[This transcript is not verbatim. Please fix - JH]

INHIBITION AND REPRESSION

Notes from a talk given by Eugene Halliday at a meeting in Liverpool, issued on tape from Tan-Y Garth, 214

Statement: It has been noticed that tensions of cosmic origin give rise to days of disagreeableness. If these tensions find outward expression, however calmly, which we are told they should not, there is immediately an easier condition. If, however, following the textbook, one says, "There exists a tension," it does not seem to help at all as the energy remains bottled up. In short, despite numerous explanations, it is difficult to define clearly between observation and repression at a practical level.

The first part of the statement about the tensions being of cosmic origin would require quite a considerable amount of self-observation to verify. To be able to say that a given tension is of cosmic origin would require a lot of self-observation involving a great amount of care. We will look at the mechanics of this problem.

Let us assume that there are some tensions in an individual under consideration. A tension is a holding, a holding of energy. It says here that some tensions give rise to disagreeableness. For the moment I'll leave out the cosmic origin. If the tensions find outward expression, there is immediately an easier condition. We have said that a tension is a holding of energy. We will not consider the origin of the tension for a moment, we will consider the fact of the tension. It means that inside a being somewhere there is a zone of tension, that is of energy held in a closed situation inside the being.

It is not necessary for us to discuss the origin of this tension in order for us to consider the mechanics of this process. The tension experienced by a being, if expressed, given outward expression, is followed by an easier condition. That is perfectly obvious. The tension is an excessive stress within the being. If we take the whole being and imagine it to be in equilibrium, that is to say, all its parts are equally stressed, then no particular stress in it would be called a tension, particularly. If we do find a particular tension, it implies that the energy of the being, which should be distributed evenly over the whole being has, for some reason, been gathered together. It says, 'On giving this outward expression there is an easier condition,' which simply means to release the energy which is held in and allow that energy to travel away from the centre of tension and spread itself out. Possibly to get perfect outward expression either in words or in some physical act. It obviously mechanically follows that if we allow that concentrated energy to decentrate, to fly away from that centre, to come under the influence of Jupiter as we would say in the Zodiacal terminology, is to feel easier. The question we are going to consider is whether it is better to feel easier.

It says, “Following the textbook, one should say, “there exists a tension,” yet if we do say this the energies remain bottled up. How to define clearly between observation and repression.’

Repression is pressing back and implies that something is trying to press itself forward into the consciousness to express itself. To repress in psychological terms is to push the thing back in the being. We will draw a being and draw a circle inside it and another one and another one. We could draw a lot of these but we are going to say that the external stimulus of some order has put energy into a being and that energy has been piled up and acted upon by other energies inside the being and held in check so that a reaction that might have occurred has not occurred. In the absence of that reaction tension exists inside the being. In psychological theory, there are zones of the mind that are unconscious. We will allow an inner circle, not the innermost, one of the inner circles, to represent the unconscious. We will draw a line round it to say this is the threshold of consciousness. If a mental content gets on the outside of this threshold then the person is aware of it but if the element of consciousness goes below that level then the person will not be aware of it. If it was repressed or pushed back through fear of the effects of expressing it, that is fear of starting some reaction from other beings outside or individuals or society at large, then it is a bad thing. To repress the thing so that it becomes unconscious so that you do not know about it is a bad thing and therefore psychological repression is a bad thing. But, there is something else that can be done. Instead of driving it backwards into the unconscious one can actually stop its expression and use the energy of the tension zone and make that energy work for us. In order to do this we have to be quite clear what we mean by saying there exists a tension and understanding what to do about it.

Let us say, here is a tension, and it has been caused because some forces, whether cosmic or social or individual, it does not matter. It has been caused by a stimulus from outside coming into the being, the being has tended to react to the stimulus and for some reason has stopped the reaction, brought it in, and brought it back, inhibited it. Conscious inhibition is a good thing but unconscious repression is a bad thing. In conscious inhibition, we know that we have held something in and we know what it is that we have held in. If we don’t understand what we can do with held in energy then we will have a tension inside ourselves and if we say there is a tension and leave it at that the tension will remain and we will not get the benefit of it. If we allow that thing to express itself externally, perhaps in a criticism of the external situation or even in physical activity like a hobby then the energy of the tension would be simply lost into external activity and it could not help the inner being to grow.

If the tension inside the individual is analysed and instead of saying merely, “There is a tension,” but say, “What kind of tension? What is its object?” and to analyse that tension on the three levels. To say what is the urge direction of that tension, that is, what is it tending to do? Is it a liking or a disliking in the feeling level, and what is the ideational content of that tension? If we have these three kinds of questions and we take any given tension and examine it sincerely inside ourselves we can find that the tension comprises of these three aspects. There must be a tendency to action, the urge aspect, there must be a degree of liking and disliking and there must be some ideational content, as the statement says, seeking expression. If a tension can express itself, it must express itself in one of the three ways. Either it must appear as an impulse to action, or, as an emotion or as an expression of an idea verbally or in some gesture. We must become aware of this three-fold nature of the energy. All energy has this three-fold aspectual character. In order to get the benefit of such a tension we must cut into it, we must make a tricotomy, cut into three parts and say, “It is an urge of some kind.” Is it a positive urge, that is, is it constructive, or is it negative, is it destructive? Is it trying to create a situation or is it trying to destroy a situation? Is it trying to make a relation or is it trying to break a relation? This is the character of the urge itself. You can feel it inside if you examine yourself. The field of energy wants to hit at something or to help something and consequently you will find there is a liking or a disliking present with the urge and you must see clearly whether the urge is a positive or a negative and whether you are liking its positivity or whether you are disliking its positivity or liking its negativity or disliking its negativity. Notice, you don’t have to like the positivity and dislike the negativity. You can do either with either because in a given situation, to construct a relation beings might appear to you to be agreeable if you were one of the partners to the relation. On the other hand it might appear to you to be disagreeable if you were required to construct a relation between other beings. So that a purely positive act, namely construction, may have an unpleasant association.

Let us present three beings then we can examine this in its least form. We will name them A, B and C. Suppose the middle being, B, is a so-called activist and the other two are pacifists. Suppose the problem is that one of these creatures on the outside has inside itself a tension relating to the other two beings. It may be it sees the possibility of a good, constructive relationship between the other two if it does so, it then has to decide whether it likes such a relation. There may be present such a like, one may actually like to posit a relation of that order or one may dislike it believing that such a relation might interfere with another construction. This is the least possible we can deal with. We must have the three beings in order to consider this problem. If the thing is a negative, a destructive thing, again we don’t have to dislike it because the destruction might be the destruction of a relationship between B and C which might be assumed to allow the construct of a relationship between A and B, or, it might be that the destruction of a relation between A and B might cause a revulsion of feeling because it might lead to the construction of a relation between B and C.

So, if we consider the relations between those three beings, we can work out and see why apparently a constructive activity need not necessarily be pleasant because the construct in one place involves energy being taken away from another place if we are dealing with finites. In dealing with the Infinite, the Infinite does not have to remove energy from one place in order to work in another place, because it is Infinite. In the case of individual beings, the finiting power, the removal of energy from one constructive relationship might give it energy to make another constructive relationship. Therefore if A were to construct a relationship with B, sees B trying to make a constructive relationship with C, a sense of insecurity might arise in A believing that B, not being infinite in power, and making a relationship with C, will have to rob the A/B relationship in order to make the B/C relationship.

If that is understood clearly, we can pass on to the next level. We started off with the urge direction and we have considered the liking and disliking and seen that the liking may not necessarily be for the constructive side nor the disliking for the destructive side. They can be crossed over. When we come to the ideational level of it, we have to consider the relation of these beings as forms. If we remember that every form is a rotation of a force and the Absolute Force is the cause of all these rotations then when we are considering the formal relationship, we are considering the relationship of the Absolute having become the relative. But, as there is no individual or relative contingent being other than that brought into being by the Absolute, then to consider the relationship between the finites, this is the individuals, the contingent beings, is really to consider the relationship between certain behaviours of the Absolute.

In order to come to a solution of any relational problem, one must remember the Absolute energy which is keeping these finites in being. Let us see what happens if we don’t.

We will draw three beings which are rotating beings without drawing the Absolute in. We now have three discrete, that is completely separated, beings and the moment we have separated them completely we have no ground whatever for a relation between them. The moment we have removed the causative force of the three, we have removed the possibility of relation between. Relation is said to be between. So, between A and B there is no relation. Between B and C there is no relation and between A and C there is no relation unless we introduce the Absolute force which keeps them all in being. So, if we consider them as discrete finites, separated beings, there is no relation possible between them and the only possibility of them coming into contact at all is fortuitously. That is by accident, by collision, in which the direction of A happens to be in the direction of B and perhaps the direction of B may have been in the direction of C and the next moment may not, because the collisions of A, B and C, being accidental, because we have removed the Absolute Force which keeps them in harmony, that collision will result in accidental dispositions which are totally beyond control. So, we cannot control the relation between A, B and C if we remove the Absolute Power which actually brings them to be and keeps them in relationship.

When we have a tension inside ourselves, what we have to do with it is consider, not so much its origin, but how we take it, because in an Absolute sense, all forces originate in the Absolute. Whether they come from the sidereal sphere initially, like starlight shining onto you and being assimilated, or from the sun, or from the collectivity of the planets, or from the earth itself or any particular zone in it, or from nations of peoples, civilisations, cultures and so on, all those things are merely particular modalities of the Absolute so it isn't so very important where they come from as what you are going to do with ‑ them when they have come. When they have come, you must cut them into three and consider the urge tendency in yourself as a reaction to some kind of energy insertion.

Let us think about a stimulus as an insertion of an amount of energy. A stimulus comes and energy is inserted into the body. Energy is only motion, characterised in a certain way, and now we find in the body a tendency to move. It is a simple as this, a tendency to move. That tendency to move has three aspects. It appears as an urgefulness, vectored in some manner. It is going to destroy or to create. Then there is an affective aspect of it. You are liking or disliking the constructive or liking or disliking the destructive aspects of it. Then over and above that, the ideational relation. How are you going to define, formally, the beings under consideration in the relation? If you define them as discrete, finite entities and ignore the Absolute force from which they derive, then all relations become accidental. Nothing can be done about it. They will be here today and gone tomorrow.

So, if you wish to control about it, if you wish to see the relation between, you must posit the Absolute force from which they derive. Again such attention in an individual human being really means, from an individual point of view, the presence of some fear because the tension is under the dominion of Saturn and implies that something is getting out of control. Something which is held in, an energy, is trying to fly out and to express itself. If you didn’t care at all what kind of expressions you made, in other words, if you were omnipotent and you could afford to allow any expression because you could always back it with more power, then there would be nothing to worry about, but in fact, when you find these energy tensions in you and you analyse them you will find that if you contemplate releasing or expressing that energy into the environment, you will have to express it to another being, to another finite. You won’t simply express it to the Absolute because the Absolute knows about it already. It will be to another finite being. When you express it to another finite being the fear will arise in you that the expression might produce a reaction in that other being which you cannot control. If you define the other being as an isolated discrete entity, most certainly you cannot control it. If you want to control it you will have to introduce the concept of the relative force of the Absolute and you will have to make the individual to whom you intend to express your tension, first accept the existence of the Absolute.

Let us take an example. If A persuades B first to admit the existence of the Absolute as the source of all these beings, then B, having accepted that fact, cannot be justified in cutting off a relation with A. Cutting off is an illusion, there is not any cutting off. Consequently, if B tries to tie a relation with C, it follows, that if the relation is not merely accidental, he has posited the Absolute force from which both derive. If he allows that force exists for B and C, he must allow it to exist for B and A

Then comes the question of priority of relation and awareness of the purpose, that is, of becoming conscious of the Absolute in A, B and C. I can think of a funny one, where Lawrence, the famous portrait painter, when he died, he had had a very, very rough time because when his wife died, beforehand, she had ordered him to her bedside and made him promise not to marry her sister which she always felt to be representing herself as a good understander of his work, whereas the wife was not such a good understander. This diagram A, B, C is very much like the portrait painter and his wife and his sister. The relation between the wife and the husband postulated an Absolute force relating which A was prepared to admit, but, by the same law, B thought there might be a relation between B and C, also justified by the same Absolute and sister C certainly believed there was such a justifying force. So they were in agreement about the existence of the Absolute. But, when A saw that C liked the idea of the Absolute relating force she thought it would be a good idea to cut off that semi-circle and thus isolate the unit. On her death bed, she actually required him not to marry her sister. She didn’t say don’t marry at all, she didn’t want the sister to put one over on her. Another sister of another person, alright, but not her own as she had already marked her down as not to put one over. Nevertheless she had admitted this relating force in making the request and consequently, she extracted from her husband, the promise that he wouldn’t marry her. Being a gentleman, he didn’t break his promise. The sister came and kept house for him instead!

The important thing to see, is once you have postulated that relating force, you have a great ally providing you allow that relating force to relate in all directions. But, if you were to cut off that relating force to any other being then you immediately become inconsistent and fall under the law of accident.

Let us pretend again there are three people, the portrait painter and his wife and her sister. Supposing the A admits the existence of the Absolute relating force so that it can have a relation with B. In having admitted it, it then becomes obvious that the relating force relates all these finite beings together. If A suddenly decides that the relating force only goes from A to B and not in any other direction, it takes all the other little semi-circles of the diagram, turns them on itself and tries to become an isolated system. But, insofar as it succeeds in imposing the definition, not the fact, the fact is that the relation exists, as in the diagram, but imposing the definition on herself and on him, then immediately she places them both under the law of accident, because from that moment she has no control over the external stimulus situation because she has denied the existence of a relating force between them and other beings. Now, if she is very, very subtle, and being aware of the danger of a self refuting definition of that order, one that would place them out of necessary relation and place them under accidental relation, then she will allow that this is the truth and she will be determined to allow it more than any other being will allow it. In fact, she will be an expert in allowing Absolute relating forces. This will stop B and C from having a very special closed relationship. This is because once B has admitted this Absolute relating force to exist, and is receiving no suggestions, no special definitions that A and B are a closed system it is unjustified in taking such a definition and making a closed system out of B and C. This is the kind of analysis to help to relieve that kind of tension.

There is no situation where there is a tension in the body that will not break down and disclose what it is really about if you consider it in those three ways. Find the direction of the urge, find the liking or disliking for the construction or destruction tendencies and find the formal relationship and define it. When you have done so, remember that Absolute relating force and be very, very glad it exists, because it is that force that imposes on the poor middle man in each case, an awareness that he has a relationship with that with which he would like to have no relationship. Remember, if you try to isolate the situation, you place yourself under the law of accident, but if you remember the Absolute relating force, and are prepared to allow it, then it follows, by the Law of Inequality of Finites, some other being, say, in the diagram, C, will not be so good at allowing this Absolute force. That it will be less efficient than you, will try to make an isolating system out of C and B, and this will conflict with B’s belief in the Absolute relating force and force B out of that closed system into the more open relationship.

Don’t let us consider whether the forces are cosmic in origin or not, let us just consider how they appear in us. Break them down in that three-fold manner and then the energies will not be bottled up.

The end of the statement says, “Define clearly between observation and repression at a practical level.” We have done some of the practica1 side of it. When we are observing a tension we are merely observing a tension. We are not doing any more than the expression says. If we merely observe the tension we won’t alter it but if we bite into the tension with our analytical tool then we will alter it. If we observe a tension in its simplicity, its apparent simplicity, its seed-foldedness, without analysis, it will simply be fed by our observing energy. But, if we make a tricotomy and look for the urge elements, the affective element and the ideational element in it then straight away, instead of it becoming a tension, it becomes three tensions with a space between. That space between is what you want, that is freedom. Every time the thing breaks up make another tricotomy. Keep on doing this on each occasion because your first analysis will only be partial. The elements into which this tension breaks up will three-fold in each of their parts so you tackle each one again and break it into three and then you will find you have dispersed the energy of the tension over the whole of your being without having to express it at all to any other finite individual, but in the act of doing so you will have altered your tension relationship in the Absolute with that other being so that that other being will be aware, by feeling, that something has changed, without knowing what. If you don’t gracefully volunteer an explanation, it won’t know anything about it. It will only know that whereas before it felt it necessary to do so and so, now the necessity has gone. The biggest enemy of the individual is the Saturnine compression, the attempt to hold the situation at the finite level and your biggest friend is Jupiter, God the Father, expansion, the statement in the force between the isolating system. This three-fold analysis ties up with the next question which has to do with the use of the plural word for God in Genesis.

“And the Lord God said, behold the man is become one of us.” That is the plural form, “One of us,” not to become as I, “to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.” The statement here has puzzled a lot of people because it says the Lord God refers to Himself as “us” and then says that man now knows good and evil and may live for ever and therefore God is going to stop him eating of the tree of life, because he might live for ever. It sounds terrible if you say it quickly. I had always thought Jewish religious thought to be monotheistic. Does not this imply that the Lord God of Genesis was one of many gods?

The inner meaning of it is very simple. You know the royal ‘We’, kings say, “We” rather than I. They say “We” because they are thoroughly aware of the fact that their name is legion. They are full of sub-ents. This does not destroy their unity. The Absolute is not a duality. If we draw nothing, we haven't drawn plurality or duality, we have drawn nothing, pure negation of thing, “no thing.” No thing is not plural it is simply a negation of thing. Thing is finite, and therefore, it is not finite and therefore it is infinite. So, it is the positive Infinite, the Absolute positivity and the finite is negative. To create finites is to create relative beings. To create is to arc, to close. When the king says “We” he means that he knows that he has parts and that he has conferred with his parts, and he finds that all his parts are in agreement on a given statement, a given project. Therefore he says “We.” My thinking department says, my feeling department says, my urge department says, we say. When the king says “We” he is referring to this fact that there are many sub-entities within the one being, but it doesn’t turn him into many gods. You will find a reference in the Thomas Gospel to this where there are three gods then you have got trouble or three gods but is a way of thinking. We all derive from the one egg, the whole human race does and all the beings in the universe derive from the cosmic egg which divides itself internally to itself. As all the divisions are internal to itself they in no way destroy its unity.

So, when the word for God in Genesis, this creating God, Elohim, it is this termination, this im at the end, signifies the plural. The first part already signifies God on its own, (el) as first worker. This letter signifies generator (O) this one is spirit power (H) and this is a plural termination. Already we have three gods there, substantiated. We take that letter M, mem, at the end as meaning substance. So ‘Elohim’ instead of being an ordinary plural, is a special kind of plural, implies a substantial three-fold being. A being of ideation, of feeling and of urge. The yod, iota, jot, signifies ideation, the Hė signifies the spirit, and the vau is originally a male euphemism and signifies this power, this generative power. So this part of the word, signifies this ideational being, this spiritual power being and this generating being. Many of the early rabbis who were converted to Christianity were converted from their monotheism by a very simple piece of arithmetic, A + B = G in Hebrew. The third letter is G in Hebrew. It is simply the same thing as the C only voiced, C becomes G gimmel. They had no numbers to count with therefore A was equivalent to one, B was equivalent to two and G was equivalent to three, so one (A) + two (B) was equal to three (G). That was how they reckoned up, but the name ‘Ab’ is Hebrew for Father and the supreme Father, therefore, is shown by using two letters, A and B, to be the trinity. When the rabbis had indicated to them that the name of the supreme Father, God, Ab, added up to three, it proved to them that God, although one, was also three. So, there were not three separate gods, discrete gods with no relation between them. There is the one, and internal to it all the sub-divisions, all the hierarchies of angels, positive and negative, all those in no way split the essential unity. Even this big circumscription that makes this same does not split the essential unity of the paper on which it is drawn. The paper represents the Absolute. The Absolute is in no way interfered with by ant marks we may make upon it. The marks are on it, they are superficial. They do not alter its essential non-duality, non-plurality. When we think about God in that sense and say, “Man is become one of us,” it is a statement that man, in becoming aware, analytically, of certain functions had already started to do what God does in order to be God. In order to be God, you must know what He is, what he does, what He feels, what He formulates and if he knows these things then he is God.

You can test it logically by saying, let us imagine for a moment that God has His head cut off, so that He was short of ideational faculties. Say for a moment He was once less of a God than He was. Then we say, alright, now we will cut off His feelings so He cannot feel liking and disliking for anything. So we are now left with a blind urge. Is that God? Well, it is only one third of a God. In order to be God one must be a power, one must feel this power and the liking and disliking aspects of it and one must ideate, one must formulate that one is a god in order to become reflexively self conscious. If we are not reflexively self conscious of ourselves as being formal, as being liking and disliking, as being power, urge, drive, then we are not God. If we do formulate those three facts about ourselves continuously then we are God, so that when Christ was accused of blasphemy for saying he was the Son of God, he replied, quoting the O.T., “Is it not written, Ye are gods?” Because a man becomes what is called a little god. He is a little god because he is finite but he is still a god if he can define himself, feel himself and know his power and control those three aspects. That constitutes his divinity, not simply to have an urge without feeling or idea, or feeling without an urge or idea, or an idea without feeling or power, to have those three and have them under control is to be a god.

Then it says, “He is become as one of us,” because the man who is god in this sense, is a plural being who is a unit. He knows he has three parts and he knows that these three parts do not destroy his sense of unity, so he too can say “We” in the royal manner, and to know to what he refers. I have often been asked who are these 'we' that people are referring to? Sometimes I say “I” to relieve them of the pressure of “we”, but when you say “I” all you are doing is turning the whole of that into a big drawing of an I (eye), and the centre of it is in the feeling. You can imagine that eyeball, we will draw and eye, if you point your right eye outwards towards expression looking to the out corner, you will feel an urge arising in you, and if you point it inwards, towards your nose, you will become aware of a tendency to be cunning and think. You can do this sort of experiment with your eyes in your spare time and you will find it is so. When the eye looks outwards, away from the nose it will induce the tendency to do something and when it looks in towards the nose, to think. Hence the necessity of gazing at the nose in meditation. It triggers off certain nerve centres to make you meditate.

The question is, why did this Lord God say don’t let him get at the Tree of Life, now that he is become as one of us. The answer is very simple, he had become finite. This Lord God is not a silly little, petty person, trying to deprive other beings of power, He is trying to save humanity from a terrible thing. If a finite being suddenly identifies with his finity, completely identifies with himself, remains in identification, he must be eternally isolated and therefore it is written, “It is appointed to man once to die.” Somehow, that serpent with tail in mouth must be broken. It is possible for a being in a finite physical body to become immortal. To do it scientifically, it is only a matter of controlling certain resonances in order to be able to resist the effect of forces from without breaking up your internal integration. But, if an individual of a finite order were, actually, on earth, in a physical body, to gain that it would be a very terrible thing for him because he would be tied to a vehicle.

A break occurs here in the tape.

…...muck that we call the earth. Therefore, that Absolute intelligence, talked to itself in its parts and said, “We don’t want that finite being to be an immortal in that body of earth.” Therefore, death is appointed. From the point of view of the energy involved, every finite system coming to has a certain mass energy. A definite number of energy impulses in it. If it isolates itself and cuts off from its source energy then it follows that it will become a self-stimulating system and if it has only got a finite amount of energy in it, it must ultimately play out all the formal relational possibilities within itself, so that, it would start recurring within its closed system. It will be condemned to an eternal recurrence of the same formal behaviour, simply because it is finite. For which reason, forces invade man and when his energy drops internally below a certain level, those forces invading him begin to disintegrate that body and thus release the intelligence locked up in the identification process from that body. As long as the body is vital strong, healthy and getting its own way the tendency is to remain in identification with it, to be locked up. When the body begins to fail, obviously, then the intelligence within begins to conceive that it might be prepared to abandon it. Therefore the purpose of death, is to release individual intelligences from what would otherwise be, an eternal, repetitive movement of a finite pattern of energies.

The gods of mythologies are functions. Take the whole of the Greek pantheon. If you care to take the genealogies of the gods you will find that actually, they are functions themselves which produce out of themselves and their relations, the next function which has a new name which is a god, which is a good. If you get the Egyptian pantheon you get exactly the same thing, the Hindu pantheon, the Tibetan and so on. They are all names of functions and they all spring out of each other. If you look in the Greek myths and see how Uranus and Gaea get together and produce children and the names of the children, if you have enough time and read them off in a lexicon, you will find they are all the product of those forces, those functions. The same is true of any mythology in the world. They are all the names of functions and legitimately personified because the Absolute is Satchitananda, that it knows what it is doing. It is aware, it feels, and it ideates and consequently, where Chronos is, there is a being who is actually creating time and is aware of himself as a time being making time and he is aware of bringing to be, children, and of devouring those children, but his awareness is determined by his formal content. That is to say, the awareness, in general, when it is formulated, is only formulated according to the function formulation within that awareness.

In the same way, two individual human beings who in the same awareness have a different content in the awareness. One man may study mathematics and another man biology. There is the one awareness but in the case of the one body it is subjected to certain stimuli, say, mathematics, and in the other one through a biological education. Yet the consciousness, the awareness, internal to which are both those bodies, is aware in the place of one body, of mathematical propositions and in the place of the other body, of biological propositions. The difference, in consciousness at each place, is the difference shown by the functions of that being. So it is quite correct to think of them as persons because you can talk to them as persons, you can evoke them as persons. All magical rituals and invocations and evocations deal with them as persons because they are. There is an hierarchy of persons, such that a person who is well integrated and can refer to himself purely as “we”, can command another being who is not aware of himself as “we” to think he is I and say, “We require you to do so and so.” And he must do it, because they have the greatest power and the greatest control. They are formally aware. If we put down the pentacle and command the intelligence which objectifies itself as a force behaving in that manner, and there is one, you can invoke that force and constrain it to appear because it cannot do what we can do. Human beings are very peculiar because when they know themselves, they discover that they are, all of them, the highest creature in the universe. Inside a human being there is a leopard and a toad and a bat and so on. They are sub-parts, sub-entities of the total human being. So that when you become aware of the totality of your possibilities, you are becoming aware of sub-ents in you which are the centres of infinite fields of intelligence and you can command those centres, those sub-ents in you to behave in a certain way. The field energies that keep those centres in being must obey because they cannot say “We” like we can. Each one of them is only aware of the formal content in that place. This is a very important point. There is no difference whatever in intelligence between beings other than that of the formal content of the organism under consideration. So when you look at two million human beings, thing that there are two million formal entities there with one intelligence behind them, but that intelligence can function only formally through an individual according to the formal content of that individual. That is why a man like Mohammed Ali is cheeky because he says the Absolute works through everybody and through me specially.

We get it in the Tao Te Ching and various other oriental references, this statement that God has no favourites, He always prefers the best. It is one of the hard sayings but it is a fact. If you furnish your organism internally with more and more functional relationships and make them conscious, the Absolute will prefer you because it has no favourites. That is, It is not going to like you because you have got the same name as another fellow that It liked long ago. If you examine your formal content and function and if you are striving to represent It, It will work through you. If you strive to block It, It will try and work through somebody else to hit you to make way to it. God is no respecter of persons. He is quite prepared to bang together a lot of persons if they are no good to make one person that is good. That is the cause of intermarriages where a race going in a given direction, tends to isolate certain functions within itself. Let us take the white race. It has become extrovert and intellectual and practical and the black race has become more introvert, rhythmical and unpractical, but the black race has developed certain faculties that the white race has allowed to die in them and when they marry together, they produce a being which has something of the balance of these qualities. If we marry a white man and a black man and in the next generation we marry one of those with a good Jew, and we keep mixing them up, then we will get progressively nearer a balance. Thus, the funny thing is, if you examine the genealogy of Christ backward, you will find that not all his ancestors were Yiddish. So while they are talking about the chosen people and being Yiddish and so on, if you trace back you will find at certain points, non-yiddisher elements are introduced and these equilibrate the merely Yiddisher characteristics with other characteristics which tended to fall into abeyance in the Yiddisher individuals. The object is continuously to stimulate the whole being all over.

If we put the tricotomy inside the egg we could say that certain of the cells will develop and specialise in digesting food, certain will develop in feeling relations and certain will specialise in ideational relations. That is Ham, Shem and Japhet inside the being. In a given race the whole culture tendency is to stress one of those three more than another. When the stress goes too far, there is a breakdown and a need for a return so that the two terms keep tending to be attracted to each other after a period of separation. So you find very, very fair ladies being attracted to very, very dark gentlemen. The whole object is to re-establish the equilibrated being. Yet the tricotomy had its utility because it showed what each thing was in isolation by pushing it in isolation to its conclusion so that we do know today, what ideation is when it is completely isolated. It is embodied in Bertrand Russell. We know what emotionalism is. Emotionalism, isolated, produces a peculiar kind of art, of music and so on, and producing a certain kind of literature to evidence that. And, we know what the other thing does, it produces the world’s Satchmos, the world’s best dance bands, the best rhythmically conscious beings. Each one in isolation will do so. Breed them back again carefully and you will recreate the original being from which they all derived, the Noetic being that knows what it is doing.

Question: Is there a possibility that after a cataclysm they will divide out again?

Answer: It is a remote possibility but it is not a probability because every power gain tends to be retained. Remember, no being voluntarily relinquishes power in such a way that it can’t get it back again. Where there was a real observation of possibility of loss there is a tendency to write it down in a book and bury it and make a mental note where you bury it so you can return to it later. This is the basis, of course, of modern psychology because people are always burying, repressing elements inside themselves which they think they will need later. Otherwise they would just think they were completely useless and cast them away, not repress them. There is a total distinction. When you repress an argument because it is not socially acceptable, you bury it inside yourself and you have a sneaking idea that somewhere, at some point when society’s eyes are closed or when the occasion makes it possible. But if you see a thing to be totally useless regardless of its social significance, you just cast it out. It then goes to the perimeter of your being so that you don't consider it again.

When the synthesis of these coloured beings has been found, people become aware that there is a definite gain and so they make a mental note that they are not going to lose it again. For instance, European music will not let go of the influence of Negro music again because it is so manifestly obvious that the rhythmical side of the dark man is far superior to the rhythmical side of the white man. So it won’t let go of it. They seem to have traced the folk music and so on, even into classical music. In the same way, the Negroes who didn’t bother about a lot of things in the external world, as the white man did, when he sees that bomb drop, then he says, “That is violence,” and he won’t forget it. He is saying that no matter how good the trumpet blowing is we must remember also how to make a bomb. No being ever voluntarily relinquishes power, once gained. So we needn't worry about H.G. Wells’ complete loss of all culture and intelligence and so on. It has never occurred yet, historically. There have been attempts to burn libraries to destroy learning by little individuals, locally, but there has never been a world wide attempt to do so because the men who are trying even to keep things from the public, at least, don’t want to keep them from themselves. Some books that were burned in Alexandria a long time ago and in China a long time ago and books that were burned by Hitler are still in the libraries because some men recognised their value and preserved them while denying them to the populace in general.

We will return to this question of the tensions inside. In the light of this three-fold analysis and about saying “We” as opposed to “I”. You know, people in general, when they say “I” are not referring to the observer. They are referring to a conceptual entity. When a child looks round the room, it doesn't say “I” to begin with. It doesn’t think anything. It won’t think until it has had a sufficient number of pains. Those pains add up to negations and those negations are forms. They are ideas. When it has a sufficient number of those then a collection of pleasure ideas and pain ideas will be separated into two departments and identification will occur with the ones causing the pleasure and a name will be written, usually the one conferred at baptism but sometimes a nickname, a name will be conferred on all the pleasant ideas and similarly the unpleasant ones will be called, just the others or, those blokes on the outside. The name written is written on a conceptual group of ideas. It is not written on the observer. To write that name on the observer is the work for a grown man to do, for an adult mind to do deliberately. So, when there is a tension, the “I” of an ordinary person feels that tension. That tension is internal to the conceptual group of ideas that constitute that egoic being, that individual.

In Buddhism there is a doctrine, the Anatta Doctrine, the doctrine of the known ego. It says there is no permanent self, meaning, of the order referred to by people in general when they say “I”, because what they mean when they say “I” is a group of ideas which are pleasant to them to identify with. Being a group of ideas that has been assembled, it must at sometime dissolve. So there is no permanent ego in the sense in which the ordinary man uses it. Nevertheless, there is a supreme consciousness which is the true “I”, (eye) which sees all there is to be seen. If you look at the tensions inside you from the point of view of the conceptual I/eye, then you will be mechanically shaken by it because the eye is a mechanical device, this conceptual eye. The tension within it must produce a mechanical effect and if you are identified with the finite I/eye, then you will suffer because you will be under the law governing that conceptual group. But, if instead of identifying with that I/eye, you identify with the true I, the all-seeing eye, then that tension will be seen to be internal to a little conceptual group, just one of millions and millions. When you identify with the Absolute I, think of it as an eye looking with no name. Don’t name it in the individual sense but identify with it and then look back at that little eye, the conceptual group that you name and your friends think they know about. Look at the tension internal to that eye and then look at that little I internal to the social relations with other little Is. That way you will be able to see the plan of the relations of the forces functioning between those little Is and from the Big I you will know precisely where to insert a new force. That you cannot do if you are identified with the little I.

The little I is, necessarily, dark. Christ says if the eye is the light of the body and the eye is dark, how great is the darkness, but, if the eye be single then the whole body is full of light. I, the single eye, is the same as the Absolute eye and it means that your purpose is not plural. In order to have a non-plural purpose you must be able to act absolutely.

Acting Absolutely is probably the most interesting thing in modern philosophy. When you act relatively you are acting on A to get B or on B to get C. You are using things as means to ends so that in the relative act you are never acting immediately. You are acting mediately, with a mediator. You are doing A for B or B for C, but in the Absolute act you only do A because A is worth doing, immediately. Most individuals, and lower individuals necessarily, act always A for B, B for C, C for D and never anything for itself. If you can pick out the act that is worth doing on its own account and do it and never do an act for the sake of another act then you are acting absolutely. The Absolute keeps the whole universe in being Absolutely and immediately, not as a means to something else.

Supposing a doctor gives an anaesthetic to a man. Does he give the anaesthetic in order to do the operation or does he give the anaesthetic so that the man will not feel any pain? If he conceives that the anaesthetic is done so that he, the doctor, can do the operation, he is using the anaesthetic as a means to allow him to get on with the operation. This is because, in the old days, when they were sawing a man’s leg off without an anaesthetic, the man tended not to keep still! It is acting Absolutely if you give the man an anaesthetic because an anaesthetic is a good thing in itself, but if it is for something else, it isn’t Absolute.

In exactly the same way, if you say something nice to somebody, to another person in order to quieten them, it is not an Absolute act but if you say something nice to them because it is a good thing to say something nice to them, that is Absolute. You should always aim for that in a particular situation, what particular act is worth doing for itself as opposed to being a mere means to another act.

This is the chief problem of modern philosophy at the moment. There is just a little spearhead of thinkers tackling this problem of the Absolute, the action that is not a mediator to another action. Everybody knows that a businessman is polite to get business, but that is not acting Absolutely. If a man could actually think that business was good as such and do it, that would be acting Absolutely, but if he only does business because he wants to go to Paris, that is not Absolute. If he wants to go to Paris he should go there and when he is there maybe he should absolutely do some business as well, but he has to get the thing in the right perspective so he can see precisely what is worth doing at the moment and not for the sake of something else.

Supposing you were eating a meal and suppose you put food in your mouth and when you were little, your mother told you that you must chew your food because if you don’t you will get indigestion. So, you chew your food so that you will not get indigestion. That is not acting Absolutely. But, supposing you chew it because chewing is a good thing and while you are chewing you are enjoying the chewing. If you are not thinking about avoiding indigestion, you are thinking what a good thing chewing is, good old chew. You will actually chew more efficiently when you do so and subsequently, benefits will arise from it, as they do from all immediate action. But, it is not for these benefits that you are doing it. It is for itself.

Question: Is it a kind of detached concentration?

Answer: Yes, but it is paradoxical because you are doing two things simultaneously. A boy may take a girl to the pictures, when he is sixteen, meet her inside because it is economic. If he takes that girl to the pictures so that he can enjoy the picture better then it is not an Absolute act. If he takes her because he wants to take her, not in order to see the picture, merely to take her, that is alright, it is Absolute. But if he takes her so that she will give him a piece of her Devon Cream caramel then that is no longer Absolute! To keep your eye on the Absolute action at the moment is the same thing as continuous remembrance because you cannot do it unless you are reflexively self conscious.

Comment: What about people like Huxley taking lysergic acid and different things in order to have mystical experiences?

Answer: That is no good. The Manchester Guardian made a remark about him when he did his mescalin experiments. It said –“We thank Mr Huxley for now telling us about, first hand, what he has been telling us about, for so many years, second hand.” It is not the right way. The only way to get where he wanted to get is by doing something he could not do. He was a literary man and he conceived everything that he did in terms of a book to be written about it. He was not acting Absolutely. He was considered to be one of the foremost exponents in America of the Indo-Advaita philosophy. He was spreading non-dualism and the essence of non-dualism is that you don't do something for something else, you do it for that thing. You don’t take that girl out because your best boyfriend couldn’t and asked you to take her out for his sake. If he does ask you to take her out for his sake, you take her out because it is a good thing to take that girl out, purely. You see the thing as it is without any mediation attached to it.

The buying and selling that Christ condemned is the same thing as mediation. To do A for B and B for C is buying and selling, but to A or B or C for A or B or C is absolute action. When God acts on an atom and makes that atom behave in a certain way, He does it immediately, not in order that another atom could behave in a certain way. He acts on another atom so that can be an atom and then He acts on the pair of them and brings them together because bringing them together is a good thing too. So He is not making atoms in order to make molecules because that is a serial, temporal concept. He makes all the atoms because atoms are good and He makes all the molecules with those atoms because molecules are good, not because they are good for atoms but because they are good for molecules.

Statement: This means that science has got to the point where it must be through philosophy, looking for that very concept being discussed. A T.V. programme showed the ridiculousness of the old method of looking after the facts, by building a colossal model of a cell because they managed to multiply it a million-fold on an electron microscope. This was in America. This was just stupid because they left themselves with the same question with which they started.

Answer: The mechanics of it are marvellous. In the nineteenth century they discovered how to make a little bit of acid like you will find in a biological organism and they shouted immediately, “We have discovered the secret of life!” When they find they can make, synthesise, a little bit of chemistry that an organic thing makes mysteriously without a lot of noise, they think they are already on the way to discovering life, but the very mode of science is concerned with manifest forms. A manifest form is not an explanation of life and can never become so. The Field is a living intelligence. It manipulates those entities that scientists peer at through an electron microscope and then makes a model of but they can't make a model of the Field because there isn’t one. Scientists are committed to study effects and no study of effects in a temporal series can ever add up to that which is behind the effect non-serially. Let us look at the fact that you get a man and a woman, still existing, carrying seeds inside. The biologist looks at them and sees there is something there goes into there and that another being comes out. It is a very nice and simplistic piece of chemistry and yet they say, - we haven't quite solved what it is in the first place, that causes them to come into conjunction. Why is it that by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, that a little thing in one place with a definite chemistry and another thing in there, of a certain kind of being with another definite chemistry, and for some reason, the bearers of these two things are constrained into bringing them into contingent relation? Why? How? It is utterly unknown and must remain scientifically unknown because science is committed to study effects not causes. Cause is power, power is Infinite. Science is not committed with the infinite, it is concerned with measurables and therefore with finites. It does a lot of good work. It makes refrigerators in America, but it can never solve the unsolvable. To solve is to wash away the binding factors and disclose the discrete factors of a relation but in between all those things they find is the cause, the power which is keeping them in being and it isn’t possible to deal with it scientifically. It is possible to use it, like electricity is used, without knowing what it is.

Because the will centre in a human being is identical with the Absolute, when you get hold of your will power, when you feel will in yourself, you are actually contracting that field of causal absolutes. To close my hand, I have to contract certain energies. Those energies are not other than the Absolute energies. If I can get control of my causal self, my will, then I am doing something forever denied to science.

Question: Is it by becoming aware of the ability of the will to do these things in small things that you are able to develop the faculty to do bigger things?

Answer: Christ said, “Faithful in little, faithful in much.” If you do a little simple exercise like that and find out what you really do when you contract your hand to close it. Find out, in your brain, what you really do in order to find the forgotten cerebral activity. What do you actually do? Supposing you want to remember Aunt Nell. How do you select out of the mass of information filed in your tissue, precisely that and then how do you conjure up a visual impression of her walking backwards down the stairs because she was too fat to go down frontwards? How do you do it? Look in your mind very carefully and you will find these association mechanisms at work and you will see what causes you to go one way rather than the other.

Here the tape becomes inaudible and only parts of a question about a shock happening can be made out.

Panic would arise when energy is released, not the panic cause the energy release, but when the energy was released, it shocked you. If you could have remained very, very still then you would have found something out about it. You should be quite prepared for all sorts of strange phenomena in the body and say whether there are bangs or ringings of bells or flashes of light is just part of the phenomena that arise doing certain exercises. Give yourself a suggestion, - “I will not be frightened of these things. I will watch particularly points of arising and the perimeters to which they depart and disappear.” That way you can learn about the chakras, the zones of energy in the body. The important thing is to cast fear out absolutely and that can only be done by loving the subject matter. Perfect love casts out fear. If you really love the subject matter you wont be afraid of any of the phenomena arising in the study of it. You will be delighted.

Statement by the questioner: The peculiar after effect was a fine kind of trembling, a peculiar tingling.

Answer: What you had actually done was got onto another plane, an unusual plane, that is, a different frequency, of process in consciousness and because you were not habituated with it, it startled you and made you interfere with the process. Most processes are stopped before they can develop properly, through this panic arising. You can learn from it if you tell yourself before you start, “If anything peculiar occurs, I will not be afraid because it is mine, it is myself. I am steady in myself. What ever happens I am just going to watch it, see where it comes from and where it goes to.” There are certain exercises, which when you do them, raise the level of consciousness to such a pitch, that you can actually see the association of ideas as a mechanism functioning very, very slowly, as if on a slow motion film. You can see nervous impulses travel along. You can see them come to certain junctions. You can see little lights coming on like on a pin-table. You can see ideas and visual images springing up in those lights and you can see what is directing them, fundamentally. The will is driving them and inertia in such associations is simply previously established will. All the things you have ever liked in the past, all the things you have ever feared in the past have established resistances, electrically, and certain chemical states too, inside the organism. You should never be afraid, no matter how horrible the phenomena because they are only you. They are not other than you. You should not be frightened of losing yourself even if your little individual concept of yourself is disintegrated

Notice, you don’t have to like the positivity and dislike the negativity, you can do either with either because in a given situation, to construct a relation.