ARROGANCE by Eugene Halliday

[Recorded at ‘Parklands’, Bowden, Cheshire]

1. We’re going to talk about ‘Arrogance’ … … Would anyone like to make me an offer about the meaning of ‘arrogance’? …..

2. (Audience) The opposite of ‘humility’…. …

3. … That’s called defining one by another – negative. … … Two unknowns … One defines the other. …

4. (Audience) Non-humility

5. Non-humility. ‘Non’ is a negative. You’ve got an undefined and your defining it with another undefined. … Try again Greta … … Go back to basic behavior. When you are being arrogant, how do you behave?

6. (Audience) In a unformulated way

7. Really? I would have thought the opposite.

8. (Audience) ‘High and mighty’.

9. ‘High and mighty’. … Instead of ‘low and meekly’. … Any other offers?

10. (Audience) Egotistically (Pardon?) Egotistically.

11. Egotistically. ….. Mm mm.

12. (Audience) With pride and aggression.

13. Pride …?

14. (Audience) And aggression

15. Aggression. … Pride, covetousness, envy, anger, concupiscence, gluttony, sloth..

16. (Audience) Contemptuous indifference…(../..)

17. Very good, I like long definitions like that

18. Very good …

19. (Audience) (… …? …) in your mouth …

20. Lucky you’ve got something in your mouth, otherwise you couldn’t talk. Tongues are quite useful actually, although they do get in the way sometimes. … Especially if you’re trying to talk ‘pure vowels’ … I’m very fond of vowels, but people don’t seem to comprehend much … from mere ‘vowel talk’.

21. Anyhow, we’ll take a dictionary definition to begin with … Don’t ignore the dictionary just because you’ve got one, you know. The object of having a book to consult, is to consult it.

22. Roughly it says ‘arrogance’ is ‘the taking to oneself, of anything whatever, without entitlement’ …

23. How about an offer, what does entitlement mean? What does it mean for you to have a ‘title’ to something?

24. (Audience) Ownership.

25. Ownership. … Their arrogance is ‘pretending to ownership without permission to do so’. Where does the permission come from? When you get an entitlement within a National State, what does it mean?

26. (Audience) Something that is due to you (EH: Pardon?) Something which is due to you .

27. Due? … How about the variety of honors dished-out to people; and how about the ‘Beatle’ who returned his honor? Was it due? No. It’s conferred by a superior being onto a relatively inferior being. Your ‘title’ is another word for ‘label’. You give a label, like ‘Lord High and Mighty’ or whatever, or ‘Half a Lord’, ‘Mediocre Helper to Empire’ …

28. Let’s accept the dictionary definition to begin with, that ‘arrogance’ is ‘the appropriation or taking to oneself of anything whatever, without authority, without entitlement conferred upon us from above’.

29. Now who would be the first one to confer entitlement? … Somebody says, ”God.” … Whispering it … Don’t mention the ‘Holy Name’! … Certainly not out loud.

30. Well obviously the highest power is the source of the highest title. … So ‘Hashem’ … the name … the ‘Holy Name’.

31. That to which the ‘Holy Name’ refers is ‘the infinite field of sentient power’ (5.00)

32. Now ‘the infinite field of sentient power’, in itself, is called ‘the Godhead’; but the same field - beginning to create - is called ‘God the Creator’.

33. So we’re distinguishing between ‘non-creative-power’-infinite; and the same power engages in an act of creation, and therefore called ‘God’.

34. In the fourth gospel it distinguishes them with the ‘definite article. “In the beginning was the word, the word was with the God, and the word was a God.” There is there a distinction between ‘infinite, non-creating’, and the same power creating.

35. Right. … We’re going to draw our famous number. …

36. Did any of you see an article in the local rag about a fellow terrified of the number of his motorcar? 666 … And he asked them, the local parson, to bless it. Why bless it? It’s perfectly exorcised … Anyhow, the blessing didn’t work, and he had another accident, and he was wondering whether he should re-approach the same man for a better type blessing.

37. Now there is a light - that you see on the screen - represent consciousness. Light … ‘Let there be light’ means, ‘Let there be consciousness in what you’re doing’. ‘Let there be consciousness’.

38. ‘Consciousness’ means, ‘with analytical processes operating on being essence’ - Con-sci-ous-ness – ‘the essence of being analyzed and held together’.

39. Consciousness only occurs when you analyze the content of the Sentient Power Field discretely. Seeing each component separately and then putting them back together again in relationship.

40. Now the light represents consciousness, and so far, apart from in the corner there, which you may not see, it is perfectly free from content.

41. Imagine a consciousness with no content. What it is like? It’s like nothing, except itself. So the mystics call it ‘no-thing’ – not yet a thing. Now how does it make ‘thing’ inside? It does it by focus.

42. Consciousness has the power, as you all demonstrate to yourselves when you attend to anything whatever (a-tend, the ‘tend’ is ‘towards holding’ – tendere – to hold). You hold your field awareness to a point. And in the fact of holding it so you create, by your interest, the characteristics of the point. You insert interesting characteristics from you, into that field of consciousness. And when you contract, the point of contraction is limited, and dislikes the limit, and tends to run out of it.

43. If I put a dot there (Is that big enough to be seen? … … Is that big enough?) … Well it should not have any dimension whatever so it’s too big. It’s a location without dimension, as you few pointed out. But, once you focus like that, it tries to dodge, it doesn’t like being pinned. ‘P-in’, ‘pin’, ‘power within’.

44. So it moves. When it moves it dodges out like that, and it’s pursued by the field of intension, to hold that point in being, and it winds out like this. … Off it goes into the infinite from which it started.

45. Now this is our friend again, the number six, winding in; and the field comes in, traps it, and goes round; and it pushes it in again, and that’s made that very ancient diagram – the spiral with a center of reference.

46. There’s our number six. And that derives - in its primordial diagram, the form in the mind, a form within the consciousness.

47. Now we consider what it does.

48. As long as we remember that the point was posited by the Infinite (10.00) we are not arrogant. We are not ‘taking to our self’, without authority of the Absolute, anything whatever. We are saying, “The Infinite has posited a point of reference.” I say, “I’m a point of reference,” you all say, “You are points of reference of consciousness in yourselves.”

49. There, is the center of your point of your individuation possibility; and here is the energy trying to escape individuation. Why? Because individuation is exposure to possible attack.

50. Where you are individuated, you are formulated; where you are formulated you can be attacked.

51. Now you remember the rule. The Light – the Infinite – is a continuum. A continuum has no parts; what has no parts is identical, absolutely, throughout itself.

52. So if it can make a number six there, it could equally well make another one there….

53. All is fine, and perfect, and harmonious, and beautiful, until those two touch there. And at that point there is a disturbance of each by the other. We call that point, ‘the point of contingency’ and that is the point causing all our trouble … ‘the point of contingency’.

54. Each being – here’s a being – has, by the very fact that energy can’t do nothing, wound in tighter and tighter, to a point where it can’t go any tighter, and has to come out. … It keeps winding in, winding in, winding in, winding in, but it cannot go into the dead center because the motion of it is eternal, so it can’t come to a dead stop. So it can’t get into that center there, that center is impregnable, enviable. So I’ll draw it again. … Here we are. … There’s a being, and there is the impregnable center, and I’m going to put a letter ‘A’ in there, because that is the Absolute that has precipitated that zone – remember this is going on here, all the way round. But there is the Absolute, because the energy that’s spinning can not get into that center. Now that ‘A’ there - little ‘a’ and big ‘A’ – are the same in absolute character and essence. That is big ‘A’; that is little ‘a’.

55. If you want to write a, say, Aleph, that’s equal ‘1’. In Hebrew we just write that, that the first letter equals ‘1’. But if you write it big … like this … that’s worth a thousand, and the same letter means ‘tremendous number – the Absolute’ is used ‘big’ to represent the same viewed as small. The large and small are identical, in essential quality, character, and essence. …

56. Are those diagrams fairly clear? … Are they puzzling because there’s a lot of them? ….. No.

57. Well ‘Jim’ll Fix it!’, because ‘J’ is ‘affirmation’, ‘I’ is ‘individuation form’, and ‘M’ is ‘substantialization’. That’s the ‘fixer’.

58. Now, when we have a situation like that … One ‘sixer’, if it forgets that it comes from infinity, cuts itself off there, only in it’s imagination. It cannot do it absolutely, but it can think and pretend that it has cut itself off from the Infinite, and it does so. And another one will come along and strike it, and immediately the impregnable center there ‘a’ and there, ‘a’ – both Absolutes identical with this Absolute here (It’s beginning to look like an owl already, can you see a nice owl here?)… …. … (15.00)

59. Now, the ideal relation before ‘the Fall’ is to the absolute center of the individual, shall speak to the absolute center in another individual. But at the point of stimulus there, there is a tendency to obscure, because when two forces meet, they cause a rotation. …. When two forces meet … Now cut them off so they are contingent and they’ve forgotten their origin. … They don’t know there’s a nice ‘s’ sat there …. But here, when the energy goes to meet the stimulus, it spins - the energy goes to meet the stimulus and it spins.

60. Now that point of spin is a contingency point, and it is the center of the empirical egoic structure. ‘Empirical’ means ‘from experience’.

61. That is the cause of all the trouble – identification with the point of contingent stimulation; forgetfulness of the Absolute.

62. Now, here’s our pair again … The center is forgotten, and we now have that energy going out, to meet another energy. That produces zones of spin in each one and this becomes the center of egoic defense in the time-matter process.

63. Time is serialization caused by contingency. You might see there, Mars and Venus symbolized … like that … That’s the symbol, and we’ve turned it round historically for convenience; and that one, we’ve gone like that … and that’s Venus, and that’s Mars. Because when the contingent stimulus situation arises, there is always a relative hierarchy of power; the intensity is not the same on both sides. One initiates, the other reacts; one is active, the other is relatively passive.

64. So, here … we have a little egoic structure. Let’s say the one on the inside – the ‘A’ – equals ‘Atman’ … and that equals ‘Absolute’, which in Sanskrit is Brahman … The extended man, and the fixated man, are the same essentially. But the one that is formulated inside that little rotating zone, on the periphery where contingency occurs, is called ‘Jewa’. So we have ‘J’ equals ‘Jewa’ – ‘affirmed individual for developmental activity, and that equals ‘ego empirical’ … Yes? …

65. So as to your intent to develop yourself, as a finite, getting bigger and more powerful – bigger and better – you are called ‘Jewa’; as an absolute awareness of your identity with the Absolute you are ‘Atman’ … Very important .. Put them both together, ‘Absolute affirmation’ equals ‘affirmation of Absolute’.

66. Now that ‘Jah’ or ‘Yah’ – because ‘J’ and ‘I’ and ‘Y’ are the same letter is our friend, which in English we call ‘Jehovah’. That affirmer of activity is actually God.

67. Now it is inside everyone and precipitates everything whatever. Nothing is precipitated without it. Nothing has any existence without it, and that brings us to the meaning of ‘arrogance’.

68. If any individual whatever believes that it has something of itself not derivative from the Absolute - that is arrogance. It is pretending to have authority of its own, not derivative from the Infinite Sentient Power. So there’s our ground of arrogance.

69. Now, in the human economy of nations, you could be given permission (20.00) by the masses of people to be, say, a prime minister, or even an elected king – like the people in Spain voting to have a king back after a dictator they didn’t like. And the same in Italy, and the same in many places; kings have been elected by people accepting them, and they have been deposed by people not accepting them.

70. So you could be affirmed by the whole mass of the human race, saying that, “We like you, and we like your government. So we confer upon you...” ‘Con-fer’ – ‘with-bearing’. “We put a load of responsibility on you. You’re brilliant, you’re clever, so you must solve our problems.”

71. The masses are dull, the masses not very analytical, and when they see a very analytical mind, they nail it and tie it down, but a crown on him and say, “You now belong to us.”

72. That crown does not mean the superiority of the king. It means ‘the binding of the king to the will of the people that support him’. That’s tremendously good politically.

73. If the prime minister – like dear Maggie – thinks she’s got power from herself to rule a mass of idiots, she’s ‘arrogant’. If she knows her power depends on the will of the people to keep her as prime minister, then she’s not ‘arrogant’. You have to decide which she thinks she is, and you may or may not be right. And she may or may not be right, from one room into the next! Because she may fall, one moment into being clever, and the next, to remembering the origin of her power.

74. So our lowest level of conferring a title, a label, of responsibility comes from people, on the whole. The next level of conferring titles, labels, of responsibility is the elected government. Who, once they’ve been elected, think of themselves as an elect body, separate from the dullards who elected them. And they then elect those suitable for their purpose.

75. So you then have a relatively small group electing you to be a responsible person and do as you’re told by your electors – like an American president. He’s not there by his own power. He’s there by a group – an oligarchy. ‘Oligarchy’ is ‘ruler-ship by a tightly bound small group’. They find him useful; he’s smiling; good presentation; keeps his age; and does as he’s told, so the oligarchy keep him in power. That’s the second reason. The first: the whole mass of the human race agree, “Nice fellow, we can place ourselves in his hands.” Usually that works out only when a nation elects somebody. But there’s not enough communication yet between all the nations of the world.

76. Such is the way the oligarchy elects, and confers a label upon, and imposes responsibility on, some individual who will, they believe, fulfill their cause, and do what he’s told. That’s the elected representative of an oligarchy.

77. And thirdly, the Absolute elects the electors. The Absolute Intelligent Sentient Power chosen upon whom it will confer a label. And it may not be a nice label to receive, as in the Old Testament prophets. They are called by God, “Go on and prophecy, and tell people they are going to be destroyed for their evil ways,” Sodom and Gomorrah, Nineveh. And the prophet goes out and prophesies, and then the people throw stones.

78. Now the Absolute doesn’t care about anything except the absolute final result. The oligarchy doesn’t care, as long as their elected representative does as they want. And the masses of people don’t care, as long as they get their little gifts promised to them politicians. In fact the whole of it doesn’t care for anything except its own will.

79. So the real battle is the battle between the Absolute Sentient Power, which is Infinite, wise, powerful; and the relatively small group – the oligarchy – of the bigger group – the masses of people. But the one that’s going to win, because it started the whole process, the Absolute. (25.00)

80. So the victory has been gained before the foundation of the world. Because it’s all Infinite Power manifesting a system: star systems; galactic systems; solar systems; terrestrial systems; governments, they’re all appointed from above.

81. Now if we know that, and we adhere to it, and we believe it, and we act upon it, and say nothing can happen without the will of the Absolute allowing it to happen, then we are not arrogant. But as soon as we appropriate to ourselves anything whatever, no matter how large or how small, we appropriate it and say, “It is mine,” – ‘opprobrium’ means own-ness – “This is mine, I made it, I am the cause of it, I am responsible for it, and the Absolute does not exist.” It doesn’t matter what it is, how small, how large, the moment we say that we are arrogant. And we are destined to be destroyed in our misapprehension. Our system of thought - based on arrogance - must degenerate, must be defeated, because the Absolute cannot abandon its own power. There’s one thing that God cannot do and that is, eliminate God. It can eliminate any modality of Himself, but not His essential spirit. So our arrogance is very unprofitable.

82. Now it needs very hard self-analysis to see whether we appropriate something and think it’s our own.

83. I saw a little arts program about an artist who was neglected, last night. Neglected throughout his life, and he was a bit sad at the end - because he was being neglected. Now that was arrogance. To be sad about being neglected. Because it suggested that he had a merit of his own which was his and not conferred upon him by the masses, or by an oligarchy, or by the Absolute. So he was at fault, even though he was very sad. And Zero said to me, “I would have bought that picture, it’s very good.” Yes. But he was very unhappy that people didn’t. He was unhappy because he did his best, and thought it was HIS best, and not the best conferred upon him by the Absolute.

84. Now if you examine yourselves, you will find, somewhere inside, that you believe – and this is caused through bad training – you believe you have something of your own to which you are not indebted to other beings. Can you believe that? Can you believe that part of believes that it has a value in itself not derived from other people? … Do you? …Have you got it. Or can you say, “No, no, I’m entirely free, I don’t think I’ve got anything whatever. Not the blue eyes, the brown eyes, the grey eyes, the hazel eyes. Or the black hair, the curly hair, the no hair. … Everything I have rests on myself.” Somewhere you have a little cherished idea, “This is my contribution to reality, to music, to the arts, to dance, to singing, to something of value to the human race, and it’s mine!”

85. Now that is that little contingent point there talking, and hoping it can persist in its own course and win a kind of victory over the other beings who are contingent and in defiance of the Absolute – source of all being.

86. Self-examining at this moment, can you really think there is really absolutely nothing whatever of value in us that is of us ourselves. Nothing whatever, the minutest thing; not the greatest, not the most valuable, nothing is peculiarly ours.

87. I saw a little program showing a little girl with curly hair. And she was delighted and she’d got lovely long blond curly hair. In her innocence she said, “It’s a wig.” And he said, “Well you can keep it after the show. Take it home and admire it.”

88. Mummy said, “You know, you’ll grow up and that wig will become too small. You put it in a draw or (30.00) a little wig stand. But your heads getting bigger and bigger.” … Not only that, but your arrogance is getting bigger every day.

89. Highly probable that little girl will remember, “1987… I was praised for my golden locks. … And I can prove it because I’ve got them in the drawer upstairs.”

90. I know one very intelligent woman, and she was very old and she had wonderful teeth – 32 beautiful, well matched. And I said, “You’ve marvelous teeth, are they yours?” And she said, “Of course! I paid for them didn’t I?” … That was ownership.

91. Now all ownership.. The word ‘own’ means ‘owed to the Absolute’. If you say, “This is my own, my own pen.” This ‘own pen’ is starting to dry out already. We’re going to leave it exposed to show that if I expose it too long it’ll have difficulty. I’ll have to press very hard to get the ink out. … it’s like us, we need more and more and more effort to be ourselves the older we get. … Why? Because everybody else is being themselves in our presence and acting upon us.

92. So how do we kill our arrogance? Well first of all we say that the masses of the people won’t vote for us unless they believe that we will fulfill their wants; and the oligarchy won’t vote for us and put us in power unless we obey them; and the Absolute, which is the real source of all entitlements will not give us a title except to fulfill it’s own Absolute Purpose. Lucky for us, the Absolute is Absolutely Intelligent and Omnipotent and Omnipresent, so it can’t lose. So intelligent is, ally ourselves with the Absolute, not with the masses, not with the oligarchs; with the Absolute.

93. And if you do that, the masses won’t like you, because you will allow tolerance to some people that they don’t like. Like the Israelis, and the Arab, Palestinians, or the people in Beirut; Islamic people; Christian people; Jewish people. And they are all busy slaughtering each other. You can’t please them all at once. If you please one, you annoy another. So it’s no good looking to the masses for permanent establishment – security - by giving them what they want, because you can’t. Because they want you to exclude somebody else from the benefits you are conferring on them.

94. The oligarchy will only use you as a tool of their will and they’ll throw you out in a car crash, a plane crash, or some deliberate exposure of your private naughtiness to the public. They’ll get rid of you if you don’t serve them.

95. But the only one that won’t get rid of you is the Absolute. Because the Absolute Intelligence is able to utilize whatever we are and with all our beliefs - including our erroneous beliefs - it can use them and fit them in a Universal Pattern.

96. Can you see that intelligence we’d better have a proper ‘I’, not a rubbish ‘I’ like the populace; not a selfish, greedy, egotistic, ambitious one like the oligarchy. For the Absolute knows all and has everything under control and confers life upon us, and put together egg and sperm and made a child into a human being. It did it, the mother didn’t do it, the father didn’t do it, the oligarchy didn’t do it, the masses didn’t do it, but the Absolute did do it.

97. Now which side do you place your bet? … Naturally, where would you like to have your faith, your belief? With whom would you like to higher yourself? … The Infinite, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, All-Compassionate; or the greedy, stupid, ignorant, ambitious … Choose. … How do you feel with such a simple choice? Well, you feel fine except for one thing; the inertia of the contingent stimulus memory … There is memory. (35.00)

98. Now the letter ‘M’ – the Hebrew ‘Mem’ – means ‘substance’, and ‘substance’ – you can only say that word with your lips closed – so, it means ‘a closed system’. In fact, we ought to draw a circle round it like that, and then turn it into Sanskrit, like that. Ahh, the magical ‘Omm’! Which is a triplicity in that that ‘O’ is done with ‘A-U-M’. It is a triplicity of the Absolute Power Substance. ‘Absolute Power Substance’ – ‘Aa-O-Mm’ – ‘OM’. ‘Absolute Power Substance’ – triplicity. And when you say that magical word, which Yogis believe quite correctly, symbolizes ‘all things whatever in the smallest little diagram’. A sign, there, ‘M’ in the circle – closure, substantialization.

99. You don’t substantialize: ‘sub’ – under; ‘stant’ – standing, until you close your system, until you close your super-stance. You are a very superior being, identical with the Absolute, until you close. And when you close, you finite your intelligence, the data available in consciousness, and in every way you reduce yourself to an external contingent slave to outer stimuli.

100. Now that magical ‘M’ also means incarnation. Remember everything whatever admits of its opposite, and the opposites are equally valid. The good, the bad, the high, the low, the near, the far, love and hate, they’re all equally valid, and in the Absolute they are mutually interpenetrating.

101. Can you believe that the evil in the Absolute is so soaked with good that it’s an evil that is good? It has a function. Can you see that? That the evil is soaked through and through with good. It’s wisdom: it’s the list of all the things to avoid, all the things not to be done. That’s conscience, inherent essential consciousness.

102. ‘Conscient’ – a French word, which in English is ‘conscience’ - means ‘consciousness’. You’ve only got a conscience where there is consciousness to tell you, “Don’t do that. It’s inefficient.”

103. Socrates has a demon. That means to say an analytical mind. ‘Demon’ means ‘analytical mind’, ‘the spirit of analysis’ in him, and it never spoke except to say, ”No! You can do whatever you like except the wrong.” But if you listen inside, you are entirely free to choose anything whatever, except the wrong. The moment you are about to you get a little warning voice saying, “No.” But it’s very quiet. It’s called ‘the still small voice’, it doesn’t shout, it doesn’t compel you, it just says’ “No.” That means ‘not to be done’.

104. If you ignore it, you set rolling the whole system of ideas, which carry you into your next misery, which are - like the ‘Miseria Cordia’ - educational, horrible, lessons. And it’s either/or, either you listen to the voice that says, ”No,” or you’re in trouble, and that trouble educates you.

105. Now the opposite of ‘M’ is ‘H’, and ‘H’ means ‘hierarchy’ – that’s like a rugby goal post. You know the difference between soccer and rugby don’t you? In soccer you kick the ball under the bar – that bar represents the pelvic girdle. In soccer, which is common type football, you kick the ball ‘under there’, that’s a sexual target – physical. In rugby, the ball has to go over the bar. In other words it has to rise above the diaphragm. So – the Greeks called the zone here, between the diaphragm and the navel, the ‘epi-kometic’ the center of rage and anger – frustrated energy – will burst out and destroy everything. So that you must play rugby (40.00). ‘Roog boy’ – means ‘red’, ‘energetic’ – because it needs a lot of energy. Far more in rugby than it does in soccer doesn’t it? … See them piling up on the field. Don’t you recognize immediately, a lot of energy there? Only best quality boys can play that .. operate and break the rule …

106. Right. Now. We lack one other letter there … ‘N’ … ‘N’ means ‘nouse - ‘intelligence’. We draw it like that as a funny kind of fish. Now we draw the fish again .. There it is .. ‘M’ for the ‘Marie’ – the ocean, and the hierarchy, and the dear old fish-mouth ... We might as well put the eye in there, and we need steerage, and we’ve got a funny fish. That’s why the Messiah i s called a ‘fish’, and that’s why that word ‘ichthys’ means ‘fish’, and it means ’affirmation saves’. ‘Affirmation’ is the Son of God.

107. To affirm what you’re doing consciously, intelligently, is to be led by the Messianic center of your Absoluteness.

108. Well, we’re talking about arrogance, and ‘arrogance’ simply means ‘you think you have something of your own, and that you’re not indebted to any other being whatever for that thing’. It could be a tiny thing. You might have a face like a film-star, very beautiful, and not a very good actor. He doesn’t care about the acting, he’s so beautiful. He’s happy to be beautiful, and he thinks his beauty is his. Rather funny though, is one being interviewed, late on night in the week, he was asked what he remembered in his life, and he said, ”Only the insults.” All the nice things that happened – he couldn’t remember them. But he could remember one thing. A critic had said he was, “No good.” He’s been put forward six times for Oscars and not given one, and he could remember it.

109. Now we tend to remember that because the contingent out there, is finite, limited, and vulnerable, and terrified of annihilation.

110. Did anybody see Burgess, the novelist, interviewed the other night? … No? … I don’t know how I get so much time to do this… (Laughter)

111. He said, at 70, “I’m a ‘cradle Catholic’. And I’ve been taught to believe in Hell, and the infinite void - emptiness. And I’m terrified of both… I’m terrified of annihilation, and I’m terrified of Hell even more.” … Simple little word ‘Hell’.

112. The other night on the phone mentioned this to me… I don’t necessarily have to watch a program to hear about it do I? … Maybe somebody will tell me.

113. And he said, the word ‘Hell’ triggered him, made his eyes blink and he shook with fright at the word ‘Hell’. Now I knew that he knew a bit of German, and I said, “What does the word ‘H-E-double L’ mean in German. He said, “It means ‘bright’….’light’.” Like you’d ask for a ‘helles beer,’ a ‘light beer’.” And immediately he stopped shaking. And suddenly got a new interpretation. However it’s not roasting on a spit, in fires, eternally: it’s just ‘light beer’. And he stopped shaking, he said, “Oh! That’s good! I think I’ll only think of German-type hell in future.” It means ‘bright’; it means ‘light’; it means ‘intelligence’.

114. It was only the association of the word in a relationship. And we discussed that the Teutonic people loved fighting, loved enjoying fighting. Their heroes in Valhalla (the Hall of Heroes) deliberately fight, kill each other, die. Wake up, have a pig hunt, eat, get drunk, fight, and die again (45.00) … That’s their cycle … and they call it ‘Hell’…. Bright … Bright life.. Get out your holler and beat each other to pieces. You are eternal anyway. All you can have is fun. You cannot destroy the spirit; you can batter the skull, or the body, and ruin it. But then the spirit makes another one … So laugh .. Yes? … ‘Lacht’ … ‘Er Lachte’ .. He laughed .. at the ‘slaught’ … there’s the word ‘laughter’ in the word ‘slaughter’ … for the same reason .. because most of the English people have a Teutonic origin… It’s fun!

115. Provided you remember that you are eternal, you can ‘fight the good fight’. The weapons of the ‘good fight’ are nothing but the words of ‘Universal Logic’.

116. ‘Universal Logic’ says that we own of ourselves, absolutely nothing. We are nothing, except an image in the mind of God – it’s His image and not ours - He makes an image; and in His image he makes man. And man is man, because he is in the image of God and God makes the image.

117. So whatever man is, he is entirely indebted to God for his humanity.

118. That’s a very sobering thought. Whatever we have of power in any field whatever - whether it’s Casanova or Einstein - all our talents are of divine origin. When we know that and remember it daily with each other in our relationships, then our relationship is divine, and we are no longer arrogant.

119. Remember, we can relate … from Absolute center to Absolute center.

120. Now that’s the field, and here the existing dots, can be bypassed … ridden over.. We can all talk to each other, A to A …

121. Call that point of contingency ‘gamma’ – the blockage point ‘A-GA’ – That’s a cooker isn’t it? But it is also the basis of Greek ‘action’. ‘A-Ga’ … ‘memnon’ – The Argonaut. There was a discriminatory ‘Arg’ inserted.

122. We can relate to each other A to A…. Or we can relate to each other, egoic to egoic - in which case we have an unending fight; or one of them (the A one) can relate even to the egoic structure of the other one, without being in any way influenced or conditioned by it.

123. Now isn’t it obviously logical to get rid of arrogance. You know one of the things about a-rrogation … ‘Rogation’ means ‘to go round and mark out a territory’… What is the ‘rogation therapy’ about? …

124. (audience) Beating the boundaries..

125. Well it used to be conducted by the chief and the priest-king. And he used to walk round the boundaries of his territory and take with him a lot of supporters and some muscle men, and if he found anybody standing there … knock him off… And walking round like that … knock them off… So that’s the origin of ‘rogation’… Is there a vicar in the house? … (Laughter) … What does ‘rogation’ mean to the church? …

126. (Answer) “To Work and to pray” …

127. To work and pray. ..And the work is, knock the other fellow out and to pray he’ll stay out.

128. It’s a very ancient custom …

129. Remember all these things are appointed by the Absolute. Nothing exists – even the worst crime – even AIDS… Nothing exists without permission of the Absolute. Why? … There’s a lesson in it.

130. I read an article today about the number of ‘Ministers of the Gospel’ in America with AIDS. … How could that happen? … Lots of them … How very interesting. Mmm.. Well, it means ‘time to tighten up’. Time to remember a little bit of the rule of relation ‘A to A’ (50.00)

131. Because if you were considering ’A to A’, there’d be a lot of things you wouldn’t do that you would do if you were mere ego-to-ego. Ego-to-ego says, “I want to enjoy myself. And I don’t mind using your body as an instrument of my enjoyment, regardless of the affect on you.”

132. Like two prostitutes were interviewed a couple of weeks ago, and one of them had AIDS and the other wasn’t sure. And they said to them, “How do you feel about possibly giving this to your clients?” … One laughed and said, ”If I’ve got a customer, should I refuse him what he wants?” .. She’s in business ... It’s his fault, and he will learn a lesson if he gets for his – what did they say the current price was – seven pounds …That’s rather cheap… When I was a small boy that wouldn’t go for four-pence… (Laughter) …

133. You buy a piece of meat … for four-pence .. You may not know that in the statistics derived in the Sorbonne University in Paris that there were two ways of getting sexual delight auto-erotically. And one was a long French loaf with the middle pulled out, and the other was a roll of steak around the member. But that’s really treating ‘A’ as egoic structure… Utilizing it.

134. Now if you do that you are being arrogant whether you know it or not. As soon as you start to utilize any other being in any way, that it, from its Alpha center, would not approve of… Then you are being arrogant.

135. You are arrogating, to yourself, the right to treat another being as a mere means to a finite end of yours.

136. (Audience) Is this because there’s a certain amount of ignorance

137. Ignorance?

138. (Audience) Of unawareness as well?

139. I formulated on a card about 20 years ago, for a lady, that ‘arrogance equals ignorance’. To ignore is willfully to disregard…. Ignorance is not ‘not knowing’, it’s not nescience; ignorance is willful disregard.

140. You are disregarding, when you are arrogant, something you know to be perfectly true.

141. Did you design the sperm; did you design the ovum, which – put together – made you? … You know you didn’t.

142. But if you say, “I am myself, and I’ve got individual rights, you know that’s rubbish… Don’t you? ..

143. (Audience) Yes … but you’re not always aware of it ,..

144. And you mean you don’t like always to be aware of it.

145. (Audience) Maybe.

146. No, no, certainly.. Ignorance is willful disregard of anything whatever that impedes you. … If it gets in your way you ignore it

147. (Audience) … It’s also knowingly, that it can’t be somebody else. Is that not arrogance?

148. Knowingly or unknowingly?

149. (Audience) Knowingly … If you’re aware of what you’re doing?

150. Yes. If you are aware of what you are doing. What then?... And you injure somebody?… To your own advantage? ..Yes? .. You call that wrong?

151. (Audience) Yes. But I’m not going to call it arrogant.

152. Why not?. That’s what it is. You are arrogating to yourself a right, not to need to know what will affect other people…. Aren’t you? … You’re having to work hard on that one!

153. (Audience) Yes.

154. It makesd 100% responsible for anything you do. That’s a horrible burden… That you’ve got to be careful and consider other people.

155. Look. Just consider the absolute rule. The rule – called ‘The Golden Rule’ – What you would like to be done to you, and what you would like not to be done to you; use that as a rule for you with other people.

156. (Audience) But if you can actually not be aware of what you would like to actually be done …

157. When you’re not aware .. When you’re not aware, it’s because you’re ignorant. That is, you have willfully ignored something that would otherwise impede you.

158. “Mummy! I will stamp my foot if I don’t get another ice-cream.” “But you’ve had five already darling, and you’ll have a stomach ache.” “I don’t want a stomach ache, I want another ice-cream.” (Laughter).

159. That’s ignoring ‘tummy capacity’ isn’t it?

160. Very important to distinguish that ignorance is willful disregard; it is not nescience; it is not simply not knowing; it is not innocence. Ignorance is willful disregard of something you know.

161. (Audience) It can be unconscious … (55.00)

162. Oh no! It cannot be unconscious. You have made it unconscious by refusing to examine it because it impedes you.

163. You know the good criticism of Freud was this one. Freudian psychology has made everybody not guilty of what they do…. “It’s my unconscious.” But there is no unconscious, except that which you have repressed because you know it will impede you if you don’t repress it. There’s no excuse.

164. (Audience) Oh no! I’m not saying there is.

165. In law, ignorance is no excuse, but innocence is. A baby – which is not supposed to know – is innocent, not ignorant. Ignorance means you willfully disregard the law.

166. You know you do. Supposing you say, “Well, I don’t know the law.” You have deliberately not examined the law, because you feel it might impede you.

167. I have recommended a very good little elementary book on law to lots of young men. You must learn about new decisions, learn about the law in some way. Here is the book, take it home and read it. Bring some notes back. I’ve not had one yet that’s done it yet… Why? He doesn’t want to know. Clearly not… That’s ignorance. That’s willful disregard. And he makes – creates - the unconscious by deliberately ignoring what he knows … ….

168. Therefore you escape arrogance if you say, “I haven’t got an unconscious,” instead of that which I have willed not to know.

169. As soon as I will to know I can find it. I can dig in my mind … I heard a voice on a

170. record last week and I shuddered when I heard it… And it was a tenor… He was singing, “Hear my Song, Violetta.” on a ‘78’ record. And immediately his name sprang to my mind, “That’s Josef Locke … Take it off!”

171. So I examine it, and I go back to the ‘Coreno Restaurant’ … where a friend of mine in the middle of the day is having lunch. And she’s a very big-bodied Yorkshire girl with a very good voice… A very big girl… blond … and a very good voice and she’s singing away there, various operatic arias over the dinner … In comes a big fellow, stops, looks amazed, walks across to the table and says, “Hi! I’m Josef Locke. Come to my table my dear.” And she replied, “I don’t need you, Josef Locke, to tell me how to sing.” And he went back to his own table.

172. Now that was very unpleasant wasn’t it? You know, a respectable Indian restaurant, whose proprietor was a well-educated lawyer… Such as noise in his restaurant. It would have been worse if they’d have had a duet. (Laughter) And it stuck in my mind like that, “What a way to spend your lunch-time.”

173. And just go back on it… Josef Locke singing ‘Violetta’ and, “Oh My Beloved Daddy’’ somewhere around Yorkshire blond, and both at once. Well how would you like it? … It’s engraved in my mind.

174. But I tell you I’m not having it. I don’t think I engraved it.. I think it was engraved… by a superior power (Laughter)…

175. There is no unconscious for the human race, other than the buried elements they don’t want to know about.

176. Freud says you can blame all your crimes on the unconscious. How can you control your unconscious if there is one. Telling you to murder this child; rape that woman; rob that bank. It’s not you; it’s your unconscious.

177. Remembering another sad story, the naughty boy singing, ‘We’re deprived and therefore depraved’ … It’s an excuse …”We’re depraved because we’re deprived… We had ignorant mothers and fathers… drunkards. How could we have a good beginning?.. We’ve got an unconsciousness full of naughtiness and we love it intoning it… But it’s not our fault, it’s our unconsciousness.”

178. We cannot hide behind the unconscious, because we can always dig out our real motive if we wish to… Hard work – but we can do it. (60.00)

179. Do we want to? Well inertia says, “No!” The inertia of that little contingent spot there says, “Don’t examine it. You’ll be stopped, doing what you want to do.” … Agreed? … … …

180. (Audience quietly - one voice) Yes.

181. … ‘Mmm yyy-ess’

182. (Audience) Well I know it’s a good example…

183. No. I mean do you like it? Do you like the weight of responsibility it imposes on you.

184. (Audience) I think so. Yes.

185. Oh Good… You think so? You’ve not got a bad quality thinker.

186. (Audience) I like the idea of …

187. Of what?

188. (Audience) I like the idea .. I like the idea of it more than the practice.

189. You like the idea more than the practice.. Why? .. Because ‘practice’ means ‘overcoming inertia’… Yes? … You know what it is.. You put a terrific amount of energy into defending that egoic structure. Not only you, but your parents, your grandparents, the whole of your ancestry reference is weighting you against acting on what you know to be true.

190. If you were to listen in your head carefully, you’d hear silly comments from great-grandmother, great-grandfather, or even from Adam and Eve, telling you, “Do this, it’s nicer than that.” Those voices exist in the human mind and they conduct dreams until you dig them out .

191. Practice is hard…. But it’s worth doing. Because you finish up primarily with the light, and all the contents in it are known to be precipitates of the will of the light… and then you are not arrogant. You are entirely self-creative, because you are identified then ‘A to A’…. Yes?

192. (Audience) if we are all (../..) and if we are already Absolute. Is it, in fact, possible to have non-willfull (…./…)

193. How do you define the word ‘will’.

194. (Audience).. (../..)..You answer my question first,a nd I’ll answer yours (Laughter)

195. Alright. Well just remember that ‘light’ signifies ‘infinite intelligent sentient power’… Right? Now the word ‘will’ correctly used means ‘initiative’, not ‘reaction to a stimulus’, the origination of an act without a stimulus.. Yes? … In that case, there is only one will, the Absolute. Anything lower than that is contingent reaction to stimuli. Now how does that fit in with your question?

196. (Audience) Well I think then that.. That if the only will is the Absolute Will, then this apparent ignorance which I have…

197. Yes, you’ve got both. Paul did that

198. (Audience) …regarding that, must be willed on the part of the Absolute – and all things must be willed on the part of the Absolute - because there is no other will than that.

199. OK. Do you accept that.

200. (Audience) Yes

201. Then you’re a good Muslim!

202. You’ve been circumscribed…. Yes? … The moment that you accept that you are an individual not conditionable by any other individual; the moment you come out of contingent-stimulation-reaction you are circumscribed.

203. The circumcision on the flesh is only a symbol. The real thing – have you drawn a circle round your mind? So that your mind is impregnable to the egotistic intentions of other minds… Yes? … If so, you are a Muslim. But if I’m a Muslim only means an accepter of that basic proposition ‘Allah always considered in it’s All-ness, purely, is God. And there is no other God but the whole.’ Anything less than the whole is not the God, is it? It is a contingent manifestation, but it is not ‘The God’.

(Audience) … (../..)

204. (65.12) Who was the theologian that said that? Was it Anselm? …Who was it Hanukkah?

205. (Audience) I don’t know

206. Who was the person who said, “Imagine a circle of which you can imagine no bigger, and call it God. That’s a nice joke! That’s the monistic finiting of The God… Actually there’s no circle that you can imagine, that you couldn’t imagine a bigger.

207. The real one - The God - is infinity. And that is one for which you have no form..

208. Thou shall not make any graven image of The God because The God is infinite – not representable. And that is the one that has caused everything. First by conditioning itself to be God, and then, while within that circle – and of which Infinity is greater - He makes smaller circles right down to human beings, who are little gods.

209. (Audience) But you said to me once that the Infinite is in centers in us that are finite. Is that what you mean now by it?

210. Yes! Well the ‘A’ inside the circle here, is the Infinite Absolute within the circle. And the circle in no way stops the continuum nature of the Absolute does it?

211. When we spin water like that, it doesn’t stop the water being continuity does it? It merely makes vortexes in it, of it. So In-finite in every finite center of awareness, the infinite is operative conditioning and creating the life-process of that individual… Yes?

212. (Audience)… (../..) My mind’s gone ..

213. Now can you easily see that.. The nature of the continuum is part-less. One that is part-less is not in any way limited by any function of it… Yes? … And we individuals are individual functions of the non-individuated Absolute – which is called Brahmam. (../..) the individual for developmental activity.

214. And we are in and of, and have no reality of our own independent of it. So we should be kind to each other. We are kin to the Absolute, and to each other… Yes?

215. (Audience) (……………../……………….) you have to posit a situation that’s an illusion you are happy with ..

216. The important thing… The important thing is this. That the so-called ‘will’ of the egoic man is not will, it’s an ..tonist in its activity. The only true will is the will of the Absolute.

217. (Audience) So when you say that I’m willfully … on and I’m ignorant and you say to me, “That means you’re willfully disregarding …What do you mean then by … you just said that there is no real will, I have no real will. What does that word ‘will’ mean in the context of me …

218. Well, I said ‘J-I-V-A’ means ‘affirm individual developmental activity’ and that’s the will of the Absolute that you will to be ignorant in order to have an experience which will enlighten you

219. Your greatest misery is your greatest enlightenment

220. (Audience) It’s the will of the Absolute that I appear to have that will.

221. No. He actually gives you that will, because a continuum has no parts and whatever is anywhere is everywhere. So the will of God’s fruit is in every individual finite … as the will of the Absolute.

222. And it’s that that makes you make mistakes and get into trouble, and suffer, and educate, and become enlightened.

223. (Audience) Are you saying these little wills as it were are monads then?

224. Yes. Appearing to be separate

225. Like the Leibnizian monad

226. (Audience) Yes… And this monad is capable

227. … And willing

228. (Audience) to disregard rather than.. the situation rather than (../..)

229. (70.00) Yes.. Now here… Lets’s test you for arrogance. You’ll buy it. Have you got the will to pay for it?

230. No? …Well that’s fine. That means that the Absolute in your case is allowing you to pay with Absolute money.

231. (Audience) Alright.

232. OK? (FIN - 70.20)