the ego to that Higher Self. But between the Higher Self and the Universal Mind or God or the Void--whatever name you wish to call it--there is an ABSOLUTE cleavage.

CdA: . . .

AD: I know what you said. I know what I said. (laughter)

St: (inaudible)/AD: (inaudible)

NH: Does PB mean the Higher Self?

AD: Universal or Higher, your Overself. (hard to hear) What I mean by cleavage is that it's not something that you're going to cross over and stay on the other side. There CAN be a sort of trance state where you become aware of the Void, but you cannot stay there. You are soul and to soul you must return.

So what he's making clear here is that the mystic who has union has to understand with what he does has union with. If he says "God," or the Universal Mind, he's mistaken. The union is with his own Higher Self. You can call it the Saksin, if you're a Vedantist; you can call it the Witness-I, it doesn't matter. But that's what the union is with. Let's try the next one.

PB: "The World-Mind transcends all human accessibility. The mystic never reaches beyond its deputy in himself." (unpublished, 25a-fdi.0 (18v/13/12))

RC: He says that the World-Mind, the world, the World-Idea (inaudible) as an entirety and within that one of the ideas is "human being," the Idea of Man in the body, and that that Logos in Man in me is as high as I can come into identity with--you can't go beyond and come into identity with the totality of all the ideas in the world. Even though I manifest my own World-Idea, and manifest it in the context of being a human being, not in the context of being the whole world.

AD: So what he's saying here is (inaudible).

PC?: Anthony, would you repeat that?

AD: (inaudible)

BS: Would you say there's a fundamental difference in nature between the Overself and the Universal Mind?

AD: (inaudible) A fundamental difference, let's say, in the scope of power. Under "power" here we would subsume knowledge, omniscience, omnipresence--all these things. It's quite different; the scope is quite ungraspable, even by the Overself.

Comparatively speaking, there is a similarity between the I AM principle or the Overself and the World-Mind. But the point here that I think he's trying to make is to introduce the hiatus, that total incomprehensibility of Universal Mind. (Note: This paragraph to here and above paragraph are completely inaudible on the tape.) Whereas one can reach to the heights of his own Overself and there have a penetrating knowledge of who he is and what he is, but he cannot possibly do that with the World-Mind. He can't reach out to those dimensions; they're beyond anything. So when a Vedantist or others speak about "I've achieved union with God," what they really mean is that they have achieved the status of being a Witness-I or the impersonal I AM. When they say, "I'm God," that's an exaggeration.

As he points out, this doesn't mean that the experience that the mystic is having of the Higher Self is not authentic. It is an authentic experience; it's quite real. You recognize that your Overself is the Principle of Intellectuality for you. But it is still a misunderstanding if you go one step further, like many Vedantists do, and say "I am God." Let's try the next one.

THE SAGE CAN BECOME AWARE THAT THE ONE IS; INSIGHT

PB: "The realization of the Overself enables us to taste something of the flavour of World-Mind's life but it is only the flavour, not the full life itself. Flint says,"Man is made in the image of God, but man is not the measure of God."" (25.1.107)

AD: I think you can see that there's a kind of sanity that's pervasive here, a nice balanced, sane attitude. (inaudible) Next one, Randy.

PB: "This condition is commonly said to be nothing less than"union with God." What is really attained is the higher self, the ray of the divine sun reflected in man, the immortal soul in fact--God Himself being forever utterly beyond man's finite capacity to comprehend. However the mystical experience is an authentic one and the conflict between interpretations does not dissolve its authenticity." (25.1.72 & Perspectives p. 343)

AD: Let's continue.

PB: "No mortal may penetrate the mystery of the ultimate mind in its own nature--which means in its static inactive being. The Godhead is not only beyond human conception but also beyond mystic perception. But Mind in its active dynamic state, that is, the World-Mind, and rather its ray in us called the Overself, is within range of human perception, communion, and even union. It is this that the mystic really finds when he believes that he has found God." (25.1.71 & Perspectives p. 343) (repeated)

DR: (inaudible)

AD: He did not say that the mystic whose perceptions extend that far of its--the One's--existence, but he cannot understand the NATURE of that existence. He can become aware THAT the One IS, but he cannot know WHAT it is. You can know something about what the World-Mind is--that is that you're perched, so to speak, at the height of the Overself and, that is, that you have insight. You've acquired this faculty of insight, and with that you can know something of the nature of World-Mind. But that faculty of insight won't take you any further than the discovery that there IS the Absolute. No further than that. What its nature is is utterly incomprehensible. It's a mystery, and it's going to remain a mystery.

DR: It's somehow a knowable mystery.

AD: Yes. That's the one thing the great sages will assure you: that It is.

That's where agnosticism might be justified; when the agnostic says we cannot know anything about the One, he's probably correct.

DR: (inaudible)

AD: Oh, yes. (inaudible) That that is, he's trying to point out (inaudible), there is a justifiable side to agnosticism in the sense that--when it claims that we cannot know anything about the Absolute Reality. But I think they go further than that--the agnostics.

DR: But you do say that there are quotes . . . (inaudible) . . . that this particular quote gives you somewhat of the flavor of that mystery of that perception that the One is, that the World-Mind is, and there's something of it that you can know, but never totally?

AD: Yes, of course, never totally. You can only know little fragments.

DR: On the other hand, the notion that all you can ever know is your own soul is something very comforting. It's a reason for looking at the world. . . .

AD: David, you're stretching yourself. Don't try to generalize all the quotes. Don't do that. Use one quote at a time. Their significance is too vast to try to generalize or summarize what PB is doing in these things. I think Randy was quite correct in not trying to do that. Later on, maybe, when we have filled in a lot of pieces and we've got a lot of the jigsaw puzzle together, then maybe later on we could see where a particular quote would be appropriate, in what context, because we would be bringing to it this background of knowledge. But for now it's better to let it ride. Try to understand one quote, stop there, and go on to the next, and keep doing that for a while. Eventually you build up a sufficient background so that you get a general view of the doctrine, and then as you read you could place each one in its proper context as you go along. You could even, you know--categorize.

SS: When you say that you have developed some insight . . . (PC paraphrase = "developing some insight.")

AD: It's not some.

SS: You've developed it--

AD: You either have it or you don't.

SS: An aspect of your own Higher Self--

AD: When you reach the Higher Self, it's the same as reaching insight. You can see both ways: You can become aware of the Source of the Reality or the substratum that underlies (inaudible) your own being, which would be the Void Mind, and you could also see the reality that is the substratum for the world that you perceive.

AH: (inaudible) You would be aware of the reality of that . . . you can't be what it is but you are aware that it is. Is that awareness by default, as it were? Is it positive knowledge of the way things are ultimately, or is it established by default? I really don't understand how you speak of awareness of being apart from that way (inaudible). . . . I'd like a clarification of that transition in terms of mystical experience, say a very profound experience of the Overself--at some point you can speak about a higher experience (inaudible) of the One, what is that transition?

AD: In other words, I think the most that they (mystics) can say is that "It Is." It's not knowledge by default; it is the most authentic kind of knowledge one can have. As a matter of fact, it's often referred to as "pure knowledge." (inaudible)

AH: Is it anything like the knowledge that we usually have?

AD: No. If we refer to it as absolutely pure knowledge where even the distinction that exists in the Intellectual between the Object and the Idea is only logically distinct, then in the One itself even that distinction is abolished. To come back and try to explain that kind of knowledge, I think, we'd be wasting our breath. Plotinus attempts it, and in certain cases, I think more than anyone that I know of, succeeded in portraying that. But those are special cases that we have.

RC: By analogy, like there are two levels. When you can say with certitude that to know that you don't know something, that you're referring to something to say that you don't know knowledge, that can transpose that analogically to say that on the higher level there would be a knowing figure aware of something which isn't knowable at all, it can't be known.

AD: Yes, because there on the higher level the fundamental difficulty is that you're not even soul.

RC: It can be spoken about as a knowing state, what the knowing state is knowing--

AD: --is Itself; and its knowing is not distinct from Itself. That's what they mean by pure knowledge. Even in the Intellectual there IS some residue between the Object-In-The-Intelligible and the Object. But in the One itself even that distinction is completely abolished. If the soul has the experience of that, the soul has to be left behind. You can only understand that if (inaudible).

RG: You can only understand the intelligible when the-- I don't even understand how the experience of the Overself or the I AM that that understanding as a knowing act isn't also a thought.

AD: Try to elaborate.

RG: It seems that at any of those levels, starting with the Overself, and the contact with that would have to be a knowing act of the Overself without any intermediary. Otherwise you wouldn't have access to the knower, you'd always be knowing an object, and that wouldn't be a state of knowing the Self. By definition you can't know the Self. By definition you would have to know it that way; otherwise, you'd always be knowing the content of it.

AD: And that would remind you of the state of knowledge that exists in the Intellectual-Principle.

RG: To talk about what the differences are . . . I don't know what it means to say that in the Intellectual-Principle, the kind of distinction that exists between the knowing act and an object seems totally un-understandable from the experiential viewpoint of the Real. Maybe you can logically distinguish them from the context, but the experience of the Real, that idea negates the experience of the Real, of (inaudible).

AD: I think they would affirm the contrary: that IS the experience of the Real.

RG: What, which?

AD: The claim that gets negated.

VM: If you say that any distinction is negated (inaudible)--

RG: Not distinction, but the knowing act as distinct from what (he knew/is known), how could that be? If you're contemplating the Real, by definition don't you have to be the thing?

AD: Yes. That's what we said is the Reality. Thought thinks itself. Intellectual-Principle thinks itself. So you have what seems like a subject-object relationship, but there's no "of."

RG: But the "seeming" is entirely from a conceptual logic, isn't it, the "seeming" of that distinction is a "seeming."

AD: Yes, that's coming from conceptual logic, formal logic. Whereas coming the other way around, being in the Intellectual-Principle, you won't use the word 'of.' The distinction we know, the experience (inaudible) is only illusory; it's only in order to provide others with some way to speak of that experience. Let's try another one.

PB: "That which he finds deep within himself is, he understands intuitively, a reflected ray from that which exists behind the whole universe but it is still only a ray." (25.1.129)

SC: What is the ray reflected into? The Overself is a reflection. What's the medium of a reflection? Is it proper to speak that way?

AD: No. Actually, you actually have a spatial metaphor in your mind. You think of the sun shining and a ray going through space.

SC: Is a way to think about it as an individuality that actually contains the I-principle from above, but because it's an individuality that immediately makes it an image?

AD: Yes, providing that the term 'image' has no necessary pictorial referent.

SC: But in some sense it has no limit.

AD: If the archetype has no limit, why should the image have one? If you bring in metaphors of the world of sensible experience to understand that, you're going to get into all kinds of difficulties.

SC: So you can't get at the distinction between Overself and World-Mind with the logical intellect.

AD: Your intellect won't do it.

AH: There must be a ray rather than the (inaudible) . . .

AD: The term 'experience' would be meaningless here. We pointed out that if the soul itself is surrendered, it is difficult to speak about "experiencing the One."

AH: In order to speak of the experience, you need some kind of referent to an individual.

AD: The ultimate reference would be the I AM.

AH: That's still a reference to individuality.

AD: Yes.

LR: (inaudible) individual . . . external . . .

LC: The individual doesn't go beyond the Overself.

AD: That is the individual. When we spoke about the Absolute Individual, that's what we mean.

LC: That's why you can say that. (inaudible)

AD: The Overself (inaudible)--

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1983 0706c Ends; Side 2 Begins)

MORE PB PARAS ON THE FALLACY OF DIVINE IDENTITY

PB: "The danger of men's deifying themselves. . ." (25.1.93 & Perspectives p. 342)

PB: "But although the Absolute is imperceptible to human powers, It has not left us utterly bereft of all means of communion. We are linked to It by something that lies hidden in the very deeps of our own being, by Its deputy to man, the divine Overself. Human power can penetrate to those deeps and discover the hidden treasure." (25.1.118)

PB: "The line of demarcation . . ." (25.2.191)

PB: "Man cannot know the Godhead . . ." (unpublished, 18v/14/15)

PB: "Man is not God . . ." (25.1.89)

PB: "The frontiers between . . ." (25.1.67)

PB: "The true explanation . . ." (25.1.98)

PB: "It is legitimate to say . . ." (Perspectives p. 343 only)

PB: "But although the Absolute in its passive state is unknowable, the Overself as representative of its active aspect, of the World-Mind, is knowable." (25.1.115)

BS: It is like we talked about the distinction between the Overself and what he's calling the World-Mind, the active phase he calls the World-Mind--

RC: He seems to be saying in this one that the Absolute in its passive stage is unknowable, but the Overself is a representative of its active aspect, and that active aspect, of which the Overself is a representative, is what he's calling the World-Mind.

S: Isn't that what we usually refer to as the One in act and in repose? (Q: This question inaudible on the tape.)

AD: He's not using that terminology. When Plotinus speaks about the double act within the One coincides and is one and the same thing, in PB's language that would be expressed differently. So if you bring in the Plotinian framework, you're going to get confused here. He's referring to this Unity, the absolutely passive Perfection or pure Perfection, and then he's speaking about the World-Mind as an activity of that pure Perfection. He's not using the term the double act.

S: Can I ask what the absolute Perfection would mean?

AD: It would still leave you with the same question. It is unknowable. We could use synonyms; we could say, "All possibilities actualized." You'd still be left with the same question: "What is this?"

CORRECT AND INCORRECT INTERPRETATIONS OF MYSTICAL UNION

PB: "God, the World-Mind, knows all things in an eternal present at once. No mystic has ever claimed, no mystic has ever dared to claim, such total knowledge. Most mystics have, however, claimed union with God. If this be true, then quite clearly they can have had only a fragmentary, not a full union.

"Philosophy, being more precise in its statements, avers that they have really achieved union not with God, but with something Godlike--the soul." (25.1.74 & Perspectives p. 343)

LC: (inaudible)

RC: He's speaking of the mystic experience as the experience in the feelings and the understanding gets formulated in the knowing, not in the feelings.

LC: (inaudible)

RC: I think it's the same experience put in two different ways, and only one of them's (inaudible). But we should distinguish the event that takes place in the understanding from the event that's called the mystical experience and saying that the event that takes place in the understanding is the philosophic realization. And it's a different experience than the mystical experience. To try to distinguish the anima--

LC: (inaudible)

RC: The latter would be more distinct.

VM: (inaudible) . . . the three approaches to the Absolute . . .

RC: PB was asking one time, what I knew about different things of how people tried to PROVE they had a certain authentic understanding or they had some insight into the nature of the Real or the (inaudible). And he was pointing out the shortcomings of schools of thought that try to (inaudible) experience. But we tried to talk about how when the insight COMES, it doesn't come as an EXPERIENCE. I think we tried to talk about how . . . a few weeks ago we tried to distinguish an event that takes place in-- (pause) --in the knower beyond any experiences.

VM: . . . the true knower is the Intellectual-Principle . . .

(Student discussion = approx. 2 min.)

AD: Let's read it again, Vic.

PB: "God, the World-Mind . . ." (repeated)

AD: If we were to try to say in a few words from the philosophic point of view what is generally meant by union with God, how could you put it? Could you say very simply, knowing knowing? (pause) Whereas the mystic would think of that as knowing God, having union with God, something outside of his own absoluteness.

VM: Knowing knowing is a very terse expression. . . . Is knowing truth in the Intellectual-Principle, or is it pure truth?

AD: I'm sorry. (inaudible)

VM: (inaudible)

AD: Knowing knowing: Immediately, that means insight. There are no objects distinct from it. You are that knowing. That's what they're referring to. That's what the mystic would be referring to as "union with God." But the philosopher would call that "union with your own Higher Self."

RG: So that experience--be it of a philosopher or a mystic--can't be different.

AD: The experience itself is not different.

RG: It depends on the way they interpret it.

AD: The interpretation is different. When he says that there are two interpretations, that you can interpret this in two ways, I think PB's trying to point out the correct way, the best way, to understand this.

DR: Why "knowing knowing," rather than just knowing? Why the second knowing?

AD: Well, from the abundance of words that I'm possessed with, I thought I'd say it twice. (laughter)

VM: You remember the expression, "the knower cannot be known"?

AD: Yes, but that didn't work. This was bound to work. You can't do anything with it!

VM: Knowing knowing.

AD: You can't do anything unless you (?know it twice?). (laughter) That's why (inaudible). It's the same as saying undifferenced knowledge, pure knowledge.

VM: In knowing knowing, is there something that is known?

AD: Knowing knowing knowing! (laughter)

VM: Is knowing known?

AD: But that's why they're both used in the present: knowing knowing. Not "knowing known." Knowing knowing prevents all that. Well, try to turn it into a subject-object relationship.

RG: He tried it.

AD: He won't succeed. That's why I have to watch out for grammarians! You could take it as a koan.

DR: (inaudible)

AD: You notice how all distinctions are canceled out in that phrase. What could you turn into the subject? What could you turn into the object? If you say knowing is the subject and knowing is the object: knowing knowing.

DR: Is it pure knowing?

AD: Undifferenced knowledge. But I think the point here to keep in mind, what PB is referring to, is that this is the experience, this is the highest experience of the Self as Absolute. Whereas, if a mystic with a religious orientation has that experience, he will tend to speak about that as "knowing God," or "union with God." So the way he interprets that experience is different from the way the philosopher would interpret it. The experience in both cases, we're assuming, is the same. Let's try another one.

INSIGHT AND INTUITION

PB: "The finite minds which are the offspring of the One Mind may not hope to rise in power or understanding to its attitude. Nevertheless, because they are inseparable from it, they may find hints of both these attributes within themselves. The Divine Essence is undiscoverable by human sense and intellect but not by human intuition and insight." (25.1.112) (repeated)

(Inaudible student discussion for 5 or 6 minutes.)

DR: Insight would be the higher faculty to understand the Overself unfolding the entirety of the World-Mind, the powers that it has. (inaudible)

AD: What you're saying is correct. Insight refers to the faculty of recognizing the substratum, so that with insight, you would see that consciousness underlies this object and that object and the third object. So insight is insight into the ultimate Reality that you are searching for.

Intuition is the REASONING about the objects. So it's a kind of absolute willing, feeling, and knowing or, if you want, we could say a highly developed willing, feeling, and knowing. So intuition could be spoken about-- So any of these three, if they're highly developed--feeling, willing, or knowing--tend to be of the nature of intuition, that is, a still, stop, silence. It's like you know something, but not anything in particular.

So when he says that insight gives you the understanding or the actual perception, the mystical perception, that water is common to both the ocean and the waves, that's insight. When we speak about insight, we're speaking about the fact of the recognition that the perceiver and what is perceived have for their substratum consciousness. That's what we're saying. But intuition is reasoning upon objects. What is the nature of the reason-principles--to understand that. Now he says that with these two faculties you could find the characteristics, or let's say you could find within yourself those attributes which are also reflections from the Intellectual-Principle. In other words, in order to understand something about the World-Idea which is within your soul, these two faculties are necessary--insight and intuition.

(inaudible student comments)

VM: . . . That union that does take place--

AD: --Is with your own Higher Self. There's no talk about ego here. There's no talk about the ego. You couldn't possibly have insight and have ego.

VM: (inaudible) . . . of the I AM into its own self-knowing phase?

AD: I wouldn't say it's a lapsing.

AD: That is what you mean by the I AM. How could the I AM lapse? That's what you mean by the I AM. It has two aspects: one is self-knowing and the other is other-knowing. Knowing-knowing and knowing-the-other.

VM: (inaudible)

AD: Look, take my word for it. Don't try to (add up/analyze) the quotes. One at a time is more than we can handle. Let's work with one. Then, when we want to go back to the other one, we'll go back to the other one.

VM: (inaudible)

AD: You know what I do with these quotes? I put one on one page, then another one on ANOTHER page. I don't even have a running reading. When one quote is done, that's it. Nothing else on that page. Now the next quote is on the other page. If I read them a couple of times so I know what the next quote is, then I shuffle them all around. Now if I've got to take that precaution, I know you've got to take it, too. Shall we try, Vic? One quote.

VM: (inaudible)

AD: You were speaking about two faculties that are necessary in order to realize the attributes of the World-Mind within us. And he says the two faculties that you need are insight and intuition. Insight is the nature, the perception, of reality. When you say insight, that is, that you know that the underlying reality of that object is consciousness, or Mind, the same way that you know that it is your reality and there is no distinction between them because there is no relationship here. So we took the example that when you recognize, or when you know, that the waves and the ocean are water, that's non-dual. There's no two things. There's only WATER. That's insight.

Now intuition is the REASONING employed on any object in manifestation. You employ the reasoning--and you can call it intuition; he calls it intuition, but I'm trying to expand it because if feeling is developed to the utmost, and willing and knowing, it is intuitive. It doesn't operate like we know it in the separative intellect. Now, with that faculty of intuition, you can intuit what the reason-principle is that underlies this particular object, and at the same time you have insight and recognize that consciousness is the substratum of all objects. If you work with only insight, if you work with only insight, then there isn't knowing OF anything. There's nothing to know anything about.

But that's not the situation. The situation is the same for the sage as for us, in the sense that there's not only a substratum of reality that underlies the appearance, but there's also the APPEARANCE WHICH WILL PERSIST. Now you want to know something about that appearance, so you have to employ the reason.

VM: (inaudible)

AD: Now, yes. Now the soul has these two faculties. Now when it wants to know or at least understand something about the World-Idea which is within it, then it has to use these two faculties. It CANNOT USE OPINION. It cannot use the separative intellect, egoistic understanding, any kind of imagery. That's all out. That's what he's saying in that quote. (inaudible)

LC: (inaudible)

AD: Intuition is always OF something. Insight, the mind perceiving itself. One we can refer to as the Higher Knower and the other as the Lower Knower. They're really not meant as a hierarchy. I think it's better to think of them as two aspects of the soul.

LC: (inaudible)

AD: Essence of Soul is Soul. You can come up with a definition of Soul--what makes a thing to be what it is. What makes Soul to be what it is--that's its essence.

EC: (inaudible)

AD: When the sage operates with insight (inaudible)--when the I AM has insight, or, let's say you're a sage, you have insight--it means that the ultimate reality, the substratum of the apparent world, is recognized to be Mind, consciousness, whatever word you want to use. This insight is in two directions: on the one hand, to its prior, the Intellectual-Principle from which it descends or has its source there, and into its content. That's what insight is. It works both ways. Insight is the recognition that Mind is the ultimate reality, and that would mean whether you face up to the transcendent source of your being or whether you face down and look at the substratum of the manifested world within you. Either way, you will see that Mind is the substratum. That's insight. There is NO VARIATION.

Intuition can be applied to the lower phase. You can intuit, in the manifestations that are taking place within this I AM, the reason-principles that constituted that object and made it to be what it is. (inaudible) Intuition into the higher realm doesn't work. But intuition will be necessary to formulate--let's say if you want to formulate what insight is. You have to use an intuitive approach to language to formulate the sentences in a certain way to give a person an understanding.

JL: (inaudible) . . . insight into the World-Idea . . .

AD: The insight, as we said, is an intuition into the substratum of the World-Idea (inaudible). When the sage says--or when the commentators say--that the sage sees only Brahman, that's not true. He also sees the world. What they mean is when they say that the sage sees Brahman is that the sage has insight; he recognizes that Mind or consciousness is the substratum. To say that the sage doesn't eat his food is absurd. He also sees his food, and he eats that.

So these two faculties are necessary in order for the soul to understand itself and its contents.

FINITE MINDS AND INFINITE MIND; MORE PB PARAS ON THE FALLACY OF DIVINE IDENTITY

VM: (Could we talk about) the finite minds in the quote?

AD: Yes, you brought that up. Would you read the first part of that sentence?

PB: "The finite minds which are the offspring of the One Mind may not hope to rise in power or understanding to its attitude. . . ." (25.1.112)

VM/JL/(both inaudible)

AD: In terms of a comparison to the Intellectual, they're finite. I think he's being drastic, but nonetheless to the point, so that no one would dare make the comparison that the finite mind could become identical with the Infinite Mind. He makes it uncrossable. He says finite mind and Infinite Mind--you can't jump that. There's no way you're going to get over the hurdle.

JL/TS/

AD: When he means the ego, he's saying there's never a case (inaudible). There's no doubt about that. Let's have a few more.

PB: "It is a fallacy to think . . ." (25.2.198 & Perspectives)

PB: "Philosophy rejects . . ." (25.1.150)

[Audio File 1983 0706c Ends]

[Audio File 1983 0706d Begins]

PB: "Man is not God. . . ." (25.1.57)

PB: "What the mystic does attain . . ." (25.1.84)

PB: "We do not accept . . ." (25.2.188)

PB: "When a man says that he has communed with God, be he a great prophet in trance or a humble layman in prayer, the truth is that he has really communed with something within himself which is so closely related to God that he may perhaps be pardoned for his error. But still it is not God. It is his soul, the Overself." (25.1.101)

PB: "It makes the mystic a channel only for the cosmic mind, not one with it. He touches the cosmic and does not become entirely transformed into it." (25.1.109)

ERROR ON THE PART OF THE LOWER KNOWER; WE MUST TEACH OUR SOUL; THE FACULTY OF UNDERSTANDING

RS: (inaudible) (You) cannot push the dream analogy to the level of the relationship of Overself to World-Mind, because there the relationship is not unconscious as it is between the dream self and the waking self. If the relationship is conscious then where does the possibility of error in interpreting an experience arise, unless the ego enters into it.

AB: Didn't PB say to someone that this interpretation of mystical experience by the ego is almost immediate?

St/AB/(both inaudible)

AD: (inaudible) You're saying, how could the I AM be mistaken? How could the Witness-I be mistaken?

RS: If the relationship is conscious, then where in a true experience of the Overself (inaudible)?

AD: The error won't be there, because if the insight is given, at that moment when you experience the Universal Mind, there's no experience OF something. Insight precludes that. It will recognize that the substratum in BOTH is consciousness. So from that point of view there won't be a mistake. But from the point of view of interpreting that experience, which means you have to bring in all the understanding that you have, then the error arises. In other words, it is not an error on the part of the Higher Knower; it is an error on the part of the lower knower, and by lower knower we mean the reasoning faculty all the way down to the ego level.

RS: Are you saying that the mystic's (inaudible) the need for sufficient preparation?

AD: Yes, definitely. And even as a matter of fact, Plotinus even delivers a warning, and he says in one of the passages that we must TEACH OUR SOULS. [Note: See Plotinus, V.3.6, seventh paragraph.] So right there he's warning us that we must have the correct doctrine, or we will misunderstand the experiences that we have.

St: (inaudible)

AD: I can't hear you; speak louder.

St: The impression I got from Randy earlier, this interpretation--

AD: Then you want to ask Randy.

RC: . . . The experience was the same for them, but the understanding is different.

(Student discussion about 3-4 minutes.)

AD: These are very, very difficult and obscure points. Even a man like Al-Hallaj, who had studied in Persia and India with yoga teachers, the experience was so overwhelming that he went around saying, "I am God." And they applied Neronian tortures; they stripped the skin off his flesh. It's an experience that we can hardly put up with. (inaudible) (laughter) These experiences, without the necessary purificatory discipline and philosophic understanding, will come out absolutely assured that he is God.

We're speaking now about the experience of union with your own Higher Self, which, when it is interpreted, it is the lower self that interprets that experience.

St: But while in that experience (inaudible).

AD: You have to speak louder.

St: But while in that experience the insight is operative.

AD: Insight is what?

St: Operative.

AD: Yes, there's insight there.

(St/RG/ = 2 min.)

St: Here the term 'understanding' is being used.

AD: In the same way Plotinus refers to the second knower as being the faculty of understanding. [Note: See Plotinus, V.3.4.] I'm not using it in any technical sense. It actually refers to the lower knower as the faculty of understanding.

St: That would be intuition.

AD: Precisely!

St: But intuition--

AD: But intuition is the faculty of understanding, the absolute of knowing, willing, and feeling: these are all being used synonymously here.

LG?: Then intuition cannot be incorrect?

AD: Correct understanding?

LG?: Then intuition cannot be the same as understanding in the way you're using it here.

(inaudible St/AD/)

AD: But now you're taking words and you're making them into shibboleths. (laughter) You're going to show me that understanding is not intuition and intuition is not understanding or the faculty of reasoning.

RG: But you said it was--you're using them equatably.

AD: When you say you understand something, you're not speaking in the sense that you have an intuition about something, right? Now, when Plotinus says that the second soul is the faculty of understanding, how would you interpret that? That it's the faculty of opinion? Of wrong knowledge? How would you translate the word 'understanding' there? In other words, it's a reasoning faculty. Is there much difference between using the word 'reason' and using the word 'understanding,' except that I establish that usage?

St: (inaudible) Intuition is (inaudible), but insight is (inaudible).

AD: I thought the verbal formulation of that intuition could be erroneous.

(RG/RC/ = approx. 1 minute)

AD: I have no respect for words. And I don't work with words as though they had fixed, eternal meanings. As a matter of fact, in the next sentence the word might be used differently than in the sentence before.

St: (inaudible)

AD: Understanding would be more like the discursive faculty in comparison to intuition. That's the general usage.

RG: . . . dianoetic understanding . . .

AD: What?

RG: Dianoetic.

AD: What? I didn't hear you.

RG: Understanding and intuition.

AD: Intuition is always intuition of SOME THING. You cannot have insight of something. (inaudible)

(short student discussion)

IMPENETRABILITY OF THE GODHEAD

PB: "The absoluteness of the Godhead is complete and basic. It is not categorically identical with man any more than the ray is with the sun; they are different although not more fundamentally different than the ray from the sun. Hence there can be no direct communication and no positive relationship between them. A profound impenetrability, an existence beyond comprehension, is the first characteristic of the Godhead, when gazed at by human sight." (28.2.48 & Perspectives p. 382) (repeated)

AD: Human sight?

TS: Yes.

AD: What do you think that means?

TS: I think that it means from the station of the I AM there is no penetration of the Godhead.

AD: Certainly it won't be SEEING of any kind. I'm just asking in terms of the correctness. Would it refer to INSIGHT rather than sight?

TS: If insight is limited to the function only of the I AM, then the Overself as universal--

AD: If we say that it's a faculty that belongs to the I AM--

TS: Then we're saying that insight can't penetrate--

AD: --into that Absolute Existent. I don't know, I'm asking.

RC: It seems it could penetrate into it; it just can't comprehend it.

AD: Yes.

St's: (inaudible)

AD: Insight is the realization that Mind is ultimate. But as to what the nature of what this Mind is, it's ever incomprehensible no matter which way we approach it: insight or intuition or any of the reasoning faculties. It's totally beyond any of those faculties. You could know of its existence--he's not denying that--but you can't know what the existence is. To know that something exists is one thing; to know what it is is a whole different question.

DB: Can that realization keep growing? (paraphrase/hard to hear)

AD: I think he's categorically denying that as a possibility. (inaudible) No matter how far it goes, no matter how far the sage's realization extends, and goes on extending, I think he's saying categorically it will never comprehend the nature of that Ultimate Existence.

DB: No, no.

AD: He's speaking about (inaudible).

(Student discussion for about 10 minutes)

AD: There's another way you could (inaudible) how they relate. Well, you say A is related to B, but he says there's no positive relationship between the Overself and the faculty of (insight?/(inaudible)) and the Absolute existence. It's like saying here--bring the two into relationship.

DB: No relationship in a formal sense, but--

(More student discussion & quote reread)

TS: There's a suggestion from the back to go on.

THE SAGE CAN WITHDRAW THE REPRODUCTIVE SOUL

PB: "The difference between the individual and the universal self persists throughout the incarnations and no mystical emotionalism or metaphysical jugglery can end it. It will end indeed not by the individual transforming himself into the greater being but by his merging himself into it, that is, by the disappearance of his separate consciousness in the pure essence of all consciousness. But it need not so end unless he wants it." (25.2.213)

(Student comments)

AD?: (inaudible)

VM: . . . In other words, the sage does have the option of abandoning the I AM and becoming totally absorbed in the Universal?

AD: I don't think you have to go that far.

VM: How far do you want to go?

AD: He refuses to become manifest. In other words, that aspect of the soul which becomes divisible about bodies is withdrawn.

VM: But there still can be an I AM that associates itself with a historical entity or body (inaudible). Still in that case you have a distinction between the I AM and the Universal Overself. (It may) be not apparent--

AD: There would be a distinction, yes, but I think the point here is that he would remain as pervasive being. That's the way I would understand absorption into Being. It's not that the I AM gets dissolved, but that it remains as a pure principle of intellectuality without, let's say, incarnating in the flesh anymore, and as such would have the characteristic of pervasiveness. The same as (inaudible).

VM: It seems to sound, like Randy said, that there is the possibility of merger.

(Student discussion = about 2 min.)

AB: The I AM chooses not to reincarnate (inaudible) but it wouldn't actualize in that manifestation.

AD: . . . withdraws the reproductive soul completely. I didn't even know that that could be done. I know it could do it for periods of time, but I didn't know it could be forever. (This paragraph is not on the tape, but is from the PC transcript.)

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1983 0706d Ends; Side 2 Begins)

(Students & AD = all inaudible)

AD: The first sentence--

PB: "The difference between . . ." (entire para reread)

(Student discussion = 1 min.)

LDm: There's the other quotes, that even the sage must reincarnate.

AD: Well, reincarnation doesn't necessarily mean in a fleshly body.

VM: (inaudible)

AD: There's quite a difference.

(RC/St)

PB: ". . . It will end indeed not by the individual transforming himself into the greater being but by his merging himself into it, that is, by the disappearance of his separate consciousness in the pure essence of all consciousness. . . ."

RC: He says . . . that's the disappearance of the separate consciousness.

PD: You can't think of the Asmita principle in its highest aspect as a separate consciousness, when it's all-pervading.

AD: (He doesn't say?/(inaudible)) that's the part of consciousness that becomes divisible about bodies. That CAN be withdrawn; the sage does have the capacity to withdraw that. So that (inaudible).

DB: (inaudible) the reproductive consciousness . . . it merges . . .

AD: Not that it merges; it's withdrawn. It's a faculty of the soul. It's one of the faculties of the soul. The soul employs that in order for it to incarnate in a fleshly body. That's a fundamental urge. It might even be thought of as the principle of reincarnation. And it is that principle which seeks constantly to re-embody itself. The possibility of the spiritual person is to withdraw that faculty or the desire to incarnate. That can be withdrawn. It can reach the point where he no longer seeks earthly incarnation, in which case then we can say that he is not so much absorbed as the withdrawal of that reproductive soul into the unity of the soul will prevent the further appearance of this soul in a material body.

DB: But this withdrawal won't alter the relationship that the Asmita principle has always had with the Universal? That remains the same.

AD: No, that won't alter.

RC: . . . One time he did say to me that ultimately--and he did repeat it--ultimately the ego will come back. It won't lapse. Almost everything that we've read so far has been saying just the opposite but (inaudible) that will only happen if he wants it.

AD: I want to hear the last. (Rings bell) Ok. Thank you (very/for that) much.

[Audio File 1983 0706d Ends]