Friday, January 13th, 1984

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

January 13a, 1984

PLOTINUS; SOUL;

"ESSENCE OF SOUL AS INDIVISIBLE AND DIVISIBLE"; OMNIPRESENCE

with Appendix: JF class notes for 1984 0113a.

TOPIC: Plotinus

SUBJECT: Soul

SUBSUBJECTS: "Essence of Soul as Indivisible and Divisible," Omnipresence, Unit Soul, Soul Powers, Witness-I, World-Idea, Meditation

CONTENTS:

Meditate on these quotes

Reading of IV.2.1

Absolute Soul & World-Idea & in-between the emanation

Plotinus speaking about you

IV.2.2, IV.3.2

Not relation of part to whole

IV.3.4

One Soul & Many

One Soul as conjoined, Individual Souls belong to particular body

Memorize these passages

VI.4.1

Reading of Anthony's "Essence of Soul as Indivisible and Divisible" paper

Individual Soul a thought in the Mind of God

It's like the thought of enlightenment, bodhicitta

Soul & World-Mind evolve together until World-Idea (WI) fully manifested

Use of term Unit of Being-Life-Consciousness

Isolating your I-ness in meditation

Meditation & attention

Strip consciousness of all thought, then investigate deeper

Beyond the powers of the Soul

You must become the Soul

Beyond awareness of awareness to pure Awareness

Soul Powers

Soul: Knowing & Being: Consciousness & Isness

Powers: language of the WI

Witness as power of Soul

Unity of the Soul & its power, no identity

Ground of the Soul reached only by God

IV.3.8, VI.5.12

Emanant & power

Soul knowing its Ground: Nous vs. WI

Soul's power gets determined by WI into certain kinds of powers

Power of Soul not identical with Soul

WI & differentiation of powers

Power infinite, even if you divide it

Soul as whole of parts

Can interchange terms Soul & Mind

Gravity part of how WI put together

Infinite Power of Soul vs. Soul powers differentiated by WI

Mind Is & Mind Acts, Overself Is & Overself Acts

Preserving the Unity of the Soul

That Unity of emanant is the I AM consciousness

Power of that is distinct & not separate

Unit Soul as non-dual

Power reserved for its expressive Act

Unit Soul as a Logos, offspring or Power of Absolute Soul

Unit Soul then has its own Power

Power as Soul & Being as WI

Soul as emanant & WI: Logos

Grades of Life & Thought: Soul & reason-principles

Appendix: JF notes

Reading/discussing VI.4.11

Fitness

Omnipresence vs. Omniscience

Souls differentiated by effective use of power

Differences in rank included in Being

Reading/discussing VI.4.8, VI.4.4

"Unity does not debar variety"

Differences between Solar Logoi included in Being

Competency

Sun Soul

Overself and Sun Soul associated as whole to whole

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

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

• Paul Brunton, Notebooks

• W. Y. Evans-Wentz, The Tibetan Book of the Dead

• Plato, Parmenides

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: III.4.3, III.8.8, III.9.3, IV.1.1, IV.2.1, IV.2.2, IV.3.2, IV.3.4, IV.3.8, V.1.6, VI.4.1, VI.4.4, VI.4.8, VI.4.9, VI.4.11, VI.5.12

AD PAPER read in class:

• "Essence of Soul as Indivisible and Divisible." This paper appears in Astronoesis as "Essence of Soul as Indivisible and Divisible" ("Our Venerable Guide…", p. 172 ff.). It is part of a larger paper which includes "Omnipresence of Soul to the Cosmos" and has been retyped as 1984 0127b V09MP. Astronoesis - Soul.

NOTES:

• This is 1984 01/13a, Plotinus; Soul Class, and the first entry associated with this date. 1984 01/13b = Plotinus; Soul Seminar, for which we have no audio, just JF notes.

• Older transcript versions exist: 1) Scan File 1984 0113P1-04R02 (a 4-page partial transcript); 2) 1984 0113 V11r Plotinus; Soul, which was used as a basis for this archival verbatim version; transcribed verbatim by jf 2006 from audio cassette tapes (only Tape 1) (with older transcript by Suellen Mauer as basis); reformatted by jf 2018. Previously printed, distributed 2007 as part of the set on Soul.

• We are missing Tape 2. JF's class notes for Tape 2 typed and appended to this transcript in 2018.

• In WG Class 1984 0127a Plotinus; Soul, the paper read in this class is read and discussed as part of a larger paper which includes "Omnipresence of Soul to the Cosmos".

TRANSCRIBED Verbatim by IT 2024 on the basis of V11r version by JF. In 2024, IT does three more passes and corrects listening errors/typos, updates prefatory matter and footer, expands Subsubjects and TOC, completes Book List, adds Plotinus quotes section, adds new notes within transcript, reformats to accord with new conventions. In 2025, IT updates audio file markers to match new REP audio. Archival verbatim transcript with AD Paper – V12ap.

AUDIO FILES: 1984 0113a. [Note 1: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files. Note 2: In 2025, REP Studio cuts dead air from file a and improves its sound quality.]

1984 01/13a at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Plotinus; Soul; "Essence of Soul as Indivisible and Divisible"; Omnipresence

[Audio File 1984 0113a Begins]

AS: --better go further through-- through a-- a synopsis, and dive through some questions of-- Well we talked about the three-- discussion of the three subjects. And a question came up which I guess really led to some work on the essence of soul again. So, I think tonight that, at least to begin with, we'll go over some of these ideas from the "Soul Essence" and "Omnipresence," just trying to get back and go around some of the ways that Plotinus speaks about the soul, this emanant soul or the Overself in terms of it being soul essence and in terms of its omnipresence, and the questions that are related to that. And I think the question of powers that we had near the end of last class will come up and possibly be answered.

S: Yeah.

AS: Well, there-- there will be some kind of answer whether we accept it or not.

HS: Just state what your question is. (You figure it out?)

AS: Well, there-- there was a little bit of work done on these chapters, yeah some sections in IV.2, "On the Essence of the Soul," and VI. 4, "On the Omnipresence of the Authentic [Existent]". And I think they really help to set a context or framework for a lot of the questions on soul that we'll have to deal with.

HS: And that the other question (is) that the soul [one/two words inaudible]

S: Try again?

AS: I mean-- I mean-- [short pause] I-- I think it'll-- it'll be pretty clear what--

S (faint): (But--)

AS: Now we have two ways to proceed and I'm-- Anthony, I was thinking we just read some of these comments that I have here put together. Or which-- or what do you prefer doing with that?

AD: Comments on the-- which one, Avery?

AS: Well, there are-- I put together, I tried to put together a little summary of those comments from Tuesday on the "Soul Essence" and "Omnipresence".

AD: Oh.

AS: Tried to org-- I tried to just condense it a little bit.

AD: Alright, then, can I take the liberty of just reading some of the selections of tractates [AS simultaneously: Yeah, yeah.] to refresh our memory?

AS: Uh-huh.

AD: Ok, [AS: Good.] because these were so important. I'll just read through quickly some of the quotations we used. [short pause] Now, what we're going to attempt to do is really try to zero in on the definition of soul. Or-- it's not a definition. To try to get some idea in our mind of what he means by this essence. And he does have a few passages which-- they're really mind-boggling as soon as you stop and think about them. And you'll see why I say you really have to take them into your meditations. Spend a couple of weeks meditating on them. They're marvelous. But, we'll read it, alright? Fourth Ennead, second tractate.

Plotinus [IV.2.1, AD reading]: "So far we have the primarily indivisible--supreme among the Intellectual and Authentically Existent--and [AD adds: then] we have its contrary, the Kind definitely divisible in things of sense; but there is also another Kind, of earlier rank than the sensible yet near to it and resident within it--an order, not, like [AD adds: the] body, primarily a thing of part, but becoming so upon incorporation."

AD: Then the next paragraph. Over here of course you notice, on the one hand you have Absolute Soul, on the other hand you have the World-Idea, the sensible world, and in between you have this intermediate kind of emanation. Alright? The next paragraph.

Plotinus [IV.2.1, AD reading]: "[But], on the other hand, that first utterly indivisible Kind must be accompanied by a subsequent Essence, engendered by it and holding indivisibility [AD emphasizes next two words] from it [but], in virtue of the necessary outgo from source, tending firmly towards the contrary, the wholly partible; this secondary Essence will take an intermediate place between the first substance, the undivided, [AD: In other words, the Absolute Soul.] and that which is divisible in material things and resides in them. Its presence, however, will differ in one respect from that of colour and quantity [AD: etc.]…each several manifestation of them [AD reads: of these units of soul] is as distinct from every other as the mass is from the mass."

AD: Then another paragraph down, skip one.

Plotinus [IV.2.1, AD reading]: "The Essence, which we place above this Kind and assert to come very near to the impartible, is at once an Essence and an entrant into body; upon embodiment, it experiences a partition unknown before it thus bestowed itself."

AD: Again, the next line.

Plotinus [IV.2.1, AD reading]: "In whatsoever bodies it occupies--even the vastest of all, that in which the entire universe is included--it gives itself to the whole without abdicating its unity."

AD: Skip one, the next line.

Plotinus [IV.2.1, AD reading]: "The [AD reads: This] nature, [AD: The nature of soul.] at once divisible and indivisible, which we affirm to be soul, has not the unity of an extended thing: it does [AD emphasizes next word] not consist of separate sections; its divisibility lies in its presence at every point of the recipient, but it is indivisible as dwelling entire in the total and entire in any part."

AD: Remember, he's speaking about your mind. He's speaking about you.

Plotinus [IV.2.1, AD reading]: "To have penetrated this idea is to know the greatness of [the] Soul and its power, the divinity and wonder of its being, as a nature transcending the sphere of Things."

AD: Next--

Plotinus [IV.2.1-2, AD reading]: "Itself [AD: That is, the soul.] devoid of mass, it is present to all mass: it exists here and yet is there, and this not in distinct phases but with unsundered identity: thus it is 'parted and not parted', or, better, it has never known partition, never become a parted thing, but remains a self-gathered integral, and is 'parted among bodies' merely in the sense that bodies, in virtue of their own sundered existence, cannot receive it unless in some partitive mode; the partition, in other words, is an occurrence in [AD adds: the] body, not in [AD adds: the] soul.

"2. [AD adds: And] It can be demonstrated that soul must necessarily be of just this nature, [and] that there can be no other soul than such a being, one neither wholly impartible nor wholly partible [AD reads: one neither wholly partible nor impartible] but both at once."

AD: Next page, last paragraph.

Plotinus [IV.2.2, AD reading]: "There is, therefore, no escape: soul is, in the degree indicated, one and many, parted and impartible. We cannot question the possibility of a thing being at once a unity and [AD adds: a] multi-present, since to deny this would be to abolish the principle which sustains and administers the universe…"

AD: On IV.3--

Plotinus [IV.3.2, AD reading]: "Again, it is admitted that the particular soul--this 'part of the All-Soul'…"

AD: Now, watch what he does here.

VM: Anthony, where are you reading from please?

CdA: Two six-- page 269 at the top, 3-- (IV.4.3).

S (simultaneously): IV.3 what?

S (faint): Yeah.

CdA: IV.3.2, yeah.

S (faint): Uh-hm.

[short pause]

AD: This will make his two sides or the two hemisphere of your brain clash. (bit of laughter)

S: Really?

Plotinus [IV.3.2, AD reading]: "[Again], it is admitted that the particular soul--this 'part of the All-Soul'--is of one Ideal-Form with it…"

AD: Notice what he's saying. The individual particular soul, the All-Soul, alright, notice what he's saying in them.

Plotinus [IV.3.2 cont., AD reading]: "…this does not entail the relation of part to [AD adds: a] whole…"

AD: In other words, the particular soul cannot and is not part of World-Soul. There is no such possibility of conceiving such a relationship between All-Soul and individual soul. You got to keep that in mind.

S: Say that again?

AD: There is no way of conceiving the relationship between individual soul and All-Soul as the relationship of a part to a whole. As a matter of fact later on he says you can only think of them as entireties fringing upon entireties. No part to whole here.

Plotinus [IV.3.2 cont., AD reading]: "…but this does not entail the relation of part to whole, since in objects formed of continuous parts there is nothing inevitably making any portion uniform with the total…"

AD: Alright, that's not necessary. Going on, skip one, the next--

Plotinus [IV.3.2 cont., AD reading]: "[But] it is admitted that all souls are alike, and are [AD emphasizes next word] entireties; clearly, soul is not subject to part in the sense in which magnitudes are…"

AD: Then if we go over to IV.3.4, just (for a minute).

Plotinus [IV.3.4, AD reading]: "The unit, Soul, (it may be conceived) holds aloof, not actually falling into body; the differentiated souls--the All-Soul, with the others…"

AD: It's what-- like what we call the Soul of the Sun and all the individual Overselves, alright.

Plotinus [IV.3.4 cont., AD reading]: "…issue from the [AD reads: that] unity while still constituting, within certain limits, an association. They are one soul by the fact that they do not belong unreservedly to any particular being…"

AD: So if you think of the individual unit souls, think of the All-Soul, alright, he's speaking about these as one soul, insofar that they do not belong to any particular body. As soon as a soul belongs to a particular body then you start speaking of an individual soul.

Plotinus [IV.3.4 cont., AD reading]: "They are one soul by the fact that they do not belong unreservedly to any particular being; they meet, [AD: That is the souls in heaven."…they meet] so to speak, fringe to fringe; they strike out here and there, but are held together [AD emphasizes next three words] at the source…"

AD: Ok? These are things that you must memorize, you can't-- you can't have an intelligent discussion about soul without having these things memorized. Well, there were other passages but, I think Avery's going to cover them in the "Authentic Existent". So, just hold that, keep those in the back of your mind. And I think when Avery reads them maybe we'll be able to keep these things fresh in our mind. Avery, alright?

AS (faint): Yeah.

S (very faint): I think they're cut off now.

[19 second pause, flipping of pages]

S (faint): Well is--

AS: Anthony, it would be fruitful to read a little discussion of this, or just have a little discussion of it, just--

AD (simultaneously): Of these points?

AS: Yeah, what-- what would be better?

AD: Well then let's read a few more points. Let me read just a few more points from the "Authentic Existent," ok, [AS, faint: Uh-huh.] to kind of complete this. And then we could discuss it, (yeah/sure).

S (faint): Ok.

AD: There again you have-- [short pause, flipping of pages] Well, where was the "Authentic Existent"?

S: VI.7.

S (very faint): That's right.

CdA: VI.4?

AD: Yeah let's just then refresh our mind.

Plotinus [VI.4.1, AD reading]: "…Soul will not appear just where body may bring it; body will meet Soul awaiting it everywhere; wheresoever body finds place, there Soul lay before ever body was; the entire material mass of the universe has been set into an existent Soul."

[9¼ second pause]

Plotinus [VI.4.1 cont., AD reading]: "We cannot think of Soul being diffused as a quality [is], say sweetness [AD adds: fragrance] [or] colour, for [while] these are actual states of the masses affected so that they show that quality at every point… …the Form, White, is the same all over, but there is not arithmetical identity; in Soul there is; it is one Soul in foot and in hand, as the facts of perception show."

AD: And this again, this is really worth meditating on.

Plotinus [VI.4.1 cont., AD reading]: "…in the Soul the identity is undistributed; what we sometimes call distribution is simply omnipresence.

"[Obviously], we must take hold of the question from the very beginning in the hope of finding some clear and convincing theory as to how Soul, immaterial and without magnitude, can be thus broad-spread, whether before material masses exist or as enveloping them. Of course, should it appear that this omnipresence may occur apart from material things, [AD reads: material masses, material things] there is no difficulty in accepting its occurrence within the material."

AD: Alright, why don't-- I assume that you try to read this, these tractates. [short pause] Avery, why don't you start.

AS: I also had two-- I-- I wanted to also read these two very short [couple words inaudible]

VM (faint): Oh good.

AS: I have these two very short quotes from-- from PB, one of them is a quote from the Buddha. And the other one is I think from him himself but-- This one's where he talk-- The one from the Buddha I think is from the Sayings but I'm not sure. [Note: Following quote is from W. Y. Evans-Wentz, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, as quoted by PB.] But from [few words inaudible] Says--

PB [V14, 22:4.172, AS reading a part of]: "…"Your own consciousness shining, void, inseparable from the great body of radiance, is subject neither to birth nor death, but is the same as the immutable light, Buddha Amitabha." (Buddhist Sutra)"

AS: And then the second one that I think we read before says--

PB [V14, 22:3.319 and Perspectives, Ch. 22, #12, AS reading]: "Overself is the inner or true self of man, reflecting the divine being and attributes. The Overself is an emanation from the ultimate reality but is neither [AS reads: but not] a division nor a detached fragment of it. It is a ray shining forth but not the sun itself."

AS: And one where he says--

PB [V16, 25:2.201, AS reading]: "The Overself is one with the World-Mind without however being lost in it."

[short pause]

AS: I-- Maybe to start the discussion, I'll read a few of these little comments and I'll-- Ok. Ok this is just going to be a specific(--) kind of fragments. Unless you want-- Anthony, unless you want to just (bring) [three words inaudible]

AD: I got a copy here too.

AS: Yeah I had-- I took some-- I took some passages out from that.

AD: Well, alright.

AS: Unless you (wanted) something-- another avenue.

S (faint): Alright now.

AD: If you see the cottage on fire I'm burning up everything.

AS: Alright, so that's-- (some laughter) Uh-huh, ok.

CdA (simultaneously): So we better go read it, very quick. (CdA laughs)

AS (simultaneously): So he got lots of [one word inaudible] Oh, comment, ok, good. Well, we [one word inaudible] I'll do anything. Should I read this one?

AD: Sure.

[10 second pause]

[Transcriber note: The following paper appears in Astronoesis as "Essence of Soul as Indivisible and Divisible" ("Our Venerable Guide...", p. 172 ff.). It is part of a larger paper which includes "Omnipresence of Soul to the Cosmos" and has been retyped as 1984 0127b V09MP. Astronoesis - Soul. I transcribe the paper as AS reads it, including any alterations made during rereading. All paragraph breaks are from the Astronoesis Soul draft version and not the published version.]

AD Paper ["Essence of Soul as Indivisible and Divisible," AS reading]: "Our Venerable Guide reveals that he has penetrated into the mysteries of the Soul, its greatness and wonder, a Unity-Being integrally present in all its graded powers. And this is not a knowledge by acquaintance--that is, the intellect's capacity for creating concepts from the remembrance of previous bodily modifications. No, this is a knowledge that goes beyond such formulation; for this is that principle which illuminates the thoughts and is itself not one of the thoughts. This unobjectifiable and immaterial principle, which is illuminating the ego's functioning, is to be differentiated from it and isolated. After that is done, we can begin the investigation or inquiry into the nature of the Soul or this principle.

"We are now speaking of Plotinus' intimacy with this innermost core of his being, which is an offspring from the Absolute Soul. In general, Plotinus is very guarded in his mystical utterances, and it will require a very careful reading of the text, even by those who have had some proficiency in these matters. The reading of the mystical literature cannot be a substitute for such experience. We must make this clear to ourselves. The functioning of the psychosomatic organism is accompanied by bodily modifications, and it is these appearances--duly noted, registered, and classified, and stored away in the memory--which is the means whereby the individual ego is creating its own world, with subject and object. In its conjectures as to the meanings of these appearances, it is dominated by the instinct for survival and biological adaptation. Now this realm of existence must be sharply distinguished from the immaterial principle of Illumination to which we have referred. We cannot unreservedly apply the logic of the sensible to this immaterial principle. What is required is an intimacy and a recognition of this pure principle as our Isness, in contradistinction to its identification with a psychosomatic organism. This is necessary in order for us to have accurate knowledge about it. If we allow ourselves to disregard those persons who have had intimate glimpses of this higher Self, but rather deal with that rare person who has profoundly established his residence in egoless Being--in other words, with those who know--we may be able to reorganize our conceptual understanding so as to evoke the intuition within ourselves.

"In IV.1.1 Plotinus points out that Soul is a content of the Divine Mind included with other Divine Beings, permanently stationed and resident there. Here, Soul or Mind is included in an undifferentiated unity. And he goes on to point out that it has a tendency or desire towards secession. We may also rephrase this in accordance with many previous statements: That what is authentically real has an outward-facing hypostasis; for what is perfect engenders, and the eternally perfect engenders eternally. (cf. V.1.6) We may take this to mean that Absolute Soul eternally engenders souls. Each and every soul, offspring of the Absolute Soul, is similar to but not identical with its prior. It is this emanation, this thought of the Mind of God, or of Absolute Soul--our Absolute Self--that must be investigated. This unit of Being-Life-Consciousness we're calling this emanant soul, goes forth,"formed from the undivided essence and the essence divided among bodies." (Plotinus, IV.1.1) And we may refer to this as the individual soul or mind. And it is this point of mind within the Divine Mind which is our absolute individuality and the substratum for the experience of the world, of the World-Idea. This is what must concern us here. We must try now to understand something about the nature of this individual mind or soul. This of course will require we review certain passages from Plotinus.

"In IV.2.1, he speaks of this offspring as characterized by unity which is derived from its prior, and each soul distinct from every other, and that each soul is intermediate between the Absolute Soul and the Cosmic Circuit, i.e., the World-Idea. Furthermore, regardless with what it is occupied--the Idea of the universe or with a body within it--soul gives itself to either or both without abdicating its unity. What, in effect, he is saying is that if the mind thinks of the head of a pin or the continent of Australia, it is totally present to each of the items without its unity being sundered. In other words, its omnipresence does not fragment its identity, for it is at once both divisible and indivisible: [AS: And the quote--]"Its divisibility lies in its presence at every point of the recipient, but it is indivisible as dwelling entire in the total and entire in any part." (IV.2.1) The recitation of these words is not a guarantee that the meaning accompanies their repetition. (laughter, student assents) Plotinus is referring here to the mystical experience of this illuminating principle as egoless Being-Consciousness. In other passages he even refers to it as "the All." (cf. III.9.3 and III.4.3) So we must bear in mind the ego's intellect cannot--by the very nature of its own makeup--understand, let alone feel, the reality of such a principle, which in fact is illuminating its, the ego's, own activities, and, in all honesty, it cannot accept such a position."

RG: Can you read that last sentence again?

AS: Yeah.

AD Paper ["Essence of Soul as Indivisible and Divisible," AS reading]: "We must bear in mind the ego's intellect cannot--by the very nature of its own makeup--understand, let alone feel, the reality of such a principle, which principle is of course illuminating all its activities, and, in all honesty, the intellect cannot accept such a position."

AD: Well, after that, what I wanted to do, Avery, was to go into these quotes that I started the class with as to the nature-- you know, the nature of this unity, what the essence of soul is. [AS: Right.] Alright? That's what I wanted to follow up with.

AS: Ok.

AD: So since we reversed it, alright, let's imagine that now we've just read through a lot of the definitions or descriptions of what the soul essence is, ok?

AS: Uh-hm.

AD: And, we could try discussing it from-- from there on.

AS: Ok.

RG: One line in that paper said that the individual soul is a Thought of the Absolute Soul.

AD: Uh-huh. [student assents, faint] A Thought of the Mind of God.

RG: And that Thought is its unity?

AD: Well, Thought there would have to be capitalized, you know.

RG: It's hard to know what Thought means as (the/but), you know-- what that language--

AD: You know, the same like Bodhicitta, a thought of enlightenment, a seed from the Mind of God which will, so to speak, incarnate. God, or let's say the World-Mind, gets incarnated in that soul, and the c-- the World-Mind evolves through-- that is, the soul and the World-Mind both together evolve (into--) until the World-Idea is fully manifested, which is of course an endless-- ok. So the two of them would have to be kept together all the way through. But that's why I ref-- I use the term Being-Consciousness, you know, or Being-Life-Consciousness, a unit of Being-Life-Consciousness, instead of using the word 'Bodhicitta,' which is not-- I can't find it in my dictionary.

[short pause]

AH: Anthony?

AD: Yes?

AH: (This is) just a question of clarification concerning a phrase in this last paper. You describe the necessity to isolate this-- I think to isolate the principles. But then also has been described that-- that-- that's certainly non-objectifiable and that kind of language. So, what is meant by isolating? Is-- are we speaking of what soul is not?

AD: Well what I'm simply saying there, it's really nothing profound, I'm simply saying when you sit down and you meditate, you attempt to isolate your I-ness from the psychosomatic organism. In other words, that immaterial principle, that illuminating consciousness, you try to isolate that from your body, the psychosomatic organism. Now, let's say that it was possible that you could isolate this awareness, which is always identified with the body, alright, you isolate the awareness from the psychosomatic organism, and you have identified with this awareness, alright. Now you recognize "This am I. I'm this awareness," alright. Now you can begin an inquiry, an investigation into the nature of the "I". You cannot investigate into the nature of the "I" while you're identified with the bodily organism, and while you think you are the bodily organism. So, it's an investigation that's very strange because the only equipment you're going to have, alright, is to be denuded of everything.

AH: That's my question, I-- I don't know what it means to isolate or to investigate if you've-- if you've already precluded the possibility of using everything that I-- that I know.

AD: If you what?

AH: Everything that I could possibly know about it in a conceptual way--

AD (simultaneously): No, everything that you could possibly know, the way you are now--

AH: Yes.

AD: Yeah.

AH: That has to be pre-- negated.

AD (simultaneously): Precluded, yeah.

AH: So what does it mean to investigate or to isolate, can you say more, is it impossible to speak?

AD: Well, no this is the purpose of the meditational exercises. I mean when you sit down and you practice attention, until you become attention, and nothing but attention, and you recognize that this attention is a power of the soul, and you trace this power of the soul to its source, alright, you can't bring any baggage with you. You can't bring any thoughts with you, they're not going to-- you're not going to be able to investigate the nature of the "I" with some more thoughts. You can only investigate the nature of the "I", let's say if-- let's say that this I-ness has depths, you know, to it, you can only investigate it by you doing it, by you becoming what it is you're investigating. You can't have a series of thoughts about what's going on there. That would be no investigation at all.

AH: I-- I said I-- [S, faint: It's (just that--/ok.)] I don't understand it.

RG (simultaneously): He said you can't understand it too.

AH (simultaneously): I-- you-- I feel a little better if it just can't be understood. (bit of laughter) Or can't be like accepted [one/two words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): (Andrew--)

AH: I'm sorry I don't understand, Anthony.

AD: Well it is true the-- like it was pointed out, to strip consciousness of all thought and to recognize-- of all content, and to recognize that you are this consciousness, alright, that is inconceivable, because in the very statement, "strip it of all thought," you've made it inconceivable, alright. Now that you are this inconceivable awareness, and further introspect into yourself, alright, where there are no thoughts, no concepts that you could bring along like a pair of claws so that you can grab what's going on, yes, it's admittedly true, but that's why I say in the paper that we have to follow the lead of those who have done that, who have investigated or introspected into their I-ness, through and by means of that awareness or that I-ness, and not with anything extraneous to that I-ness. I know it's admittedly difficult to understand. I know that. And that's precisely why I'm pointing out--it doesn't help that you studied all the Greek texts, and you know the etymological derivation of all the Greek words. It will be utterly hopeless here to bring it along with you all this paraphernalia and try to investigate the nature of this awareness. It's only awareness, so to speak, introspecting into itself that can know about itself by being itself, and the deepening phases of this here. But there I can't bring no concepts in. And so, you know, most of the time they give it these descriptive names--the Clear Light, the Brighter Light, the Void Light, the Ultimate Light, you know. And these are not meant to be concepts.

LR: And isn't this just like that quote you read in PB the other night? He could assure you that unless--

AD: The other night to me means all my life previous. (laughter)

S (amidst laughter): Exactly, exactly. [one/two words inaudible]

LR: I don't know.

CdA: That wasn't available. (some laughter) Wasn't the subject.

S (very faint): How do you know?

S: Definitely not.

AD: Yes dear? (laughter)

S: I say isn't it nice. Not worrying about--

AD: Uh-oh. She's mad at me now. (AD laughs, laughter)

LR: I'm just referring to the quote where he said I can assure you that there is this higher self but I can't-- it's impossible to use any words to describe it. That there has to be an [one word inaudible] of something but it's not in (relation in the--)

S (very faint): Yeah.

AD: Uh-huh.

LR: The discussion just sounds exactly like that [couple words inaudible] that PB used.

AD: Well what do you expect from a student of PB that's-- (AD laughing) something original? (AD laughs, laughter)

LR: It wasn't a criticism. (some laughter)

AD: Oh I didn't take it as such.

HS: So the terminology that you're using now, is it-- when you turn the awareness upon itself and, you know, begin to introspect into the "I", and let's say you're successful when you do that, you've now entered into the realm of soul the way you're speaking?

AD: Yes, in a sense that's what I'm trying to say, it's-- it's very difficult to understand this, because the essence of the soul, the ground of the soul, is beyond the powers. The powers themselves cannot reach the soul.

HS: The powers come forth from--

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, yeah. The powers of the soul, they themselves cannot reach the soul. The ground of the soul is beyond the powers. So for instance, if the soul wants to know anything it takes an image of the thing into itself and knows about that thing. But how can the soul know itself? It can't make an image of itself.

S (very faint): Yeah.

HS: Ok, so the personality--

AD (simultaneously): So, how can you-- how can you get to know that Self? You've got to plunge into it, penetrate it, become it.

HS: And the awareness then is like intrinsic to the essence of soul?

AD: Yeah.

HS (faint): So to speak?

AD: There's like-- has been mentioned a few occasions-- there's a deepening of awareness, so that you go beyond the awareness of awareness to the awareness itself, pure awareness. [Note: See Paul Brunton, Notebooks, V4, Part 1, 4:1.128 and Perspectives, Ch. 4, #8.] But you can think of it this way: the powers of themselves are like the outer compared to the essence or the ground of the soul which is its most inner.

LD: And by powers you mean memory, perception, things like that?

AD: Yeah but there you see we're borrowing the vocabulary or the terminology which is granted to us by the experience of the World-Idea that the soul has.

LD: I mean you don't mean like knowing. That's not considered a power of the soul, that it--

AD (simultaneously): Well, don't bring that in because that's too universal and knowing could be so many things. Like, in this case when we're speaking about the soul's Being and its Knowing cannot be divorced from one another. Being and Knowing here are the same, Consciousness and Isness.

LD: Ok that's--

S: Anthony?

LR/S(?): Were you finished Louis, did you get a [one word inaudible]

LD: Yeah, that the-- the way I-- I just interpreted it the way I wanted. (LD laughs, laughter) No, I understood it to be knowing is in-- at least in the highest sense of the word is not a power of the soul, [AD: No.] (Knowing-)Being, when they're a unity, is the soul [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Yeah. Because when we say for instance the soul can perceive, alright, memorize, all these things, you know, we speak about it as powers. But when you speak about soul per se, included in the definition would be its intrinsic self-cognition. That would be its knowing of itself as a Being. Its Being is its Knowing, and its Knowing is its Being.

LD: And that's the only way it can know itself, not through memory, not through perceiving itself, that-- perceiving in the way that we would use it here.

AD: Yeah, yeah. That's what I meant when I said that you cannot reach the soul through its powers.

RG: But-- but--

CdA (simultaneously): [couple words inaudible] say--

KD (simultaneously): Does powers there refer to the World-Idea? The powers would be involved in the [one word inaudible]

AD: Well, when we use the language of powers, we're borrowing our terminology from the World-Idea.

RG: Then-- then "its" is inappropriate.

AD: Huh?

RG: Then "its" is inappropriate. What do you mean "its powers"?

S: The powers comes from the World-Idea but [few words inaudible]

AD: Again, powers is not to be identified-- like if I say the power of the soul is perceiving, perceiving is not the power.

LR: Right, [RG simultaneously: Yeah.] yeah.

RG: Yeah.

KD: But the powers become--

RG: Wait.

KD: The powers [AD simultaneously: But the power can--] grow and become revealed by the World-Idea.

AD: The power can become perceiving, can become memory.

CdA: And then it could stop being that, and that-- that very power is-- it's that very power is-- If the ground of the soul is beyond that power, it still must be that power that is going to get to the ground of the soul. Right? I mean 'get' [AD simultaneously: No.] is not correct but--

RG (simultaneously): No?

AD: No.

CdA: By stopping-- by stopping to be that power the ground in the soul will be present? I mean I-- may I pursue this?

AD: Sure.

S (faint): Uh-hm.

CdA: Ok. I-- I'm used to conceiving of the Witness as that-- as this kind of power. And-- and that it's this awareness that the Witness has that is going to become identified with the unity of the soul. Now that seems to be a false conception in that there's-- sometimes you're describing this--

AD: When we think of the Witness-I, that too is a power of the soul.

CdA (simultaneously): Right, right. And as I was saying, that I'm used to conceiving the Witness as this kind of awareness that when it disidentifies with the whole Earth sphere, that it is that-- this power of awareness that can become identified with the unity of the soul.

AD: No.

CdA: Ok now, please point out my mistake.

AD: Not a mistake, it's a question that that Witness-I is a projection. [CdA assents] It's a power of the soul, it is not the ground or the unity of the soul.

CdA: Yeah, no, I-- I understand that.

AD: You can't, in other words, with the Witness-I investigate into the nature of the unity of the soul.

CdA: But doesn't the Witness-I first have to be withdrawn into that unity for--

AD: The Witness-I has to be withdrawn from its content.

CdA: Yeah.

AD: Yeah.

CdA (simultaneously): But, ok, the Wi--

AD (simultaneously): And then?

CdA: That awareness has to be withdrawn from its content. Now, what happens to that power that has been the Witness on--

AD: Nothing happens to it, it's alright.

CdA: Is it-- is it now-- is it now integral with the unity?

AD: No. Again, [CdA simultaneously: Ok.] it is still a power.

CdA: It remains a power.

AD: And he even has a quotation somewhere where he points out that the soul has the power to project itself anywhere. [Note: See Plotinus, IV.3.8, second to last paragraph.] That power to project itself anywhere is what we're referring to as this power to be a Witness, to be an awareness of a content.

CdA: Ok then how do you explain--

RG (simultaneously): (Do they apply) to try to-- If it's a projection from the soul, and a power of the soul, there seems to be some link there between--

AD: I'm not denying a link between the power of the soul and the soul.

RG: Right.

AD: I'm just saying that a power of the soul can't get you to the ground of the soul.

LR: (The thing) goes out from the soul.

CdA: Yeah.

RG (simultaneously): Now in the-- Ok. But in the quote, one of the quotes we just read it said soul is both partible and impartible. Is the-- isn't it the power of the soul that you're talking about that represents the impartible part, or is it the soul--

AD (simultaneously): Uh-uh. He says that, if I remember-- he says somewhere that the unity of the soul is immanent in all its powers, alright. [RG assents, faint] He doesn't identify them. [RG assents] There's no identity between the unity of the soul and its presence in a power. [RG: Ok.] So the entirety of the unity of the soul is required, let's say, in the act of perception, but it is not identical with that power of perception. [Note: See Plotinus, VI.4.9.]

RG: Right.

CdA: So--

AD: At all costs I think you'll see he's gonna preserve the unity of the soul, the ground of the soul.

RG: Ok. And that resides [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): First of all, that would have to be because it is the ground of the soul which takes in the aura or the emanation. In other words, the ground of the soul can only be reached by God. Nothing else can reach it.

S (faint): I don't understand that.

RG (simultaneously): Uh-hm.

KD: What, what?

S (faint): Who?

S (faint): Uh-hm.

S (simultaneously, faint): Yeah.

AD: What, huh, huh, huh?

RG (simultaneously, faint): Couldn't reach?

S: Alright.

AD: But isn't that-- isn't that a natural implication?

RG: I don't know, I-- no, I-- it's not natural. It may be true but it isn't-- (RG laughs)

AD: Well supernatural.

RG: --(see it) as natural.

S (simultaneously): (That's right.)

CdA: But if you start from--

RG (simultaneously): Wait, could you--

LR (faint): Just repeat what you--

AH (simultaneously): Yeah, could you say--

RG: Wait, can you elaborate that, Anthony?

S (faint): Just repeat.

AD: When-- when we speak about the-- the soul receiving the aura or--

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1984 0113a Ends; Side 2 Begins)

AS: First point is that this emanant, this essence, is characterized by infinite power. He has that in at least two or three places. One of them is in IV.3.8, and the other one is in VI.5.12. In IV.3.8, he says--

[short pause with shuffling about]

Plotinus [IV.3.8, AS reading]: "[But] what becomes of the Soul's infinity if it is thus fixed?

"The infinity is a matter of power: there is question, not of [the] Soul's being divisible into an infinite number of parts, but of an infinite possible effectiveness: it is infinity in the sense in which the Supreme God, also, is free of all bound.

"This means that it is no external limit that defines the individual being or the extension of souls any more than of God; on the contrary each in right of its own power is all that it chooses to be: [and] we are not to think of it as going forth from itself (losing its unity by any partition): the fact is simply that the element within it, which is apt to entrance into body, has the power of immediate projection any whither: [the] Soul is certainly not wrenched asunder by its presence at once in foot [and in] finger [AS adds: and so on]. Its presence in the All is similarly unbroken…"

AS: And in VI.7.12 he says-- VI-- I'm sorry, VI.5.12, the same idea. [short pause, flipping of pages] I think 5-- page 540.

Plotinus [VI.5.12, AS reading]: "[12. To return]: How is that Power present to the universe?

"As a One Life.

"Consider the life in any living thing; [it] does not reach only to some fixed point…it is omnipresent. If…we are asked [AS reads: we ask], How?, we appeal to the character of this power, not subject to quantity but such that though you divide it mentally for ever you still have the same power, infinite to the core; in it there is no Matter to make it grow less…

"Conceive it as a power of an ever-fresh infinity, a principle unfailing, inexhaustible, at no point giving out, brimming over with its own vitality."

AS: Well--

AD: Well of course that's impossible to believe about this stuff.

AS: Well, I think if I--

S (faint): Go on, Avery.

AS (faint): Maybe just go over them. (Well), go on (Dave/David).

DB: Well I was just curious if we-- if it could be said on the basis of that-- the quote and what you have spoken of earlier, that it's within the-- the life of the soul [one/two words inaudible] of the self-cognition takes place in or--

AS: It's within the life of the soul that the absence of the self-cognition takes place?

DB: Right.

AS: But aren't you speaking of absence as a positive thing? Could you say that positively [one word inaudible] within the light the absence takes place?

DB: I-- I-- I worked on it for fifteen minutes to get that far.

AS: Yeah, that's a very nice formulation. [couple words inaudible]

DB (simultaneously): You want me to say it positively?

AS: No I'm-- You said within that infinite life. Now I'm equa-- I'm-- what-- the point I was trying to make is that that infinite-- first point, that that infinite power, is the life of the soul. [DB assents] That is the soul life. When he says it's Life-Consciousness-Being, [DB: Right.] that emanant is that infinite power. Now when Anthony was taking the power or functions or anything, that's not quite the same thing as this infinite power from what I'm understanding. [DB: Right, ok.] That's like a determination of that power somehow, or a determination or a channelization. That this infinite power is-- is-- is in fa-- is the same with its own life essence.

DB: Ok. But--

AS: I mean I don't know [one word inaudible]

DB: Well, you see I mean, if-- is it--

RG: Say more.

S (faint): Ok.

DB: I mean, would it-- would it be accurate to say that it's just this vitality in the soul which is what is divisible about body, ok, this life which is like present in the finger, the foot and so forth. And is that-- Yeah, on the one hand, and I suppose that I'm doing something I shouldn't, but I want to keep intact the unity of the Being and Consciousness of the soul. [AS: Right.] Like, that at one with the All-Soul (you said), that you could take it from the earlier Soul. But I'm trying to find where precisely do we speak of this lack of self-cognition, I mean, this condition that makes it necessary a certain order, self-knowledge.

AS: Well, he says that the essence of soul in itself is not self-gnostic, that there's this light-- so that they're saying a light of the Nous shining into its very ground makes the soul self-cognitive. So now if that light of soul is not occupied with that, doesn't-- is not occupied with that radiation into its ground but is occupied with the presence of the World-Idea, then it is not-- then it is not going to be self-knowing. 'Cause only-- only that-- only that light, only that Nous can (blend/lend) its self-knowing into the soul.

DB: But with it.

S: Right.

DB: So but then would you-- would the-- would it follow then we'd say that the Overself at some point is not self-cognitive?

AS: No, because [DB simultaneously: Ok.] there's never a time at which this light is not shining into its ground.

DB: Ok. Most-- I mean--

AS (simultaneously): (Clean that up.)

DB: Right, ok, but then would it-- would it be since-- since-- But I mean the part of the light that goes forth, I mean the part of the soul that goes forth, so to speak, and becomes involved in-- in the World-Idea, is caught up in the projection (of the world), or whatever, is-- is that the Life principle within the soul, within each unit soul?

AD: That's the power. [VM simultaneously: And that's the same thing--] That's its power.

VM: So is that then the same as the Witness?

S: Well, no wait a minute.

S (faint): Wait a minute, wait a minute, say that again.

VM: It sounds like the essence of soul.

DB: But it-- but it is within this power, this life, that this lack of self-cognition takes place, and it's this life retracing itself back to its source--

[short pause]

AH: David?

DB: Yeah.

AH: It seemed that the lack of self-cognition as you phrased it is a way of speaking about bodies.

AD: No that's irrelevant now, this notion of self-cognition. When you cut your finger, and the power of the soul is involved in the healing processes that are-- are taking place, alright, you can also speak about the presence of the soul's unity in that power. But it's irrelevant right now. That-- we're not interested in that. What we're interested now in is to try to understand something about the way this power of the soul can spread out into the World-Idea, you know, like water flowing into a tank, alright, spread out into the World-Idea, and get determined by that World-Idea into a certain kind of power, a seeing power for instance. Avery used the example, the Sun makes the eyeball, alright. Now, the World-Idea has provided a channel by means of which the power of the soul goes out through the eye, gets channelized as sight, as this particular function. And this power is now a determined power. Prior to that, it is the sheer indeterminacy of the power of the soul, alright, to assume that form. So when-- when mention is made that it is the World-Idea which is guiding and instructing the soul, alright, this is a very specific example of how that's being done. This will also take place not only in terms of the sense functions but also it will channelize the power of the soul to become understanding, to become reason, to become all these things. But you must leave the power of the soul as this indeterminacy, alright, by which the soul can spread out into the World-Idea, become that World-Idea, and become determined by that World-Idea. And now you could speak about determinate powers of the soul.

LR: So would you say this, that the power of the soul per se is the chief faculty of the soul. But then--

AD (simultaneously): But don't you see when you use the word 'faculty' what you've done?

LR: Ok, ok, wait. Let me-- let me change that otherwise you-- The power of the soul is identical with the soul itself. But when you speak of--

AD: No! It's not identical with the soul. You have to leave it as distinguished from its unity.

LR: Yes. Well, let me finish the-- let me finish this-- the thought and maybe you can (clarify).

AD: Why bother to finish the thought? [student assents] Alright, go ahead, finish it.

[17 second pause]

LR: I was-- what I was really trying to get at was that the de-- the definition of those powers by the World-Idea. I was trying to see that the power of the soul was the emanation of unity. But that the particularity or differentiation of that power came from the World-Idea.

AD: Alright, sure, you (could) put it that way.

CdA: But is the power other than the unity?

AD: Oh, here we go around this circle.

CdA (simultaneously): No, but that's what it sound like [S simultaneously: No.] I'm saying.

LR: It is the unity or it is not the unity.

CdA: Yeah. (some laughter)

RG (faint): Come on, let's go.

CdA: Ok, I think but maybe not.

AH: (If the unity) [few words inaudible] when we equated notion of soul with notion of mind? I don't think it's appropriate but it helps me to understand that you wouldn't equate the unity of mind with the power of mind. I can-- I can hold that distinction (of mind).

AD: Good, then hold that distinction.

AH: Ok.

AD: I think the quotation that Avery read before was really very accurate when he speaks about this power being infinite, and that if you divide it to infinity, it remains infinite to the core, alright? And that gives you the unity of the soul on the one hand, alright, and if you want to say its power on the other hand. And he goes on and says that soul now must be looked upon as a whole of parts, these two parts, another way of saying the same thing. The whole here consisting of its power and its unity.

AH: Anthony, generally in terms of this discussion, can we exchange the notion of mind for soul?

AD: Yeah, sure.

ME: If he's-- Andrew, if you say though that the infinite-- you say that some of the-- the power that gets-- imagine like a sense power, understanding, reason, power to-- or feeling of the world or something like that, then what parts are you deriving from the World-Idea? It seems that the infinite power of the soul now has all the-- has all the attributes. I think I'm going to-- I-- it just seems that let's say if you put sight on the side of the infinite power of the soul, all-- let's say all the subjective functions I might know, and a lot of them I don't know that--

AD (simultaneously): No, what I was doing was putting the faculty or the organ on the side of the World-Idea, and the power on the side of the soul. [students assent] In other words, it's the World-Idea which provides us with the eye, alright, the optic nerve, everything necessary in order to see, alright. That-- that's the organ. But the power to see belongs to the soul.

ME: Ok, but um-- [short pause] well I'm just trying to think of let's say some-- some physical power then, say gravity or something like that, you would also-- that would be a soul power?

AD: No.

ME: No.

AD: No that would be part of the World-Idea I think. In other words, we're speaking about the way the parts of the var-- various parts of the cosmic Idea are-- are related to each other and we have to bring in the notion of gravity or something like that. And I would say we're speaking about the way the World-Idea is put together.

ME: So can you say about-- in that IV.3 quote when he says that, whatsoever body it occupies, even the universe--

AD: Whatsoever body it occupies--

ME: Even the universe, it's present entire. And what-- then I don't understand, what way-- I mean how is that let's say that these embedded in the universe. It would seem to be powers of the soul. Or are there powers in the universe that would be powers of the soul rather than let's say the interrelationship between the World-Idea.

[short pause]

AD: Well--

AS: I don't know, I don't-- well, I don't-- (well--)

ME: I don't care.

AD: Go ahead, Avery.

AS: I don't follow. I mean I think-- I-- I'll try but I project-- suppose I misunderstood this whole business. Ok, can I-- can I try and just say a couple of [couple words inaudible] (words) or whatever. I didn't get them out before. But, there seem to be these two-- two complementary notions and first one got (blasted) and the second one [few words inaudible] but-- On the one hand, the soul has this infinite power which is present entire to any of the particular activities in the cosmic circuit. On the other hand, this power is canalized by the World-Idea, is canalized by it. So, for example, when you have like-- you have this famous example, electricity. When the electricity goes through the toaster you're getting heat kind of energy; when it goes through a motor you get a kind of a motion kind of activity. And you could call those like faculties: that that one power that makes them all run is the electricity. Now without that infinite power of the soul, these World-Idea faculties, these parts of the World-Idea as it were won't be faculties at all, it won't have any perception or memory or reason. But, without the World-Idea, this infinite power is undifferentiated.

So only in the conjunction of those two, this infinite power of the soul with the World-Idea do you get these distinguishable faculties. Otherwise you would have just the undifferentiated power of the soul. [S: But it's (one word inaudible)] So that means, [AH: That's so.] (for some--) these two points of view you need to bring in. On the one hand there's undifferentiated power of the soul which is then getting differentiated or modalized or canalized by the World-Idea; and at the same time it remains this infinite power. Ok now that's the view I was trying to take and I don't-- I'm not sure, I guess I misunderstood though the relation of that infinite power-- I guess I misunderstood the relation of that infinite power to the essence of soul.

Now by unity of soul I'm not meaning the soul in Nous, but that Overself itself--that emanant-- and I had understood that that emanant was characterized by power. And that-- I mean I had once tried to do that where you speak of this unity and then the power as like the second hypothesis [of Plato's Parmenides] but I mean-- Then I thought that got, you know-- that that's not a valid point of view and you speak of the soul itself is this infinite Life-Power-Consciousness which gets modalized by the-- well, by the World-Idea. And that the World-Idea provides the determinations as it were. But the soul within itself is indeterminate.

LR: Ok. I think we were slipping just in what-- what we meant by unity of soul like you said. I think that starts--

AS: No I-- we weren't slipping, I [one word inaudible]

LR: Yeah no what-- just repeat what you said the unity-- in this context unity [one/two words inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): Well, in the context we're speaking of the soul as this emanant.

LR: Ok.

AS (simultaneously): Now we're not--

LR: Right. Forget about the soul in the Nous.

AS (simultaneously): Now I-- now-- No, not forget about it. If you mean by the unity of this emanant the soul in the Divine, then I would agree that its power as power is distinct from that. But if you mean to speak of the unity of this emanant in its-- as a distinct princ--

LR: In itself.

AS: If you mean the Overself in itself, then I don't see how to separate that unity from its characterization as infinite power.

LR: Ok good. Yeah.

AS: Or infinite Life-Power-Being, or Consciousness-- Consciousness-Being-Life. This is all (I still have) to characterize that uncharacterizable or unmanifesting principle of soul, the emanant, that Overself [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): But I don't see why you have difficulty there, Avery, because it's extremely straightforward to say that Mind Is, and it certainly is another straightforward statement to say that Mind Acts. And that the Is that the Mind Is is what I'm referring to as the ground, the soul or the ground, and its Activity, alright, as its power, and that I'm not going to identify these and reduce them to one thing.

VM: Anthony, this distinction that you're trying to make between the power on the one hand and unity, let's say ground on the other, isn't this what permits the distinction between let's say the soul as a distinct unity and the Witness-I as that unity functioning towards say the World-Idea?

AD: Yeah.

AS: That's exactly [AD simultaneously: But--] what I don't follow at all.

AD: But-- I thought that was-- to me it seems kind of straightforward but that could be a--

AS: Well Anthony, another thing. One of the comments I thought you made is that when that power is released from its functioning through a psychosomatic organism, released from any functioning through the reason-principles of the Earth, that infinite power returns or is not-- is then seen to be (not/none) other than the Overself, the act of the Overself. Now I don't-- I don't-- I'm-- I can see distinguishing its activity in relation to the Wor-- well, I can't even see that but--

AD: But, Avery, you did-- in the sentence just previously you did just point out the Overself is, the Overself acts. And, that's all I'm doing.

AS: But I-- and I'm-- and I-- I was trying to take the point of view that this Overself as a soul is a kind of-- is a Life-Intelligence, and that the very characterization of its essence-- You know, like when he says at every grade of Life is also a grade of Thought. [Note: See Plotinus, III.8.8.] That means the Life side of it would be from the side of soul.

AD: Yes.

AS: And the Thought side of it is from the side of Idea. World-Idea.

AD (simultaneously): Yes, yes.

S (simultaneously, faint): (Bring in Samkhya.)

RG: I say that there's [LR simultaneously: But isn't--] some semantic-- there's a problem here though. Because in the beginning I thought we were pluralizing the idea of the soul's powers as the emanant, and reserving the ground as its Being-Consciousness or infinity of power as Avery was trying to say. And that if you hold to the infinity of power along with the Being-Consciousness-Life as the essence of soul, then its differentiation as powers allows for its act rather than its essence.

AS: That's pretty close to what I was saying.

RG: Right, right, right. And that kind of--

AS (simultaneously): I was saying-- I was-- [AD simultaneously: Yeah, alright.] (have) this idea for several-- [RG: Yeah.] for a while.

RG: That's alright.

S: Can you (compare) that?

AD (simultaneously): It seems, it seems that in-- in the way I'm discussing the thing I'm making this, you know, cast-iron division between its Isness and its Act. I'm just trying to preserve the unity of the soul.

LR: And by unity you mean? In this context.

AD: What-- what we spoke about as the unit of soul as Being-Life-Consciousness.

RG: Yeah, right.

AD: That's its ground. Which can only be reached as I said before by the Divine Itself.

RG: And it's only when you speak of the plurality of powers of the soul that you descend to its actual (relation) to the World-Idea.

AD: Yeah.

LR: But by unity you don't mean-- we're not talking about its unity as the Nous or Absolute Soul.

AD: No, no.

LR: You're still [RG simultaneously: Unity as a-- right.] speaking about unity as the I AM consciousness.

AD: Yeah.

LR: And you're making the power distinct from that.

AD: Well, as long as you-- as long as you don't make it separate from that.

LR: Distinct and not separate though?

AD: Distinct and not separate. If the example that Jeff once used, you know, when you go to the country fair and you go take a ride in the automobile, that thing that rides, [Note: Reference is to friction cars; cf. WG Class 1983 0708.] alright, and that the whole ground is all electricity. You get in the car and you step on the gas pedal, alright, and the car goes, the electric car goes. Now, there's a unity there. But there's also the power of that unity which is being manifest by that car running. Now you-- we have to make a distinction between these two. The Isness, the static part of the soul, which is that ground, alright, and then that power which could run the electric car. Now it's a distinction, not a separation.

RG: But in terms of the essence of soul, can you even distinguish pure power from Being-- from its Being? Like Avery was offering that--

AD: If I don't do that, if I don't do that, I will not be able to think of the unit soul as non-dual.

RG: Why?

AD: I have to think of the unit soul as being ultimately non-dual, [RG assents] alright. But, I also have to think of the unit soul as containing within it a content on which its powers are operative. [RG assents] And this way I can at one and the same time have the unity of the soul, it is non-dual, and at the same time its expressive Act. Its expressive Act and the unity of the soul, these two are non-dual, but they are distinct. The World-I-- Let me-- let me try from the analogy of the-- the-- what was it, the non-dual point of view, that you have Mind and you have its Act. Now, we distinguish them, alright, but we know that ultimately they're both reducible to Pure Consciousness. So we speak about the Pure Consciousness as non-dual, but this non-duality including its expressive Act, that is, the manifestation of a universe. In a similar way, analogously, alright, you have the unit soul--and by unit soul you're saying a unitary soul--and its expressive Act.

RG: Yes, I know, but the meaning of--

AD (simultaneously): And these two are non-dual. [RG assents, faint] The power that it exercises, unit soul, is a non-dual thing, it's a whole of many parts.

RG: Can you conceive the unit soul in its non-dual aspects un-- as not expressing itself as pure power? Can the power it's now-- can the power also be used to be conceived on the side of the unit soul in its ground rather than its act. Or is power specifically reserved for its expressive act?

AD: The power is reserved for its expressive act.

JfL: So when you say that the soul knows the entirety, and it knows itself, you-- you've always held--

AD: What?

JfL: You've always held in the back, you've said you always have to remember that there really aren't two knowers. And it sounds a little bit like when you say-- Is that right? There really aren't two knowers, the one aspect is exhibiting its powers, merely participating in the consciousness of the World-Idea. I mean what I was wondering is-- problem I had is, is that in that kind of formulation, I never really see how the soul ever is associated with a body other than just sort of being next to it. I never see it. I don't see how the soul is ever involved in the World-Idea. [short pause] I don't know if these are connected, related these two. But (if) a soul is-- so-called lower aspects never seems to be associated really, I mean it's like, when you have that intuition or whatever, and the psychosomatic releases the light of the soul, the light always was what it was, and that power is what it was, and the essence of the soul is none other than what it was even in its outgoing-- so-called outgoing phase.

[short pause]

DB (faint): (Maybe) [couple words inaudible]

S (faint): (Not really.)

DB/S(?) (faint): Well how much is another one?

JfL: Right, yeah. Right. Oh so is that what you mean that the-- [short pause] You're saying that I'd be making (it two), that the content is always outside of it, and then by its powers we're saying that we participate in World-Idea.

AS: Yeah, I had the notion that in that speaking of that soul as an emanant of the Nous, you've already characterized it as this power, that power was that emanating [one/two words inaudible] In looking to the Nou-- looking inwardly he says it receives that light of Nous, looking outwardly, by outwardly he means to its content, it manifests that. Now, I just understood, Anthony, that in loo-- something like, this is what I (may be mistaken) that, in looking inwardly as it were, it's that power, that very same power, the soul as this Life-power that receives the light of the Nous, that is also that power which then-- you could say that manifests the World-Idea, or get differentiated in association with that World-Idea. Otherwise I don't see where the source-- I don't-- I don't quite see the source of that power. I don't-- I'm--

S (faint): That's ok.

RG: Oh but he did say they're not different, Avery.

AD: I-- what-- I do not disagree with what you said, Avery.

AS: Well, ok.

AD: I'm not disagreeing with what you said. I'm just adding this little further distinction. If you say that the soul is an emanation of power, alright, that this unit soul is an emanation of power, what you really mean is now this soul is a Logos. It's not simply a manifestation of the Absolute Soul's power. The power of the Absolute Soul when it manifests, it manifests an offspring. [AS assents] It's a lesser than that.

AS: Right.

AD: Alright?

AS: Yeah I follow that it's a Logos.

AD (simultaneously): Now-- now, when the outward-facing hypostasis of the Divine Soul, let's say, this power, alright, does result in offsprings, each of these offsprings, true, is a manifestation of that power, that outward-facing hypostasis. But now it is, in my opinion, incorrect to say that it is power. It is a Logos.

AS: Right.

AD: A unit soul in its own right now.

AS: Yes. But (go on).

AD (simultaneously): Now this has an outward-facing hypostasis, its power.

AS: Well, I didn't mean to say that the-- that the unit soul was that-- just the power of the e-- the emanant (as/is) power. It's a unity, I follow that.

AD: Ok.

AS: I wasn't-- I wasn't-- (I think there's) question here, let me just see if I can formulate or--

[short pause with faint background student talking]

AD: Well, why don't you--

AS (simultaneously): Oh I know why. I-- I just-- my objection maybe came from-- partly from this thing of this conjunction of World-Idea with the soul. I mean I-- we keep talking about that World-- I tried that once, to make-- you know, to see the power as the Being. You know, in this whole thing you have a Unity of the soul, and then you have its Being, it's given Being, like the Parmenides hypothesis. [Note: See WG Classes 1983 0902b, 0909b, 0916 for more discussion of this point.] Now, I understood the way we were working it as the World-Idea as the Being of this-- the Being part, [AD simultaneously: Yeah, uh-hm.] and the soul as the Unity. [AD: Uh-hm.] Now, I have to put this power on the side of soul.

AD: Agreed. Agreed.

AS (simultaneously): If I put it on the side-- well, in that case, there's no place left-- I mean do both power and the World-Idea give this Being, or just the World-Idea give it its Being?

AD (simultaneously): Wait, wait, do both--

AS: We only have-- we have these two things, we have the Unity and we have the Being.

AD: Yeah.

AS: And the Being is given by the World-Idea, as I understood it. Its Being, its Being [AD simultaneously: Uh-huh.] that soul [AD: Uh-hm.] by the World-Idea. Its Unity is from the soul, from the soul.

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, ok.

AS: And that doesn't leave any place else to bring the power in from. I mean you view it from the side of [student assents, faint] soul it's-- it is the-- well--

RG: And I have absolutely no idea what you mean when you say the Being of the soul is given by the World-Idea.

AS (simultaneously): Well if the soul is a Logos-- if that-- well--

AD: Well why don't we discuss that a little bit. Alright?

AS: I mean-- Ok. I think I follow what you're doing, maybe I'm-- Well, it's hard for me to see where this power is just suddenly coming-- is going to come in from if it's not intrinsically there in the definition of soul essence.

AD (simultaneously): But I'm not denying it its-- (AD laughs a bit) It is intrinsically there, I'm not denying that.

AS: Ok. Maybe we should (talk) about it.

CdA (simultaneously): But how it is there, I mean isn't it-- isn't it that you're saying that there is this Double Act, I mean, and something analogous to the Double Act, there is this Unity and there is an outward-facing hypostasis and that they're separate one from the other and--

AS: Oh yeah, the Double Act [in the One], the first was when it was not outward-facing. The first aspect of that power--

CdA (simultaneously): Yeah and that's what you were saying, yeah. Yeah.

AS (simultaneously): No, but that's not what he just said I thought.

CdA: Or, you're-- but--

AS (simultaneously, faint): Maybe [few words inaudible] I better be quiet, I don't know. [few words inaudible] [DB simultaneously: But is it--] (But I know) [couple words inaudible] it's meaningful if you talk.

DB: Is it possible that the-- [S: Ok.] that the power of the soul-- that-- that the soul's participation in the World-Idea, I mean the soul's an authentic existent, is it possible that the soul's participation with or in the World-Idea is as its, meaning the soul's, power? (I mean--) what--

[15½ second pause]

S: I guess we can go through--

S: Like the-- Dickie asked the question about, what was it, the-- how was the Being of the unit soul provided by the World-Idea? I didn't (understand).

AS: Oh that's right. That-- maybe that's some fruitful discussion, go into that notion of the soul as a Logos. And that may explain what we mean by saying that that World-Idea-- when-- as soon as you speak of an emanant from the Nous, you can abstractly say, you can theoretically say [one/two words inaudible] You could theoretically discuss the nature of that soul without it being conjoined to the World-Idea. But in actuality, you'll have to have that emanant, that indeterminate life conjoined with some kind of determination. Something's got to determine it. What determines it or gives it its Being-- gives-- gives it Being in the sense of a determinate Being would be the World-Idea.

LR: And isn't that what you mean by Logos?

AS: Well--

LR: I mean isn't-- I--

AS: In some way, I thought we came to that the Logos was the thing-- Logos meant the conjunction of these two--

LR: That's what I thought.

AS (simultaneously): --soul with reason-principle(s).

LR: That's what I thought, but now-- that's what-- I thought the conjunction of World-Idea with that emanant was, well what you meant by Logos.

AS: Right, yeah.

LR: But, it seems that Anthony was saying something different.

AD: No, I'm not [AS simultaneously: No.] saying anything different.

LR: You were saying [one word inaudible]

AD: I'm not saying [AS simultaneously, faint: No.] anything different.

S (faint): I know.

AS: Well, he has these interesting passages, he says every grade of Life is accompanied by some grade of Thought. So, (he/it) seemed to make the point there that if you speak of these grades of Life as grades of-- so to speak, grades of the soul power, and you speak of grades of Thought as grades of reason-principle, and at every point, at every level within the cosmos, you could speak of this-- this union or marriage of the soul with reason-principle(s), ok, or Thought and Life.

RG: Then it raises--

AD: Why don't you take those passages we went over this afternoon, or you went over this afternoon, you know on the "Omnipresence".

AS (faint): Ok.

AD: And maybe by reading them slowly and carefully and trying to explain them, we would be able to bring out what we're-- you know, what the discussion's about.

[46 second pause with faint background student talking]

LR: How about that one about the-- say they each-- which is fit-- the fitness of each soul?

AS: Yeah, (I've thought about that). [students assent, very faint] Sure, ok, more or less? Is that the one, Linda? I thought we would do one early before that. [24¾ second pause] Makes sense, which one? Anyone [one/two words inaudible]

S: What about freedom?

[1 minute 3¾ second pause]

S (faint): Avery, what about the infinite power and [few words inaudible]

AS (faint): [few words inaudible]

S (faint): [couple words inaudible]

AS (few): [few words inaudible] (and/in) soul.

S (faint): [inaudible]

AS: Well the whole-- what I understood, the soul, Overself, unit soul was the intermediary between the Absolute Soul and the cosmic circuit. (And) whatever that entails, a certain power was imparted (to it). [student assents, faint] Yeah. I mean you have to say that that intermediary had the power to (come harmonize) the cosmic [one word inaudible] according to the-- according to the (Absolute) Soul, and according to the paradigm [few words inaudible] [student assents, very faint] Oh maybe we could do 'em 11. Do you want to do 11, Anthony, or [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Any one you want to work with, sure. 11, 6.

AS (simultaneously): That was one we worked with, VI.4.11. [58 second pause with shuffling of paper noises] Well, so once we've made this point about the omnipresence-- Ok? We didn't really--

[Audio File 1984 0113a Ends. See appended JF notes for continuation of class.]