Wednesday, December 14th, 1983

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

December 14, 1983

PB PARAS; PHILOSOPHY

TOPIC: PB Paras

SUBJECT: Philosophy

SUBSUBJECTS: Insight, Knowing Willing Feeling, Ego

CONTENTS:

PB PARAS ON PHILOSOPHY

THREEFOLD PATH; THE DEVELOPMENT AND INTEGRATION OF KNOWING WILLING AND FEELING GIVES BIRTH TO INSIGHT

EGO VS. EGOTISM; INSIGHT AS DUAL AND NON-DUAL; BUDDHA'S SMILE

THE PROFOUNDEST EXPERIENCE IS THAT OF YOUR OWN MIND

EMERSON: "I HAVE NOT YET SEEN A MAN!"

PHILOSOPHY IS THE MOST PRACTICAL

MORE PB PARAS ON PHILOSOPHY WITH AD COMMENTARY

PB'S WORK OF RE-PRESENTING THE DOCTRINE FOR MODERN TIMES

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Paul Brunton, Notebooks. 16 vols; Vol. 1 entitled Perspectives [Persp.].

• V.S. Iyer, Commentary on the Ashtavakra Samhita (The Song of the Self Supreme)

• Vyasa, Bhagavad Gita

• Bible

• H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine

DIAGRAM referred to not with this transcript version.

NOTES:

• PB paras from original WG library volumes Red 5v, 6v, 18v.

• Earlier transcript versions exist.

TRANSCRIBED from Audio Cassette Tapes (and also using the original Pat Campbell 1983 transcript as a basis) by HP, et al. in 1993 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, adds Subsubjects, alters Subheads to make more accurate, completes Book List, fixes errors/typos, adds new notes within transcript, reformats to accord with new conventions. Readable edited transcript – V14.1r.

AUDIO FILES: 1983 1214a, 1983 1214b. [Note: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files.]

1983 12/14 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

PB Paras; Philosophy

Readable Edited Transcript

PB PARAS ON PHILOSOPHY

[Audio File 1983 1214a Begins]

PB: "Such a revolutionary acquisition as insight must necessarily prove to be in a man's life can only be developed by overcoming all the tremendous force of habitual wrong thinking, by neutralizing all the tremendous weight of habitual wrong feeling, and by counteracting all the tremendous strength of habitual wrong-doing. In short, the familiar personal"I" must have the ground cut from under its feet. This is done by the threefold discipline. The combined threefold technique consists of metaphysical reflection, mystical meditation, and constant remembrance in the midst of disinterested active service. The full use and balanced exercise of every function is needful. Although these three elements have here been isolated one by one for the purpose of clearer intellectual study, it must be remembered that in actual life the student should not attempt to isolate them. Such a division is an artificial one. He who takes for his province this whole business of truth-seeking and gains this rounded all-comprehensive view will no longer be so one-sided as to set up a particular path as being the only way to salvation. On the contrary, he will see that salvation is an integral matter. It can no more be attained by mere meditation alone, for example, than by mere impersonal activity alone; it can no more be reached by evading the lessons of everyday external living than by evading the suppression of such externality which meditation requires. Whereas metaphysics seeks to lift us up to the superphysical idea by thinking, whereas meditation seeks to lift us up by intuition, whereas ethics seek to raise us to it by practical goodness, art seeks to do the same by feeling and appreciating beauty. Philosophy in its wonderful breadth and balance embraces and synthesizes all four and finally adds their coping stone, insight." ((5v/55/104) Persp. p. 253 and 20.4.178)

PB: "The hidden teaching starts and finishes with experience. Every man must begin his mental life as a seeker by noting the fact that he is conscious of an external environment. He will proceed in time to discover that it is an ordered one, that Nature is the manifestation of an orderly Mind. He discovers in the end that consciousness of this Mind becomes the profoundest fact of his internal experience." ((18v/170/3852) Persp. p. 254 and 20.4.132)

PB: "The quest has three aspects: metaphysical, meditational, and morally active. It is the metaphysician's business to think this thing called life through to its farthest end. It is the mystic's business to intuit the peaceful desireless state of thoughtlessness. But this quest cannot be conducted in compartments; rather must it be conducted as we have to live, that is, integrally. Hence it is the philosopher's business to bring the metaphysician's bloodless conclusions and the mystic's serene intuition into intimate relation with practical human obligations and flesh-and-blood activities. Both ancient mystical-metaphysical wisdom and modern scientific practicality form the two halves of a complete and comprehensive human culture. Both are required by a man who wants to be fully educated; one without the help of the other will be lame. This may well be why wise Emerson confessed,"I have not yet seen a man!" Consequently, he who has passed through all the different disciplines will be a valuable member of society. For meditation will have calmed his temperament and disciplined his character; the metaphysics of truth will have sharpened his intelligence, protected him against error, and balanced his outlook; the philosophic ethos will have purified his motives and promoted his altruism, whilst the philosophic insight will have made him forever aware that he is an inhabitant of the country of the Overself. He will have touched life at its principal points yet will have permitted himself to be cramped and confined by none." ((5v/52/98) Persp. p. 256 and 20.1.173)

PB: "Those who would assign philosophy the role of a leisurely pastime for a few people who have nothing better to do, are greatly mistaken. Philosophy, correctly understood, involves living as well as being. Its value is not merely intellectual, not merely to stimulate thought, but also to guide action. Its ideas and ideals are not left suspended in mid-air, as it were, unable to come down to earth in practical and practicable forms. It can be put to the test in daily living. It can be applied to all personal and social problems without exception. It shows us how to achieve a balanced existence in an unbalanced society. It is truth made workable. The study of and practice of philosophy are particularly valuable to men and women who follow certain professions, such as physicians, lawyers, and teachers, or who hold a certain social status, such as business executives, political administrators, and leaders of organizations. Those who have been placed by character or destiny or by both where their authority touches the lives of numerous others, or where their influence affects the minds of many more, who occupy positions of responsibility or superior status, will find in its principles that which will enable them to direct others wisely and in a manner conducive to the ultimate happiness of all. In the end it can only justify its name if it dynamically inspires its votaries to a wise altruistic and untiring activity, both in self-development and in social development." ((5v/61/121) Persp. p. 255 and 20.1.177)

PB: "Philosophy takes its votaries on a holy pilgrimage from ordinary life in the physical senses through mystical life in the sense-freed spirit to a divinized life back in the same senses." ((5v/9/43) Persp. p. 256 and 20.4.113)

PB: "The sincere, who are honestly desirous of discovering Truth at whatever cost, will be helped within their limitations; the insincere, who seek to support their petty prejudices rather than to follow Truth, will have their hearts read and their hollowness exposed." ((6v/117/34) Persp. p. 256 and 20.1.174)

PB: "Truth existed before the churches began to spire their way upwards into the sky, and it will continue to exist after the last academy of philosophy has been battered down. Nothing can still the primal need of it in man. Priesthoods can be exterminated until not one vestige is left in the land; mystic hermitages can be broken until they are but dust; philosophical books can be burnt out of existence by culture-hating tyrants, yet this subterranean sense in man which demands the understanding of its own existence will one day rise again with an urgent claim and create a new expression of itself." ((18v/175/414) Persp. p. 254 and 20.5.262)

PB: "Is there a universal truth? Is there a doctrine which does not depend on individual opinion or the peculiarities of a particular age or the level of culture of a particular land? Is there a teaching which appeals to universal experience and not to private prejudice? We reply that there is, but it has been buried underneath much metaphysical lumber, much ancient lore, and much Oriental superstition. Our work has been to rescue this doctrine from the dead past for the benefit of the living present. In these pages we explode false counterfeits and expound the genuine doctrine." ((18v/128/160) Persp. p. 256 and 20.5.194)

PB: "We do not claim that an entirely new teaching has been given to the world. But we do claim that a teaching and a praxis which we found in a primitive antique form have been brought up-to-date and given a scientific modern expression, that some parts of it which were formerly half-hidden, and others wholly so, have been completely revealed and made accessible to everyone who cares for such things." ((18v/127/177) Persp. p. 252 and 20.2.103)

PB: "This is a pioneer work, this making of a fresh synthesis which draws from, but does not solely depend upon, the knowledge of colleagues scattered in different continents as well as the initiations of masters belonging to the most different traditions." ((5v/95/40) Persp. p. 252 and 20.2.67)

PB: "We may begin by asking what this philosophy offers us. It offers those who pursue it to the end a deep understanding of the world and a satisfying explanation of the significance of human experience. It offers them the power to penetrate appearances and to discover the genuinely real from the mere appearance of reality; it offers satisfaction of that desire which everyone, everywhere, holds somewhere in his heart--the desire to be free." ((18v/169/377) Persp. p. 255 and 20-intro)

PB: "We may generally distinguish three different views of the world. The first is that which comes easily and naturally and it depends on five-sense experience alone. It may be called materialism, and may take various shapes. The second is religious in its elementary state, depending on faith, and mystical in its higher stage, depending on intuition and transcendental experience. The third is scientific in its elementary state, depending on concrete reason, and metaphysical in its higher state, depending on abstract reason. Although these are the views generally held amongst men, they do not exhaust the possibilities of human intelligence. There is a fourth possible view which declares that none of the others can stand alone and that if we cling to any one of them alone to the detriment of the others we merely limit the truth. This view is the philosophic. It declares that truth may be arrived at by combining all the other views which yield only partial truths into the balanced unity of whole truth, and unfolding the faculty of insight which penetrates into hidden reality." ((18v/172/391) Persp. p. 257 and 20.1.19)

(25 minutes of student discussion on this para discussing materialism, "world view," . . .)

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1983 1214a Ends; Side 2 Begins)

(This side begins with an additional 5 minutes of student discussion.)

AD: Could we go back to the quotation? Could we make that out?

PB: "Philosophy takes its votaries on a holy pilgrimage from ordinary life in the physical senses through mystical life in the sense-freed spirit to a divinized life back in the same senses." (Persp. p. 256 and 20.4.113, repeat)

JfL: . . .

AD: Read it again, Randy. Read it to Jeff this time. (para reread)

AD: Can you make that out?

(DB/PD/ = 1 min.)

CdA: First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is-- [Q: DIAGRAM to illustrate Carol's remark: Q: check PC transcript for Diagram.]

AD: Louder, Carol.

(HS/RC = 1 minute/para reread again)

THREEFOLD PATH; THE DEVELOPMENT AND INTEGRATION OF KNOWING WILLING AND FEELING GIVES BIRTH TO INSIGHT

AD: Since we're waiting for Tim, could we go back and read the first one, the very first one?

[RC quoting PB: "Such a revolutionary acquisition as insight"?]

AD: Yes, see if it happens--

PB: "Such a revolutionary acquisition as insight must necessarily prove to be in a man's life can only be developed by overcoming all the tremendous force of habitual wrong thinking, by neutralizing all the tremendous weight of habitual wrong feeling, and by counteracting all the tremendous strength of habitual wrong-doing. In short, the familiar personal"I" must have the ground cut from under its feet. This is done by the threefold discipline. The combined threefold technique consists of metaphysical reflection, mystical meditation, and constant remembrance in the midst of disinterested active service. The full use and balanced exercise of every function is needful. Although these three elements have here been isolated one by one for the purpose of clearer intellectual study, it must be remembered that in actual life the student should not attempt to isolate them. Such a division is an artificial one. He who takes for his province this whole business of truth-seeking and gains this rounded all-comprehensive view will no longer be so one-sided as to set up a particular path as being the only way to salvation. On the contrary, he will see that salvation is an integral matter. It can no more be attained by mere meditation alone, for example, than by mere impersonal activity alone; it can no more be reached by evading the lessons of everyday external living than by evading the suppression of such externality which meditation requires. Whereas metaphysics seeks to lift us up to the superphysical idea by thinking, whereas meditation seeks to lift us up by intuition, whereas ethics seek to raise us to it by practical goodness, art seeks to do the same by feeling and appreciating beauty. Philosophy in its wonderful breadth and balance embraces and synthesizes all four and finally adds their coping stone, insight." (Persp. p. 253 and 20.4.178, repeat)

AD: Don't you think we ought to discuss that? That was the first one. Don't you think that should be first discussed? Do I have to wait until you people get all aroused over nothing and then go back to what we're supposed to be working on? He says it's a revolutionary acquisition. Doesn't that entice you? Why don't you get excited about this one?

HS: Let's get exited about it.

AD: Yeah, get excited about it, Herbie, yeah.

PB: "Such a revolutionary acquisition as insight must necessarily prove to be in a man's life can only be developed by overcoming all the tremendous force of habitual wrong thinking, by neutralizing all the tremendous weight of habitual wrong feeling, and by counteracting all the tremendous strength of habitual wrong-doing. In short, the familiar personal"I" must have the ground cut from under its feet. . . ." (repeat)

HS: The road to insight begins with the naughting of the ego. Will you buy that?

AD: No, I will not! He's talking about the development of different faculties and you talk about naughting the ego.

HS: In the first sentence he talks about getting the ground cut out from the "I," personally.

AH: Those faculties have to be developed in a way that the ego doesn't usurp one point of view for its own.

AD: You think you're going to go into battle with the ego the way you are now? What would be some of the armaments you want to bring in? If you want to start battling your ego, what do you want to have with you? A knife? An axe? A battle-axe? A forty-five? What do you need to kill it?

AH: Philosophic perspective.

AD: What would that include?

AH: The understanding that to be stuck in one path or one view is to ingratiate this sense of "I" (the ego) rather than confront it.

AD: To confront the ego, you're saying then, you're going to have to have very highly developed faculties--very acute, intense, concentrated kind of thinking, which will probably undo all the kind of thinking you've done before that; the kind of feelings that are probably the reverse of the ones you have now, and to go against that current is going to be an ordeal; and the ability to apply what you understand in a practical way so that you can establish the sovereignty of ethics. These are just preliminaries before you cut the ground out from under the ego. Do you think he's saying something like that? Read a little bit more.

RC: I think he's saying that yes, it has to have the ground cut out from under its feet and now he's saying how--

AD: Yes.

RC: (inaudible) first do that (inaudible).

AD: I think it would be very difficult to get rid of the ego, because I think most of us are aware that the ego will be right there helping you!

RC: PB says: ". . . the familiar personal"I" must have the ground cut from under its feet. This is done by the threefold discipline. . . ."

AD: You notice the word discipline? Threefold discipline. Yes. The first one?

PB: ". . . The combined threefold technique consists of metaphysical reflection, mystical meditation, and constant remembrance in the midst of disinterested active service. . . ."

AD: So if we discuss those three for a moment? (Inaudible) Metaphysical reflection--like some of the things you go through: analyze the nature of experience; try to find out the kind of cosmogony that's interwoven with epistemology; the realization of the unreality of the ego, the structure of thought. You have to go through all those things. You have to understand them in a legitimate way. What I mean by that is you just don't take somebody's word for it. You actually have to go through that reasoning process of understanding. And then he speaks about meditation. Probably the only thing that could reorientate your feelings would be meditation or some kind of glimpse as to the nature of the Self, which brings in different kinds of feelings than the ones we ordinarily have. And then on top of that--although he says three, it sounds like four--while you're busy being of service to the world, you constantly remember the higher Self while you're at that service. (inaudible) He says these three things. Of course, you can't isolate them, because life itself can't be cut up into compartments. There's always a mixture of them going on. But he does say those three.

(RC/AH/HS/ etc. 2-3 minutes)

PA: If you're able to do that third, you've already undermined the "I" quite a bit . . .

LD: It seems like if you could do any of the three real good--

PA: Yes, but the third one--

AH: That seems to be the hardest thing of all.

AD: It would depend on the individual what seems to be the hardest. Some people are good people--they live an ethical life--but if you bring up to them the possibility of metaphysical reflection, they get upset. Other people could reflect metaphysically very well, but if you tell them now to start doing what they're talking about, they get upset. It depends on the individual. He says these three things have to be done. You have to go through the discipline of developing them to a very fine point. Then what does he say?

PB: " . . . The full use and balanced exercise of every function is needful. . . ." (repeat)

AD: So if you could imagine that you've developed your thinking faculty to the extent of Kant, and then you've developed your willing like to the extent of Caesar, and you've developed your feeling, let's say--well, I don't know who to pick on.

EM: A woman. (laughter) How about Mother Theresa?

AD: (Mother Theresa.) (--sounds like AD says 'Mother Theresa' softly.) But if you do develop these to that extent, then we start talking about integrating them. I mean, you don't integrate them if you've got a retarded mentality when it comes to metaphysical reflection and a superior kind of feeling function when it comes to loving people. And you can't integrate unequals. You have to evolve all three of them. So when he's speaking about balance, he's speaking about when these three reach their ultimate or penultimate stage of development, then you speak about integrating them. That means that while you're going through the development of one of them, we'll allow you some insanity. Genius is allowed a little insanity. But you have to grasp the point he's making here, and that is that you have to reach the fulfillment of these functions. Prior to that, you're kidding yourself. If you talk about integrating these three functions, and you're at the level of an advanced gorilla or something, (laughter) you're not going to get insight. Although they do speak about it like that, when the gorilla gets the banana by sticking the thing out there, they call it insight.

HS: Would you say that it's possible in a life to have those three functions developed?

AD: Well, I don't know that you have to do it all in one life. If we took the example, for instance, of a man like Kant who had a very highly developed rational faculty, I'm almost willing to think that he probably had quite a few lifetimes before he reached that development. Then if we think of the highly developed feelings of a Beethoven or Brahms, it's obvious they must have had quite a few lifetimes of that.

HS: Developing feelings?

AD: Yes, I mean, Mozart wasn't born in one life. It took quite a few lives, I would imagine, half a dozen. If you think of it this way, like you were born 500 times in Asia, 500 times in Africa, 500 times in Australia--you've got a lot of time to develop these faculties.

HS: What happened to me?

AD: I think you get the point that what he's talking about is that you practically have to be a genius in each one of these faculties. You're not going to get insight because all of a sudden you read about it. After all, if we try to define insight very simply, how could we put it? How would you define insight?

DB: He speaks of it there as the coping stone.

AD: But that gives me the image of an arc.

DB: An arch--

AD: That doesn't give me a picture of what insight is, it gives me a picture of an arch.

DB: I give up.

AD: Why don't you try? Let's try. We have to think about it for a minute.

AH: In some sense, all of these other refined faculties are, in a certain way of speaking, objective to insight.

AD: If I remember the paper that you read, on insight, it said that it was a combination of these three faculties when they were fully developed, but also that this was qualitatively different than any one of those three or all three of them. Do you remember that? But let's try to be more practical. We know that each and every one of us has these faculties--of willing, or feeling, or--(thinking), and we know that they're interwoven with each other. And we're speaking about, I'm speaking about my life and you're speaking about your life. And so, insofar that we ARE trying to do something; like feel, experience the refinement of the feeling function; or experience beauty and appreciate it; or we're thinking a problem through to the very end: Isn't it in a sense the life trying to understand itself?

HS: Life of lives.

AD: Life.

HS: L-I-F-E.

AD: Isn't it something like that?

HS: Life was trying to understand itself.

AD: That might possibly be a meaning of insight.

CdA: Life understanding itself.

LR: That would be the Soul's contemplation.

AD: I heard that, too, but I'm trying to find words that we understand.

LR: But is that what you mean?

AD: Yes, but life contemplating itself for some people is more obscure than the coping stone of the arch.

You don't think you're trying to understand all the time?

CdA: Yes, of course.

AD: And what are the means that you use to try to understand this life with? How do you try to understand? I know there's an easy way: you come over and you think you're going to get it all from me. (laughter) It doesn't work. (inaudible) That's another possibility.

CdA: By feeling, thinking, and the actual experience.

AD: That part's obvious. But now if these three things were integrated, that couldn't we say that life understood itself and this is what we mean by insight?

CdA: Is that the same as the Soul's self-knowledge? Knowing Being?

AD: I'm trying to get away from memorized words.

AH: You're speaking of life understanding itself--

AD: Your life. My life. An individual life.

AH: Can that be so for the perspective of one of those developing functions, or is that statement only so from the perspective of those three functions being integrated?

AD: Well, we were just discussing--she said that the way she understood her life was either through one of these three means or a combination of them in various ways. But somehow there's a kind of incompleteness about it, isn't there? I mean, you never feel fully satisfied that you understand your life. Well, why?

AH: It's always in process. It lacks Being. . . .

PD: Are you implying that on the one hand you try to think out an idea, or understand an idea deeply, and yet there's something incomplete in the grasping of the idea, so then you may try an aesthetic contemplation of a feeling or--

AD: --or let's say of that same idea--

PD: --of that same idea, and in that approach, it's very moving and very deep, yet still there's something incomplete?

AD: Yes. Now you try to WILL that into your practical life, your daily activity. And that's the way we generally work: one or two or three. But now he's saying all three of them simultaneously functioning, or combined, will produce that articulation which life itself wants to grasp--what its own meaning is. If you do it with one or two or three or each one of them, but distinct from one another, then there's always that feeling of incompleteness. Life hasn't understood itself; it's fumbled around, formulated a feeling about it or thoughts about it or even has applied it in terms of will. But to combine all three, like fuse them all together, and instead of having these three different approaches, there's just this insight into life itself--life understands itself, without dividing itself into three different ways of doing so--then the result would be a kind of different understanding. It wouldn't be an objective understanding; it would be intrinsic to that life which perceives its own, let's say, expression.

HS: . . . It's living.

AD: Yes, that's a way of putting it, that it is living. But you see what a roundabout way we finally got to try to understand what it is to be living?

SC: . . .

AD: Does he understand what I'm saying? You see, we all use the word 'living.' How many of us KNOW what that means? We don't, do we? But we use the word at least a hundred times a day: "I'm alive. I'm well. I'm living." Yes, so is an amoeba!

SP (Sid Piburn): The last sentence--something about no longer objective? I didn't hear that sentence.

AD: That understanding, or let's say-- Life expresses itself or articulates itself, and that very understanding of itself's expression or articulation, without dividing it up into different ways, is what I think he means by insight. Life understands itself without any medium: willing, feeling, thinking. But it has to go through that development that willing, feeling, and thinking make possible.

SP: So you're saying that it cultivates these faculties and then sort of lives itself unbiasedly through those cultivated faculties?

AD: Yes, after they're fully developed, they're combined, or they simultaneously function. Now use the example Paul just used. You think an idea deeply, thoroughly, right to its very conclusion. At the same time, simultaneously, you aesthetically appreciate and feel the idea. And at the same time, again, you employ or you put into application, you apply the idea in your daily activity. Now if you could imagine these three things happening simultaneously, then I think this would be life understanding itself. This would be insight.

I'm trying to deal with a term that's impossible, because the very meaning of the term 'insight' deprives you of having something objective. It deprives you of having something objective. If we say, "life understands itself," there isn't anything objective. It's life itself that understands itself, and that understanding of itself isn't different from itself.

SP: . . . You're talking about an exalted phase, a sage's experience?

AD: Yes. That's why it's very difficult to understand. But he does start by saying this is a REVOLUTIONARY concept, a revolutionary acquisition. And it is revolutionary. If you grasp what he's saying, then you see it's the only thing that's really worth going after.

RC: You were talking once before in terms of an "in-seeing." . . .

AD: Yes, that too would be applicable. And you can see that the terms like they use--karma, jnana, and bhakti yoga--you can see it again corresponds to those three functions. But a sage doesn't work like that. He doesn't say, "Today I'm going to practice karma yoga, and tomorrow jnana yoga." He's an integrated person. All three functions operate simultaneously. It's impossible for him not to have an idea and not so to speak apply the idea and aesthetically appreciate it, you know, with real feeling. All these three things are operating simultaneously in him.

(RC & NH for: 2 - 3 minutes)

NH: . . . How do you speak about the philosophic sage and a sage with regard to insight? (hard to hear)

AD: Well, PB makes the distinction between a philosophic sage and the sage is basically: a philosophic sage can communicate his knowledge according to the mores--or the forms of the culture within which he finds himself. The sage does not necessarily have that capacity, but that doesn't mean he does not have insight. Now that's PB's definition. Let's read that one through and see if we follow what he's saying. Read it from the beginning.

PB: "Such a revolutionary acquisition . . ." (entire para read)

AD: That's the first quote, right? And you shouldn't have let them go beyond that. You should've stopped them right there and-- "That's the one to work on."

RC: It seems PB is saying that not only am I to develop these mental faculties to their fullest possible extent of being able to instantiate Truth; I'm also to realize that fundamentally the real Being that I am is that very Mind from which those functions are functioning.

AD: From which they arise.

LC: He says at the beginning and then again at the end that none of these can be achieved without insight, that insight is the key.

AD: I don't think he said that. He's not saying that you have to have insight to develop to the full your thinking or your feeling. As a matter of fact, the way it goes is that usually you DO develop as fully as you can each one of these, and then when all three are fully developed, they're brought together in a lifetime or a series of lifetimes where they get integrated and they become insight.

And we usually try to indicate that, you know, like I try to make pictures for us--and the trans-Saturnians represent those three functions. Natally and in the transiting, they represent it the way they are in themselves. But beyond that is insight. They're not insight. They don't represent insight. But beyond them is insight.

And you could see that in many of the personages. Like we've been studying Atmananda, and if you read his works, you see the man had a flare, a logical genius, a fully developed intellect. It wasn't something that he picked up in that life; it was there.

LesC: . . . It's there without any of the personal emotional--

AD: Let's say it's a tendency that he brought over from the past.

LesC: And it comes right through--

AD: Yes.

LesC: --without any interruption.

AD: And he goes on developing it. So you read one or two of his works and you can see in twenty pages he says what it takes most people (two/ten=PC) thousand pages. The same like his aesthetic appreciation. Remember the thing that Ram read about the initiation that PB received in the evening, at night, in the moonlight--things like that? (Ref. PB's initiation from Atmananda in Asiatic Notes, pp. 432-433 (unpublished) (https://www.pbarchives.org/archive/document/writing/12); also see 15.2.492-495)

But basically I think you'll find--and I have found this to be so--that the sages are generally very wise people, very cultured, very refined. They are not lunatics. They've gone beyond that stage. That's why a lot of these people who follow the Zen approach and think that that kind of lunacy has something to do with sagehood don't know what they're talking about.

JfL: We've said that insight is the culmination of the mystical experience, but would we then have to say that for any of these three functions, that although they have an ultimate development, that what makes them different from philosophic insight is that they necessarily restrict the other two from operating? Like for the mystical, it may be insight in reality--

AD: It isn't that they restrict the others; it's that they are partial. They don't restrict it. I mean, when you're thinking, it doesn't necessarily restrict your feeling function. It could still be a highly developed feeling function. But it is partial; it is incomplete. It doesn't give you the totality of the aspects of the object. [Audio File 1983 1214a Ends; following sentence from PC transcript] It's not only that you want to know your wife, but you want to feel for her.

[Audio File 1983 1214b Begins]

AD: I'm just changing your word. Instead of saying that it limits the others, it's just like saying it's only one-third or one-quarter of it.

JfL: I'm confused. The mystical insight that you discussed, that the mystic has contact with reality but-- In other words, that one quote that said it's like a flickering flame--

AD: Don't give me quotes, because first of all I don't agree with the quotes you give me and secondly, I would rather you say it in your own words. So I could, you know, deal with you.

JfL: For the mystic, it's clear that there's an ultimate goal that you can attain. That would be Nirvikalpa. But that would exclude action in the world, because he's in a trance.

AD: Yes, and no critical reflection could take place. Right? There can't be no feelings either, right? And there's no application of anything.

JfL: So the insight, in that sense, is partial by that definition.

AD: No, that's not insight. That's not insight. When he brings that into the everyday world, and he perceives that the reality which was there is also here, THAT'S insight. Now most mystics, they go into Nirvikalpa, they come out, and there's the world confronting them like a shark. They're frightened by it; they run away. "I don't want nothing to do with that."

The philosopher says, "No. What is ultimately real in that world that I perceive through the senses and that which I experience in Nirvikalpa, they're the same." And he's got to bring that to bear on his worldly experience. That's insight. In other words, if I say I'm looking at that object, I know that the innermost Being of myself is pure Consciousness. I also know that the innermost Being of that object is pure Consciousness. That's insight. That never comes; that never goes; that is permanent. Once a sage has that, it's for good. He can never lose it.

AH: How is that building of that synthesis of the functions--how is that the abasement of the ego?

AD: Only when you reach that kind of maturity do you have the sufficient intelligence or understanding or critical ability, the necessary feelings and will, to crucify or to give up the ego mentally. Not before. Because it will outwit you at every step.

EGO VS. EGOTISM; INSIGHT AS DUAL AND NON-DUAL; BUDDHA'S SMILE

AH: . . . Are ego and a partial development of the functions synonymous? ( = paraphrase, followed by AD/AH question clarification)

AD: Well, if we took an example: PB had an ego. He wasn't egotistical, but he had an ego.

AH: Is egotism the identity with one function over the other two?

AD: No, that's not egotism is. Egotism is ATTACHMENT to the separate, the fictional idea that your life is separate from the universal life.

RC: . . .

AH: . . . Would the sage's insight be a dualistic knowledge, or would you speak of it as a non-dual knowledge?

PD: The very way you speak of nondualism, Andrew, it excludes the meant content of dualism, and therefore it's not non-dualism, what you're speaking of.

AH: . . . Is it non-dual? Not non-dual? Both? Neither?

PD: . . .

AD: Insight is both, Andrew. It's dual and non-dual. I know you feel uncomfortable with that, but it's both.

RC: . . . This seems to be pointing to a recognition that the dualism arises within a mind which itself is one.

AD: Which is non-dual, yes.

RC: And that the appearance of dualism is not a contradiction of the mind in which it appears. . . .

AD: That's why I would say both: dual and non-dual. Because if you say non-dual, then people will automatically think monistically. So I carry on a rear-guard activity by saying it's both.

(AD comments about waiting for Tim who went to look for correct version of para.)

AD: Let's read the second one. You don't mind--I like to hit you over the head a little bit. You went two paragraphs before you stopped!

HS: Before we go on, is "insight" a fruition of the perfection of these three functions, is it produced of these three?

AD: Well, I could answer by saying both. On the one hand, it always is there. On the other hand--let me start this way--the development, the fruition of the three functions which brings about their integration--and the recognition--or brings about insight, that insight at the same time recognizes that it wasn't something new, it was always there. From the point of view of time, it's something that we develop. But from the point of view of achievement, it's always been there. And that's the way I understand the Buddha's smile. He smiled because there it was, all the time. He didn't have to go anywhere. It was always there. It isn't something new; it's something you discover, but it was always there. So from one point of view it looks as though you're going towards it. You're developing these three functions, and you go through a myriad of lives to bring about that integration. And then when you do succeed, you recognize that that was always you. It's self-recognition, self-cognition.

ME: Would you say that a prerequisite to having insight is the ability to enter the thought-free state?

AD: Oh yes. That would fall under the discipline of meditation, that you can bring about a quiet state, silence. So you see what's required. You have to be quite good at being able to produce a still state, no thoughts, which acquaints you with feelings that are really quite heavenly. So that's going to reorientate the whole feeling nature. When you come out of something like that, you could never accept the feelings that you had before. The conflict is there immediately, you know you have to start altering those kinds of feelings you had. And the same way like when a person goes through a tremendous effort at critical reflection. You remember like Kant pointed out after he went through these studies, he said it was like a Copernican revolution. That reorientates all your thinking and you've completely turned everything inside out and upside down. It's just like if you told a primitive, "It's not the sun that goes around, but the earth." To us it's nothing, but to a primitive it required real effort. And the same way with the will. To learn to will the good and not take for granted that it's going to happen. That too is going to-- These are the disciplines, he says, necessary in order to bring about that possibility of self-recognition.

ME: It seems in the first two, the function gets depersonalized.

AD: Or universalized.

ME: But the last one, the compassion seems different.

AD: That's the hardest part. That's where the most purgation takes place. That, of course, is going to require every ounce of strength you have. I won't say any more.

Let's read the next one. Let's stop this nonsense about reading twenty paragraphs in thirty minutes and talking about it.

THE PROFOUNDEST EXPERIENCE IS THAT OF YOUR OWN MIND

PB: "The hidden teaching starts and finishes with experience. Every man must begin his mental life as a seeker by noting the fact that he is conscious of an external environment. He will proceed in time to discover that it is an ordered one, that Nature is the manifestation of an orderly Mind. He discovers in the end that consciousness of this Mind becomes the profoundest fact of his internal experience." (Persp. p. 254 and 20.4.132 (repeat)) (Para reread again, with inaudible comments between readings)

AD: Don't you feel, Herbie, that the last sentence especially is true for us? Like for 30 years, or 20 years, whatever it is, you're going through Cornell. (laughter) You're going through all these various schools--public school, high school, college, university--you go on, and then, all of a sudden, this man brings to your attention that the profoundest experience is that of your own mind. I mean, basically, that's what got you going on the quest: Mentalism.

HS: In Tibetan Buddhism, I discovered they were talking about my mind. (= paraphrase)

AD: It's a very exhilarating kind of feeling. All of a sudden it's like you're restored to yourself, whereas as you were going through these educational processes they were alienating you from yourself more and more, more thoroughly, more insidiously.

Alright, let's read the next one. You don't mind that we're going back and starting again, do you? If we ever get together again the next time, I hope it's a Zen monastery.

CdA: (inaudible)

AD: No, (squaring(?)) things up.

EMERSON: "I HAVE NOT YET SEEN A MAN!"

PB: "The quest has three aspects: metaphysical, meditational, and morally active. It is the metaphysician's business to think this thing called life through to its farthest end. It is the mystic's business to intuit the peaceful desireless state of thoughtlessness. But this quest cannot be conducted in compartments; rather must it be conducted as we have to live, that is, integrally. Hence it is the philosopher's business to bring the metaphysician's bloodless conclusions and the mystic's serene intuition into intimate relation with practical human obligations and flesh-and-blood activities. Both ancient mystical-metaphysical wisdom and modern scientific practicality form the two halves of a complete and comprehensive human culture. Both are required by a man who wants to be fully educated; one without the help of the other will be lame. This may well be why wise Emerson confessed,"I have not yet seen a man!" Consequently, he who has passed through all the different disciplines will be a valuable member of society. For meditation will have calmed his temperament and disciplined his character; the metaphysics of truth will have sharpened his intelligence, protected him against error, and balanced his outlook; the philosophic ethos will have purified his motives and promoted his altruism, whilst the philosophic insight will have made him forever aware that he is an inhabitant of the country of the Overself. He will have touched life at its principal points yet will have permitted himself to be cramped and confined by none." (Persp. p. 256 and 20.1.173 (repeat))

AD: Now what do you think of Emerson when he said, "I have not yet seen a man"? What do you think he was talking about?

AB: The people that he met did not have the full development of all these faculties, they may have had one (inaudible) or another.

AD: And he went to Europe twice looking for such a man. How about us? We saw two of them.

So, if you do something like this: Imagine a David Hume. And he thinks a problem all the way through in philosophy. But his willing side wasn't developed, and his feeling side wasn't really developed, but he did think and think very hard. But towards the end, do you know what he did? He stayed home and played dominoes! You take any one of these men, like Schopenhauer or J.S. Mill, and you can see that they think a problem out to a certain extent, but the other two faculties are not involved.

On the other hand, you could take a person that has very highly developed feelings who doesn't think or will anything. And perhaps a man like Schubert would be a good idea, with a very fine aesthetic development but absolutely impractical. Had to write his music on restaurant menus. So if you take examples of each one, you can see that this is certainly not going to be a philosopher, who let's say, could think something out but then can't apply it and doesn't feel the full consequences or evaluates it properly. So again, we go back to this point that these three functions have to be integrated in a man before we can speak of having a man. So most of us are pretty deformed--that's obvious. At any rate, I think that's what Emerson was referring to: the fact that in his journeys--and that included a large area, in the States, traveling--he never came across a sage. They're pretty rare.

LR: Doesn't PB have that note about it was on his return trip from his looking for a teacher that he realized that he had only himself to rely on, and that was a kind of illumination? (Ref. = 1.3.86 & 87)

AD: Yes. From what we've understood of Emerson, certainly you can see that those functions are all being developed. Even at a very early age--at 16 or 17--he had commitments to himself which were quite extraordinary, and I think he carried them through.

How about that quote? That's a very famous saying of Emerson's. I have not come across someone who could tell me what it meant. You figure that Emerson saw hundreds and thousands and millions of men, but he says, "I've never seen one." So you think he's a liar or he's hiding something? Let's try the next one.

PHILOSOPHY IS THE MOST PRACTICAL

PB: "Those who would assign philosophy the role of a leisurely pastime for a few people who have nothing better to do, are greatly mistaken. Philosophy, correctly understood, involves living as well as being. Its value is not merely intellectual, not merely to stimulate thought, but also to guide action. Its ideas and ideals are not left suspended in mid-air, as it were, unable to come down to earth in practical and practicable forms. It can be put to the test in daily living. It can be applied to all personal and social problems without exception. It shows us how to achieve a balanced existence in an unbalanced society. It is truth made workable. The study of and practice of philosophy are particularly valuable to men and women who follow certain professions, such as physicians, lawyers, and teachers, or who hold a certain social status, such as business executives, political administrators, and leaders of organizations. Those who have been placed by character or destiny or by both where their authority touches the lives of numerous others, or where their influence affects the minds of many more, who occupy positions of responsibility or superior status, will find in its principles that which will enable them to direct others wisely and in a manner conducive to the ultimate happiness of all. In the end it can only justify its name if it dynamically inspires its votaries to a wise altruistic and untiring activity, both in self-development and in social development." (Persp. p. 255 and 20.1.177 (repeat))

AD: (softly) It really comes down to this: that Philosophy is not only the supremely precious, the most beautiful, but the most practical. Anyone who thinks otherwise has got a lot of illusions in store for him.

RC: . . . PB has a note which says that it's not that truth needs to be made more practical; truth is the most practical thing that there is, but that people have to be made to realize it. (Ref: = 20.1.338)

AD: I think that might take a whole Manvantara. Yes, David?

(DB/PD/DB/ = 2 min.)

DB: . . . Philosophy allows one to live in harmony with the unfoldment of the World-Idea.

AD: What could be more practical than that?

DB: Absolutely nothing.

AD: Then I don't get the point of your question. If a person finds out the laws that are imprinted on the cosmos by the World-Mind and cooperates and works in harmony with those laws, we would have to admit that that is the most practical consequence and that it leads to a cessation of suffering and pain.

(DB/RC/AB/DB/AB/DB/RC/ = 4-5 min.)

MORE PB PARAS ON PHILOSOPHY WITH AD COMMENTARY

AD: Alright, let's go on to the next one.

PB: "Philosophy tells us how to live whereas the ego-mentality only tells us how to appear as if we were really living." (20.1.164) (laughter) (pause)

AD: No comment.

PB: "Philosophy overcomes the mystic's fear of worldly life and the worldling's fear of mystical life by bringing them together and reconciling their demands under the transforming light of a new synthesis." (20.1.8)

AD: And in our age that's absolutely necessary. Never before this has such a demand been placed on people to combine both the spiritual and material, to stop separating them.

PB: "It is not only a right intellectual attitude towards life. It is also an exalted emotional experience of life. Nor is it only an occasional attitude and an intermittent experience. It is sustained through the day and throughout the year." (20.1.4)

AD: And the moral is, "Don't try to walk with one foot."

PB: "Philosophy takes its votaries on a holy pilgrimage from ordinary life in the physical senses through mystical life in the sense-freed spirit to a divinized life back in the same senses." (Persp. p. 256 and 20.4.113 (repeat)) (para reread)

DB: . . .

AD: It almost sounds like philosophy wakes you up out of your dream, and you understand the nature of that dream world. Then it tells you "go back into that dream world now and act according to what you know." So when the imaginary tiger comes chasing you, you run up an imaginary tree!

LR: You don't start arguing with the lion?

AD: No, you don't (argue). You understand the nature of the so-called sense world now. It doesn't stop it from being what it is.

Basically, you can see what he's saying there is you reach Nirvikalpa samadhi but that's not enough. You've got to go back into the world with what you know now and apply it, and establish yourself in that knowledge IN the sense world. Remember the exploits of Socrates? They had a hard time trying to change his mind about things. Let's try the next one.

PB: "The sincere, who are honestly desirous of discovering Truth at whatever cost, will be helped within their limitations; the insincere, who seek to support their petty prejudices rather than to follow Truth, will have their hearts read and their hollowness exposed." (Persp. p. 256 and 20.1.174 (repeat))

AD: Next one, Tim.

PB: "Truth existed before the churches began to spire their way upwards into the sky, and it will continue to exist after the last academy of philosophy has been battered down. Nothing can still the primal need of it in man. Priesthoods can be exterminated until not one vestige is left in the land; mystic hermitages can be broken until they are but dust; philosophical books can be burnt out of existence by culture-hating tyrants, yet this subterranean sense in man which demands the understanding of its own existence will one day rise again with an urgent claim and create a new expression of itself." (Persp. p. 254 and 20.5.262 (repeat))

AD: Some of his notes are really statements. It's almost impossible to say anything. Verdant statements. This is what the truth is, period. No commentary is going to change it or explain it. Let's try the next one.

PB'S WORK OF RE-PRESENTING THE DOCTRINE FOR MODERN TIMES

PB: "Is there a universal truth? Is there a doctrine which does not depend on individual opinion or the peculiarities of a particular age or the level of culture of a particular land? Is there a teaching which appeals to universal experience and not to private prejudice? We reply that there is, but it has been buried underneath much metaphysical lumber, much ancient lore, and much Oriental superstition. Our work has been to rescue this doctrine from the dead past for the benefit of the living present. In these pages we explode false counterfeits and expound the genuine doctrine." (Persp. p. 256 and 20.5.194 (repeat))

NH: When he says "our work" . . . (NH/AD/PD question clarification) . . . to whom does the "we" refer?

AD: (inaudible) It won't help reading it again. This is not the usual literary device "we," the royal we. This is very actual. Who's the "we" that he's referring to? What do you think PB's identified with? (inaudible) The World-Mind? How many times did I tell you: he's a mouthpiece. He's assigned to this job. That's why we says "we." Who assigned him? (inaudible)

PB: "We do not claim* that an entirely new teaching has been given to the world. But we do claim that a teaching and a praxis which we found in a primitive antique form have been brought up-to-date and given a scientific modern expression, that some parts of it which were formerly half-hidden, and others wholly so, have been completely revealed and made accessible to everyone who cares for such things." (Persp. p. 252 and 20.2.103 (repeat))

*(At this point laughter, because of 'we' and AD asides thereon.)

AD: A good example is this--any of you people READ the Ashtavakra Samhita? Did you READ it? With his notes and his corrections? You READ that text, and that's two different works you're reading. The original, the way it stands, and then read PB's notes on it. In the first case, it's utterly confusing and misleading. When you put in PB's notes and corrections it's an illumined work. (last phrase "it's an . . ." not on tape, but from PC transcript.)

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1983 1214b Ends; Side 2 Begins)

AD: . . . . a book (from PC transcript) annotated by PB. It's really amazing to see the corrections he makes. And I think he read this when he was about 40. Let's go on to the next one. (Reference is to V.S. Iyer's commentary on the Ashtavakra, written in PB's handwriting on the original printed text. The notes and corrections are Iyer's, not PB's.)

PB: "We may begin by asking what this philosophy offers us. It offers those who pursue it to the end a deep understanding of the world and a satisfying explanation of the significance of human experience. It offers them the power to penetrate appearances and to discover the genuinely real from the mere appearance of reality; it offers satisfaction of that desire which everyone, everywhere, holds somewhere in his heart--the desire to be free." (Persp. p. 255 and 20-intro (repeat))

AD: In contradistinction to many of the works being written today, I'm going to just mention, for instance, if you read the Traditionalists, and you can see where they keep harking back to the twelfth century--A.D. or B.C. doesn't matter--but it seems that the further back they go, the happier they get, as though there's some sort of special virtue in the past itself. And I've read these people very diligently, and very carefully. And I've read quite a few others--like for instance--nowadays, there's a preoccupation with mythology. Everybody's reading mythology, getting into mythological studies, trying to understand what their myth is that they're living out, and all that. Now on the one hand, I would say that that leads you to a kind of confusion; on the other hand, like with the Traditionalists, you think you have to go back and start wearing an orange robe and becoming an ascetic. And there's more examples of this. But all these people are forgetting. This is 1983. None of that stuff works any more. Try it, and you'll see it don't work. So in a sense he has brought about creative, fresh, novel, and very accurate interpretations of these primeval doctrines. Those of us who have studied Plotinus have spent five, six years just to break in and get an idea of what he's talking about. So that will give you an idea, if you wanted to do something in Sanskrit or Tibetan mysticism, the liability to error is so great that there was really a crying need for someone to come out and re-present this doctrine in words that you and I can understand. No more of these Sanskrit footnotes, Tibetan mystifying language, or Latin--no more of that.

RC: PB's note . . . which says that we don't believe that there is such a thing as scripture any more, because that stuff that's called scripture has been handled and rehandled by so many people of the monastic temperament who couldn't help but modify it, that those texts can't be taken as reliable.

AD: Yes. He speaks about the unconscious complexes which alter the very texts themselves in the process of, let's say, translating, or recording, or whatever. Well, we have a lot of experience of that right here: People who are quoting me! I'm not even dead yet and there's disagreement!

NH: Is PB commenting on the original Ashtavakra?

AD: What original? That's the point, isn't it? How many translations, and through how many hands, did the Bible go through before you got it? And that would be true, for instance, we've got three different versions of the Song of the Supreme Self. Read each one of them. You should do that just as an exercise in semantic patience. Do it. You get three entirely different versions, so how could you believe any one of them? That's exactly what he was just saying. How can we call it scripture any more? We don't know which one is the scripture. And when you go into something like the Gita, where there's about 25 translations or there's about--how many?--four or five recensions. Who knows?

NH: So PB is clarifying the whole work, not just that (specific translation).

AD: Oh yes. This is not only for us here and now. This is a bridge into the twenty-first century. Those people will appreciate it much more than the people today. Because generally an age, or a certain period of an age, usually God, if I can use that term, World-Mind, does have a witness, and that witness will leave information behind of the truth. Remember the quote I gave you where Blavatsky quoted that before the run of the century, around 100 years from 1975 [sic; 1875], another messenger will appear? Remember that quote?

RC: She said the Secret Doctrine would stand for about a 100 years until the next (inaudible) master arises.

AD: And, we also found notes where PB said that he felt from-- was very humbled by the assignment that was given to him, but that he was chosen to carry on this message, and that he, you know-- You remember that writing?

RC: "I did not seek to become the promulgator of this teaching. My personal preference was that it would have been a worthier man . . ." (12.2.60) . . . I remember one section . . . it was in the section up there called "Interviews in the Occident"--where it's one of those references to that mysterious Brother M. that's very difficult to identify.

AD: Yes, he won't identify, he--

RC: It's a quote from a letter . . . "Philosophy (inaudible) . . ." . . . Doesn't have to worry about arousing the kundalini because at the proper time (inaudible) he'll take care of it and meanwhile go on collecting (inaudible) . . .

AD: Well there's been enough notes and references as far as I'm concerned, and I think Randy and Tim, where PB does indicate that this is, if we could put it that way, the scripture for the next few generations, or however long--we don't know. And that's what, you know, we spoke about, I said that this is, in my opinion, the most complete survey of mystical philosophy that I've ever encountered. And, it's hard to believe that some people can't understand this that should understand it.

Well, thanks for your patience, both of you, thank you very much. I hope someday you'll realize what you've been given, because he gave it to us; it's ours. And I think you'll really work for it. And you people are personally going through a lot of work in cooperating and trying to bring this about. So we've been really blessed. . . . Thank you for your patience. You don't mind I club you once in a while, alright.

AH: As long as it's appropriate. (laughter)

AD: Next time, next time Zen monastery, Herbie.

[Audio File 1983 1214b Ends]