Class
Friday, July 13th, 1984
Verbatim, unedited transcriptClick the series name to view more
CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY
with Anthony Damiani (AD)
July 13a, 1984
HINDUISM; KNOWING WILLING FEELING; MURTI
TOPIC: Hinduism
SUBJECT: Knowing Willing Feeling
SUBSUBJECTS: Murti, KC Bhattacharyya, Plotinus, Matter, Astrology, Uranus Neptune Pluto
CONTENTS:
Reading/discussing Murti, "Knowing, Feeling and Willing as Functions of Consciousness"
Knowing Willing Feeling as three modes of attention
Knowing reveals the object; cosmic idealism
Individual mentalism on the side of willing and the subject
Givenness of world taken as known
Our apprehension of what is above or below is always in terms of knowing willing or feeling
Philosophy starts in reflective consciousness, the relation of a content as to a mode of consciousness
Murti: the object of knowledge must be universal
Can you know the essence Horse?
Metaphysics of Monty Python
Universal and Particular
The form of perception is found in the Chaldeans; what informs the perception is to be found above that; "School of Athens"
Natal chart as embodied knowledge of the particular, transiting planets as unembodied knowledge of the universal; have to bring Plato and Aristotle together, both are knowledge
Our soul is the same as the transiting planets; we participate in the knowledge of the undivided mind
Plotinus, VI.5.7: to know without image is to be
Earth Mind's fabrication of the sensible horse and your sensible body is particular sense knowledge; your participation in the undivided mind is universal knowledge
World-Mind wills the tree, my knowing discovers what the World-Mind has willed
Discovery of object not a denial of mentalism
Ramana to PB: experience me in the pureness of my Being, no more pictures
Sage is a person in whom the Void Mind has realized itself, can't limit his Being
How a Sage works on a student
Earth Mind knows when a sparrow falls, has most detailed knowledge you can conceive; doesn't know the way we know
World-Mind gives the "what", we contribute the "how"
Anthony, Raphael, and the "School of Athens"
Sage has knowledge of universal and particular simultaneously
Reading/discussing KCB, "The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms," on knowing
As soon as empirical perception takes place, the contribution of the individual is inevitable
In knowing the object, we are discovering what the World-Mind has willed for us to perceive; we reach a certain level where we identify with the World-Mind and we recognize that we ourselves have willed what we will discover
More student discussion distinguishing knowing and willing
Knowing willing feeling is at level of embodying soul and its relation to World-Idea, not at level of I AM
Embodying soul must evolve knowing willing feeling in order to work with World-Idea; without this, the World-Idea won't evolve within it, will be a meaningless notion
Might just be a play on words to say that each function formulates its own version of the Absolute; insight may be the proper formulation of the Absolute for all three
World-Idea is the converse side; will provide the necessary circumstances for development of will, discovery of knowledge, etc.
Reading/discussing Murti, "Illusion as Confusion of Subjective Functions"
Better to use "arisal of appearance" than "arisal of illusion"
Reading/discussing Murti on "rope-snake" illusion
"This is a snake": "This" = Pluto, "is a" = Neptune, "snake" = Uranus
Indeterminacy is the ability to combine the ideas in a variety of ways; looking at astrological examples
The functions are free to manipulate the ideas; this gives rise to an appearance/idea in our consciousness, not matter or illusion/confusion
What Murti calls confusion we call inspiration; important to use the right words
Indeterminacy as root of matter = vast potentiality of functions
Matter can't be indeterminate, only the potentiality of the functions to combine the ideas in an unlimited number of ways
Categories of thinking can't be reduced to Kantian twelve; involves the functioning of the whole planetary circuit
Things are numbers
Meaningless to speak of transiting planets separate from natal, have to be kept together
Sage knows when/how to apply the different functions to any given situation
The functions are always determinate; the product of their functioning is indeterminate and something entirely new
Something arises out of nothing, the actual creation of phenomena taking place in our consciousness; we then speak of this as some kind of matter "out there"
Knowing willing feeling are fundamental, we can't get underneath them
BOOKS / FILM READ FROM OR REFERENCED:
K.C. Bhattacharyya, Studies in Philosophy, Volume 2, "The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms," "The Subject as Freedom"
T.R.V. Murti, Studies in Indian Thought, "Knowing, Feeling and Willing as Functions of Consciousness"; "Illusion as Confusion of Subjective Functions"
John Deck, Nature, Contemplation, and the One
Plotinus, The Enneads (MacKenna translation, 4th ed.)
Bible, Matthew (10:29)
Paul Brunton, The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga
Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself
Terry Jones, dir., Monty Python's The Meaning of Life [film]
PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: II.4.10, IV.4.9, V.3.4, VI.5.7
DIAGRAMS referred to (not with this transcript version) [Transcriber note: [diagram] means the speaker is referencing a diagram as he or she is speaking. If someone is drawing or writing, with audible sounds of chalk on a blackboard, I indicate this by [drawing] or [writing].]
NOTES:
This is 1984 07/13a, Hinduism; Knowing Willing Feeling; Murti Class, and the first entry associated with this date. 1984 07/13b = Plotinus; Nature Seminar, for which we have no audio, just JF notes.
This was a Friday night class (usually Plotinus) but Murti done instead.
Related to WG Class 1984 0720a Hinduism; Knowing Willing Feeling.
Earlier partial transcript (Scan File 1984 0713 HIN MURTI F28.PDF) exists, done by Leslie Cohen 1986.
TRANSCRIBED Verbatim by IT prior to 2018; JF adds cover sheets and footer in 2018. This is V12a (2023) and has: updated prefatory matter, footer, and audio file name; TOC completed and Book List expanded; Plotinus quotes section added; typos/errors corrected; new notes within transcript. In 2025, IT updates audio file markers to match new REP audio. Archival verbatim transcript – V12a.
AUDIO FILES: 1984 0713a, 1984 0713b. [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 07/13a at Wisdom's Goldenrod
Hinduism; Knowing Willing Feeling; Murti
[Audio File 1984 0713a Begins]
RG: It's really a straightforward in some sense and confused-- and maybe confused in another sense, elaboration of KCB's article that we've done a lot on the [The Concept of the] Absolute and Its Alternative Forms where he unfolds knowing, feeling, and willing. What Murti's tried to do in this article is give some examples that Bhattacharya obviously leaves out in his sketchy aphoristic style. So we can go through s-- through some of them. The first part of it I think I'll just summarize because we've been through it enough times and it's pretty clear. And just-- and also I want to-- I wanted to try to tie in some of what we were doing Wednesday night with it to see if it-- it'll work, so-- I don't know if it does or not. So, as we all know, for review's sake. Basically the way Murti talks and the way Bhattacharya talks [short pause] there are three modes or three ways of relating to--
TS (very faint): (A/Of) content.
RG: Of relating-- (RG laughs)
VM: Just play that tape there Dickie.
RG: Play the tape. Of relating to a content, or relating to consciousness, or relating to the relationship. And basically Murti calls them three modes of attention. So [drawing/writing] in some sense attention pervades all three.
[RG drawing/writing]
VM: They use 'attention' and 'consciousness' more of a synonymously [couple/few words inaudible]
RG (simultaneously): Yeah, [few inaudible student words simultaneous with RG] I think he uses a-- 'attention' and 'consciousness' pretty synonymous. Well, no, he doesn't use 'attention' and 'consciousness' sy-- synonymously. Otherwise atten-- it would just be related to that particular mode. I think he says, for knowing, willing, and feeling, all of them, they are modes of attention.
VM: Look, this sentence--
[Transcriber note: I am using Studies in Indian Thought by T.R.V. Murti, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1983.]
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.1 Knowing, Feeling and Willing as Functions of Consciousness," p. 18, VM reading]: "The object may thus be understood; but what is consciousness in general which is not knowing, filling-- [RG simultaneously: Right, or not willing.] feeling or willing, it might be asked. We can however take it as attention [S, faint: Right.] which is basic to all [the] three…"
S (very faint): Ok.
RG: So "consciousness in general" is up here [diagram]. And there's a little-- maybe we have to clarify the terminology a little. [writing] "Consciousness in general" equals "attention".
VM: Yeah.
RG: But consciousness in a threefold relation is-- equals knowing-- equals willing, I'm sorry. When you specify consciousness and the content relation, you come through the mode of willing, 'cause it's on the subject side.
VM: This is consciousness creating the object?
RG: This is consciousness as creating the object, as imagining forth the world, ok, "consciousness in general". [writing] And I guess we could use the word 'subject' in here if we didn't want to use the word 'consciousness', and use the word 'object' here and then we could have subject-object relation [diagram] and reserve 'consciousness' for attention. Either way is ok [VM/S(?) simultaneously: Ok, yeah.] as long-- as long as we just know what the words mean. We've related these before astrologically to Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Uranus is knowing, Neptune is feeling, and Pluto is willing although there's some interesting twists here I think. And, there's also a threefold we were working with Wednesday night which I think also pertains and that was as of the soul as the indeterminate substratum of our being, the World-Idea as the content side which is going to unfold the world and it's content for us, and then the way that the soul pervades the World-Idea to give us an individual entity. And I think-- I think that could also be-- be brought in here. And then I would say each of these three, the soul, its pervasiveness or its relation to the World-Idea or vice versa, has its three modes, that the soul can be conceived of as known, willed, or felt; the pervasiveness could be experienced as felt, known, or willed; or-- and the World-Idea can in different cases be willed, felt, or known.
VM: Is it too early to ask about this yet?
RG: I don't know.
VM: We're building (it up) more.
RG: Maybe we should just go-- [S simultaneously: Let him finish.] let me just give a little more background and then-- and then we could try. What does he mean by these-- these three things, willing, feeling, and knowing? By knowing he-- knowing he defines as knowing knows that a thing is whether the knowing is there or not. In other words, it doesn't-- knowledge deter-- knowledge reveals objects. Knowledge does not create, it is not fabricative, the way we use it, it is purely gnostic. And in beer-- and in being purely gnostic it discovers what there is. It in no way adds anything of its own to the object. If it did, it would be involved with willing. And it wouldn't be true-- it wouldn't discover what is true because if in-- [student assents] if in the act of knowing you put anything of yourself into that act of knowing and you identify with the object, then you don't get a pure object, you don't discover what's really there. You discover a part of what you've put into it, ok. It's a non-id-- it's a-- it's a-- [S: Well--] it's on the side of a realistic definition of knowledge. Now, it's a funny realism but it really goes against most idealistic notions of kn-- of knowing, the way he uses it and the way KCB uses it. For example the way Kant would use knowledge or Berkeley or-- A lot of the idealists that are invoked in a mentalist discussion, I think for him and Bhatta-- in this view they would be put on the side of willing. In other words, what is the consciousness that constructs the world. And when you talk about that as known, you're talking about it in terms of willing, or indi-- I would say individual mentalism here.
LR: When you said knowing reveals the truth of the object--
RG: Yeah.
LR: So therefore it's not contributing anything of the subjectivity.
RG: Uh-huh, right. So-- [drawing/writing] and I-- I would put-- yeah, individual mentalism on the side of willing and the subject. Now, on the side of knowing, I would put-- I would-- in terms of the World-Idea I'd put a co-- if you want to talk about an idealistic view, it would more be a co-- a cosmic idealism. Because you-- I think we could say that if you could discover what were the ideas inherent in the World-Idea and not bring in any of your subjectivity, you could come into contact with that World-Idea as-- in some sense as it is, as much as you could, then you would be coming into an object that is known.
CDA: Why would that necessarily be cosmic and not individual (states)?
RG: Because I think when you come to know the full-- the indi-- the mental form of your individual world, you see that it's your construction, you see that it's your imagination putting it forth. And insofar that your imagination is constructing the form of our world experience, it's through willing, ok? Now-- because that'll bring us to the definition of willing. So knowing discovers and does not construct the object known. That's out of paragraph 12 in Bhattacharya and is really the-- I think paragraph 12 or 13-- that's the fundamental bottom line for knowing, in their view. But then you might ask, how could we know anything? 'Cause really everything we know is constructed through our mind. So how could we say that we have any knowledge? Well, in some sense, they would say we don't. Until you fully discover the ideas that are independent of our men-- individual mental faculties functioning, there can be no knowledge. But, on the other hand, objects-- the world is presented, and insofar that it's presented with an independent force to it and there's something in us that knows that the world is independent of our construction, say the being of the world, there is some element of knowing in there. We know that something is. Let's say we know that there is that. The what may be in question (or) who gives it, but that there is a that nobody has any doubt. And insofar that we know the that or we know that there's an object given, the givenness could be taken as known.
VM: Dickie, sometimes we also say you only really know when you know as the Nous knows.
RG: Right.
VM: In some way, the way to understand that is, only when you are really seeing the i-- the cosmic ideation as it's unfolded by the Nous or a cosmic soul, you actually see what's really there, [AH assents, faint] and that would correspond to that definition of knowing.
RG: Uh-hm, right.
VM (simultaneously): Because you're not adding anything of individual subjectivity.
RG: Right, right, that's right, that's right, and-- That's why it's on the side of realism 'cause realism here would say there are objects that you don't have to think about in order to know. And in that sense they're countering a lot of idealist notions that have gone on in a-- in Western philosophy say that, you know, PB calls them half-baked subjective idealism or something, where they only have part of the-- the epistemological framework, ok, where they-- (or) everything is a construction of your mind. Well these people would say no. The reality or the truth of (a) things are not constructions of your mind, they are as they are, we have to come to discover it. Um--
AH (very faint): Would you-- could you pursue that notion of knowing as the Nous knows?
RG: Uh-hm.
AH (faint): It seems it would also be necessary to speak in that (modus of a--) the knower would be in some sense known.
RG: The knower would be known? No-- well-- no, [RG indicates on diagram] because this is--
AH: It's part of that Nous (level).
VM: Yeah but when the Nous knows, Knowing and Being are one.
RG: Right. The o-- the-- right, the definition of knowledge is that you become one with the object. So the knower is eliminated. Only--
AH: That's what I mean to say, I should [RG simultaneously: Right.] have phrased it in that way or-- The notion of the individual entity who contacts objects would be part of that Nous' knowledge.
RG: No-- I don't know-- no.
VM: But I thought we'd say it this way, that the individual entity is in abeyance in some ways, he's out of the picture when the Nous is knowing proper object, the Nous knows its own Ideas and so forth.
AH: I wonder if the definition of knowledge at that level is impersonal.
RG: Right.
VM: Yeah.
AH (faint): Universal (one/two words inaudible)
RG (simultaneously): Right, impersonal-- that's what-- universal, impersonal, non-particular. All those are aspects of what knowing discovers, right. As you ascend in your levels of universalizing whatever you know, you're getting closer to what real knowledge is, ok. And one thing-- one other thing we should say before we continue is that their claim is that these three modes are the only modes that we know anything in, ok, that these are the fundamental basic modes in human thought, human consciousness, and that all our discussion of what's above and what's below is coming through these three forms, these three functions. So when we conceive of an Absolute or of the Ideas or the Nous, we're taking our stand in one of these functions, ok? So to conceive of kno-- the truth or the true object or the Nous is coming from a knowing standpoint. And when we consider the same content from a willing standpoint, we come up with a very different idea of the Absolute. And that they would even claim that you could trace the various traditions and schools to ea-- to a predominance of one of these functions operating or a mixture or-- or whatever, alright, so we could-- we could attempt to do some-- a little of that also.
DR: Again I have a little bit of a question.
LR: We can't hear you.
DR: I didn't say anything (yet). (bit of laughter, student words) [short pause] I don't really expect a full blown answer, I just-- I just want to know if there's-- if there's a proper context that we can understand these three in-- [S, faint: Yeah.] in this way of approaching it. If you-- if you say that the only way that something can be known is through the particular mode of knowing, [RG: Uh-hm.] and it's to be distinguished from a mode of apprehension through willing or feeling, the-- are these in some ways ca-- functions of a psyche that's apprehending an object, such that if this-- the imagination, let's say, were to try to formulate the object, and if it willed that object into being, then the imagination itself (would/will) take the form (of) whatever that apprehendable thing was, I don't know if my language is correct. [S, faint: Close enough.] And so that would be then one mode. If it was going to be knowing then somehow the imagination would have to clear itself out and there's some object separate from this imagination which-- [RG assents] or would have to be clear of all its own contents, though I'm not sure if this is correct either, somehow apprehend something in the form of knowing, so that the object itself would shine forth. [student assents, faint] It-- is that-- is that a decent beginning in a way to think that, you know, that we're beginning by s-- by talking about the imagination and the psyche and its mode of apprehend-- of apprehending the quality or apprehending the world? I'm a little bit of a loss of [S simultaneously: I'd like to (one/two words inaudible)] where I begin, I wou-- you know, we--
RG: I think that's fine, I think we start where we are and that's how he-- you know, in our psyche and our imagination, and that ha-- that has a threefold aspect, and we are-- we formulate from within that. But I think there's also a point of view that says that the-- the cosmic soul also has these three functions and that it-- they're its three modes of operation [student assents] and that our knowing, willing, and feeling is a reflection of that knowing, willing, and feeling, so there's a way to conceive of it more objectively than our psychic nature. But I'd be hard pressed because everything we-- we're conceiving of is coming from within that. Insofar that the reality of the Ideas is reflected in our ima-- imagination, then there may be more truth to it than just our psychic formulation of it. So--
DR: So even if it-- so if there is some let's say hierarchy, an octave of the discussion of knowing, willing, and feeling, for the moment you're saying well, there might be some higher octave but we might as well grasp it on the-- on the [RG assents] level of the psyche.
RG: Right. Right, for sure. I mean-- also, I mean the first line of KCB's article and the thrust of Murti's is philosophy starts in reflective consciousness. And reflective consciousness is the relation of a content as to a mode of consciousness. So it's almost like they're saying the first business of philosophy is to distinguish these modes so that we can even start thinking clearly and (perceive/perceiving) [one/two words inaudible] about what's im-- our mental functions are. So in that sense we start with our psyche. Um--
[student assents, faint]
DR: Ok, fine, I just said-- I-- you know--
RG: Yeah.
DR: I would like to see, you know, the progression or what the-- the higher octave would be.
RG: Sure.
DR: You know, it's in some ways clearly shown because it's not obvious to me how that's going to come about, [RG: Ok.] that, you know, to throw around terms like the Nous in a conversation like this I think, [S: Yeah.] you know, leads me into certain confusions that sometimes is irreparable.
RG: Ok, well, let's say to that the-- (RG laughs, bit of laughter, student words) ok, let's leave that-- let's leave that open [DR: Huh?] for now, let's leave that open.
VM/S(?) (simultaneously): (Who's childhood?)
S (simultaneously, very faint): [couple/three words inaudible] (bit of laughter)
RG: Ok, so, do we have a fair idea about what they mean by knowing or--
MS: Oh I got the impression from the article that knowing knew the specific particular rather than the universal Ideal.
RG: Really?
MS (faint): Yeah.
BS: What the--
S (faint): Well it's the (objective/object of) reality.
LG: But isn't that [VM simultaneously: Can you point to a quote?] the same thing as like 24 and 25 [one/two words inaudible]
VM: Maybe you can point to a quote Mark.
MS: I was-- I just looked through it and I couldn't. [sounds like student makes crying sound] But I'll try. (bit of laughter)
S: Ah.
RG/S(?): Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
S: You don't have work hours.
S (faint): Just read the whole section on page 24 and 25 (I can see).
RG: Yeah.
VM (faint): Uh-hm. [short pause] You see, look let me-- Why is it I think that's very strange is that, in some ways when you talk about an individual knowing an object there's always a perspective, even if it's just a localization in space-time and so on so it seemed to me particularity, at least some one aspect of it, begins there. And if you dispense with a center of a finite knowing like that, you see, I think it'd be very hard to keep up particularity, at least in the way I understand particularity. That's not to say that objects of knowledge aren't specific or that one idea is different from another. But to me particularity I guess, maybe I'm using the word 'sense-particularity' and I don't-- if that's a general use of the word.
BC: Richard?
RG: Hm?
BC: Page 20 says that knowing is-- is universal and cannot be particular [RG simultaneously: Yeah right.] [S simultaneously: Can't hear you.] and he uses those words.
RG: Right.
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.1 Knowing, Feeling and Willing as Functions of Consciousness," p. 20, RG reading]: "Thus the object of knowledge [RG: On page 20.] [S: There you go.] cannot be particular; it must be universal, free from all conditions. And if this were pushed further, it would mean that strictly speaking only pure Being can be said to be the object par excellence."
JA: Wait a minute. What precedes the 'Thus'? You're giving us the conclusion.
VM (faint): Well, and that would be [couple/three words inaudible]
RG (simultaneously): Well, you wanted the conclusion.
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.1 Knowing, Feeling and Willing as Functions of Consciousness," p. 20, RG reading]: "Similar considerations require that the object of knowledge should not be subject to the accidental conditions of the percipient."
RG: In other words, his space-time framework or his imagination.
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.1 Knowing, Feeling and Willing as Functions of Consciousness," p. 20, RG reading]: "To take the example of perspectives. If a certain object were to be known from a certain position at a certain time and by a certain person only, we cannot call that object real, nor that knowledge true. For, we have absolutely no means of deciding whether the object is not our creation or a joint product of the conditions of the percipient and those of the object. Thus the object of knowledge cannot be particular; it must be universal…"
JA (faint): I mean is that to sort of eliminate the factor of what he's calling now this willing; in other words, to separate what willing is from--
RG (simultaneously): Knowing is from willing.
S: Yeah.
JA (faint): So if you accept the definition of willing [RG: Right.] as constructing, then that could prevent you from saying that [few words inaudible] the one.
RG: Well, even without defining willing, I think if you define knowing the way he defines it, then you'd have to accept that conclusion, that you only could know universals.
S (very faint): (His) example(--/.)
RG: Yeah.
S (very faint): [couple/few words inaudible]
S: Uh-hm.
JA (faint): No, I was just, you know, trying to see if these definitions were being hinged together.
RG: They-- I don't think they hinged-- I think we could look at them distinctly first.
LR: Well I think he's trying, I mean I think that's the whole point, he makes [student assents] the point over and over that you really don't get any one isolated from the other very often, that, you know, i-- in willing there's knowing and in feeling there's willing and--
JA/S(?): Well that's what I meant.
LR: No, no, I know, that's not-- no I'm just saying, so, when he's making these statements he's making extreme statements because he's trying very hard to isolate the functions which he says are not very often isolated.
RG: Right, right. And that normal experience is made up of a confusion of all these functions, which he goes into later which we'll get to, and that we have to first differentiate these functions before we can perceive any truth, freedom, or value at all, really. Randy?
RC: In that paragraph that you just read, I'm not sure what I know what 'universal' means in that paragraph.
S (very faint): What it means.
S (very faint): Uh-hm.
S (faint): [three/few words inaudible]
RC (faint): That's what Mark was talking about. Or is it Being itself [short pause with very faint student words] and totally un-individuated eternal reality?
RG: I think it can mean anything that doesn't need us to be.
VM: How about if we said it was free of the relativity of individual perception?
RG: Uh-hm, yeah, any-- yeah, anything that's free of individual relativity, and your own entity-hood certainly is one of those things, [AC turns off, becomes easier to hear] and the ideas are also, the reason-principle.
VM (faint): How does that make [one/two words inaudible] though?
RG (simultaneously): Hm? (student laughs a bit)
RC: The way-- I guess [one/two words inaudible] Mark's (words) exactly.
VM (simultaneously): He's having a good time back there.
AD: Huh?
VM: You must be off the mark.
RC (simultaneously): It's like-- There's knowing knows a specific horse that's actually in the body that it's in, [RG: Right.] in the place that it's in [RG simultaneously: Right.] because you know the Idea of horse.
RG: Well, insofar-- I mean we can go to Deck's line where he says that what is the sensible but the Intelligible present within it. [Note: See John Deck, Nature, Contemplation, and the One.] Insofar that you know the horse, I'd say you know the general or the enti-- or the essence Horse. Insofar that the particular shapes of the horse, whether it's Secretariat or, you know, Aligar (DR laughs) does-- are-- (laughter)
VM (amidst laughter): Because you couldn't (surmise) [couple words inaudible] (laughter, student words)
RG: Are-- is a function of whether-- whether you're at Belmont or Pocono Down.
S (simultaneously): Bam!
S: I didn't (know you)(--/.) (laughter, student words)
RG: And, that-- that's a function of your partic-- of your space-time imagination, of how you form or clothe ess-- the essence Horse. Or the-- or what the essence of that horse is. But the essence of that horse or the general horse, which I would say are both known poss-- possibilities of knowing are neither the space-time form of that horse but the substance or essence or stuff that's embodied in that presentation.
LD: But can't-- doesn't that in some way-- I mean he's going to later on want to postulate that you can know a horse universally [RG: Right.] without-- But can you? Can you ever know a horse that's-- that's not particular?
RG: I-- I would say in any knowledge you have you only know the general. When you know the particular we call it sensation.
LD: Yeah, but all you can know is a universal particular, not a pure universal horse. Can-- can you know that, a pure universal?
AD (simultaneously): Uh, let's ask the question this way: can you know universal essence Horse? And what kind of knowing would that be? Obviously there won't be any kind of images.
VM: No.
AD: But what kind of knowing would that be?
VM: That's a samadhi on a horse. (some laughter)
RG: It would be [couple words inaudible]
S (simultaneously): (Sounds good.)
S: Samadhi in a saddle. (some laughter)
VM: Samadhi in a saddle, yeah. (bit more laughter)
RG: It would be in a sh-- I mean a sheer identity with--
AD (simultaneously): I didn't look at that picture.
VM: You didn't see that picture?
AD: No.
VM: Oh that's different channel. (VM and RG laugh)
S (amidst laughter): I don't have that movie.
AD: No, I didn't want to look at it, you'd have no horse.
RG: Right.
AD: He wanted me to imagine the horse. And if I had to imagine the horse, then, alright, then I'd have particular knowledge. But he wanted me to have universal knowledge, so he was confused. He didn't know, you know-- In other words, he's making this noise as though he's riding a horse, right? But there's no horse there, (bit of laughter) 'cause I'm supposed to, you know, conceive a universal horse that this guy's riding around on. So I didn't look at the picture. I thought his metaphysics was mixed up. (bit of laughter) If you have a horse, [RG: Who is that?] fine, then you got all the particulars, you hear him, you see him, you smell him, [couple/three inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] and maybe you even can get a chance to pat him on the back. (some laughter) [VM simultaneously: Anthony, you know--] But if there's no horse, (laughter) then I don't want any of the other particulars either.
VM: Anthony, you lost us.
RG: He's-- (laughter) he's elaborating the metaphysics of Monty Python.
S (simultaneously): Who's this guy who didn't have a horse?
VM: Is that what he's doing?
AD: In Monty and the Meaning of Life or something like that--
RG (simultaneously): Right, Bri-- [S simultaneously: Oh, ok.] yeah, The Meaning of Life.
VM: Ohhh. (some laughter)
RG (simultaneously): Monty Python [couple inaudible student words] [couple words inaudible]
AD: I didn't know [one/two words inaudible] (laughter, student words) Turned it on and I turned it off, [S simultaneously: What?] because I figured the meaning of the Grail couldn't be there. (laughter, student words)
VM: Yeah. That was a lot of [couple/three words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): I think you're more confused after.
LR (simultaneously): Anthony, you better get better. This is ridiculous.
AD (simultaneously): Alright, let's start again [couple words inaudible] (laughter, student words)
VM: You don't want to (concentrate).
LR (simultaneously): What have you been doing!? (laughter, student words)
VM (amidst laughter): Here's to being sick, watching TV.
AD (simultaneously): No this is a very-- a very interesting question he asks, he says, what is this knowledge, [RG: Right.] this universal knowledge [VM: Yeah.] that, you know, knowing is supposed to represent? And you're bringing in Deck, [RG: Right.] alright, which means that you're talking about-- the knowledge here that you're talking about is, [VM: Knowledge of the Nous.] you know, knowledge of the Nous.
VM: And that's the only true knowing.
AD: And that's the only true knowing, yeah, I follow that, yeah. Ok.
VM: On the other [RG simultaneously: And--] hand Louis is saying that any knowledge that I had or-- is of a particular horse.
AD (simultaneously): Well maybe that's not knowledge.
VM: I know, and that's the [RG simultaneously: Right.] point that we have to get clear [couple words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Or maybe that's a combination, you know, we have to examine so-- He's saying only the particular exists and he's saying only the universal.
RG: Right.
LR (very faint): Right.
AD: Oh, this sounds like an old old argument.
VM (simultaneously): This is an old one.
RG: But-- right.
VM (simultaneously): On the other hand, one would think that the particular can be an occasion for a perception of the universal. So, in some ways I don't want to keep them totally distinct. In other words, it seems that it is possible to have the particular horse be an occasion for the revelation of the true essence. But in order for that to occur then you're-- you'd better not be too aware of the saddle. In other words, you can't be functioning exclusively at least in the sense realm.
AD: So it seems that-- you're saying that it seems that there has to be a combination operating here.
VM: Otherwise I can't bring [RG simultaneously: Right.] the world together.
RG: And I would agree that there is a combination but the combination is from two different functions, [VM simultaneously: From-- from willing and thinking?] that willing and knowing combine to give a unified perception which we might call feeling, a felt perception, but that the known element is always universal and the willed content is particular.
LR: Wouldn't the known element--
RC (simultaneously): But when a guy goes-- when a guy goes on and gets on his horse, he doesn't get on your horse. [RG: Right, but--] [VM assents] There's something in his knowing function that he knows which horse is the one.
CDA/S(?): But he's-- this is--
AD (simultaneously): Yeah but, again, if we-- if we stop for a minute. If we do this with each of the functions, knowing, willing, and feeling, alright, we see that you're dealing with a kind of universal understanding, alright, in one of these three modes. But, he says he sits on his horse, you know, and I sit on my mine. Is it possible that we have to go a little different route? That these three functions become operative through the seven Chaldeans; in other words, the form perception takes is to be found in the Chaldeans. What informs the perception is to be found above it.
RG: Uh-hm.
AD: I mean, that might be a way to [VM: I like it.] [RG: Yeah.] try to find it.
RG: Yeah. So that the Chaldeans cons-- fabricate the--
AD: The sense particular.
RG: The sense particular.
VM: And isn't that what you mean by the Chaldeans though, the individual?
RG: Uh-hm.
VM: You mean the collocation of Chaldeans, their aspects, or the symbols, the house structure, the whole works, that's what you mean by an individual and that's what is the occasion for the particularization of universal knowledge.
AD: Yeah, you remember the painting by Raphael, "School of Athens"?
RG: Yeah.
AD: Plato's pointing up and Aristotle's pointing down.
VM: Right. Chaldeans are going down.
AD: Well, if we think of the Chaldeans they certainly are the form that perception takes and that's what the-- that's what knowledge in the three modes is concerned about.
RG: Uh-huh. Yeah.
AD: I don't know, I mean we could start trying to see if we can understand it that way.
RG: Ok. So in that sense the-- the particular horse would be a grouping or a chart, you know, a chart of the Chaldeans or their collocation together, but what knows them, what can draw meaning out of them would be kn-- Uranus or knowing. And what actually puts them together in a-- in a whole perception would be willing or Pluto say, that the governance of that whole image is governed by will-- the willing, cosmic will. And the relationship or the relation of our knowledge to the content is the unique particular which would be given through feeling.
CDA: Say, could you go through that again? Would you mind?
RG: Yeah, I was-- that insofar that we can abstract meaning from the collocation of the Chaldeans or the-- their organization as a particular entity, that that's given through knowing. And even when you abstract their particular essence, you say this-- the essence of this collocation of planets is something, knowing could extract that [student assents, faint] and that would be an idea that's apart from our imagination of it.
[student(s) assenting, very faint]
CDA (simultaneously): I just don't follow, I mean, what you-- when you say you extract the essence from this collocation of planets, isn't it that-- that-- there's some meaning in the degree, and the planet is the occasion that that would be available to that [one word inaudible]
RG (simultaneously): But even something more than that. I mean it's a--
LR (simultaneously): But if you want to objectify any of those functions, if you want to understand the function of your Saturn and not be sq-- not be totally identified with, if you want to really understand, whether you call it the planet or the degree, [AD or student assents, faint] you have to be using Uranus in order to objectify and see it as standing objectively [CDA simultaneously: Ok.] in its own right.
RG: Uh-hm. [students assent] Right.
S: That's Uranus, that'd be the function [couple words inaudible]
RG: Right.
S: Is--
RG: Go ahead.
DR: If you do it, if you do it this way you're saying that you're going to consider knowing, willing, and feeling in a more universalized way, that somehow if the seven Chaldeans determine the sense particular, then the known object prior to the formation of the sense particular is this universal, [RG assents] which isn't really coming out of the Chaldean planet, it's not being extracted let's say out of-- well I'm going the other way now. But instead of let's say extracting out of the sense particular what the universal is, you could think of it in terms of what that-- what that idea might be prior to its-- its full blown manifestation, and willing would be in a way the way in which that might come into being at all.
RG: Right, yeah.
DR: So now you're speaking about a more rarified idea than the horse that-- that I might climb onto.
RG: But in that horse that you climb onto is right there the knowing, willing, and feeling also, mixed up, I mean, put together that the--
DR (simultaneously): Be-- because if there's any true knowledge at all, [RG simultaneously: Yeah.] it can't be absent from anywhere.
RG: Right, and you can know the truth of the horse while you're looking at the horse. You don't-- I-- you know--
DR: Right, but it's not-- it's not necessarily, I mean-- it's not necessarily limited to that particular localization. [RG assents] Whether you-- what you grasp there is some-- some essence, [RG assents] which, you know, if you wanted, you know, to say it only occurs right there with the horse, I mean that-- that would be a-- you know, a conversation that we could do but in some ways it's detracting from the idea that you're grasping, [VM: Yeah.] which in some ways supersedes the particular horse.
BS: I didn't follow what he said.
LD: Yeah, I didn't follow him either.
AD (simultaneously): Repeat-- could you repeat?
DR: I was, I was asking whether this particular way of approaching knowing, willing, and feeling, if you take the seven Chaldeans as forming the sense particular--
AD: Forming sense perception, yeah.
DR: Forming sense perception. Then, if you-- if you say that knowing and willing and feeling, are they then in a sense prior to that sense particular or is the object that they grasp more of the order of an essence?
AD (simultaneously): Well, that would require us--and we're just speculating now, [DR simultaneously: Yeah.] ok?--that would require us to conceive of the fact that there is a knowing, willing, and feeling that is not embodied. [students assent] In other words, if we think of the planetary circuit, alright, not as the natal chart but as it transits, alright, and there-- that's not embodied knowledge, there you could say that the knowledge of the universal is pervasive. In other words, I don't have to localize the knowledge of the universal. But as soon as I associate that with a fixed chart, then I have to speak about an embodied psyche. So, in other words, I have to be able to come up with something like this. I have knowledge of this particular horse, alright, and I also have knowledge of the universal horse, I've got the knowledge of the both--this horse, which is at one and the same time a particular and a universal. Now I've got to come up with some way of accounting for that fact rather than, you know, fighting about which is knowledge.
RG: Uh-hm.
VM: Uh-hm.
AD: Because obviously they're both knowledge.
S: Right.
AD: You see what I'm getting?
DR: Yeah.
AD: In other words, Plato's-- Plato's emphasis on the Idea of horse as true knowledge and Aristotle's emphasis on the idea of this particular horse as knowledge and not the other, alright, these two people, you know-- every time you come across this extremes, you know that somewhere the truth is some combination of both or some paradoxical combination of these two. [VM assents] Now I know when I go out there and I see that horse, you know, fertilizing the field, I know that that's a concrete particular horse and I know it's also the Idea of a universal horse, alright. Now how can I account for that knowledge?
DR: Well, I thought that in some ways you were accounting for it in a-- [S, faint: Yeah.] a couple of ways. You were saying if I want to consider the sense particular horse, I might approach it from this sevenfold framework and it might-- it might be formed according to those ideas.
AD: Yeah, in other words what we're saying is like the Chaldean planets are manifesting the Idea of the horse which is in the zodiac. They're manifesting the actual concrete sensible horse. [VM assents, faint] Ok? How do we know it?
DR: Well, if there's a-- if there's some knowledge, then the knowledge would have to be of some essence, (that--)
AD (simultaneously): That means that we must have a knowledge of that essence, Idea of horse.
S: Uh-huh
DR: Correct.
AD: And that's a universal knowledge prior to any imagery, because we're speaking about the transiting planets. There's no imagery there. It's only when the Chaldeans localize or focus, you know, c-- at certain points that we speak about a sensible horse manifesting. Now we got a concrete knowledge. But, would it mean anything for us to speak about a horse if we didn't have a universal Idea of a horse?
DR: Whether-- it would be difficult to say anything about the (horse).
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, so we have to use the two, don't we?
VM: Uh-hm.
AD: We have to use-- we have to accept the fact that in a sense our soul, alright, is the same as the transiting planets. The Undivided Mind of the world, its knowledge, is something we participate in. And that gives us a knowledge of essence without any images. Remember that quote I like of Plotinus?
CDA: [couple words inaudible]
RG (simultaneously): To know without images is to be. (Plotinus, VI.5.7, first para)
AD (simultaneously): You forgot it already?
S: To know without image is to be.
RG (simultaneously): To know without image is to be.
AD (simultaneously): Yeah.
CDA: Can you [couple words inaudible]
AD: Well you were very slow.
[students assent, very faint]
CDA: If you're saying that then the-- the formula for the knowledge in the Undivided Mind, I follow that, but it seems that when you say that now-- that my mind has this knowledge of the universals and now through the imaginative faculty it's going to make an image of this, it's going to make an image of this universal and it's going to particularize this universal--
AD (simultaneously): You're not-- yeah but, not your-- not your lower mind, you know that, ok.
CDA (simultaneously): Not my lower mind.
AD: You're speaking [CDA simultaneously: But--] about the Mind of the Earth fabricating [CDA assents] this horse. Yeah.
CDA (simultaneously): Well let's say-- but that fabrication we're speaking about as willing, right?
AD: Well--
CDA: That actual fa-- [AD simultaneously: Yes, but whose willing?] that actual fabrication [RG simultaneously: Right.] of the image.
AD: Whose willing?
CDA (simultaneously): Well I don't-- I'm--
S: Ok.
CDA: Now-- now there-- this fabrication takes place, there's an image, and you're saying that this is also knowledge. And I don't follow that.
AD: Fabrication [RG simultaneously: No.] [three/few words inaudible] In other words, the sensible horse is created, alright?
CDA: Right, that's willing. I'm making--
AD (simultaneously): Yes, alright, but right now let's leave that out because that's going to complicate things. We're always going to have these two things to work with, you're going to have a cosmic soul or the World-Soul and the individual soul, always in some kind-- in some active combination. They're always going to be together.
CDA (simultaneously): So, so when you s-- when-- well can we do it on just one or the other?
AD: Let's do it on one, yeah.
CDA: Ok. You want to do it on the cosmic level or the individual level?
AD: It doesn't matter.
CDA: Well let's-- if you do it on (the) individual level and say that the only knowledge-- the only kno-- the knowledge that I have is of-- at the level of the transiting planets and it's of universals, ok. Now, in order for this lower mind to have any knowledge, it has to participate in that in some way, right?
AD: The lower--
CDA: This lower mind that I'm functioning with.
AD (simultaneously): Would have to participate in--
CDA: In that knowledge of universal, right?
AD: Uh-huh.
CDA: And the way that it does that is because the willing mode actually creates the image.
AD: Well, why don't we state it like this. In the same way that the Mind of the world fabricates a sensible horse and your sensible body, to that extent we're going to be able to speak about particular sense knowledge.
RG: Uh-hm.
CDA: Right.
AD: Ok?
CDA: Ok, ok.
AD: To the extent that your mind participates in the World-Mind or the-- the Mind of our world, alright, to that extent you participate in universal knowledge.
RG: Uh-hm.
CDA: Ok, it was just the particular sense-knowledge that-- calling that knowledge is what I don't understand.
AD: Well, again I'm using-- I'm using the term 'knowledge' in the-- in the sense the way the Westerners I think always use it, all the way down from the lowest to the highest.
RG: Uh-hm.
AD: Now it's not fair to call knowledge, like the Vedantists do, just divine union or [RG assents] unity, that would-- then what would you call the [AD hits something] knowledge of this tree I have? Isn't [S simultaneously: Ok.] that some kind of knowledge?
RG: Uh-hm.
AD: So I'm using the Platonic notion of knowledge: from one extreme to the other.
CDA: Yeah, but I-- see I--
RG: Carol, let me try. Insofar-- if we're under willing-- we're under knowing, ok, we're talking about the co-- the World-Idea or the cosmic idealism or universals, ok. I would say that this knowledge or the aspect of knowing can be looked at in a threefold way. When you look at it from the point of view of willing, your-- you look at it as the cosmocrators or the Chaldeans creating the sense perception by contemplating the un-- the World-Idea. Ok? [S, very faint: Ok.] And that's the fabrication, under knowing, that the-- that the cosmic soul is making. Ok?
CDA: And when we say that we know something [RG assents] of-- of that tree, which I have doubts about--
RG: Right.
CDA: Um--
RG: Insofar that we say we know it, then we come under the World-Idea of knowing and that there's something in us, say from Uranus here [diagram], that can look at the fabrication of the world and say "I know".
EC: And say "I didn't create that".
RG: Or "I didn't create that" [student assents] or "That's [VM assents, faint] given". The truth--
AD (simultaneously): Or let's put it this way, I-- [CDA simultaneously: Or that it's given (one word inaudible)] which is one of the ways I look at it. The World-Mind could will the tree, the creation [RG assents] of the tree, [RG assents] but it's going to be my mind's knowing that discovers what the World-Mind has willed.
VM: Uh-hm.
RG: Right.
AD: So there's going to be a confusion of these functions.
RG: Right.
AD: Now the discovery on the part of my knowing, alright, doesn't necessarily postulate a realistic thesis at all. It could-- it-- I could just as well say, "Look, it's the World-Mind's willing that I know." So that doesn't change that the nature of what I know is still an idea.
[student assents, faint]
CDA: Ok, good, yeah.
RG: Right. You can know a willed object. And insofar that you know a willed object you're coming from this position, come-- you're coming from the World-Idea, from cosmic mentalism, 'cause the object is fabricated by our-- by a Being that's prior to you, [CDA: Right.] and-- and you can come to know that and you're knowing a real 'cause that object is not predicated on your knowing. If you were going to say "What I know is purely my own fabrication," then I think I-- you know, I wo-- I would say no, that isn't knowledge, you can't know that, because it isn't independent of your knowing.
CDA: So, ok, and on this level knowl-- knowing could be simply just the discovery of a given. It doesn't mean that there's-- there's comprehension of its meaning. [short pause] Or does it?
AD: Well, you don't [CDA simultaneously: I want to know.] have to bring in the notion [RG simultaneously: (Yeah.)] of comprehension now because you're fogging the issue. [CDA simultaneously: Well, I just want an answer.] Knowing is the discovery of an object--[RG assents] leave it like that.
CDA: Ok.
RG (simultaneously): Yeah.
AD: If you want-- if you want to-- if you bring in the term 'comprehension' or 'understanding', for some people that means that the three faculties in [one/two inaudible VM words simultaneous with AD] their totality [RG assents] are operative, [students assent] and that you're speaking about some kind of (intelligent/intelligence). But if we-- if we stick to the term, knowing means the discovery of an object, alright. And it won't violate mentalism for instance when PB says that the Idea of the World is received by the-- uh, wha-- the mind or [RG simultaneously: By the indivi-- yeah.] the heart, [VM simultaneously: The mind, right.] alright. [RG and another student assent] There you can see that the-- your mind receives the World-Idea, and insofar that it receives the World-Idea it's discovering what we later on are going to call the reality of a given object, [VM assents] the tree or anything else. And, you haven't denied mentalism. A lot of people think that you're going to deny mentalism because you discover the object. [RG: Right.] How many times in dreams I discover things. (AD laughs) They still remain ideas. [AS: Should (I) (one word inaudible)] If I go around the corner in a dream and I find things in a room that I never knew were there! (AD laughs a bit, bit of laughter)
[student assents, faint]
AH: May I ask in regards to the particular horse and the particular tree. We know that the particular is not the universal horse or the universal tree. But, is it possible to speak from the point of view of the particular of what that universal or what the Being of the horse is? And if you try to do that, you try to speak of what the Being of the horse is, would its-- would its Being be a particular being?
AD: No.
TS (faint): (Not yet.)
AH: So, when we speak of the Being of the horse, we would speak of its non-availability as a particular.
RG: Right.
S (faint): Uh-hm.
AD: It's not available to you as a particular, if you're speaking about the pure knowledge [RG: Right.] of this horse.
RG: Yeah.
(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1984 0713a Ends; Side 2 Begins)
S: (Yeah.)
S: Uh-hm.
S: Yeah.
AD: If I look and if I see an image of PB, is that the Being of PB? Absolutely not.
AH: No.
AD: Yeah so-- Then what do I mean when I say the Being? You remember PB referring to the fact that the first time Ramana came to him and he saw him and, you know, there was this communication? But the second time Ramana told him "No more, no more pictures," [student assents] [AH simultaneously: So you think--] and he missed the point?
AH: You think of PB or Sages as being [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] the Buddha or the World-Mind?
AD (simultaneously): Well in this case, in this case, alright, like PB was getting in touch with Ramana, alright, but he was still expecting to do it the old way like, you know, close your mind's eye and you see the image and you feel this communion with-- with let's say PB, ok. But the second time you try, PB says "No more. No more pictures, no more [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] images, you either experience me as I am in the pureness of my Being or you don't experiencing me-- you won't experiencing me-- you won't experience me." So what do you do then?
AH: You experience the Being--
AD: So-- yeah. So let's say you wipe every image that comes into your mind so that you could experience his Being. What kind of experience is this? Is it going to be a localization, a picture, a memory, a flashback? It won't be any of that. Now you're asking me to give it to you, to give you some understanding of what this Being of PB is in particular terms which the very nature of Being will deny me, [AH: Right.] because Being can't be, you know, any particular thing.
AH: But, we do speak of the-- the reality of a tree, the reality of a horse, the reality of a Sa--
AD (simultaneously): That reality-- that's more reality than the picture or the image I'm going to see [VM assents] of PB because the presence, alright, is-- is like a universal. It's not localized any place, anywhere. I can go from here down to the subway, you know, or up in a stratosphere or in a plane, that Being is n-- is not, so to speak, in any way cut-- cut off or dismembered if I go up in a balloon, or if I go down to hell, which I'm probably heading for. (bit of laughter, student assents) See, that's what you mean by Being, it's not localized, it's infinite, it's a true knowledge, alright, and you can't recognize it through sense particulars. As soon as you do, you [AD snaps fingers] lose it.
S (very faint): Yeah, going to lose it.
S (faint): Yeah.
AH: Thank you for that [AD: Ok.] explanation.
AD (simultaneously): That's what we're talking about. So the same thing with the Idea of a horse, alright, the Being of a horse. Because let's say I got this horse that I love, alright, and he dies on me, alright. Is it completely dead? Well there ha-- its true Being is not.
AH: Its true Being was never--
AD (simultaneously): Its true Being is not.
AH: --was never born.
AD: Uh-huh. Because it's-- it is this presence. Now most of us want and insist on this particular knowledge--"I want to see PB, I want to see PB!", alright, and by that very act I deprive myself of having the experience of his Being. Alright, now we're getting a feeling at least of what this uni-- this knowledge of a universal essence is. And when we spoke, you remember in Plotinus we spoke about the authentic "We", [VM assents] the "I" that really is and to which the World-Idea can get manifested? [S, faint: Yeah.] Alright. That's what you're speaking about experiencing, that Authentic Being of, let's say, the Sage. [AH simultaneously: But (Anthony--)] Because after all the Sage is a person in whom the Void Mind has realized itself. You can't give it any limitations even if you want to speak about him in the world.
AH: Is it possible to speak of the particular and the universal simultaneously?
AD: Sure.
AH: How would you do so?
AD: Well, in the case of PB looking at me, he would be op-- aware of my essence and also of my particularity. And the Sage can and usually does have that knowledge direct.
AH: He would know you as a particular person, [AD: Yeah.] but he would also know that your Being was not that particularity.
AD: Yeah. He would have direct access to that Being that I am. I don't have it but he does, [S: Right.] as paradoxical as that sounds. And you remember, in one of the notes that Randy read where the Sage who is dealing with a student tries to understand the nature of the student, alright, you know, gets into the essence of that person, the psychical essence, and then understands the way he understands that student and then transcends both, alright, and thinks of the student the way he is in his true Being and then dismisses the whole affair. (bit of laughter) And then of course the student will have to follow what was-- what that Sage had decided to do. Now the reason why he has to follow it is because the Sage is working off the essence of that person and not off his personality. In other words, the Sage can't turn-- change you by dealing with the level of your personality. He can only change you by going to the source of your being, tinkering with the stuff up there, not with the stuff down here. (some laughter, student words) But, I think we're getting away from the point, and that was, what is this knowing, willing, and feeling which is really quite complicated, quite complex. To get back to the question, knowledge here, we try to remind ourselves, is the gamut, from one end to the other. We're not going to say it's only when the subject knows the object. That's not-- that's-- then that would mean that all sensible knowledge wouldn't be knowledge and therefore I wouldn't be able to function in the world, and Plato refused and rejected that definition of knowledge. He says it's from the [RG assents] top to the bottom.
RG: (Right.)
AD: Alright? Now, we got an idea of what the top kind of knowledge is, this knowledge of Being. We have a knowledge of-- we got some idea what the lower kind of knowledge is, the sensible knowledge. Now the idea is to put it together in one person, try to see how-- how does it come together in a person. And unless we keep in mind, you know, some of the work we did, that there's a part of our psyche which is not (in body/embodied) and there's a part of it which is in body, I think we have to work with that, otherwise we won't be able to, you know, get as many details as we'd like.
LG: (Anthony), when you say in-- the individual's knowledge on the lower side [diagram], the-- the idea of the Earth Mind keeps coming into my thought and I can't-- I keep wanting to think of the individual knowledge as being the Earth-- Earth knowledge, as distinct from the World-Idea [couple/three words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): No, they're the same, I-- to me they're the same. [three/few inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] The I-- the World-Idea, the World-Idea includes all particulars.
LG: Right, but is the Earth-- is the Earth knowledge-- is that-- is that the individual's way of knowing, I mean-- We speak of the individual body as knowledge but that body is only composed of the Earth's-- [S, faint: Ideas (of/are)--] of the Earth's substance, the Earth's mental substance. How-- how particular does particular knowledge get? I mean is our knowledge the individual or is it Earth-- the Earth Mind's knowledge? Do you know-- you know what I'm--
AD: Our knowledge of individual objects is knowledge of objects that are fabricated by the world of the Earth.
RG: Uh-hm.
LG: By the World-Mind.
AD/S(?) (very faint): Yeah, Earth's [one word inaudible]
RG (simultaneously): Or the Earth Mind, [LG simultaneously: But the Earth's--] it's the same thing.
AD (simultaneously): Earth's [one word inaudible]
LG (simultaneously): Huh?
RG: Same thing.
S (simultaneously): [couple words inaudible] for instance.
RG: Earth Mind.
LG: So the World-Mind and the Earth Mind are taken to be (the same)?
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, synonymous in this case.
RG (simultaneously): Yeah.
LG: Oh ok. Hm.
AD: Look, we could certainly get carried away but we could restrict ourselves to the world, it's a pretty big item.
VM: Yeah, I'd say too.
AD: Pretty big.
LG: Oh yeah, I--
AD: And it has all this knowledge, the most detailed knowledge that you can conceive. It's no exaggeration to say that it knows when a sparrow falls. Believe me, I've-- I've witnessed that. It's no exaggeration. It knows when a sparrow falls. [Note: See Bible, Matthew, 10:29.]
LG: Isn't that particular knowledge? I mean isn't that [S simultaneously: (Yeah/No).] what's part of this problem.
AD (simultaneously): Well, if you think that it knows in the way that you and I know, that we'll see a sparrow fall to the ground. You see, then you say, "Well, I know that the sparrow falls." But, if you think that the Earth does that, you know, the Lord of the Earth does the same thing, then you would have to give it eyes, ears, and a nose and all the rest of the stuff.
RG: But it--
CDA (simultaneously): But you're saying that it's not--
AD: How did-- how did-- [LG simultaneously: But we are this.] in Plotinus, how does Zeus know the life of the world, the life of the universe, how did he know it? Through particulars? Or was it that it's intrinsic because it's his life? (Plotinus, IV.4.9, last para)
RG: And even if you say it's particular and you try to get at that particular and strip away all your conceptions of particular, your notion of particular is going to--
AD: Is gone, yeah.
RG: --go crazy. Strip it [S simultaneously: So what?] away of all sensible things through your own senses and it may be particular but it's not what we mean by-- it's not what we know as sense partic-- what-- as particular.
CDA (simultaneously): So-- so--
VM (simultaneously): It's individual and not particular.
RG (simultaneously): Yeah. Anna, go ahead.
S (simultaneously): Yep, go ahead.
AP: When you speak of that the Earth wills the o-- the willing of the Earth, it doesn't-- it wills it into our mind [RG assents] and gives it the form that our imagination clothes it in, but the form [student assents] it gives is not the image that we see, [RG assents] I mean the image that [S simultaneously: Our senses gives us.] our-- Is that right?
AD: Say it again.
AP: When you said the Earth's--
AD (simultaneously): That the-- the "what" is given to us by the World-Mind?
AP: Or by the Earth, as you were saying, it-- it--
AD (simultaneously): By the Earth, the World-Mind there? World-Mind could mean, you know, the Earth. It depends on how you feel that day. [RG: Yeah.] (bit of laughter) You could think of it as the whole universe.
S (faint): Yeah, right, yeah.
S: [one/two words inaudible]
S: Yeah but--
AD (simultaneously): I usually think of-- I think of the World-Mind as my Earth. That's enough for me to deal with. So, if we say that the World-Mind gives us the Idea of the world, is that what PB said? The [student assents] what, it gives us the "what"?
AP: Yeah. And that's what you--
AD: But the "how" we contribute.
AP: Yeah. So [RG assents] in the "what" is included it's a kind of shape or form and the form that our imagination clothes-- is clothed (in)(--/.)
AD: That would be the form that we give to it, yeah. And the essence or the whatness is given by the World-Mind. Isn't that what we're trying to say?
AP: Yeah.
AD: The whatness is like the world says "This is what you're going to experience, ok," but the how this what is going to be experienced depends upon the faculties that we function with. That's all in the Wisdom of the Overself, [RG assents] second-- second chapter?
RG: Third.
S (simultaneously): (The dream.)
AD: Third chapter.
RG (simultaneously, faint): It's ok.
AD: (Anyway), you gotta go through this [AD hitting something for emphasis] again and again and again, [student assents, faint] and after a while you'll see, [AD hitting something for emphasis] this is jnana. This is jnana, this is wisdom. But you gotta-- you gotta keep hitting it enough times until you break down the habits that we have built up over so many years. Anyway, let's go back to willing, feeling, and knowing because that's really-- you know, that's everything.
CDA: Can I ask something about--
AD: Again?
CDA: Well, when you were talking about Zeus' knowledge is particular, what that meant, you know, I wondered if what you were implying was that what we're calling particular knowledge is non-willing, (would it--) what-- is that-- was that implied?
VM: Well I don't know.
CDA: That what we're ca-- what we're here-- what we here are calling particular knowledge, the knowledge of particulars, is really not knowledge at all.
AD: No, [VM simultaneously: I wouldn't say so, no.] I thought-- [CDA simultaneously: I'm still asking that question.] I thought we were trying to make that explicit.
RG: No.
VM: No.
S (faint): What happened?
AD (simultaneously): Instead of using terms like 'particular' and 'universal', what I thought we were doing was hey, look, let's throw out these words that have been used for two thousand four hundred years, alright, and let's see if we can understand what is particular and what is universal. We'd look a little bit into the nature of what a universal kind of knowledge would be. So like-- well, alright, we did-- we-- [CDA assents] alright? And now we're trying to understand what is particular kind of knowledge. And you've begun to see that when we speak about the disembodied psyche functioning through the embodied psyche, we can speak about the combination of the universal and the particular. And you begin to realize that, "Oh, that's what we mean by particular," that this universal knowledge, alright, which is something that my soul is aware of, gets localized and focused and extrapolated from the actual sensible appearance [VM assents] of an object. In other words like man or horse, alright, there's these two kinds of knowledges that I'm working with. On the one hand the soul has this knowledge of the universal horse and on the other hand, the soul as operating through my-- this physical organism has knowledge of a particular horse. Now I'm beginning to get an idea of why this man insisted on having-- of painting the two of them, [AS assents] alright, together in one picture.
VM: Uh-hm.
S (faint): That's right.
S (faint): Who was that, I--
AD: Do you remember the painting?
AH: Yeah.
S (simultaneously, faint): Uh-hm.
AD: You know who did it?
VM: Who was that?
CDA(?): Uh-hm.
S (very faint): Anthony.
AH: Anthony, this description of the particularities-- (bit of laughter)
LR: Who did it?
AH: --is-- is at the [S simultaneously: Raphael.] level of-- (bit of laughter) of perception.
S (very faint): Anthony painted it?
AD: Well it depends on what you mean by perception.
AH: At the level of sensory presentation.
AD (simultaneously): Ah, yeah. Sensory perception.
AH: It's not at the level of any sort of conceptual--
AD: It could be at the level, for instance, of perception if you mean by perception here, alright, true cognition. Could be at that level too. The word 'perception' in itself is not going to give us enough information so you have to say sensory perception.
AH: The-- the particular wor--
AD (simultaneously): For instance if I'm a Neanderthal man, alright, and I see an animal there, I'll have knowledge that there's some kind of a beast there but I won't have knowledge that it's a universal.
S (very faint whisper): It's a universal beast.
AS(?): (Mm.) (bit of laughter)
AH: I was-- I was understanding that the particular aspects of knowledge as-- as being provided at the level of sensory perception, which is, I think, a fairly new idea for me to deal with.
AD: I don't think so, because we spoke about it as speak-- when we spoke about the Buddha having the knowledge of both, you know, it has the true knowledge and the sensory knowledge. In other words, the Sage knows that the world is Brahman but he also sees that it-- there's a chair there that he has to walk around.
VM (faint): Uh-hm, uh-hm.
AD: He has knowledge of both, the sensory and [AH or another student assents] the universal; [VM or another student assents] the knowledge of the reality and the particular.
RG: But the knowl-- but I think the point to stress here is that the knowledge of the particular is not imaginative. [AH assents] And when you know the particular, the particular has a reality unto itself and it's not our imagination of it, it is the particular.
VM: Right. Also, when we say something like our knowledge conforms to the World-Idea, that's [RG assents] what we mean by the fact that it's true knowledge.
AD: Yeah.
RG (simultaneously): Yeah.
VM: It can be at the most concrete--
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, that's why I objected-- that's why we objected, if you remember, to call it illusory.
VM: No, [RG assents] yes, of course.
AD: Because in World War I, alright, or World War II, twenty million people were killed. Don't tell me that's illusory.
VM: Right, (possibly another student: right).
AH: But the--
AD (simultaneously): I can't stand that kind of talk.
VM (faint): Right, (ok/yeah).
AH (simultaneously): Yes, but the knowledge of the particular in the way that (Vic/Dick) just described it is not the knowledge of the universal.
VM: No.
RG: Uh-hm, right.
VM (simultaneously): That's true but I still want to say that [one word inaudible]
AH (simultaneously): Neither of those things are the knowledge that I am presently having of what I call particularity because [RG simultaneously: That's-- (yeah/right).] there's a conceptual overlay--
RG: That's [AD simultaneously: (Uh-huh.)] no knowledge.
AH: Is that so?
AD: Yeah.
S (faint): Uh-hm, yeah.
VM: But I thought we also tried to say that the truth of what you know is your participation in that true knowledge even if it's at [RG assents] the sense level. Because, if you don't have any connection with that true knowledge then you really are in a total [AD simultaneously, faint: Uh-hm, yeah.] dream world, I mean there's nothing behind what you know.
AD: And then you would be making the sensible world real.
RG: Uh-hm.
VM: Right.
S (very faint): Oh.
AD: Well we're moving along, let's-- let's try a little more what this willing, feeling, and knowing's about.
RG: Let me read-- let me-- just to sum up this-- there's a paragraph in Bhattacharya I just want to refer to.
VM (simultaneously): [one/two words inaudible] come on. Go back to the Master and read it.
RG: Just paragraph 12, it sums I think this up nicely, on knowing.
[Transcriber note: I am using Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 2, by Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, "The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms," Progressive Publishers, Calcutta, 1956.]
KCB ["The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms," stanza 12, RG reading]: "12. The content of a knowing act is unconstituted by the act."
VM: Uh-hm.
RG: Alright?
KCB ["The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms," stanza 12, RG reading]: "The particular act of knowing discovers and does not construct the object known, even if the object be admitted to be constructed by some knowing."
VM: Uh-hm.
RG: The Earth Mind [S, very faint: Yeah.] or the Worl--
AD: This is Bhattacharya, isn't it?
RG: Yeah, [AD simultaneously: Ok.] yeah.
KCB ["The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms," stanza 12, RG reading]: "Knowledge would appear to mean that the object known is in some sense independent of it…"
RG: Independent of knowledge.
VM: Uh-hm
KCB ["The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms," stanza 12, RG reading]:: "…though it may be a question whether what we ordinarily claim to know is properly said to be known…"
VM: Right, that's where the contamination (with/of) the other functions occur.
KCB ["The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms," stanza 12, RG reading]: "Where the object is coloured by the particularity of the act of knowing, it may be said to be only empirically known but it is still taken to be known so far as it is believed to be independent of it."
VM: Uh-hm.
RG: So, he's allowing empirical knowledge to stand insofar as the object is independent of our construction or of our imagination. I mean so the world is real as long as you know what the world is.
AH: But that em-- that empirical designation is not the true particular area.
RG: Right, insofar that it's independent of us it is, insofar that it's colored by our imagination it isn't.
AH: It isn't.
RG: Right.
VM (faint): But she-- well, (I don't understand) what you're saying.
S (faint): (Yeah.)
S (very faint): Yeah.
RG: Alright?
S (faint): (Yeah.)
S (very faint): Yeah.
AH: Uh-hm.
RG: So much for now? We have--
S: I don't know, could you-- are you-- can you go over it Dickie?
S (faint): Uh-hm.
RG: Sure.
LD: Or just slower or [RG simultaneously: Yeah, yeah.] maybe if we could join.
VM: Read us that paragraph [couple/three words inaudible]
KCB ["The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms," stanza 12, RG reading (simultaneously with VM above)]: "12. The content of a knowing act is unconstituted by the act [RG adds: of knowing]."
RG: In other words, knowing to be knowing does not contribute anything to the object. It stand-- the object stands on its own.
VM: Well that's a uncolored light, just reveals the object [RG assents] but it doesn't color, it doesn't reveal-- I mean doesn't bring anything to it.
KCB ["The Concept of the Absolute and Its Alternative Forms," stanza 12, RG reading]: "The particular act of knowing discovers and does not construct the object…"
RG: In other words, when one-- when we're in an act of knowing, we come to the object as it is and we don't add anything, we discover it. We don't re-cognize it, we don't construct anything about it, we don't imagine about it, we don't put a f-- clothe it, but we-- we discover what's there.
AH: Dickie, would it be possible to compare? Is that like spoken of in other places as like the vivid world? Because you said it--
LD (simultaneously): As what? Speak up.
RG (simultaneously): The vivid-- oh.
AH: The vivid world, spoken of in other traditions or other-- poetically speaking, that would be the world that--
LD: The primal image.
AH: It's vivid or like the aesthetic continuum.
RG: Uh-hm.
S (faint): Uh-hm.
RG: Yeah.
LD: Is that-- is that the primal image?
RG: I think that's one level of it but you could also do it lo-- I mean even the particularity as it's partic-- as Vic said, when you're in conformity with the way the-- it's presented in the World-Idea then you could say you know it. When you re-imagine it or re-cognize it through your own imagination, then we're not knowing it [S: No, right.] particularly. [students assent, very faint] I guess.
AD: See but the important thing here is that the World-Mind would present you with the World-Idea, let's say a tree, and you could get to know that tree, alright? That-- that knowing of that tree is a discovery of part of the World-Idea.
RG: Uh-hm.
AD: You haven't made that tree, you didn't create it, alright. Then the next part is he says now you could color that, you could i-- like let's say my-- my eyes don't work the right way, instead of seeing green I see red, alright. There I'm adding to it. But there's still an empirical data, there's still empirical knowledge here that there is an object there, alright. That I didn't create but I, you know, superimpose something on it and there I am interfering with the perception and you can call that empirical perception now.
RG: Uh-hm.
AD: Alright, but I'm exaggerating it. The point is as soon as empirical perception takes place, it's inevitable, ipso facto, that the individual is going to contribute something to that.
RG: Uh-hm.
AD: But this is very important because if you understand this, then in your understanding you could see how these different levels that you have to get acquainted with in philosophy become operative, alright, you see how epistemology on the one hand pulls in the individual and pulls in the World-Mind's Idea and combines them together and you've got to be able to understand this, rather than memorize a text.
LR: Now that constitution by an individual of-- the coloring of the bare given is through willing, not through knowing now, so that what he perceives is actually--
AD: Well-- [VM/S(?) simultaneously: Could be feeling too.] Yes, but it could also be through feeling.
RG: Through feeling also.
S (very faint): Uh-huh.
RG: The identification of your--
LR: Well that identification would be through feeling but the actual constitution of [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with LR] the object by [RG simultaneously: By your-- yeah.] the subject would be the willing.
VM: Uh-hm.
LR: So that in the pre-- so that in what we call the appercep--
AD: Insofar that you will to perceive it to [RG assents] that extent you include [RG assents] the cons-- the elements that go into making you what you are.
RG: Right.
AD: You can't, unless, you know, you're very advanced, you can't screen that out.
LR: Right, so that-- my only point was that so that when you actually do perceive the particular, all three modes are-- are already [AD simultaneously: I--] present.
AD: Yeah, well I think, I think that's what we got to get to because that's the interesting part [RG: Right.] that gives rise to the confusion that we live in.
LR: Well that's what he says is error, I mean that's [RG assents] what gives rise to error, that we don't--
AD (simultaneously): Well I wouldn't call it error, ok?
LD: The superimposition which makes it into the empirical [AD simultaneously: Well--] could not be--
AH (faint): Anthony?
AD (simultaneously): I wouldn't call it error, it's a little foggy, yes, but it's no error.
RG: Ok. (RG laughs a bit)
LR: Well it makes error possible, it makes illusion [AD simultaneously: Yeah, ok.] possible, maybe that's a better word.
RG (simultaneously): Ok.
S: Or wrong [S simultaneously: Yes.] knowledge.
S (faint): Yeah, yeah.
AD: Well [RG assents] you have-- you have to be careful there because then we'll be making everything that we perceive error and we're giving too much scope to the term 'error'.
RG: Uh-hm.
AD: [one/two words inaudible] well-- well let's try a little bit more, a little more.
RG: Ok. So, there, know-- that was knowing. Let's talk a little about willing. Now-- we have to flip now and get into a new mode. (RG laughs) And we're not going to talk about any reality other than our own mind, any reality other than our own consciousness.
AD: No, m-- let me add one-- one little note [RG simultaneously: Right.] before we go on to the next thing. And this is hard, I don't-- I really don't want to bring it in but I want you to keep it in the back of your mind. We say that on the one hand we, in knowing the object, we are discovering what the, let's say, the World-Mind has willed for us to perceive. Now the strange thing is that we reach a certain level where we identify with the World-Mind and now we recognize that we ourselves have willed what we will discover.
RG: Uh-hm.
S (faint): Uh-hm.
AD: But, just hold that in the back of your mind, don't-- [RG: Right.] don't run away with it now, because that-- that's what happens. You yourself created what you're going to discover and know. But now you see the "We" that you're talking about is a much-- [S: Right.] [RG: Right.] well he's a-- he's a much nicer-- a greater fellow.
RG: And that's the view from willing.
AD (faint): Yeah, that's a view from willing.
RG: That you are-- that you construct--
VM (faint): The Mental Constructor.
RG: You construct the world. Now whether you conceive it individually or cosmically, and let's start individually, there is no reality to willing apart from what we give it.
S (very faint): Uh-hm.
RG: Ok? I mean, in terms of-- there is no known content-- there is our own projective-- our own imagination or our own consciousness, and that consciousness projects a world, ok, and the only reality that that projection has in this view is through our own being, our own-- our own projecting power. Ok?
AH: Is that to say that the content of the projection isn't the same nature as the motive force of the projection?
RG: Yes, yes, from this view of w-- yeah. From this view of willing, now-- [student assents] we're just going (through/to) a different mode of thinking, we didn't-- we're not denying this [diagram], [drawing] ok, but the-- what we just talked about was from one function, now we're going to come-- come at it from another function. But we're not denying what we discussed here but we're coming from a new point of view. And I think this point of view, of willing or consciousness, at least for the individual, is particularly the concept of individual mentalism say, [students assent] I mean the one that's, you know, really pounded in the Hidden Teaching. All we know is our idea, you know, the world is our idea and that's a pure-- a point of view of pure willing. And that idea is the same stuff as our mind. It's mental stuff. There's nothing else in our experience.
VM: Uh-hm.
AH: There's no matter, no content.
RG: There's no matter, there's no content, there's no realistic thing that reproduces itself in our imagination, [student assents] ok, there's no Idea-in-itself. But from the point of view of willing it's all made out of the same stuff.
AH (faint): Ok.
RG: Ok?
CDA: But how does that negate that there's not-- there's no Idea-in-itself?
AH/S(?): [couple/three words inaudible]
RG (simultaneously): It doesn't negate it, but [CDA simultaneously: Oh, ok.] from willing you wouldn't know it. Pluto. Yeah, ok?
CDA (simultaneously): Oh ok, ok, right, right.
LR (simultaneously): It's just pulling out of the whole thing the one aspect [one word inaudible]
RG (simultaneously): The one a-- ok? But I think it's more-- now, I mean-- 'cause this is--
RC (simultaneously): Could you say a little more about that transition, like what it means to take the point of view of willing?
RG: Well, I mean we could use examples, I mean, everyday exam-- I mean say when you sit down to meditate, ok? The only way you're gonna get done what you have to do is by doing it. It doesn't exist as a state of being that the act of-- you know, the fulfillment of meditating. It's a com-- it's a willed act that you have to perform, otherwise it won't get done. So if you want to go to the grocery store you gotta go. I mean it doesn't-- it doesn't exist apart from your-- your movement through it. Ok, now that's a kind of low level of willing, I mean that was unreflective level, your grocery store example, (student assents, faint) but at the reflective level of willing, he would say there's an awareness that the world is actually coming through you, that you actually produce your world and the responsibility that goes with it, ok. And in this article he actually says willing defines the level of reflection, because in willing there's an arrest of functioning, because you have an arrest, a stoppage. You have to s-- stop the activities in order to reflect on them, ok, and that's only done through an act of will, ok, you--
CDA (simultaneously) You mean you have to stop knowing or you have to stop feeling [RG or another student assents] in order to be with-- to have reflective knowing or reflective feeling, (and--)
RG (simultaneously): Yeah, right, and that's primarily a le-- at the-- that's primarily a willful act. So ref-- ok? So you have to draw out of those contents through your own effort what's inherent in them. And that effort is willing, the learning.
CDA: And didn't he say that that's the source of self-consciousness.
RG: The source of refle-- yeah, but-- and I think what he means there reflective consc-- self-consciousness I think there means reflective consciousness.
S: Yeah that's it.
AH: I don't-- [S simultaneously: Right.] I would like to understand that more fully. If you take the point of view of willing, that of necessity negates the point of view of knowledge?
RG: No, I don't think it negates it.
AH (simultaneously): I-- in the empirical mode.
VM: No.
RG: No, I don't think it negates it but I think it's just a-- another mode. Now you can hold both, I mean I don't think we have to throw away what we understood about knowing.
VM (simultaneously): Yeah, you know what you will.
AH: Couldn't-- perhaps could it-- the discussion earlier, in the empirical mode knowledge proceeds toward a particular object. In the case of the willing mode, there's the refusal of the particularity?
RG: No, I think there's the engendering of the particularity. I think it's willing what constructs the particularity. In other words, willing gives things form, it gives things the appearance, it gives-- [AH: Yes.] it pr-- it's productive.
AH: Yes, but then I don't understand what it means to take the point of view of willing as the point of view of individual mentalism.
S (very faint): Because you're still stuck.
RG (simultaneously): Be-- because isn't in individual mentalism the point of view that your mind is constructing the entire panorama of experience for you?
AH: And the consequence of that is that the particular objects [RG: Right.] do not abide as such but as part of the mental tissue.
RG: Right, good, yeah. I think that's the point of view of willing, right.
AH: Ok.
RG: Yeah, yeah. Now I [student assents] also think it's more-- now, cosmically we could come at it from the point of view of the World-Idea but-- and say that the World-Idea is willing what it already knows but I still think that's taking willing from within kn-- the knowing framework. I would say, I would say that willing on its own is more from the side of the soul, in terms of the-- when we say the Overself-- the-- the [VM simultaneously: (one/two words inaudible) of the soul.] I AM constructs its world or it manifests [VM assents] its world for itself. And that that pure-- that freedom of the soul to retract or not its projection [VM assents] is-- is the absolute for willing.
VM: Yeah good. Since you mentioned the soul, Richard, the question I had earlier I think is appropriate maybe now, and that is when you say that the soul can be understood under three, [RG: Uh-huh.] knowing, willing, and willing, [RG: Right.] but what kind of knowing? Are you saying the-- that knows the soul. Could-- do we have to speak-- [RG drawing] I don't know how you do it in the context of this article, do you have to speak about the-- the Nous knowing the soul? Or are you looking at soul as a lower entity like psyche and then you say, well the Uranus knows the soul? I don't know [RG simultaneously: I would say inso--] how you're breaking that up in terms of [one word inaudible]
RG (simultaneously): I mean this-- this is kind of speculative but, I would say that insofar that the soul is what it is and it is a real existent, that Uranus could come to know it, ok? And insofar that you could come to know it, it has a-- it certainly is a-- it has a cognitive aspect.
VM: I just thought the only self-knowledge of the soul was from the Nous.
RG: Well, but even-- if [VM simultaneously: I think you could say well Uranus is--] that's true, it's still knowledge of the soul in the Nous, I mean, either way, either way.
VM (simultaneously): Ok. Uranus is in some ways a-- an out fa-- outward-facing aspect of the Nous, [RG simultaneously: Ok.] I mean it's not a personal thing.
RG: And Pluto is its productive power to produce the wor-- a world for itself.
VM (simultaneously): Uh-hm.
RG: Now, we-- this view or whatever, I mean, usually or lately we've been conceiving of all the production on the side of the World-Idea in terms of what gets manifested and what gets known but I still think there's a way to conceive of the soul as having these three functions and these three drawing back to itself in terms of its unity. In other words, I think we could trace the World-Idea back to its source and we could trace the soul back to its source and you would use these three functions in that tracing back.
VM: But I don't see what the problem is Richard. When you know, can't you say that the World-Idea is given to the soul [RG: Right.] and the soul unfolds it through its own willing function and creates [RG assents] it and takes its imagination and fabricates the thing, [RG: Right.] knows it with its knowing function, and it-- and the pervasion of the subject and the object is [RG assents] a different realm.
RG: But that view says that all that the soul knows is what the World-Idea gives it.
VM: Yeah.
RG: And I'm trying to say the soul also has its own knowledge of itself, not just from (the) what the World-Idea gives to it. But that from this view there could be a way to try to know what's inherent in the soul.
VM: So you say that the-- the individual soul can know things or objects or principles other than what the World-Mind [RG simultaneously: Yeah.] provides it with?
RG (simultaneously): Not-- not objects and not things.
VM (simultaneously): Well, I don't mean objects and things in the sensible sense.
RG (simultaneously): No, no, but that-- that's-- that's important because I think that conception is from a knowing point of view. But insofar that it could know its own source [LR simultaneously, faint: Dickie--] or can know its own substantive Being, then you speak of a knowing aspect under-- under willing. And insofar that it could trace its consciousness back to itself or to its I AM-ness, I think we have to allow for that process.
LR: That would be knowing and willing?
RG: Knowing under willing if you take the view that willing here is-- is on the line of consciousness or soul.
LR (simultaneously): But then it would be objectifying its own source, which is impossible.
RG: No, but I wouldn't say in this ca-- that's why it's knowing under willing, it's not knowing in itself. It's tracing back-- look, it's discovering its own source, not objectifying, discovering, 'cause that was our definition for knowing, discovering what's true about it, or coming to-- coming to itself as the I AM say.
LR (simultaneously): Would that be-- would that not be reflective willing?
RG: That's-- That wouldn't be reflective willing, it might be the higher octave of it. Right. But I'm trying-- Yeah, it would be an aspect of reflective willing but reflective willing is still concerned with the production of seeing the manifestation but I'm saying there's a way to conceive this where you don't look at the manifestation but look at the source, and that would be a view from knowing within the will. [students assent, very faint] You know what I mean? In other words, if you look--
LR: I know what you mean but I-- it's not-- but (uh/I)--
RG: If you looked at--
LR: It's hard for me to use the word 'knowing' in that context because of--
RG: Well I'm--
CDA: [couple words inaudible]
LR (simultaneously): Discovery I--
RG: Hm?
LR: I know what you mean by discovery.
RG: Ok, but I--
LR (simultaneously): Discovering its source.
RG: I didn't want to get that hung up on this part because, I mean, [S: Yeah you're--] this is my speculation. But I-- well, what else? Now I think for example in Kant you see a beautiful confusion of knowing and willing. In other words, he conceives that the-- you can never know the Ideas, ok? Now why does he say that? He [couple inaudible VM words simultaneous with RG] says because the individual mind can never get past its own categories. And, you know-- and usually he's taken as a great advocate of knowl-- of-- [LR, very faint: Yeah, of mentalism.] of mentalism but really-- but I think we see it's really-- if he didn't have a cosmic mentalism view, he saw that the mind created its own categories and that prevented real knowledge but he allowed for know-- he allowed-- so he didn't have a conception of the Absolute in terms of knowing 'cause he didn't allow for truth, [LR: Right.] but he did have an Absolute in terms of willing, and he call-- you know, he called it the moral imperative, that you could know the Self through the will, so he-- he seemed to limit it-- limit knowledge and exalt the will. Yeah?
AP: Could-- maybe could you say that the knowing under the willing would be maybe also like a kind of awareness of the subjectivity (maybe) [RG assents] of the-- in-- when in everyday life, that you-- there's-- could be an awareness of that subjectivity. Wouldn't that be a knowing aspect under willing?
RG (simultaneously): I would say, yeah, an aw-- an awareness of it as not projecting a world, when it's static, when it's in itself.
AP: But as projecting.
RG: No, I wouldn't say that, because that--
S (simultaneously): And what would that be?
RG: What would it be?
S: Yeah.
RG: A state of Nirvikalpa, there's no World-- there's no World-Idea that's being actuated.
S (simultaneously): So you're saying that would be pure willing?
RG: No, I'm saying that would be the knowing aspect under pure willing. Because there wouldn't be any [student assents] projection, willing always en--
S: Right.
RG: Right?
AP (simultaneously): No but if there is willing, if you want to say the knowing aspect of that, wouldn't that be the knowing-- the awareness of your subjectivity as you are projecting?
RG: No, because in-- from the point of view of willing it-- you couldn't know it, it's only actual as you're doing it. So I-- it-- I see-- it's possible, I mean I see-- I see where you're going.
AP/S(?): It's like [one word inaudible]
S (simultaneously): [couple words inaudible] (bit of laughter)
LR: Not--
AD/S(?): Go ahead.
AP: Well I think I have another question. Go on.
LR: Well, just that it seems like when you're doing willing, [RG: Yeah.] and then you want to spo-- speak of the other modes, [RG: Uh-hm.] you have to do it on different levels. In other words, the knowing of the will from within the will [RG: Uh-hm.] would be the knowing of the, say the lesser subjectivity of the higher subjectivity's will, the awareness(--/.) They don't happen at the same level. So there could be an apprehension of sorts by the limited being that the source is willing all experience.
RG: Right.
LR: So that-- all I'm saying is this-- the mo-- the sub-modes under each [RG: Yeah.] of the triple modes would be from the point of view of the lesser being.
RG: Well maybe, I don't-- I don't know, I mean--
LR: But that's the only way I can conceive of it, that--
RG: Alright, well, they--
LR (simultaneously, faint): I don't know.
AS: Also-- may-- maybe I'm confused here, I'm not sure if there's any-- if there's any (question(s)). But seemed to me that by soul here we mean the projecting power of the soul, [RG assents] not the I AM per se. I don't know if that would be clearer or if not, so that the primary mode would be this projecting power, [LR assents] or the soul's willing aspect, [RG assents] and that's why you're calling it willing.
RG: Yeah.
AS: So that's why I don't know that the knowing aspect of this willing would be what he-- would be Nirvikalpa, I'm not sure--
RG (simultaneously): But where would you put that?
AS: I don't-- I don't [LR simultaneously: Put what?] know where-- I'm not sure really.
LR: Where would you put what?
RG: The projecting power. I mean with-- the [AS simultaneously: Projecting power?] soul without it, how would that be, I mean how would you approach that?
AS: The projecting power-- I thought you were saying that from the side of-- [RG: The--] the point of view of the soul, that this projecting power or the reasoning soul is this--
RG: Will.
AS: --the emanant or the [RG assents] understanding phase of the soul. And it's primarily a willing activity and not a knowing activity 'cause [student assents] the knowing activity is primarily on the side of the World-Idea.
RG: Uh-hm.
AS: Ok.
RG: Yeah.
AS: But that's on-- that's if we-- the knowing which is under that-- the knowing aspect of that understanding phase then, I don't see that as [S: But--] Nirvikalpa or anything, that would be just like maybe what Plotinus says almost on one-- I don't know who said it, Linda, somebody said, he's-- take-- he's cognizant of that principle in virtue of which understanding occurs. (Plotinus, V.3.4, fourth para)
RG: Uh-hm.
AS: But that-- that would be on the side of the projecting power, there could be a knowledge of the principle in virtue of which there was understanding, but not in--
AD (simultaneously): It might be-- yeah, it might be that that's where the [AS simultaneously: But not--] triple division takes place.
RG: Yeah, uh-huh.
AS (simultaneously): But not-- but not yet in--
CDA (simultaneously): Is where, is where?
AS: It's in the understanding phase.
RG: Right.
CDA: Oh, ok. That's what [AS simultaneously: But not in the phase--] I was going to ask you though, if you-- [AS simultaneously: Well but--] if you--
AS: Well that's what I think happens 'cause above that-- if-- that's why when you say Nirvikalpa, I think above that-- above that projecting power you don't have this triple-- you don't have a triple division at all, [RG simultaneously: But I-- but--] you have the I AM with the-- [RG simultaneously: But I would s--] with the-- with the In-- you have the Intelligible World in the soul, the Intellectual [RG assents] World in the soul, and this-- this whole thing comes about when you have an actual split between the-- the cosmic-- the World-Soul or the Earth Soul producing the World-Idea or projecting it and-- and that projecting power of the soul then associating with it.
CDA: But if you-- if you (finish--)
AD (simultaneously): It almost seems, it almost seems, I think, that the embodying soul must evolve this triple mode in order to get or work with the World-Idea. And without the evolution of that triple mode, the World-Idea wouldn't-- wouldn't evolve within it or it [AS simultaneously: (Couldn't) get assimilated.] would be a meaningless notion, you know?
RG: Uh-hm.
AS: Yeah, and-- and-- and along with what he says, it can't-- if the soul, it can't get at it directly by union in the Intellectual, has to go through this whole thing, that's when you need this triple mode [AD: Mode, uh-huh.] [RG assents] in order for that understanding (it would) unders-- to understand. And I always took understanding to include all three of these.
S: Uh-hm.
LR: But would the triple mode then--
AS (simultaneously): It means by [S simultaneously: (one/two words inaudible) including them.] understanding soul.
RG: Yeah.
LR: The triple mode be a-- [S simultaneously, faint: As long as (couple words inaudible)] an aspect [AS simultaneously: Both.] of the World-Idea [AS simultaneously: Both.] or of the [RG simultaneously: Both.] soul?
AS: No, I think the point is that it only comes about when you need to speak of the relation of the World-Idea and the soul in that way in which an understanding soul getting to know about a World-Idea distinct from it. It doesn't-- the question can't be answered of which side--
LR (simultaneously): From either one.
AS: I think not [LR simultaneously: And I would--] because it's-- that's what this im-- seems to imply.
RG: But if you s--
AS (simultaneously): And that's why I don't agree-- that's why I do-- the only things I never followed about him is what he does when he takes them up to their absolutes [RG simultaneously: (Yeah), but-- but when you--] 'cause-- and also Murti's-- Murti's final conclusion [RG simultaneously: Right.] here is that, not to jump to that, but that-- that the-- [VM: Why not?] that the-- that the discrimi-- that the-- that if you-- he-- he has a-- he claims his analysis leads to the conclusion that the Absolute or whatever can only know-- be known through one of these and not to the exclusion, [RG: Yeah.] which is obviously contradicted by what PB says, that in the in-- in insight all three fuse or [RG assents] merge or gone beyond rather than keep separate.
RG: Yeah.
AS: And again that goes with the idea that they stand as distinct only in terms of the-- the-- the understanding phase of the soul.
RG: Yeah but-- I-- I agree with you, I think he go-- you know, I wouldn't agree with the last thing he says, but--
AS (simultaneously): Ok, yeah. No, I'm listening.
RG: I mean I think he misinterprets KCB there too when KCB talks about the concept of the Absolute, [AS: Yeah.] not the realization of it.
AS (simultaneously): Well-- well he's obviously taking his own-- [RG simultaneously: Right.] taking off on his own--
RG: But I would say from the point of view of the understanding soul, looking up, not in terms of realization but in terms of conceiving of the Absolute, that we do it through one of these three modes.
AS: Yes.
RG: Ok?
VM: From an "I" [AS simultaneously: And I think that's because--] position it's going to be final.
RG: Yeah.
AS: But I think that's because--
S (very faint): Yeah.
AS: Now that may be a consequence of the fact that that's the only way that the understanding phase can operate.
RG: Yes.
AS: And in fact that's what we have.
RG: Yeah, yeah, I ag-- I agree with that. But I was trying to see that from that phase, how do we look when we are trying to conceive of the Abs-- of what's above, whether it's Absolute Soul or Nous or whatever, what-- how-- how do these faculties actually conceive those principles, ok?
AS: I think only knowing conceives it.
RG: No, but I-- no, no, they each seem to formulate their own Abs-- their own version of the Transcendent, it isn't knowing that just--
AD: That might-- that might be just a rumor.
RG: Ok.
AD: You know what I mean?
RG: Yeah.
AD: That they should formulate their own Absolute could be really a-- a play of words.
RG: Well what do you think it means?
AD: No, I-- it's enough for me what PB says when these three fuse.
RG: Ok.
S: Insight?
AD: You [RG simultaneously: But--] get insight, (you--) It isn't that each one could formulate its own version of the Absolute.
AS: See, you--
RG (simultaneously): No, but I-- but that-- but insight is higher-- is the goal of that.
S: It's very true.
RG: Right? [S, faint: Uh-hm.] I mean--
AD: Yeah, but-- what I'm saying is if willing formulated its version of the Absolute, it would be insight; and if feeling did, it would be insight; [RG assents] and if [student assents] knowing did, it would be insight.
[Audio File 1984 0713a Ends]
[Audio File 1984 0713b Begins]
RG: Yeah.
AD: You're not going up towards the Absolute.
LR: He says [couple/three words inaudible] yeah.
AD (simultaneously): The True, the Beautiful, and the Good [RG: Right.] are things that we're speaking about as in the realm, in the world, alright, and if-- it isn't a statement of what's [LR simultaneously: (Above) them.] beyond these functions.
RG: Right.
AS/S(?): Yeah.
RG: Right. But isn't that the way those functions try to approach what's above them or not?
AD (simultaneously): Well it seems that that-- that would be the urge, you know, that would be the urge. Like the feeling function would formulate itself in terms of the Beautiful, that would be its Absolute and etc. I could follow that.
RG: Right.
AD: But I was now saying (there/that) could be-- that might be just a rumor.
S: (Of course.)
VM (simultaneously): But Anthony, what about--
AD: It might be that it's insight in all three cases [RG assents] that is the proper formulation of the Absolute for each of these functions.
S (very faint): Yeah.
RG: Yeah [couple words inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Now I'm just saying, that's a possible way of looking at it [RG assents] instead of coming up with a triple Absolute.
AS (simultaneously): It's funny-- you know, it's-- maybe I'm getting off the point but, you know, at the lower level there's a confusion, at the level of the bodily. At the level of discrimination is where we're trying to separate the three.
RG: Right.
AS: But then-- and that goes along with PB saying you have to balance them and separate them [VM simultaneously: And then there's fusion at the top.] in order to develop (them/it), but then again at the top [RG: Right.] you have a fusion. Because the l-- in this-- [RG assents] in that sense the sense world is an image of the Intelligible, not of the-- that middle realm, it's-- [RG simultaneously: Right, but it's the reflec-- right.] it's really from the point [student assents] of view of the re--
VM: What is fused becomes con-fused?
RG: But-- right. [S simultaneously, faint: Ok.] But it's the reflective consciousness that formulates, I mean that-- you know, it's not the higher-- it's still in reflection that you formulate [AS assents] these three.
AS: And I took, when we did-- when you did "The Subject as Freedom" I took you to be saying that the reflective mode for him wasn't the lower, it [RG assents] really was the understanding or reasoning. [Note: See K.C. Bhattacharyya, Studies in Philosophy, Volume 2, "The Subject as Freedom".]
RG (simultaneously): That's right, right.
AS: That's why I think that does make sense 'cause it is in that reflection you-- yeah, that you discriminate the three of them.
RG: Right.
VM: What about what when--
AS: And not only that you-- it's-- and it's not a-- it's not a reasoning which is extrinsic, it's a r-- it's a reasoning based on the actual relation at that level of the understanding power of the soul with that World-Idea it's trying to comprehend.
RG: Yeah.
AD: And then the other thing we have to keep in mind too is that the World-Idea per se is going to be like the converse side. It's going to develop the necessary circumstances for instance for the development of the will, [RG assents] for the discovery of knowledge, alright. So, these two things have to be kept in parallel, that it isn't a question that the soul has these faculties but the World-Idea is also going to see to it that [RG assents] you cultivate those faculties. [student assents] So the two of them have to be kept parallel.
RG: Uh-hm.
VM: Yeah.
AD: You know, I'd like to poke around a little bit. We have some time?
RG: Yeah.
AD: Poke around a little bit on his notion of matter.
RG: Ok, [AS simultaneously, faint: Yeah, well (one/two words inaudible)] yeah, (it's something we'd) like to get to.
AD (simultaneously): Well let's look at that, it's interesting.
AS (simultaneously): Yeah, I would put--
RG: Ok.
VM: Let's see, it's the indeterminate. That's the next essay, isn't it?
AS (simultaneously): There's two kin-- where he talks about two kinds of matter too.
VM: Isn't that in the next essay?
AS: No, it's right in here.
RG: Right.
AS: Oh, which one-- [AD: Next--] which essay are you doing?
RG/VM(?): Yeah, I think--
AD: I forgot, I forgot the--
AS (simultaneously): The confusion of subjective functions.
VM (simultaneously): I think it's [RG simultaneously: Right.] in the [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] second one, isn't it Avery?
RG (simultaneously): No, it's also in the first one. [VM simultaneously: It's in this one too?] No, well--
AD: Try to [S simultaneously, faint: No. (We're) really doing it.] see if you can pick out the ideas.
AS (simultaneously): But there's-- mainly in the second one.
AD: Because I think you could see those things working out in a chart [RG: Ok.] beautifully, but, maybe I misunderstood so let's read on it.
RG: What-- (Louie), what page? Doesn't matter.
AS: Page 38 [S simultaneously, faint: Right.] on the second article and--
LR (simultaneously): It's the second article.
S (simultaneously, faint): Right.
RG: Yeah, second article.
AS (simultaneously): Page 38 on the second article he (goes) through them.
VM (simultaneously): Right, yeah [one/two words inaudible]
RG (simultaneously): Right, ok.
S: Ok.
VM: [couple/three words inaudible]
RG: Yeah, ok. Bottom of page 37 it starts.
[short pause, flipping of pages]
DR: What page you say?
RG: Bottom of page 37.
DR: Oh, oh that's the text.
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.2 Illusion as Confusion of Subjective Functions," p. 37, RG reading]: "These three functions--attitudes as we have called them--we consciously become aware of only in cancellation, which at once evidences that they were present before too."
RG: Or in other words when we unconfuse them. When we start un-confusing them is what he means by cancellation.
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.2 Illusion as Confusion of Subjective Functions," pp. 37-38, RG reading]: "Otherwise, we would be considering that illusion and cancellation have two different contents or that illusion is a unitary fact--a view that has been already [RG reads: already been] refuted."
RG: Ok?
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.2 Illusion as Confusion of Subjective Functions," p. 38, RG reading]: "Cancellation, without adding any new factor, merely analyses and clarifies the previous situation."
RG: The previous confused situation of the functions.
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.2 Illusion as Confusion of Subjective Functions," p. 38, RG reading]: "The distinctive nature or self of each subjective function shines out. In contrast, illusion has to be conceived as the confusion or self-alienation of each form. This is object or matter par excellence. An epistemological definition of matter would be what is indeterminate, confused, and form is what is determinate, with a self as it were. The difference between the two is directly felt as in the transition from illusion to cancellation. Any other definition of matter, as what is external, dead, inert, [etc.] is open to objection as lacking experiential support. (student assents, RG laughs bit) On our view, matter is the confusion or self-alienation of forms, not an independent, or self-sufficient entity, the confusion itself not another form."
RG: (Yeah/Hm).
LG: The self's alienation of form?
LR: The forms-- by forms he means knowing, willing, and feeling.
RG (simultaneously): Right.
VM: I-- it sounds to me like this notion-- what-- where-- when he says here from example--
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.2 Illusion as Confusion of Subjective Functions," p. 38, VM reading]: "Primordial illusion or matter is the utter lack of all determination…"
VM: I mean it sounds to me just like the way we speak about matter in the Greeks, totally undetermined in it, [LR simultaneously: Yeah, except not--] you can't grasp it.
AD (simultaneously): What's undetermined?
VM: You can't grasp it with any qualitative notion at all.
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, but what's undetermined?
VM: Pardon?
LR: Knowing, willing, and feeling it seems, right?
AD: Ok.
LR: That's the mirror.
RG: Oh yeah, right.
LR: That's [CDA simultaneously: That-- that inner experience is--] what-- in his whole view it--
AD (simultaneously): Look, look, suppose-- suppose we think of a-- a composition, alright?
VM: Yeah.
AD: There's a melodic line and notes, a certain rhythm, ok? And suppose you separate them, suppose you divorce, let's say, the rhythm from the time, the time from the melody or the actual m-- note sequence. [AS simultaneously: You won't have a--] What would happen?
AS: You won't have a composition anymore.
AD: You won't have a composition. [AS simultaneously: If you have--] But if you put them all together, which he calls a confusion, alright, [student assents] and the arisal of an illusion, which it is better [AS simultaneously: Which is the world.] to use the term "the arisal of an appearance," alright, because to us appea-- illusion is really, you know, like waving a red flag. Then what happens?
AS: I-- I think he's just saying that you have-- in order for anything to appear you need this principle of indeterminacy or pure potentiality, otherwise you can't have a confluence of all these factors.
VM: Yeah.
AS: You need some-- you want to call it a principle, ok, but some principle or something by which there can be an appearance 'cause appearance means combined-- to use a Buddhist term, combined dependent origination.
VM (simultaneously): Right, right. How about if you said it like this--
AS (simultaneously): And-- and noth-- and anything which is a real idea can't be combined dependent origination, it is [student assents] what it is. But if sensible world appearance is [VM or another student assents] not just what it is, it's a confluence or combined dependent thing so you need this pure indeterminacy [CDA simultaneously: Now, I mean--] in order to get determined.
VM: What if we say that matter was the ability to allow-- or let's say the principle which allowed the interpenetration or the bringing together of these three distinct modes of consciousness. Because if you couldn't bring them together you couldn't have an appearance. As we tried early in the class when you talk about pure knowing, there's no imagery, there's no sense, there's no appearance, there's no presentation.
AS: Yeah, I--
VM (simultaneously): And similarly if you look at all the others in their pure rarified form, that's not a world that appears [student assents] to any empirical individual. But the ability to bring them together, which if you like to call matter, [AS simultaneously: Yeah. And that's that (one word inaudible)] is what allows for a presentation.
AS: He s-- he says the confusion itself is not another form, it's just the pure indeterminacy [VM assents] of the matter that allows the others [VM assents] to function (here/there).
VM (simultaneously): To unfold.
LG: Why would a confluence of knowing, willing, and feeling be an indeterminate-- an indeterminate [one word inaudible]
LR (simultaneously): Well he gives example.
RG: Yeah.
LR: He gives examples. Like he'll show you what happens when you take a known object that isn't distinct or objective.
AD: Take the example of [RG simultaneously: Right, right, ok.] the snake and-- [LR: Yeah.] and the rope, [RG: Yeah.] I mean--
[few students at once, few inaudible student words]
AD (simultaneously): Read her [RG simultaneously: Right.] the example, read it.
RG: Ok. Um--
[flipping of pages]
LG: That's not the creation of matter.
AS: (It's) [one word inaudible]
AD: No?
S (simultaneously, faint): No.
RG: Um--
AS: And he gets (or/where) he interprets it, [RG simultaneously: Yeah.] (it exists).
LG: You've already got something that you're coming off. I mean in that example it's not a good example because you've already got something-- you've already got a matter that you're working off of, 'cause you've already--
AS (simultaneously): No, but here-- [AD simultaneously: No, no, no, no.] no, that's not matter though. That would be like in Richard's ex-- example, it'd be like the World-Idea and then the projecting po-- I mean you have to see how these are representative of-- [LR simultaneously: That's back in the (one word inaudible)] of the different aspects [RG assents] of these functions.
S: Well, on 39.
S (simultaneously): In the Alternative-- in the KJ--
S (faint): [one/two words inaudible]
TS (faint): [one/two words inaudible] the bottom of the page.
RG (simultaneously): No, but the-- the actual example's in the other one. Isn't it?
VM: [couple/three words inaudible] in this one though.
LR (simultaneously): Where he confuses them is in the other article, isn't it?
RG: Right.
BC/S(?): I'm afraid I'm missing the problem, I mean in following willing and feeling in that (arti--)
LR: He's saying that there's three forms, knowing, willing, and feeling, [RG/S(?): And then there's no--] and that there's no matter until they're mixed up with one another. But in their own modes they're pure forms and they never have an appearance, they never have matter. It's only when they're superimposed and intertwined that you get appearance.
AS: Yeah. Like if you just have the what of the World-Idea, you'll just [student assents] have the-- the World-Idea and no appearance. Or if you just have the form that the soul gives [student assents] you won't have the appearance. Something-- you have to allow them to app-- to be imposed on each other in order for an appearance (to happen). [TS assents] And he's saying that very app-- imposition, possibility, or potentiality is the matter. There is no other matter.
VM: Uh-huh.
RG: Yeah. Ok, [AS simultaneously: Sorry, let--] let's do the example then.
AD: Alright, go ahead, read [RG simultaneously: On page 28 in the first article.] the example first. Yeah let's read example.
RG: Um--
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.1 Knowing, Feeling and Willing as Functions of Consciousness," p. 28, RG reading]: "Take, for instance, the 'rope-snake' illusion--"This is a snake." The 'this' before me is apprehended as the snake. Analysis here shows that I am in actual contact with the 'this'--whatever that may be; it is not determinate; we merely feel it, perceive it unreflectively."
VM: But it really is quite determinate, isn't it, I mean [student assents] it's a snake, not a lion. So how is he using "it's not determinate"?
RG (simultaneously): The "this". No, but he says simultaneously, there i-- pure presentation, we're aware of a--
AD (simultaneously): See, the "this" here would have to refer to a universal essence.
AS: Right.
RG: Uh-hm.
AD: It can't be a particular snake.
RG: Right.
AD: It's the univer-- the Idea of snake, a universal essence.
RG: Right.
S (very faint): Yeah.
VM: And in that way it's not determinate, (see).
RG (simultaneously): Yeah, because there's [student assents] no-- there's no particular to it. It's not a particular snake, it's just a presentation.
AD (simultaneously): If you follow the analysis. [S simultaneously: But (see--)] Just go on step-by-step [RG simultaneously: Yeah.] [VM simultaneously: Alright.] and you'll see the way-- the way we-- we build up our illusions.
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.1 Knowing, Feeling and Willing as Functions of Consciousness," p. 28, RG reading]: "The 'this' before me is apprehended as the snake. …it is not determinate… Simultaneously, there is the knowledge of the 'snake', which is a universal in the sense that it is a character which has no habitation, and has certainly nothing to do with the 'this' before me."
AS: Can I-- Anthony I'm-- I'm not sure why you-- I thought [AD simultaneously: Go ahead.] that the "this" was what was given by the World-Idea, that was given, but the snake is the universal which this-- the-- [S simultaneously: So it would be the u--] which the soul has; that the "this" is actually, if not particular, it's the given-- it's what's given. [student assents, faint] [LR simultaneously: That's (me/you) too.] And that the snakeness is a universal which really has no particular locus.
VM: Right, it's this snake which is not really there. Snake as a s-- as such is a universal and in that sense it has reality. [AS simultaneously: I'm saying exist.] But the fact that that snake mis-appears or is misplaced somehow, got on the rope--
AD (simultaneously): But when you say, when you say that the World-- the World-Idea, the World-Mind is giving the "this", what do you mean by that?
RG: Right.
AS: That-- um--
AD (simultaneously): What is-- well--
[RG drawing]
AS: --that something-- that there's just something given right at this particular space-time coordinates. Every instant the World-Idea is given to the soul within as some kind of a "this".
AD (simultaneously): Yes.
AS: Now normally it's not apprehended for what it should be.
RG: Yeah, uh-hm.
AS: But, what-- in this case, this universal snake is conjoined with the this-ness which is given or imposed on it or confused with it and I get a "this snake". Maybe I'm not making any sense.
AD: No, I think I follow what you're saying. Alright, let's-- let's follow through.
AS (simultaneously): I (just want) to see-- ok.
RG: Yeah, see, what I--
AD (simultaneously): Let's follow through, let's [student assents] see what Richard's got.
RG: See, I would-- I would say the "this" is what's giv-- it's the presentation, to go along with what Avery said-- Avery said, ok. There's no con-- there's no det-- there's no determinate understanding of it or knowledge of it, ok, it's just the bare-- the givenness of whatever is in front of us.
AH: There's no particular?
RG: We don't know that yet, it's just given.
AS: It's not [one word inaudible]
RG: It's just [S simultaneously: Yeah.] given, I mean--
TS (faint): I think--
LR: See, isn't--
RG (simultaneously): It's what's presented.
AH/S(?): [one word inaudible] (I don't care).
JA (simultaneously): He seems to be [RG simultaneously: Yeah.] saying that the function that apprehends it is given or is [S simultaneously: Right.] [one/two words inaudible] you know [few words inaudible]
RG (simultaneously): Yeah. I would say it's more on the particular side, it's what in front of us, it's what's in-- [VM: Ok.] it's what's in space and time, ok? But then on the other side we have this-- we have "snake", but the snake isn't really given in space-time because it's-- it's really-- it's-- it's [VM assents] not there. So that snake has to be a universal, it has to be an object-- it has to be an object of knowledge 'cause there is no particularity to the snake. But what happens is, we confuse the "this", what's presented, with the snake and that arises this illusion of "This is a snake", ok? So it's the identification of the "this" with snake through feeling that gives us "This is a snake", and it's a confusion of these functions that brings that about.
TS: Or you could say that [AS simultaneously, faint: Yeah but I--] the feltness, the feeling of givenness is combined with the known universal [RG: Right.] and then it's the independence through the will projected as a perception.
RG: Right. Uh-hm.
TS (simultaneously): Except that the per-- the "is a" as the act of perception that-- that wills it into perception. I thought the "this" was a-- I thought he was saying that the "this" was the givenness of the subject, that it's the felt givenness in the subject that is being--
LR: Well couldn't the "this" be the givenness of the rope?
S: I don't see why they're not in a--
RG: Yeah.
VM: Well, he says [LR simultaneously: Well, let's do it.] right in the sentence here.
LR: But we're not-- isn't [TS simultaneously: You can just read in the example.] it just-- [VM simultaneously: Let's just read the sentence here.] isn't it just the snake-rope example?
TS: Yeah. Let me just read in the way he uses it.
RG: Yeah, the "this"--
VM: "This"--
RG: I think he can-- yeah, I think he-- sure.
LR: I mean what is actually presented is the rope, right?
S: Mm.
AS (simultaneously, faint): May--
S: Uh-hm.
RG: Well, let's keep going.
S (simultaneously, faint): [few words inaudible]
RG: Um--
LG: Yeah. (LG laughs a bit)
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.1 Knowing, Feeling and Willing as Functions of Consciousness," p. 28, RG reading]: "Simultaneously, there is the knowledge of the 'snake', which is a universal in the sense that it is a character which has no habitation…"
RG: It isn't really there, it isn't really in an object.
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.1 Knowing, Feeling and Willing as Functions of Consciousness," p. 28, RG reading]: "…and has certainly nothing to do with the 'this' before me."
RG: And if you take the "this" as the rope, that has no-- the snake has nothing to do with the "this".
VM: No, but the "this" can't be the rope because you don't see the rope.
RG: Well, let's go on.
LR: That's why you call it "this", not "rope".
RG (simultaneously): Right.
AH: Is the [VM simultaneously: I agree.] "this" a moment of perception?
LR: (We're g--) (LR laughs a bit)
RG: Uh-hm, yeah.
AH: The "this" is a moment of perception. What the content of that perception is does not help to validate the this-ness.
VM: Well but the uniqueness is undoubted.
AS (simultaneously): I see. You know, there's a-- there's a little-- maybe there's a little bit of a problem between the way he presents it and the way we would interpret it 'cause he seems to be coming from a different point of view. Maybe-- maybe the idea you were saying Anthony is that the "this" is really the inte-- is an intelligible perception already given to it or universal.
AD (simultaneously): Well, it's given by the World-Mind or the World-Idea.
AS: Yeah right.
RG (simultaneously): Yeah.
AD: You got [AS simultaneously: It's the universal.] something there.
AS: Yeah, it's something there.
RG: Right.
AD: Even if you want to say that there's consciousness [AS assents] that-- which, you know, doesn't make sense to me because it's-- we think of the World-Idea as the totality of all these particulars, alright, [AS assents] and included among the particulars, my body, your body, this snake and that one, etc.
AS: Right.
AD: Alright? So that particular entity, alright, is given to me by the World-Idea.
AS: Right, [RG simultaneously: Right.] but the snakeness isn't given.
AD: No.
AS: Right, and that's what he's saying, that the snakeness is imposed on that, [S simultaneously: Well yeah.] confused with that (really).
AD (simultaneously): Now the [one/two words inaudible]
AS (simultaneously): Well no, actually what--
RG: That's not what he is saying.
AS (simultaneously): --what this guy's-- the-- what Murti says is-- is slight-- Murti says that the thisness is under knowing, the snakeness is felt, and the isness is a willing-- is a willed projection of one onto the other. I'm just saying-- I mean that's what-- that's the way he analyzes it.
RG: Uh-hm.
JA: Ok [AS simultaneously: Which--] Avery, go through that again A-- I--
S: I don't--
JA (faint): It seems--
VM: Just [AS simultaneously: Oh I'm sorry.] read the whole thing Avery.
AS: I'm sorry, I'm sorry [three/few words inaudible]
RG (simultaneously): I think-- let-- yeah.
VM: Just read the whole thing now.
RG (simultaneously): No, I think you could do it either way.
AS: No, I know, sometime.
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.1 Knowing, Feeling and Willing as Functions of Consciousness," p. 28, RG reading]: "There are thus…"
JA (faint): You said that it-- oh I'm sorry.
RG (simultaneously): Go ahead. What?
AS: No.
JA: Go on.
RG: Go ahead.
AS: Read it.
AH: Read it Richard.
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.1 Knowing, Feeling and Willing as Functions of Consciousness," p. 28, RG reading]: "There are thus two distinct…"
RG: Alright.
T.R.V. Murti [Studies in Indian Thought, "2.1 Knowing, Feeling and Willing as Functions of Consciousness," p. 28, RG reading]: "…[RG: The snake] has [certainly] nothing to do with the 'this' before me. There are thus two distinct functions--feeling and knowing, and because of a confusion of these two there is illusion; the 'snake' confronts us as the 'this'."
RG: In other words, which-- whichever way you take it, the object of knowledge, the thi-- let's say it's the "this" if we're Platonists, gets confused with the presentation or your identification with what's in your imagination and you say "This is-- this is the real," ok, and that's a confusion of feeling and knowing, or willing and knowing, it's a-- I mean the example is just to show that the con-- [AS assents] functions get confused, that--
LR (simultaneously): And you think you're coming from a knowing mode. In other words, you say [RG assents] "This is a snake", you think you're discovering what it is.
RG (simultaneously): A known object, right.
LR: So that was another confusion.
RG: Right, [student assents] when actually it was a willed content.
AD (simultaneously): Well-- [AS simultaneously: A willed, yeah, right.] well Linda, would you be willing to try something like this where the z-- where the "this" is you'd put Pluto, [RG assents] where the snake is you'd put Uranus, [student assents] and [AS assents] "is a" you'd put Neptune?
RG: Right, that's what we have--Pluto, [drawing] [AS: Yeah.] Neptune, and Uranus [diagram], that [LR: Now--] from a contemplation of the-- of these-- if you abstract the snake and you really consider the snake in the same sense-- it's like that middle level of illusion, it's neither real nor unreal but it's not totally negated I guess from-- from the Vedantic scheme, and you contemplate the snake independent of its relation to the "this", you could contemplate it as a universal [student assents] because it-- it just shines there not related to space and time, [student assents] before you cancel out the illusion, ok. If you take the presentation as gi-- as directly given, you'd say that your own consciousness is dir-- is presenting you with-- with a given world, whether-- or from the Worl-- does I-- whichever way you take it. Take it from the World-Idea, that the "this" is coming in as a direct presentation from the world, and the pervasion of the "thi"-- [drawing] of the presentation with the snake is through feeling or Neptune and gives you that identification and the identity of the subject and object. Otherwise you could-- without feeling, without the identification, these two factors would remain separate and you couldn't-- you wouldn't confuse them.
AS: But, I-- I follow what you're saying but then there's a problem, I mean, just a slight problem. But the example is really-- it's the same example.
LR/S(?) (faint): I know.
AS: Because he was wanting-- he's gonna go on and use-- and use the-- and say that it's this pure indeterminacy which allows for the confusion. And I think we have to be careful not to say that it's the feeling which confuses the willing and the knowing. Because if it's the feeling which confuses the willing and the knowing, then that puts feeling in the position of this indeterminacy or the [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] principle of indeterminacy, whereas his--
AD (simultaneously): Then-- well then what would indeterminacy mean?
AS (simultaneously): --his view is not that feeling is the indeterminacy [AD simultaneously: No.] of the three [AD simultaneously: No.] but feeling too has a very distinct function (on the right).
AD (simultaneously): Well wouldn't you say, wouldn't you say then that the indeterminacy is this ability to organize or combine [VM: The functions.] all those factors in any variety of ways [VM and another student assent] that you want?
AS: The pure-- [couple/few inaudible VM words simultaneous with AS] the potentiality of these [S: Yeah.] planets and so on being arranged [AD simultaneously: Uh-huh.] in-- yeah. And that any of-- any of these in itself might be distinct, even relation, the middle one, the feeling one.
CDA/LR(?): So you're not--
AS: So--
AD: So--
AS: Feeling [S simultaneously, faint: Uh-hm.] is not a confusion of knowing and willing.
AD (simultaneously): So we have to go further, we have to try to see in a chart like for instance, [AS: Yeah.] if you had these planets in conjunction, [AS simultaneously: Yeah.] what the hell does come up in your consciousness?
S (simultaneously, faint): Uh-hm, I see.
AS: Yeah, and [VM/S(?) simultaneously: Uh-hm.] then-- yeah and-- yeah, and then you--
AD (simultaneously): Anybody remembering having two of them conjunct a planet?
CDA (faint): Confusion. (bit of laughter)
S (faint): Yeah.
AD: Oh no, boy. You can call it confusion but I call it an appearance, and there's going to be a very powerful appearance. You get Uranus and Pluto conjunct one of your planets or Neptune and Pluto or whatever, and you've got fireworks.
AS: Oh, yeah, but you know, I think the confusion is-- I know what the confusion is. Let me see if I can say it. Although the principle of indeterminacy or whatever he's calling it allows for a confusion, each of the things in themselves being very distinct and powerful, there isn't-- there's-- only on one side is there confusion, the matter may be allowing confusion and indeterminate but these functions are very particular and powerful. So he's confusing the confusion with the actual functions themselves. Even amidst the appearance there's still this intelligibility delivered.
RG: No, he would agree.
AS (simultaneously): The confusion side--
LR (simultaneously): He (would agree) though.
RG: He would agree with that, he'd say in reflection you know that, that [AS simultaneously: No, no, but I'm s-- not that (couple words inaudible)] they're distinct, it's only in unreflective when you get [AS assents] pounded by it and--
AS (simultaneously): No, but what I-- I know, but all I'm trying to say is that the appearance is not purely illusion. The illusory part of it is this [RG simultaneously: The confusion, yeah.] confusion, which is not coming from either of the three, [LR assents] but it's just this [RG simultaneously: Right, it's a--] property of indeterminacy. And that's what allows this experience to be so powerful is from the intelligibility [one word inaudible]
AD (simultaneously): Well isn't that like saying, insofar that I have an alphabet with 24 letters and I can combine [student assents] these letters in a variety of ways [RG assents] to produce words, alright, I'm giving it a-- I'm giving arisal to confusion.
AS: Right. No, no, (bit of laughter) you're [S simultaneously: You're giving--] giving-- I'm saying it's not-- that's not the way to look at it, you're giving--
AD (simultaneously): No, that's not, exactly, that's why I don't like the terms he's using.
AS: Right. All I'm saying is that's what I'm-- all I'm trying to say is that there's one little part of the thing that is confusion but it's not any of these Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, it's not the forms at all. It's just this-- the fact that for appearance to happen at all there has to be a superimposition or indistinction of them. If there were no indistinction of them at all, if there were no superimposition of them or confusion of them whatsoever, you wouldn't have the appearance.
CDA: Well, (gives rise to) illusion.
VM (simultaneously): Let's say blending instead of confusion.
AS (simultaneously with VM and CDA): So blending, blend.
VM (simultaneously): If you couldn't [CDA simultaneously: Blending.] blend them you can't have an appearance.
CDA: Right, [S simultaneously, faint: Uh-hm.] I mean willing--
VM: And that's the function of matter, to [AS simultaneously: Well, (that's) (one word inaudible) what he's saying.] allow for that blending.
AD (simultaneously with VM and AS): Tim, do you remember in working out charts [CDA to AS, faint: Yeah.] when you had these big trans-Saturnians hitting? Like for instance in Jung's chart, when you had the trans-Saturnians hitting the Chaldean, alright, and ideas would come up, like whether it was the mandala or what, I don't remember. You have any [RG simultaneously: Right.] recollection of the particulars?
TS (simultaneously): You want two trans-Saturnians at the same time--
AD (simultaneously): Time, hitting a planet or aspecting it.
TS (simultaneously): On the same planet.
AD: It don't have to be conjunct, they could be aspecting different--
RG: Yeah.
S: What did he say?
RG: The same [TS simultaneously: Well--] planet.
TS: I (don't--)
VM: You mean both in opposition, both square, both on a conjunction?
RG (simultaneously): No, of one [one word inaudible] one square.
AD (simultaneously): No, any variety, it doesn't matter.
VM (simultaneously): Oh, ok.
AD: Doesn't matter.
TS (simultaneously): Ok, well the two-- in the first example I could think of with two Chal-- two trans-Saturnians aspecting a Chaldean would be when transiting Neptune and Uranus were in opposition and making a square to Einstein's Saturn Mercury, and--
AD: That give rise to illusion? (TS laughs a bit) You see the way they use words?
VM: Uh-hm, crazy.
AD: Or confusion? No, [VM simultaneously: I should have such confusion.] it gave rise to a very very specific sensible [S, faint: Appearance.] appearance or idea.
TS: Uh-huh, [RG simultaneously: Yeah, the idea of relativity.] his general relativity was--
AD (simultaneously): Alright?
S (simultaneously with TS): Yeah.
AD: Yeah. And insofar [S, very faint: Right.] that [AS simultaneously, very faint: I see.] in order for this idea to arise it requires that the functions can manipulate, alright, certain ideas to produce that idea, alright, then what is indeterminate? Indeterminate would be that these functions [RG assents] are free to manipulate these [AS assents] ideas any way they wish. [RG assents] [AS simultaneously: That's (couple words inaudible)] To that extent, then if they can do so then that gives rise to matter? [AS, faint: No, no.] That gives rise to sensible appearance.
[student assents, faint]
AS: Instantiation.
AD: If only we use the right words then we begin to understand what we're talking about.
[student assents, very faint]
RC: But relating it to the snake-rope thing it seems there's something different going on there.
AD: No, no! It's the same thing. When this thing arose in Einstein, alright, it was a snake.
S (simultaneously, very faint): Uh-hm.
S (very faint): Yeah.
RC: But I don't think (you'd/he'd) say seeing a rope is confusion. Maybe you'd say a snake--
AD (simultaneously): I'm sorry?
RC: I don't think he's saying that to see a rope would be confusion.
AD (simultaneously): Well the rope-- the rope was still there, I mean when Einstein saw the snake but the reality underneath was still pure consciousness.
S: What-- (bit of laughter)
S (very faint): Yeah.
RG/S(?) (faint): Ok.
AD: He didn't see the rope, he just sa-- saw the snake. And-- and when Pluto and-- and Mercury were sitting on my [AS simultaneously: Pluto Uranus.] Mercury, [AS simultaneously: Pluto Uranus on your Mercury.] I saw-- I saw-- I saw a snake too, I didn't see the rope. [AS assents, faint] In other words, what I'm saying is the-- the way these functions combine the ideas and produce the appearance of ideas within us, certain specific ideas or feelings or moods, alright, and they want to call this confusion, alright, you know--
AS (simultaneously): (It's an/Or) illusion.
AD: Or illusion, I'm-- I-- We-- we tend to call it inspiration. (laughter)
AS (amidst laughter): Right.
S (amidst laughter): Uh-hm, they'll--
AD (simultaneously): I mean, what's [VM simultaneously: They--] going on?
VM: They would say that shows the depth of your confusion.
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, of my ignorance.
AS (simultaneously): The depth of your ignorance.
VM: Right. (VM laughing)
AS: Right.
RG: No, but I-- I mean that-- I would also think they would say that from a refle-- from-- you're speaking at the reflective level of these functions where they are distinguished. But in ordinary consciousness, they are often confused. Don't-- would-- would you say that?
AD: Well yes.
RG: I mean let's say from the natal chart, [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] not from the transits, but let's say from the natal Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto that often there is a-- a interaction of these where various ideas do combine and they do-- they do-- they are confused, they're not distinguished unless they're at the reflective level.
AD: But-- but then insofar that these functions, alright, have this vast potentiality, then that is the sheer indeterminacy of matter.
RG: Uh-hm, right.
AD: Or, the sensible appearance.
[student assents, faint]
CDA: Wait. [S, very faint: Yeah.] The fact--
RG: [few words inaudible]
AS (simultaneously): Right, that they potentially can-- can combine in any way at all.
[student assents, faint]
RG: Right.
CDA: Wait.
RG: Right.
AD: Yeah, we'll wait.
S (simultaneously): Ok.
CDA: These [AS simultaneously: (one/two words inaudible) the potentiality to (one/two words inaudible)] functions have the power to combine the ideas in in--
AD (simultaneously): In an indefinite variety [S simultaneously: (Indefinite), yeah.] of ways--
CDA (simultaneously): In an indefinite variety of ways.
AD (simultaneously): --that gives rise to many different kinds of appearances.
CDA: And you're calling-- well can you give it to me again, repeat that? This potentiality--
AD (simultaneously): That indeterminacy, alright, is the root of matter. And even-- even Plotinus says: [CDA: Yeah.] What is the secret? It's [student assents, faint] sheer indeterminacy. (Plotinus, II.4.10, third para) [AS: (Yeah, IV.7.)] What's-- what's indeterminate, matter? How can matter be inde-- indeterminate? If you-- as soon as you say something is, it's no longer indeterminate. It can only be this variety of functions that, you know, are unlimited.
AS (faint): That is what he said, that is what--
CDA (simultaneously): But--
S (very faint): Yeah.
RG: Uh-hm. [one/two inaudible LR words simultaneous with RG] So that-- I mean that allows for great-- great inspiration on the s-- when-- when you're in coordination with that flux, [VM assents] but it also allows for confusion if you're not.
AD: Oh yes, for most-- I would say like for Dotty and me when Pluto and Uranus was on Mercury it was the vast [RG assents] confusion.
[student assents, faint]
AS: But, can I think of another also with that?
[few seconds of background student talking, bit of laughter; continues for a few seconds as class goes on]
AD: You see what I mean, [S simultaneously, faint: What (were you--)] if you excuse me A.
AS: Yeah.
AD: Randy, you see what I mean? We are talking about the categories of thinking. I don't buy as the categories of thinking when Kant has this neat, you know, twelve words, alright, and each are like unity, plurality, relativity, quantity, etc, and each one of these, these twelve all together constitute the categories of thinking. Wow! How easy it would be to make a world! I-- all I need is these twelve categories. (bit of laughter) Whereas when I look at the astrological symbolism and I know that every movement of all those planets, every second there's a different formation going on, then I begin to get an idea of the enormity of this notion of what the categories of thinking are. That's why I could never buy them. I mean, they sold them very cheap but I couldn't buy 'em--(some laughter) "This is the categories of thinking?" I'm sorry Avery, go ahead.
AS: Oh no, that's fine. There's two comments. One is that (when/the one) we talked about this in relation to number, that number is making definite what is indeterminate in matter, [AD: Yeah.] and that's the function [LR simultaneously: But--] of number.
AD: And you rem-- you [S simultaneously, faint: I see.] remember the Pythagoreans [AS simultaneously: Definite(--/.)] and the Platonists insist, [AS simultaneously: And the way they speak of number.] [AD bangs on something to emphasize his point] "Things are numbers! Things are number!"
AS (simultaneously): But-- but number in the way we talked about as qualitative number and [student assents] ideal and-- But, [CDA: Ok but--] the other-- well, one other-- let me just throw out this other thing which maybe is a confusion on my part. But in that example, I'll stick to the-- the Uranus and Pluto say on your Mercury, there was another kind of-- What was bothering me? It's not just that there are many several ideas or whatever or functions combined in terms of the transits, but it-- there also had to be a relation between the transits with the natal. And, you would almost say, with just the transit and no natal position, the thing would remain unembodied. And with just the natal position without the transiting aspecting to it, you'd just have a pure appearance without an intelligibility coming through. So in some ways this is also speaking to how an idea gets instantiated [one word inaudible] in other words, of a-- an indistinction between the transiting and the natal is another-- is a different kind of indistinction but is also very necessary for an idea to appear.
AD: Yeah, that's why we have to keep those two things together, you know, like when we do it. We have to keep the [couple inaudible AS words simultaneous with AD] seven transiting-- the transiting planets together with your natal chart [AS: And--] because it's meaningless to speak about it in any other way.
AS: Yeah because either one alone won't give you an appearance of an idea. On [AD/S(?) simultaneously: Say what now?] the one hand you'll just have the idea, on the other hand, you probably don't know.
AD (simultaneously): You'll just have the sensible.
AS: The sensible but no idea appearing in it and-- so, I thought that also is a sense in which we could talk about the non-distinguishment of the two or [RG and another student assent] a confusion [RG assents] of those (two).
AD: But-- but you know, it's also feasible that there are persons who can very clearly distinguish in their experience-- like they would-- they would-- they would put into operation a feeling function and not a willing function given circumstances, alright, [LR assents] or a knowing function and not a willing.
AS: Right.
LR (simultaneously): You mean like a Sage.
AD: Yeah.
AS: Curses.
LR (simultaneously): Knowing what's appropriate in each moment.
AD (simultaneously): What was appropriate, what to bring to an experience, and [student assents] not to use two or three of them or confuse them with one another.
AS (faint): [couple/three]
LR (simultaneously): Know when to push, [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] know when to resign or when--
AD (simultaneously): When to push, when to shut up, when to back off, yeah.
AS: When to just look.
CDA (simultaneously): When to mount the Dragon.
S: Avery, we need that quote.
AD (simultaneously): When to mount the Dragon and when to get off.
S: Yeah. (bit of laughter)
AS (faint): We just read it.
[student assents, faint]
LG: Were you saying that indeterminacy will arise only when the relationship happens between each-- the tran-- the transiting and the natal, that--
AD (simultaneously): It will always arise because there's always a relationship going on.
LG: Ok. So it is relation that-- that creates or that establishes indeterminacy because you're speaking about determinate things are almost--
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, but you have to bring in all the other stuff. It's a relationship between these three functions, alright, and the ideas that they're associated with or combining.
LG: Ok but--
AD: You can't just say-- speak of function without some idea.
LG: Ok, [AS simultaneously: But I would ch--] but in themselves are they determinate-- are they in themselves determinate and become indeterminate because of Uranus?
AD (simultaneously): What is determinate?
S: Whole thing.
LG: The functioning of knowing.
AD: The function is always determinate.
RG: Uh-huh.
LG (simultaneously): Ok.
AD: Fe-- feeling is always feeling, have you noticed that?
LG: Yes.
S (very faint): [one word inaudible] (bit of laughter)
TS: Thinking [S simultaneously: Yeah.] is always feeling, (willing--)
S: Yeah. (laughter)
S (amidst laughter): That's what I'm-- (S laughing, laughter)
S: That's [couple words inaudible]
RG (simultaneously): Say-- say knowing. (more laughter)
LG (amidst laughter, faint): But wait a minute, do you know?
VM/S(?) (simultaneously): Right.
S: So that the-- right.
LG: So are you-- so they are determinate in themselves, they become indeterminate--
AD (simultaneously): No, they're not determining themselves, they're determinate functions.
AS/S(?): Yeah.
LG: But they're determinate in themselves.
AD: Yeah.
LG: And they become indeterminate--
AD: They don't become indeterminate. The product of their functioning is indeterminate.
LG: Ok, but it's their relationship to each other--
AD (simultaneously): Could you imagine Neptune on one idea, Uranus on another idea, and they come together in conjunction?
TS: Hm.
LG: Yeah.
AD: Then what do you get?
LG: Well, who knows.
AD: To most of us it looks like confusion. To some, it could be inspiration.
S: Sounds good.
RG (faint): Uh-hm.
LG: When he-- when he says that it's indeterminacy which creates matter or matter arises out of the indeterminacy--
AD: Yeah, I could take Neptune on this degree, Pluto on that degree, Uranus on this degree and aspect them and mix them all up.
LG: Right. So sim--
AD: And something comes up, right? [LG simultaneously: But--] Something arises.
LG: Right, right, yeah.
AD (simultaneously): But the Neptune, Pluto, and Uranus remain functions, determinate functions.
LG: Right, right.
AD: But the product of their functioning coming into aspects, alright, is something entirely new, [RG or AS assents] something that hasn't been around before.
TS (very faint): Yeah.
CDA: But why is that--
LG (simultaneously): So it is relation.
AD: Huh?
LG: So it is relation that's creating the indeterminacy which will allow for the matter to be.
AS: No.
RG: Uh-hm.
AS: But why don't you say that-- I-- maybe it'd be better-- I thought you would say that the indeterminacy allows the relation to operate, [CDA simultaneously: (one/two words inaudible) was here.] [S simultaneously with CDA, faint: Yeah.] or that the relation-- What?
LR: Say it again Avery?
AD (simultaneously): Well as long as you got the idea, alright, that you have 24 letters [LG: Ok.] and that you can combine them in an infinite variety of ways, alright, and the very fact that you combi-- can combine them in this infinite variety of ways gives you the indeterminacy to write a novel.
VM: It's good.
S: [couple/three words inaudible]
LR: Which two don't you need?
AS: Right, L and M.
S: N.
LR (simultaneously): L and M?
S (faint): You've got to take that perspective.
AD: Please, don't bring it up. (laughter)
RG: But you know--
AD: It's bad enough I dream I'm a cigarette smoking myself! (laughter, student words)
VM (amidst laughter): That's better than Lao-Tzu!
S: God, ok.
CDA (simultaneously): Isn't that the Anthony--
S: Right.
RG: Yeah. (more laughter) You know, the--
AD (simultaneously): Imagine puffin' on myself? (AD laughs, someone makes puffing sounds)
RG: It s-- it seems to me though that (bit of laughter) [LR/S(?), faint: Yes.] in the way he uses it and in the way we've used it, that it is Neptune that brings about this relation and Neptu-- and--
AD: I'm inclined to agree with that.
S (faint): Yeah Neptune--
RG (simultaneously): And that that's the coordination of the planets, and--
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with that but you have to keep in mind I think what Avery said, don't create a hierarchy.
RG: No, no, but--
AD: Because you need these three all the time.
RG: Right, but it's al-- but because we're looking from now the point of view of relation we're going to look through Neptune. I mean that-- in that sense it appears as the organization of the other-- of the three.
AD: Yeah.
RG: But if we look through Uranus or Pluto, each one would appear as the orga--
S: Yeah.
AS (simultaneously): And in fact that's what he does.
AD (simultaneously): We-- we can see it any time you have an aspect [AS simultaneously: What was that?] with Neptune, the most confusing of any of the planets.
RG: Yeah.
AS: But--
AD: You know what Pluto's gonna do. (RG laughs a bit, student words)
AS: In fact, what he analyzes in the second article he goes through the snake-rope illusion and he says you can approach it from any one of the three points of view, see that as the primary-- [student assents] see that as the primary basis for the appearance and the other two as impositions on that one. It's interesting that's in there. But he says that's like an idea of secondary matter. He tries to explain how-- [RG assents] and you could view the illusion through-- in other words, knowing (or the three).
AD (simultaneously): But what do you think of that notion of matter? [S simultaneously: Is it always going to (view)--] Isn't that startling?
S: [one/two words inaudible] oh yeah.
CDA (simultaneously): I don't-- I still don't understand it. I'm sorry. (CDA laughing)
LG: Wait a minute.
RC: I follow-- I think I follow the one that you have just expounded. I still have trouble relating it to the example [student assents] from the article. But I think I follow what you said.
AD (simultaneously): Well never mind the article now, [RC simultaneously: Ok.] that's just a take-off. (RG laughs a bit) We're on our own now.
RG: Right. (RG laughs a bit)
S (very faint): Yeah.
RC: Then what about in the-- in the situation where the-- of-- in the-- in the unity of the functioning self or whatever, that the content of-- of the individual function is out of sync with the cosmic event?
AD: Well, that's very uncomfortable. (laughter) But, if I could-- I have to stop now, I'm getting tired. But isn't it amazing that these aspects can go on and something will arise in your mind. There'll be an-- the actual creation, an appearance, a vision, whatever, that wasn't there before.
AS: Yeah.
AD: Alright?
AS (simultaneously): But which-- ok.
AD: If you have this aspect going on or a big aspect, big conjunction or something.
AS (simultaneously): But-- but when you say "wasn't there be--" I'm sorry. Go on and finish.
AD (simultaneously): Wasn't there before. In other words, when he had these aspects to his, whatever it was, the transit--
TS (simultaneously): Saturn Mercury.
S (faint): Uh-hm, yeah.
AD (simultaneously): Yeah, [AS simultaneously: (I'm sorry/It was hard).] alright? The idea wasn't there before, alright, it was brought into being at that (mark/mart). I mean, what I'm trying to get at is, something arose like out of nothing. You have the actual creation of phenomena taking place [RG assents] in your very consciousness.
[student assents, very faint]
RG: Right.
S (very faint): What did he say?
AD: Isn't that amazing?
RG: (Yeah/Right).
S: Uh-hm.
CDA/S(?) (simultaneously, very faint): Well, yes.
AS: I want to ask something [couple/three words inaudible]
S (very faint): Go ahead.
AD: Go ahead uh--
AS: Sure. Because, there are two s-- two ways in which I could take that and I-- I-- it's something new from the point of view of the manifestation, right?
CDA: Uh-hm.
AS: I mean this is what I always-- the potentiality is on the side of what is get-- the appea-- the potentiality is the potentiality in terms of appearance or manifestation. The Ideas are actualized in themselves. And we're trying not to take the point of view that the Ideas are potential and then they get actualized, but take the point of view that the Ideas, the Intelligible is fully actualized but the manifestation is a potentiality.
AD: Yeah. Which [AS simultaneously: So--] gets phenomenalized [S simultaneously, faint: Yeah.] by their functioning.
AS: Yeah.
RG: Right.
VM: Alright.
AS: So you're talking about a fresh appearance, [AD: Yeah.] and not-- and not a--
AD (simultaneously): Ok, that's the-- [student assents] that would be more accurate way. [AS simultaneously: I'm just wondering, in that--] But still it's that-- it's that unbelievable arisal, alright, of this phenomena in our consciousness, [AS assents] and then we speak about it as though it's some kind of matter that exists out there somewhere. I think we ought to continue and see if we could find more material on these three aspects. I don't know who else besides these people have written on it. You got any ideas at all?
RG: Well, I'll think.
AD: You know, like if you study the Yogacara school they're going to come up with the willing function.
RG: Right.
AD: Right? [LG simultaneously: Yogacara, right.] I imagine each school has its own function [RG assents] that it's going to emphasize more than any other function.
RG (simultaneously): Yeah right, right.
VM: Anthony, you know this notion where they speak in the Madhyamika about emptiness is dependent arising? Aren't they speaking in some ways about the possibility of these three functions working together to bring you [AD simultaneously: They might.] an appearance?
TS: Yeah. Actually, not now I think because it [three words inaudible] to stop but I want to show you, there's a way in which you can take those three functions and create the 12-fold chart.
VM: Oh that's nice.
RG: Oh yeah, sure.
TS: And it's [AD: Well--] crazy.
RG: Yeah, we have time on Friday.
VM (simultaneously): Yeah, [AD/S(?) simultaneously: Sorry I'm (one word inaudible)] that's exactly the way I was trying to view it Tim and then see--
AD (simultaneously): That sounds intriguing.
TS: I mean there's-- if I take the subjective [AS assents] three and the objective three and superimpose them you end up with the twelve [diagram].
AD: Like to try that for next week? Next Friday?
TS (faint): Sure, I'll do it.
AD (simultaneously): I think we ought to work on this a little more.
RG: Alright, sure.
AD (simultaneously): They're-- they're really quite fundamental. I think we talk about, you know, signs, houses and everything and this-- this what you-- I mean there's no talking about anything unless you know what these things are about.
TS: Yeah, I guess that's why they're the houses.
AD: You know, like get a feeling of what knowing is and-- [RG: Yeah.] Feeling would be very difficult.
[student assents, very faint]
LR: (It happens.)
RG: Right.
CDA (simultaneously): Willing's pretty amazing too I would think.
AD: And-- and they're so foundational. Like you can't get underneath to tell what they're about.
RG: Yeah. (RG laughs a bit)
AD: You're always on top of them, (AD laughing) [RG: Right.] never underneath them.
TS (possibly part of background): Yeah, I thought they (moved).
AD: Let's try it, let's try.
RG: Ok, yeah.
AD: I'll see if I could think of some material, willing, feeling, and knowing.
AS: You know, we-- the one we were do-- we just-- we're doing that thing--
AD (simultaneously): Got any of them?
AS: Well, only from Plotinus we were doing [RG simultaneously: It's on virtues.] [one/two words inaudible] and Eros and Logos and I think he goes through those, you know, through the virtues and [few words inaudible] I mean conformity to the Nous and then Eros he speaks about the-- the union of uh-- [AD simultaneously: Maybe we can find those quotes, huh?] [VM simultaneously with AD: Find them.] and then-- yeah, and the other one, and then Logos. And they-- and they're all three are specifically related not to the divine soul but to that projecting power-- the understanding, the second soul and its relation to the World-Idea developing, the World-Idea.
AD (simultaneously): Well why don't you write those quotes down for me, would you?
AS (simultaneously): Yeah.
[Audio File 1984 0713b Ends]
1984 07/13a V12a: CLASS: Hinduism; Knowing Willing Feeling. Copyright 2023 Wisdom's Goldenrod p. iv