Wednesday, September 28th, 1983

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

September 28, 1983

PB PARAS; MEDITATION; INTERIOR WORD

TOPIC: PB Paras

SUBJECT: Meditation

SUBSUBJECTS: Interior Word, Visions, Mental Being

CONTENTS:

GUIDANCE THROUGH THE INTERIOR WORD

DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN VISIONS AND THE INTERIOR WORD; EXPECTANCY

DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN APPEARANCE OF A TEACHER AND THE INTERIOR WORD

DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN AUDITORY HALLUCINATIONS AND THE INTERIOR WORD

DAIMONS AND THE INTERIOR WORD

THE HEART CENTER AND THE INTERIOR WORD

DIALOGUE AND THE INTERIOR WORD

MENTAL BEING

VOICE OF THE SILENCE

DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN A MENTAL IMPRESSION AND AN AUDIBLE SOUND

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

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 Some Paul Brunton Notebook paras are, as of 2018, unpublished, and are noted as such.

• Paul Brunton, Essays on the Quest, "The Interior Word" (new edition entitled Instructions for Spiritual Living)

• H.P. Blavatsky, The Voice of the Silence

• Richard Weiss, The Secret of Individuality: Reflected in a Hundred Historical Lives, 3 vols.

NOTES:

• RETYPED PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT (V13.1). THERE ARE NO AUDIO CASSETTE TAPES EXTANT (though copies of the tapes did exist at WG in 1985 or 1986).

• This transcript was originally done by Pat Campbell in 1983. In June of 1993, transcript re-proofed, minor typos corrected, PB paras ID'd, in preparation for Living Wisdom. The following is a reformatting of the 1993 transcript.

• Unpublished PB paras should be sourced and proofread. JF thinks it's possible the two unpublished PB paras may be from PB's Early Writings version of "The Interior Word" essay, but are not in the published version of this essay.

• See WG Class 1983 0622 PB Paras; Overself for discussion of the three stations.

• In 2023, IT fixes prefatory matter, updates footer, expands Subsubjects, adds and alters some Subheads to make more accurate, completes Book List, adds new note within transcript, fixes minor errors, does slight reformatting to accord with new conventions.

1983 09/28 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

PB Paras; Meditation; Interior Word

GUIDANCE THROUGH THE INTERIOR WORD

S: Whether the guidance given through the Interior Word solely concerns inner matters--

AD: It pertains to the inner life, like when Socrates was told not to speak to Alcibiades. It pertained to his inner life, even though it was circumstantial.

S: So it has to do with the outward manifestation of that inner life as well?

AD: Yes.

After the death of the ego, then the recognition of your nothingness now starts your training in the Spirit: We spoke about that as the second station. That's the reference (when PB writes of being guided "from perception to perception.")

PB [Essays on the Quest, "The Interior Word," p. 97]: "If it manifests itself during the second stage and before he has ever been able to touch the third stage, it most probably is the pseudo-word. It may then be a result of mental activity on the ego's part mixed with a little reflected light from the Overself. The true word comes after the third stage. It speaks out of the mental stillness of contemplation, and is indeed one of its striking effects."

AD: After the third stage. I don't understand why he says "after the third stage." I thought it should be during the third stage. After the third stage, the interior dialogue comes to an end. You don't need it.

The second level--you're still in the psychical realm, and you could have the experience of a vision. This is not to be confused with the Interior Word. Sometimes it closely approximates the Interior Word, but it isn't. The point that I'm getting at is that I (thought) it went on during the third stage, in the stage of contemplation, that you can get the Interior Word or dialogue can be carried on. Not after the third stage: Unless by that he simply means once the third stage has been initiated, then the dialogue can take place.

S: The real interior Word would be from the psychical realm of the spiritual belt?

AD: Not psychical: It's above the psychical. The Interior Word would be a communication between what you refer to as the Undivided Mind and the Void Mind. It's like an impress made by a certain power on mental substance. It's not an actual hearing of any kind.

S: PB's use of Tennyson as an example of receptivity to the Interior Word.

AD: It's hard for us to imagine for anyone else what level they're at. But there have been a couple of poets who are of the same stature as Tennyson.

S: Qualitatively, when an inspiration is being transmitted, one couldn't distinguish a poet or an artist from a mystic or a philosopher.

AD: From a philosopher, yes: A philosopher you can distinguish. But the mystic and the poet . . . you have to remember that the Interior Word doesn't make you all-knowing or wise. It's guiding you.

S: Whether the dialogue between the ego and the Higher Self only takes place in contemplation.

AD: No, it could take place while you're wide awake. It usually will happen, for the ordinary mystic, while he's meditating. But for the very advanced or proficient, it can take place while he's awake. I gave the example of Socrates, who was constantly guided by the Interior Word. When he was at the trial, he was even there told what to do: He refused to set up a defense for himself. There again the Interior Word spoke to him. So it can come to the proficient in his ordinary, everyday activities. And you won't be able to listen in!

DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN VISIONS AND THE INTERIOR WORD; EXPECTANCY

S: Whether the pseudo-word has any efficacy, insofar as it's a reflected light of the Overself--

AD: That's very hard to say, because that's in the nature of a vision, where there's a mixture coming in from the psychical realm. And a vision can very often be a guidance, but it very often could be misleading. The example which I thought was a classical example was St. Paul. I think he misinterpreted a vision, and the misinterpretation ended up in the belief in the resurrection of Christ. That's not what Christ was teaching.

S: What would have been a correct interpretation of that?

AD: Christ is a cosmic principle in us. At least, I feel that way, and I do expect you to take it just as an opinion: That this led to the establishment of the church, or to church, an organization.

Visions very often have that double nature. They can very easily be misleading, or you could misinterpret. A vision requires the use of the senses, and when the senses are brought into play there's a certain amount of prejudgmental factors involved. In other words, there's an inclusion of something of the ego in understanding or interpreting that phenomena. Whereas in the Interior Word itself there's no use of the senses at all, nothing of the psychical.

In the contemplative state, you're cut off from the bodily organism and the psychical organism completely. There's no awareness of sense functioning. Otherwise you're not in the contemplative state, and that's where you can receive the Interior Word. But I think that quote said something to the effect that if you hadn't reached that level and you're still at the second level that it can be interfered with, and eventually is. There's an interference coming from the psychical effect of the ego.

S: Whether the interference would be along the lines of ingratiating the ego.

AD: It can be. Not necessarily, but it can be. When the senses have to make a picture for you, they're playing an interpretive role. Whereas if there are no sense functions at all, then they're exalted, ipso facto.

S: --the rival voices mentioned in the quote and the possibility of room for error when translating interior guidance into actual life--

AD: Let's try it this way: Let's say you're practicing meditation, and you've chosen to meditate and use Shankara for your teacher. In the meditation itself, it is very possible that he will appear to you in a vision, and that he will give you some very explicit advice. That can be confused with the Interior Word. When you reach the stage where you've gone beyond meditation and you're in a contemplative state, where you receive the Interior Word, these two can be confused: The one that I just mentioned, when you're meditating on Shankara and there's an appearance, or that he's talking to you and telling you something and you can take it as gospel truth--that can be confused with, and very often is confused with, what he calls the phenomena of the Interior Word, which is at a much higher level.

If you succeed enough times in getting to the contemplative state, you will recognize that there's no body or sense organs functioning. You're free from them; you're free from the body idea. If anything, you're identified with the Void Mind; there are no thoughts. And then this Word is communicated to you, or there's an impress made on the mind, which, as he pointed out, has its own authenticity and certitude. But between that and the kind of experience you might get in deep meditation where there's a vision and the appearance of a figure or a statement that's made--it is between these two that I think he's pointing out that this is its rivalry, and at times even its enemy. And the vision does have a compulsiveness which practically insists that you carry out what it has suggested to you. It's like the psyche that has this expectation creates this phenomena, and therefore it isn't authentic like the Interior Word, which is given to you from the higher source.

I don't think it's possible to exaggerate the implications of the word 'expectancy'. Many people, when they do get into these stages of meditation, are bringing along expectancy, and this will create the so-called phenomena, so-called visions. And always in a vision something of the conscious ego's attitude comes into operation. That is not so in the Interior Word.

DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN APPEARANCE OF A TEACHER AND THE INTERIOR WORD

S: Ramana appearing to PB--

AD: That's quite different (from a psychical phenomena).

Your teacher may appear to you when he's passed on. It can happen.

To the best of my understanding, there is no image in the Interior Word. Perhaps if you can imagine two people who are close to each other, and without any means of communication--no words, no writing--yet you get the feeling of what the other person is telling you. But even that's a communication, a telepathic communication.

If we remember what we meant by "psychic phenomena", we referred to it as the functioning of the organism which functioning, or modification of the organism, produces certain effects or appearances. This is in the psyche. The interpretation of those pictures or images is not necessarily in the psyche; it could be coming from the higher understanding. It is that higher mind that basically receives the impress or the message.

DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN AUDITORY HALLUCINATIONS AND THE INTERIOR WORD

S: Now that we know the Interior Word is not a vision, do we still have to learn to recognize it when it comes?

AD: Yes: You could have auditory hallucinations. As a matter of fact, the whole psychical realm could be an auditory hallucination. I'm recognizing PB's warning here. If you haven't had (the Interior Word), and you get a psychical vision, and it has a compulsion--there is a certain rarity of the phenomena, and also a kind of glamour and attraction that it exercises over us--if you haven't had the Interior Word, you cannot distinguish from the higher. I'm just picking up PB's warning here, because it is a warning not to confuse these two, and that it's better to blot out the lower kind completely.

DAIMONS AND THE INTERIOR WORD

S: One's daimon, as in the case of Socrates, can communicate the Interior Word?

AD: Yes, sure. You know, it has connotations nowadays--daimon--that the Christian culture gave it. But if we were to interpret it according to the Christians, instead of saying daimons, we would have to say his good guardian angel. His guardian angel told him, "Don't talk to Alcibiades right now; he's not ready for any of your conversation." He let it go at that. A few years later, again, he went over and spoke to Alcibiades, but his guardian angel didn't stop him. So he accepted that it was now time to speak.

This will be true of any proficient; his activities will be guided by that. An example was like the Dalai Lama: People come in front of him, one after a time: he'll just say, "This one--out." The next one comes: "This one--out." But the others keep going through. So right there that knowledge is manifest to him: This person isn't acceptable; keep him out. He's being directly guided.

S: Socrates having an unusual daimon that only told him what NOT to do--

AD: That's what you think! It left him the freedom to act, and, after all, if we were in Socrates' position, I don't think we would have to be told very often what to do. More often, we'd have to be told what not to do. If you remember, he was a very unusual person. He stood worshipping the sun for 24 hours, and everyone was gathering around him, building a fire and just watching the phenomena, and after 24 hours he made his reverence and his oblations, and went on his way. He knew what he was doing, Socrates--almost from concept to concept, let alone from situation to situation.

THE HEART CENTER AND THE INTERIOR WORD

S: Is the Interior Word at the level of function of the seed-thought in the heart?

AD: That depends on what you mean by the heart.

PB [V13, 20:4.136 & Perspectives, Chapter 20: What Is Philosophy, #83]: "Whenever I have used the term"the centre of his being," I have referred to a state of meditation, to an experience which is felt at a certain stage. The very art of meditation is a drawing inwards and the finer, the more delicate, the subtler this indrawing becomes, the closer it is to this central point of consciousness. But from the point of view of philosophy, meditation and its experiences are not the ultimate goal--although they may help in preparing one for that goal. In that goal there is no kind of centre to be felt nor any circumference either--one is without being localized anywhere with reference to the body, one is both in the body and in the Overself. There is then no contradiction between the two."

AD: If you're speaking about a mystic, you can say that he hears the voice in his heart. The heart would there refer to the fact that in meditation the attention is drawn into the heart realm, the region of the heart. There, he hears the Interior Word. But in the case of the philosopher, he's not drawn into the area, so to speak, in that fashion, and yet he can hear the Word very clearly.

S: re: inside, outside--

AD: These are all inappropriate terms. You take from the point of view of the mystic, he's going to point to his heart, and he's going to say it's coming from his heart center, as though there's a point in him somewhere that this is coming out of. The explanation the mystic would give is that the seed thoughts are coming from the center or from the heart. Now, from the philosophic point of view, he's simply saying that the Word is presented to the Mind. There's no way of localizing that philosophically. So what we're saying is that from a personal point of view one could refer to the Word as coming from the heart. From a philosophic point of view, you wouldn't say that.

If you say that the Mind receives a seed-thought, what's it do--have a net? A little cup, and say "here, put it in here?"

S: Then why does the mystic speak of receiving the Word in the heart?

AD: Because that's where the sensation is felt bodily. You feel as though very definitely, very clearly, it's in the heart region. There again, that's a personal point of view; whereas a philosophic sage doesn't have that point of view. But he recognizes it.

I think you'll find quite a few other advanced mystics that speak about the Interior Word. Somewhere I think PB says that the Chinese refer to it as "the Voice of Heaven."

DIALOGUE AND THE INTERIOR WORD

S: PB's use of the word 'dialogue' in reference to the transmission which occurs between the higher and lower selves.

AD: The dialogue is very strange because it isn't that you're asking the Higher Self questions, but the dialogue is in the form of a response that your heart makes to what it says. In other words, the questions that you present the Overself with, or the Higher Self with, are questions that your heart is asking. Your head's not involved. And they're questions that are usually related to the actual Quest. They're deeply felt questions. Very often, when you come out of the meditative stage, you may not even be aware that you have any such questions. But in the presence of that Higher Self the heart itself speaks out its doubts, and, in speaking out its doubts, then they get answered. That's the dialogue.

Don't think that it's Act I, Scene I, two characters around the stage. And even your questions are not formulated in words, but the Overself answers them.

S: It answers--

AD: --serious doubts that you might have, that you need real help or real guidance. And it will answer them, and when it answers them, then you know: This is so.

It's varied. There's no fixtures here. It'll vary with each man: In the case of one person, it might be continuous for a while; in the case of another person it will be sporadic. In the case of a third person, let's say he reaches contemplation one time, and the Word was pronounced within him, and that it kind of telescoped a few years' work, and then he won't hear it again until that's done. It's too varied to try to standardize.

The one that's what he called "the achieved"--(for him) I don't think the Word is necessary anymore. I'm not quite sure, but I would be inclined to say he doesn't need the Word anymore. Now it's direct communication.

I don't know of anyone who's had a continuous Interior Word phenomena. In the quote it was pointed out that this is a power that the Soul has. I don't know that a power has to be continuously exercised. In principle it would always have that power to be able to do so. It's like when we spoke about the three stations: In the first station you recognize the nothingness of your ego; the second station is a long training in the Spirit. That long training in the Spirit will include, among other things, the Interior Word. (But) the Word could happen even before the first station.

If you're a fully realized sage, then you're above that level of contemplation. You have a natural peace or sahaja all the time.

In the second station, you are basically contemplative, but not achieved. You don't have insight as a perpetual functioning.

MENTAL BEING

S: Guidance received in the contemplative state--

AD: --is what we call that Void Mind or Higher Mind guiding and directing you. It's taken over.

S: The awareness of awareness--

AD: --is the level that you're referring to, where the guidance is coming from.

PB [V14, 22:2.128]: "Interior Word: Something within begins to speak to him, some mind begins to find its own expression. It is his, and yet not his."

PB [V14, 22:2.161]: "Interior Word:"And in the deep silence the mysterious event will occur which will prove that the way has been found. Call it by what name you will, it is a voice that speaks where there is none to speak--it is a messenger that comes, a messenger without form or substance; for it is the flower of the soul that has opened."--Light on the Path"

AD: He makes sure he's covering both--"his and not his" when that consciousness is pervasive of the psycho-somatic organism, and the psycho-somatic organism says "It's MY consciousness", it's his. Now at another level, when you are identified with that consciousness divorced from the psycho-somatic organism, then it's NOT his. So in saying it both these ways, he makes sure he's covering the ground completely. You can say it's yours, and it's not yours.

S: The awareness of awareness--

AD: --is the level where we're speaking of the consciousness which permeates the psycho-somatic organism. It's not the Undivided Mind--that goes up higher, that's the Overself itself.

Think of it in three circles: The gross body, or what we call the elemental; then the psychical body, there at the second level; and then the third level, the mental. The mental is the same as consciousness. Now the two lower portions, which is the psycho-somatic organism, is like the intruder. It rises up and claims that consciousness to be its own. That psycho-somatic organism could say "It's MY voice; it's MY consciousness." On the other hand, if this same person meditates considerably in depth and reaches the level of contemplative meditation, now he is this awareness. From that point of view, he can see that this awareness isn't possessed by the psycho-somatic organism.

It's your consciousness when you take the empirical view, but when you're that higher, then that higher, so to speak, is not yours. If you recognize yourself as that higher, then you recognize the distinction between the two of them, between that consciousness and the psycho-somatic organism.

S: Is it from insight that the Interior Word emanates?

AD: I don't think so; I'm not sure. I don't think it comes from insight, because insight doesn't say anything: It's not discursive or doesn't reason about anything. Insight is basically self-cognition or intrinsic self-cognition, and there isn't anything that it can know, because if you said it could know something, then you would make it into two things. It wouldn't be non-dual. But over here we're still in the realm of the dual: Advice is being offered, counsel offered.

If you go to the third level, the third level is the realm where the Individual Mind or what we might call the Void Mind, there is a realm of content there. And it is there that the formulation takes place, in other words, where the Word is pronounced. I call that the mental being, the Witness-I.

S: Could one hear this Word and not obey?

AD: Maybe one could say "a loving command." I don't know if anyone has ever rebelled against that. I can't conceive of that.

VOICE OF THE SILENCE

PB [unpublished, source not found as of 2018]: "Although the experience may not be in store for everyone, it is possible that some aspirant, who is sufficiently advanced, may find himself gradually entering into a heritage of great promise which has awaited him since his dim evolutionary past and which has slowly germinated deep down within his being during all these mystical efforts. The first of these mystical powers is to hear the Voice of the Silence."

AD: This is the maha-siddhi.

S: Does Blavatsky's text of the same name refer to this?

AD: Yes and no. If you read The Voice of the Silence, and you've had no experience of the Interior Word, and you meditate, I'm quite sure that you're going to get a psychical interpretation of this first. In other words, all those things she says--the humming of bees and playing of vina--you will get a psychical vision of these things; you will actually hear these things. But that's not the Voice of Silence. The Voice of Silence is the Interior Word; you go beyond these psychic manifestations.

The Interior Word is above those. You DON'T hear an elephant trumpeting; you DON'T hear bees flying around; you DON'T hear the vina; and you DON'T hear Krishna's flute. That's the "yes" part. You get the REAL Interior Word, and you know that the other one was not really the Voice of the Silence.

S: What if those things happen and you've never read nor heard about them?

AD: I don't know of a person who might have had that psychical experience without having read about it or in some way or another heard from someone or somehow got to know about it.

S: Maybe they hear in a past life?

AD: Sure. In terms of the mystic's continuity on the Quest, believe me, you can carry your mistake for a long time. For many incarnations you can just keep carrying it around with you. As a matter of fact, there's a book in the library--I forgot the name of it--what (the author) does is he looks up these historical personages, and he tries to find, like in A, B, and C they all make the same mistake. He says "Ah! Here's the continuity. This is the same Soul! You see he made that mistake in life A; he made it in life B; he made it in life C: It's the same Soul." [Note: See Richard Weiss, The Secret of Individuality: Reflected in a Hundred Historical Lives, 3 Vols. PB gave Vol. 1 to the WG library, per AB.]

So he bases his theory that you can tell the individuality of a Soul by going to the errors. In other words, you keep your bad habits going. First thing I'll be looking for is a coffee cup as soon as I come around, and I'm sure PB will be looking for green tea!

PB [unpublished, source not found]: "These dialogues may develop spontaneously, and it will be a useful exercise to cultivate silent conversations with the Sacred Presence whenever the slightest tremor of its nearness is felt."

AD: I don't think the dialogues develop spontaneously until they've already started; that is, only after you've had the experience of the Interior Word does the possibility arise of there developing spontaneously, but not ab initio.

Once you've had the experience of the Interior Word, and it's going to start again, then you will know, and you will feel that tremor in your heart, and you know you have to listen. And the dialogue develops from there.

DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN A MENTAL IMPRESSION AND AN AUDIBLE SOUND

PB [V14, 22:2.131]: "It is as if no one existed but these two--the listening mind and the soundless voice. This is real solitude; this is the true cloister to which a man may retire in order to find God; this is the desert, cave, or mountain where, mentally, he renounces the world's business and abandons friends, family, and all humanity."

PB [V11, 16:15.29 & Perspectives, Chapter 16: The Sensitives, #7]: "If the voices which he hears are audible in the same way that one hears the voices of people through the ears, it is merely psychic and undesirable. If, however, it is a very strong mental impression and also very clear, then it is the mystic phenomenon known as the"Interior Word" which is on a truly spiritual plane and therefore is desirable."

AD: He doesn't say "Cut it out immediately," the psychical? If you hear words being said, cut it off immediately. Don't waste time, because that's psychical, and that can involve you in a lot of stupid venture.

But a mental impression: Doesn't that carry different connotations? An impression is made on the mind, and that transmission is not audible, but immediately felt within one's being.

S: But it's in a language that you know?

AD: That's the psychical translation of the mental impression, and it can only be done in the language you understand.

But the important point is to try to grasp the distinction between an impression which is made on the mind and an audible sound, which could be subtle or gross. In either case it would be audible: In one case you hear it with the mind's ear; in the other case you hear it with the physical ear. But the other is no kind of hearing at all.

END OF CLASS