As we have selected a rather unusual title and topic for this series of instructions perhaps it will be wise to establish a certain background relating to the author whose works we are to Examine in the first place General Albert Pike whose life covered the greater part of the 19th century was one of the outstanding men of his time his career was so broadly Diversified that he brought to almost any subject with which he was concerned not only a profound theoretical
Scholarship but also a wide personal experience covering more activities than are crowded into the life of the average person General Pike belonged to the same family as zebulun Pike the Explorer and he belonged to a period American background and we find that his family reached America in the 17th
Century and from that time on have become an essential part of our Tradition general Pike himself presents a number of interesting remarkable facets perhaps one of the most unusual is his struggle for an education he was of a considerable family and his father was of humble means therefore from the beginning it
Was necessary for a pike to find his own way he early exhibited a remarkable scholarship and by the time he reached College Years he passed successfully every examination necessary for his Rance into Harvard he also was one of those young men who found it necessary to work his way to an
Education and he prepared as best he could for what he regarded to be an essential form of training in the unfoldment of his own instincts and desires finally having attained a sufficient amount of funds to pay for the first part of his Scholastic year he made the long and difficult
Journey to Harvard some say on foot in order to conserve what means he had arriving there he was informed that his Scholastic standing was satisfactory in every way but that he could not enter the college unless he could pay for both terms or one year’s work
Being utterly unable to do so he was cced to give up his hope for at that time apparently there were no scholarships available as today this was said to have been his first heartbreak and it was not entirely compensated for when in his older years Harvard offered him an honorary
Degree at that time he declined with thanks saying that when he had come in need of an education they could not provide it and by the time they had so graciously offered it he no longer stood in need of it this particular point is one of many
Anecdotes and as we go through the series we will occasionally introduce some of these but we do not wish to make the entire evening anecdotal so that uh we will pass on to a few important points finding education on a formal level more or less closed to him by his own
Poverty uh Pike followed the general practice of young man of his time and went West in the course of this journey he went along through Missouri and finally came into New Mexico and stopped for some time at T from there he proceeded into the Indian Country uh establishing a trapping uh
Line or servicing a group of traps in order to make a living it was with his early contact with the Indians that he came to have certain understanding and appreciation for their values uh and these were to form an important part of his later career after other vicissitudes he finally settled in
Arkansas where he became known as a good Arkansas gentleman in these days also he supported himself by School teaching and gradually became a more or less influential member of the Arkansas Society of the time if we wish to so designated he improved himself in law and finally became an outstanding lawyer
And the records of the period of his residence in Arkansas show that he was involved in nearly one-third of the litigations in the area he was elected also to office and assisted in preparing the papers for the incorporation of the city of Little Rock in these same years he took an
Interest in newspaper editing became the temporary manager of a newspaper and owner thereof a a procedure which has been noted as having resulted in an marked literary Improvement mement in the journal but apparently the journal also weighed rather too heavily upon him and he finally relinquished most of his
Influence in journalism in order to continue his practice of law life moved on with him uh in this way until the Civil War at which time he received the commission a brigadier general in the Confederate Army and it is from then comes his title of General he was given command over a
Large group of American Indian soldiers and this was one of the most difficult positions which he was required to fill uh at that time the Confederacy was very much afraid that the Indians would become involved in the Civil War and that therefore every effort should be made to regulate and direct their
Activities in a more or less orderly manner General Pike was given this difficult matter to handle and he later became also involved in the great Cherokee migration which is one of the rather unpleasant episodes in American history one of the most terrible experiences through which the Indian
Ever passed needless to say Pike was on the side of the Indian in this uh way his life went on and with it a continuous process of scholarship uh his home was at one time surrounded by Union Soldiers while he was in the Army not there with the
Intent of burning it down but when the commanding officer saw the library and other evidences of extraordinary scholarship in the house he placed an honor God around it and would not permit the house to be injured in any way with all other Confederate officers of the time he lost his citizenship of
Course but this was personally returned to him by President Johnson and with it he was relieved of most of the burden from which at that time Confederate officers were suffering after this period in his life we begin to see the rise of his new and perhaps one of his most dynamic interests in
1857 Albert pite was coronated as an honorary 33rd degree Mason of the ancient and accepted Scottish right of the Southern jurisdiction a year later he became an active member which was a participating member this might sound as though the general had come up in the world quite a bit but
In the time when he received this degree there were less than a thousand Scottish Wright masons in the United States it has been said of him that he found masonry in a log cabin and left it in a palace gradually his interest in masonry increased later when he was raised to
The honor of the Supreme Grand Commander or Sovereign Grand commander of the Scottish right of the Southern jurisdiction he devoted his life almost completely to Masonic research gradually his centered more and more in Washington and the closing years of his life were spent there uh the um fact that he was raised
To His Highest Masonic honor uh exactly 100 years ago has caused masonry throughout America and Europe to set aside a special celebration in honor of this circumstance we may also point out that in the day of General Pike Freemasonry in particularly in its higher degrees lacked most of the integration and
Sublimity with which modern masonry has been enriched therefore General Pike in his great work the magnumopus which is not available to the public uh rewrote completely the rituals of the Scottish right from the fourth to the 32nd degree and also made very definite Provisions for the 3 third and last
Degree into this work which he did uh General Pike involved the total pattern of his scholarship and these rights today are rich in philosophical values which would otherwise not be so apparent if present at all in his scholarship General Pike was more or less a Pioneer in America in as
Much as he extended his work into feels comparatively unexplored he devoted a great deal of time to the Mastery of the Hebrew language and was able therefore to translate very large parts of the zoha and the talmud from the original his manuscripts on these subjects and others
Are in the House of the temple another side of his scholarship is that he was he completely translated from the Latin the Roman law this was an enormous undertaking and carried him into a very broad field of legal research uh further than this he became a master of the Zen language and
Translated the great religious Classics of the Persians particularly the Zend Vesta he also went further than this in his attainment of a knowledge of Sanskrit and was therefore able to also leave in manuscript and partly published forms his translations of the vadas and the great classical works of India for a man constantly
Laboring not only under restricted means but under a tremendous load of responsibilities we can see that he accomplished a great deal there is a story told of him that while he was in Washington where he used to love to sit by his window and watch his Canary birds
In their cages and smoke his very long pipe which uh unfortunately some of his successors attempted to smoke with very serious results uh news came that a very distinguished scholar from Europe with certain abstract problems in philology uh was searching for an educated American having visited nearly all of
The universities including the one that Pike did not get into he was ready to leave and return to Europe because he had found no one whose knowledge was broad enough or deep enough to meet his needs therefore at this time someone suggested to him have you ever gone down
To Washington and talked to General Pike he said he never had gone there he had never heard of General Pike and who was he but he was finally convinced that the brief detour would not do him any great amount of harm so he went down for an afternoon and spent 6 months
During this time as he afterwards expressed it he had found the educated American uh Pike’s personal memory went back a long ways to the time when as a young man he had shaken hands with the Marquee de Lafayette his entire life running from about 189 to about
1891 therefore covers a very large part of our American scene during this period he has remembered perhaps as he was photographed for the great civil war photographer Brady in Washington as a very large man with a long black frock coat white hair hanging and ringlets on
His shoulders and a full beard he is said to have been exceedingly picturesque on one occasion while he was away on a trip word was received by his friends in Washington that General Pike had met a sudden and an unfortunate death it was the wrong pipe but no one
Knew it at the time so a celebration a kind of a wake was held for him by his intellectual cohorts of various kinds and um just as the celebration was reaching its uh height General Pike walked in the door uh fortunately the doorbell was answered by an underling of some kind
Who explained to him quickly the situation Pike saido not say anything just take me into the next room where I can sit and listen while nice things are being said about me so he listened until he he felt that he really had been duly honored and then he made an
Appearance uh this he said was to his mind perfectly correct and the anecdote is preserved under the title of the wake of a good Arkansas gentle gentlemen Pike’s sense of humor in masonry as well as his scholarship has never been forgotten there is an old Legend which probably is more true than
Otherwise that when the time used to come for him to confer the 33rd degree upon some likely and proper candidate he would get into a dashb board buggy with the candidate sitting on the back with his feet hanging over the uh back of the wagon uh they would then take enough
Supplies for a very pleasant and convivial time and ride out to a quiet spot along with the TOA uh Pike would sit on one end of a log and the cond candidate on the other and when the refreshments had been finished the candidate had been duly raised uh Pike’s U attitudes on all
Things were not only were not only profound but delightfully human he had none of the heaviness of scholarship he was a genial Pleasant capable person and one of the last things relating to him perhaps of interest is on his deathbed in the last few days of
His life the general was unable to speak but shortly before his death his friends noted that he moved his hand very quietly and very feebly to the wall alongside of his bed and there he traced on the wall the Hebrew letter Shin it was one of the last things that
He ever did by this word by this character he implied the word Shilo which means peace and those are that was probably the last known important action which he performed the General’s attainments therefore divide into several groups and in 1957 the Supreme Council through its librarian has prepared an outline of the
Works writings manuscripts and papers of General Albert pite and through the courtesy of the House of the temple we have a copy of this and we might note that although uh about a dozen Pages or maybe 20 are devoted to various anecdotes and other material the rest of the book is
Nothing but a classified listing of his work running into hundreds of volumes so that he presents an interesting situation now this in itself might justify his inclusion in U a discussion of course such as we contemplate but I think there were two other points that are very interesting and important General Pike’s
Scholarship was during his own time widely recognized he was a man whose attainments in the fields of of philosophy comparative religion and related subjects were outstanding perhaps almost unique possibly the only contemporary rival that he may have had was Professor Max mu the great German orientalist as a result of this unusual
Attainment it has long seemed that his writings while in many instances related particularly to the subjects of Freemasonry with which he was most concerned his writings extend far beyond this field far beyond what might be termed uh such material as is of exclusive Masonic interest it enters into almost every Department of
Knowledge therefore it seems appropriate that he and his work should be remembered in the field of General philosophy in the field of comparative religion and in all other fields in which his remarkable achievements have lasting value it is a Pity that works which are basic which represent the highest levels of personal
Scholarship uh should be neglected merely because they have been associated with a fraternity The Works stand completely on their own and as such we wish to uh discuss them and to a measure the philosophical attitudes and principles uh which general Pike not only believed and taught but exemplified in his own
Conduct so with these preambles perhaps we can go to the subject of the evening uh which cuts across both Masonic and non-masonic Fields because it certainly belong very closely to the study of comparative religion and as such uh to the interests that we all have among the Lesser known writings of
General p in addition to his principal text morals and Dogma are his lectures on Masonic symbolism which are limited in addition to 100 copies of each work and one of these lectures or one of these works is devoted to the analysis of the omara or the sacred
Name and uh as it is touched upon also in morals and dogma and also in another work of Pikes the Sean it seems that it might be an interesting point with which to open our general consideration of his philosophy naturally Pike was convinced as most students today are that there were in
Antiquity not only in the western Nations but also in the Eastern Nations schools of esoteric philosophy schools which prescrib certain profound and particular disciplines for the cultivation of man’s internal life these schools were the Mysteries and they were cherished respected and honored in India China Greece Egypt and even into the Roman
Empire these schools taught by a series of symbolic processes causing the individual to grow or unfold by a process of intuiting from emblems symbols allegories fa tables and parables in the beginning therefore General Pike want wants to point out that the language of the Mysteries was never a literal
Tongue not because perhaps men wish to conceal but because those things which men most desire to know cannot be communicated with words man can cannot merely be told a truth greater than his own capacity to understand therefore the only way in which that can be imparted for which there is not
Already an available content of understanding is by means of symbols symbols are important because they cause the individual to increase his own understanding by the contemplation of them they cause him to draw out from himself a background or a subconscious power to know which he has not as yet uh
Advanced in a factual or objective manner therefore symbols teach by persuasion they introduce they excite they stimulate they challenge they are like the child’s riddle they cause the individual to desperately in one way or another seek to understand them he feels himself frustrated by his own ignorance he cannot allow this condition to
Continue so instead of merely seeing and forgetting he sees and and examines by examination his attention is focused by this attention his concentration is stimulated by concentration in turn his Insight is strengthened and he begins to search in himself for any shreds any fragments any parts of things previously known which
Can have a bearing upon this new mystery and first of all he discovers that there is more knowledge in himself than he has suspected he discovers that by uniting all his resources he can grow forward toward a more adequate explanation of the thing which he seeks to know this is
Good orientalism in basic principle it is the problem that lies behind the vast image pageantry of Asia if the person is without imagination if he is without desire for insight if he is not in any way stimulated beyond the obvious then the symbol remains a locked and literal
Mystery but as he says general Pike says in his work the great heritage of masonry and in this he refers also by a broader meaning to any symbol that has descended within a body of philosophy or religion that the great heritage lies in these emblems in these figures which meant
Something which inspired and guided and which were left as landmarks for those who came after inviting the individual not merely to listen but to search but to Quest in himself for the meanings locked within the symbols a good symbol there therefore a great symbol is not immediately
Exhaustible in fact it may not be even remotely exhaustible it is something that continues to mean more as we become capable of understanding more therefore we can go back over the book of symbols and each time we read it or look through it or scan it uh we
Bring to bear upon it the latest acquirements of our own consciousness though the symbol is forever unfolding like a flower not because it changes in its own nature but because our natur is changing are reflected upon the surface of the device or emblem but man by the
Very nature of him can never totally un outgrow the symbol because it continues to unfold as he grows uh actually almost to Infinity he is always finding more in the symbol because there is more in himself this is a key perhaps to a great many things it seems to me for example
That it is a very good key to Holy scriptures for we know how frequently and wonderfully these works are quoted each person will quote them to support his own immediate interpretation but as he changes the interpretations change and in the United States alone the Christian B is subject to more than 500 principal
Interpretations each derived from the same text but each revealing a different degree of insight a different degree of personal reaction uh to idea and to the content behind Parables allegories and phrases thus it is that the symbolical or emblematic form of instruction based to a degree upon the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphical
Method constitutes the kind of education that the word education itself implies from uko meaning to draw forth or to bring out of the individual that which is in himself this is one of the basic principles upon which Pike developed his entire wealth of symbolism deriving it from innumerable ancient sources
Bringing it together into magnificent dramatic patterns weaving these elements into a rich tapestry for the contemplation of those so minded also as those of us realize who have worked even with tapestries as such there can be long association with a great product of the goblin uh tapestry factories and each time we look
At the Magnificent work we see something new and this ability to Forever see something new uh takes us away from the prosaic and once more and particularly it takes us away from the dogmatic a symbol is not a Dogma a symbol does not say to you thus
You Shall Believe or that you shall deny a symbol does not force upon you an incomprehensible meaning nor does it bind you to a decadent one it is constantly new it constantly binds you only to your immediate appr receptive power the symbol means what it means to
You now regardless of what it meant to the Ancients or May mean to The Unborn future thus this becomes a tremendous method a tremendous scientific procedure for the enrichment of man and the increase of of his knowledge now among the symbols that have had particular interest to us for a
Very long time has been that which deals with the sacred name of deity and this particular symbolism as Pike observes is almost universally diffused among the most primitive peoples there are certain taboos and restrictions upon the pronouncing of the name name of God uh these restrictions are to be pre
Frequently found in the early Jewish metaphysics relating to the Old Testament where the name of deity was not permitted to be used and wherever it occurred in the Sacred Scriptures another word or another name adoi was given in order that the sacred name might not be spoken even when the mastic points were
Added these points were the ones taken from another word so that still the original pronunciation of the Divine name was concealed the U Egyptian myth or Legend of istar commanding Rey the sun deity to reveal his secret name is another example of the same in Africa each
Native is given a secret name and any person who is able to possess that name possesses the soul of the man these Legends go very far back we find them among the American Indians and we find them also in India and in China and in Japan and the concept not only extends
To Hinduism and Persian philosophy but also descends into Buddhism and continues down to our present time in the Book of Revelation for example it is stated that the person who overcomes or is successful under the trials will be given a new name or a secret name written upon the broken halves of a
Stone a white stone the parts of the stone are then rejoined and bound together so that no one may know the name except the one to whom it is given in the early Egyptian right for example in the cultural history of Egypt each Egyptian was given two names one
Was his milk name which was given to him at Birth his child name when he reached maturity he was given a temple name a name which was said to have been calculated for him by the priests to exemplify particularly his own deepest and most valuable attributes or
Qualities it is uh common of course also uh that the giving up or the casting away of a name has an important meaning in the ancient times for instance the idea of name had to do with a kind of identity the individual and his name more or less were in sympathetic
Spiritual relationship to each other the name therefore was the person the person in turn was the name if therefore an individual uh decided to change his way of life he might very well change his name and this was especially true in connection with the monastic orders of Europe wherever a person entered
Priesthood or became a monk or a nun they took a different name they gave up their Earth name they gave up their mortal name and usually took the name of a saint or some Sanctified person by this was a final uh we shall say renunciation of self to give up the name
Was to give up self to give up identity uh to cease all egoism or to cease all emphasis upon uh selfness or the importance of an individual or personal career or Outlook toward life these practices widely diffused and continuing among many people even to the present time undoubtedly
Originated in a very ancient system of culture in the New Testament we are told uh that there is a peculiar malediction A peculiar um curse to be raised against any person who shall change a name or a word of the text that uh even in this this sense
Translation is a violation of this original concept now some will assume for instance that this means only uh a great piety or Orthodoxy or perhaps some magical overtone but such apparently was not the original in intention the concept seems to be the same as that expounded by Pythagoras of
Samos in other words the name becomes a curious key to the thing named by this I mean that nearly every name uh indicates the principle the situation the condition the factor which the word itself has been applied to thus for example in the Old Testament the name of
Moses is something which contains within it a cabala a secret meaning and those possessing the knowledge of the art may take from the name the true meaning of the thing represented by the symbol thus the true identity of this person whom we know was not actually named
Moses but to whom this name was given the identity is concealed in the name the same was true of Pythagoras himself he pointed out that his own name Pythagoras was the master key to his entire system of instruction if therefore this name was taken out of its original language so
That it could no longer uh be analyzed by the mathematical philosophy involved in that language with the correspondences between numbers and letters between between mathematical formulas and the shapes and structures of letters if these were changed then the key to meaning was lost for that reason it was always held
That the name was most important that the name was the immediate landmark by means of which a mystery concealed beneath a name could be uh quickly deserved and the entire statement or the symbolic pattern involved with the name could be reorganized changed and directed into the full statement of its true
Meaning this situation we find uh frequently In classical literature where the names of the Greek gods the names of the Egyptian deities the names of the Hindu deities the names of the Chinese divinities all the these are not merely personal names they are philosophical formulas by means of which a new
Dimension of understanding is possible and in each one of the countries involved including China India and Arabia there are definite arts or Sciences by means of which these names uh can be uh opened there is a key to them the key which turns seven times in the lock the key which twisting back
And forth in an involved combination formula results for example in the unfoldment perhaps of an entire text out of one name this type of thinking is unfamiliar to us and we probably have more or less neglected to develop it at the same time we know the ancient
Did and the principles of it are preserved in the cabala under the noton and gatria the ways of breaking open names or words and through the study of them to correct errors which might otherwise creep into uh our thinking and our philosophy General Pik points out uh that deities of various
Levels nearly always have peculiar word combinations involving certain specific and definite numbers of letters the great Jesuit priest scholar athanasius ker developed what he called his design of the 72 names of deity these 72 names are all composed of four letters and represent an almost Universal diversity of
Roots that the number four therefore had a particular and peculiar significance in relationship to certain deities we have to remember we must also remember that the number three is also carefully and definitely associated with another order of divinities and the number seven with still a different
Order we also realize that IUS in his discussion of the gnostics uh points out this mysterious being a creature devised symbolically a kind of diagrammatic person upon whose body uh the letters of the alphabet were completely distributed throughout out the body Pythagoras tells us for example that in the pronunciation of the word
Pythagoras it is necessary for the mind to energize a series of levels of sound that these sounds in turn have forms that these forms in turn are the bases of ideas and that in the mere pronunciation of these names such as the name of Pythagoras a tremendous vibratory circumstance occurs
Within the constitution of the individual in the Gnostic symbolism we have the seven raid lion deity the lion headed uh mythis in the round the head of this deity are placed the seven vowels and the name of the deity is composed of these vows now we also find in rela to the
Same Gnostic mystery in the concept of the Christos we find the statement I am the Alpha and the Omega the first and the last the beginning and the end when in the case of the nosis the central letter is added then we find in the gnostics their
Form of the ineffable name consisting of the vowels a I and O now this a IO combination reversed rearranged inverted returns in a great many ancient languages because it represents certain primary sounds these sounds in turn having to do with the essential nature of deity in the east Indian philosophy we
Have a word that is generally trans ated or transliterated into the letters om this word however in the original actually consists of three letters although in the sounding and arranging of them this has been more or less neglected more correctly perhaps if we wanted to transliterate we would come
Upon a o m or a m because of the structure of language now as you also know in the ancient languages u and v were interchangeable and uh even in early English this is true even as late as the Elizabethan period the u v form and the W were
Interchangeable so AUM aom or AVM uh stand together to represent something these the symbol for which uh the principle for which the symbol stands is that of the Supreme Being yet the Supreme Being is not merely indicated by what has been termed a monosyllable but what is really two
And 1/ half syllables it’s a very peculiar structural form but now when the Hindu approaches this this subject he tells us for examp example that these three letters uh become the first letters of three words uh that a stands for Agy the principle of fire that the UV Oro for which are
Interchangeable stands for veruna which is the principle of water and the m stands for the mahut or the principle of air therefore we have these three letters standing for three elements Fire Water and Air now for instance in your hermetic rights fire is calculated or held under the name Herm which means
Flame Therefore your deity or your great teacher Hermes represents the principle of fire now in the same uh concept for instance uh we have another symbol which has occurred in your alchemical situation and that is the deity or goddess aphroditus or Aphrodite the principle of water if therefore in the alchemical
Process you marry fire which is Hermes to aphrodi which is uh water or you achieve the marriage of the Sun and Moon you produce what is called in alchemy the hermaphrodite the Hermes aphroditus which means the fire water the male female god nature Heaven Earth and uh the words themselves become
Of great importance to us now in the ancient uh legend of the building of Solomon’s Temple we find in the Bible that a very cunning workman by the name of hyam was brought to assist in the development of the temple ornamentations and artifacts now here is one of the interesting
Examples of what happens when we make a mistake in the ancient language the Hebrew letter H and CH are almost identical the only difference is that in the CH a stroke is slightly separated from another stroke which is uh which Pardon Me In H the stroke is separated and in
The CH it is not the figures are identically the same in general appearance therefore the term Hyrum has come out of a CH r i instead of an hir thus we have kuram kyum instead of hyam now when we take it in this form we have ch r R and
M we have the three letters of the of the language we have the CH the r the me which mean fire air and water and we are exactly back to our Au in India therefore we must search for something which justifies this we must seek if we can to find out
Why uh this CH or the fire symbol was used in connection with this person we know that he was a cunning Workman in metals and we also know that fire is the only element that will work Metals so that it has to be fire but this is the
Hermetic fire the fire of the Mysteries the fire of transmutation the fire of regeneration the fire which temp tempers steel the fire which takes base metals and fuses them permitting them to be Worked and Under This Fire we therefore have an appropriate symbol of the creating power and the great religions of
Antiquity of course included in ancient times the worship of fire the worship of the principle of life as fire in the Indian East Indian system therefore our sacred name contains the roots of the three powers the three basic qualities by means of which Earth is moved we may say therefore that fire
Represents spiritual content that water represents psychical contact or content and air represents intellectual content we come therefore further into the idea of a Triad composed of spirit soul and mind we further find that the fourth element is always left out the element of Earth therefore we have a quarternary
Consisting of three agents operating upon a fourth power or principle thus by such analysis we can begin to apply uh the meaning of certain words using them as methods for the discovery of valid principles concealed beneath words why in the ancient rituals and symbolism should the name of
Deity uh be regarded with such peculiar veneration and to be regarded also as something that must not be revealed in ancient times and in the mraic rights of the Persians the name was also used in connection with the altar as a symbol of the veil the name was the link between the
Deity or the being defined and the one defining thus man approaching deity approaches first the name of deity this is the sacred name composed of flames that was said to have covered the face of the ancient of ancients in the old cabalistic Legends those seeking to penetrate the mystery of God were first
Of all faced by what were called the army of the name which was a very interesting thing that returns to us again in Egypt the army of the name this Army formed the god of honor it protected the substance or the subject of the thing named from
Profir you could not escape from the facing of the name wherever you turn uh you were confronted not with the thing itself but with its likeness or appearance therefore paracelsus also tells us that nature is a Divine writing and that every form that we see around
Us is a kind of symbolic alphabet or element of a symbolic alphabet that all things together spell out things and that this spelling out forms words forms patterns and makes available ideas actually however name now in the Hindu philosophy becomes a very important thing in itself
Actually in the Hindu system and also in the Persian aveston system in which the whom hm appears as a prominent Factor the name becomes both the cognizable and the knowable aspect of something in itself unknowable we may speak the name without knowing the nature therefore name and nature are not in philosophical
Mysteries entirely identical we may remember the words of the of bandik who names it shall never find it and for the one who finds it it needs no name thus name becomes in a sense a veil it is the army of letters that conceals the truth and the individual who is content
To accept the name Will Never possess the fact Socrates gives us this same Priceless bit of information in another way in which he discourses with his disciples concerning the difference between name and nature he asked a disciple what a certain thing is and for example we will
Say the disciple says Master this is a carrot so the master said fine that is what it is uh now what is a carrot well a carrot Master is a vegetable uh well if it’s a vegetable what kind of a vegetable is this and the disciple says Master this is a carrot
And by that time Socrates smilingly says say yes and now my ignorance is complete yet how many of us have been accustomed to name substitution for idea there is scarcely an idea that we possess that hasn’t died in the naming there is practically no principle which we seek in which our desire to
Discover is not satisfied merely by name instead of searching for idea content we call things by names that have been given to them true if we are to believe Genesis these things were named according to their Natures but their Natures are concealed in the names only by
Gatria to discover the meaning we must penetrate the veil or the name therefore in the Mysteries the name was emblazoned upon on the Gate of the sanctuary but it was a it was so emblazon as to be undecipherable concealed in some symbolic form that might not easily be captured or
Known it identified the house of the garden but it did not reveal the garden in the same way nature as the Great Name identifies the house of cause or the house of principle but it does not reveal the principle it shows us a series of symbolic depictions of principle but as
Long as we are willing to accept the shadow for the substance the name for the thing named we are in a desperate situation of ignorance here is where Modern semantics is stepping in in an effort to relieve us from the burden of name we name a
Person and yet in naming them we accept them without knowing them yet we regard the fact that we possess their name as important we know or believe that if we can call a person by his right name he is a friend if we call him by his first name
He is an intimate friend or a relative but called by any name he remains unknown for actually the name is Never As far as our thinking is concerned enough to provide us with the substance for which that name stands the name therefore is applied to a being a condition a situation or a
Fact yet by this we have only the stimulation of a general identification or orientation we do not have the substance this furthermore points points out the danger of the total substitution of the spoken word for idea it reminds us that the essential facts we desire can never be communicated by word
Alone and also reminds us as the Greek pointed out that we have come into the Sovereign difficulty of all we now have come to think with words this is a very important thing when an idea comes to us today even out of ourselves this idea before it is even
Concreted is expressed in our own Consciousness by a name we give it a name before we have even formulated it we think with words and because words have sunk into us from a great many Association factors they have become like tiny blocks with which we attempt to build up
Ideas therefore we array a word against a word and believe that we are toying with ideas which we are not we have never permitted ideas to have the freedom from the word now certain ideas are very sacred and these ideas are protected by symbolic words but come ideas which we
Should know are not protected they are bound they are hell they are imprisoned ideas are incarnated in words and having thus taken embodiment they come under the same restrictions as all embodied things words are born like bodies they have a life and they die languages are Bor flourish for a time
And die the meanings of words are born flourish for a time and die and in our constant growth We Are Forever changing the meanings of words therefore none of these meanings have essential stability all this might sound quite a long ways from philosophy but it really
Is not it is an essential thing to be contemplated and considered and in your Indian thinking the word always represent presents a kind of test an initiation the possibility of penetrating beyond the word the P the possibility of passing through the Gateway of the word to discover if possible the substance
Behind this elusive shadowy form another strange thing about words is that like all other symbols they are not identical in meaning to different persons and the same words spoken by one to another will have a different meaning if spoken by that other to still another words therefore are not adequate
For the transmission of idea they merely permit us to pass and exchange and barter certain common goods but as we go deeper into meaning we have to find another method of communication uh Dr bre Ed the University of Chicago pointed out that it was his opinion that when shampoo
Broke the Egyptian hydrog glyphs giving us the For the First Time The a power to read this language which had been locked for a long time probably better than 18800 years that actually this breaking down of the barrier through the Rosetta Stone was not what had been in
Hoped he was convinced Dr breard that the Egyptians had two complete languages which they held together by one set of hieroglyphs they had a language for the preservation of ordinary knowledge and they had a sacerdotal language in which they used the same glyphs with a totally different
Meaning that the outer form and the inner form were only apparently the same the priest therefore could write in the common character and the reader would come to some common knowledge but not the original meaning which only another person of the same understanding as the writer could actually
Comprehend in Europe This same procedure drifted into ciphers in which sudden or secret meanings were concealed within familiar word patterns and could only be discovered by those possessing the key to the decoding of the cipher thus we have a whole group of factors involved in this concept of
Words and their relation to religion and philosophy ultimately this means that the exhaustion of idea in in philosophy requires a far greater knowledge of language and of words than we have realized this implies then that ultimately language will have to move into the philosophic group because only when we have this
Knowledge uh can we rapidly Advance certain ends which will otherwise remain obscure for example in the New Testament we are inclined to think that the stoning of Stefan marked the first Mar of Christianity that Stefan who has since had a very important place was a person’s name actually this is not the
Case if there was this man and he was stoned unfortunately we do not know his name because to the student of language it becomes immediately obvious that Stefan could not be his name because Stefan comes from Stefani mean which means a winner in a public competition this man had either been a
Winner in the games or in some rhetorical competition he had been crowned with the stefanic crown therefore he had the distinction of having been so honored the fact that he was so honored has been forgotten and now it is presumed that his honor is his name another example is the uh famous
Mystery surrounding the identity of MDC king of Salam we are not at all sure who or what this MDC may be because the name doesn’t tell us it is not a name at all it merely tells us that this man was a priest of zedak that he was therefore a priest of
An ancient deity and we have must search in the Mysteries and the rituals and the symbolisms of the cult of zedak for the things we have now merely summarized together under the name of a man that uh this uh follows through is also into the second part because he was king of
Salem now we of course think of Salem inevitably as a place but Salem means simply peace he was a prince of peace he was a holy man and the fact that he was or was was not from any Community has no value in the decoding of the thing for
Which he stands a point which is still locked Scholars because they have tried to make these things appear historical that there may have been such a priest we do not deny but this the importance of him and his place in the scripture deals with an entirely different
Subject also we find a point which I think is maybe worth mentioning in this respect the Habit that has long survived of identifying the deities of One Faith with the Evil Geniuses of another whenever a faith has been overthrown by its adversary and another religion has taken its place the old
Gods have been slowly but inevitably transformed into demons so in medieval demonology we have a whole group of evil spirits Prince of Darkness princes of Darkness all of them derived in some way from honorable terms of another faith for instance when we uh wish to think of utter and complete uh confusion
We perhaps will follow uh the thinking of Milton in his Paradise Lost where he makes the evil spirits to abide in pandemonium now the word pandemonium is derived from the word pan Which was the nature deity of the ancient Latins and Greeks and to a measure of the North African
Egyptians Pan the the basic term of our word panic also and also of our of our prefix pan pan Amer Pan Pacific simply means in the sense of spreading over all or covering all or including many things paname would be all the Americans considered together and pan was the God of all
Nature but uh he had the body supposedly of a goat with hoofs and the horns of a ram or goat and he grad gradually got transformed into our traditional devil simply because he was no longer fashionable another good example is beab Prince of devils he is Bal Zeo my Lord
Who sings that one of the highest and most important good deities of the Babylonians each one of these terms has thus gotten into trouble the demon of Socrates became the demon of medieval theology quite a different meaning entirely uh but the attendant God guides and guardians of one became the tutelary
Infernal spirits of another and our name Lucifer from Lux Pharaoh simply means the bearer of light and has nothing to do with the connotations now associated with it thus names uh have again been perverted for various purposes and uses and about this we must sometime stop and give pause and thought
The mithraic rights of Persia uh following the older Zoro ason and zerran cult uh developed around the mystery of the ineffable name the symbol of life in the Egyptian Mysteries uh the supreme power of life was represented by the c aneta or the anad cross a cross in the form of a tea
With a loop of above the center of it the ANS cross was the original nyom meter a device used by the Egyptians in estimating the inundation of the Nile if the river failed to raise sufficiently to cause the cross to be formed by the meeting of the beams there was not
Enough water to ensure the crop and therefore uh there was no life there was not salvation this symbol later became a concealing form for the word or the ineffable name itself and is shown issuing from the mouth of rameses the great on the carvings the little cross comes out of
His mouth at the time when he spares the life of an enemy or pardons a criminal or something of that nature it is a sign of forgiveness or the return of life the Reb bestowing of life in ancient times the life principle uh as general pite points out
In his interpretations of the zoha the life principle was also associated with the concept of generation which means to give life therefore in the earliest symbolism the ineffable name or power is associated also with the concept of the generative force of nature or of the universe and in its earliest forms we
Still find traces therefore of the old agrarian Cults and we find forms and traces of primitive phallic worship or the worship of the principle of generation one of the most sophisticated and highly evolved of all these great systems of thinking comes to us of course through the
Hindu and today we are most likely to contact the omara or sacred name in the teachings of yoga vant or perhaps Northern Buddhism in these systems the name plays a comparatively vital part because it is said to possess certain power and the methods for the pronunciation of the name are held to be
Of the highest sacredness in the great concept of the Jad gurus uh the master presents the mystery of the name to his successor prior to the departure of the master uh out of this life or into permanent retreat in some place where he’s no longer to contact the world the passing
Of the name the pass ing in this case of the mystery of the vibratory significance of the omara formula is held to be the Supreme indication of Enlightenment of course the moment you approach this in the Eastern way you come upon a series of very interesting but confusing
Symbols in the first place from the older writings we know that the word now known as the ineffable was originally not regarded as in any way secret or mysterious in itself most of the Vic hymns and the great prayers of the Rick beta particularly uh open and close with this
Word and there is no doubt that by derivation and by extension we will find that it lies behind the use of the word am men in connection with our own uh religious observances am men of course being derived directly from the Egyptian but uh indirectly from Asia amen being the name of a
Deity rather than a salutation or a statement of uh respect veneration or a closing or terminating of a sacred session the uh our man of course is supposed to divide sacred from profane utterances or concerns and is to separate our common speech from any speech related to Holy
Matters in the um use of the umara formul therefore it was not actually the word itself that was sacred it was the use of it what it stood for for and how the understanding of it was to be applied in the ancient times then this word which was divided divided into
Three essential parts or two complete parts and a half part A Time a time and a half time which we find referred to in sacred writings having to do with this particular problem the omara is first of all a symbol of a total concept and I’m going to draw from
An entirely different source for just a moment because I want to clarify a symbolism by means of reference uh to the Japanese system of flower arrangement and in the konobo style the formal flower arrangement formula all of the elements of design are reduced to three and these three are referred to in
The older text as the blossom the bud and the leaf now the leaf and the blossom are a time and a time and the bud is a half a time there is again a mathematical formula because the bud is not yet complete it is only a part through the
Combination of these three factors the leaf The Blossom and the bud an infinite diversity of symbolic Arrangements can be produced each of these Arrangements testifying to a total fact a total or complete uh experience or a reality when the konobo master has completed his basic flower arrangement he will
Probably not any longer leave merely these three he will extend them as the Pythagoras extended the principal points of the tetrace which are the three points of the upper part of the Pyramid of 10 dots these three are the roots and in the eobo system again we
Have the three and the Seven making 10 for the master of the flower arrangement having prepared or placed his three elements will then involve these elements with seven secondary combinations these seven combinations apparently obscuring the three or hiding them a remind ER that in ancient times it was assumed that there were actually
Seven vowels but in the development of the science of the Sacred name only three of those vowels are ever used the others are not used relating as they do to a less sacred matter and in the ancient Hebrew language there were only three vowels and seven consonants which is said to be the
Reason why our ancient Hebrew friends early developed the tendency to talk with their hands there being not enough letters or words available to them and it was only after ages in which the language became sufficiently Rich for it no longer to be actually necessary to use a kind of
Diagrammatic use of hands gesture and motion which incidentally also occurs in your mudas of India of which there are three and seven essential groups or patterns now when your flower arrangement is complete and you contemplate it you then begin the process of the gradual acceptance of a supreme mathematical
Formula a formula that moves through everything a formula which according to both Hinduism and Buddhism has been stamped upon the whole face of the universe Therefore your flower arrangement in its little bowl rises from rocks which represent the Earth or the fourth principle unnamed and it rises in the form of
Three living things each of a different length each with a different relationship and these in turn unfold or enclosed by additional lines mathematically derived from the iching or the trigrams of the Chinese by means of which ultimately a total design is invoked or brought into existence if you study these three
Arrangements therefore you can also turn to Oriental art which is based upon your flower arrangement formula here You observe that your picture always consists of three parts Heaven Earth and man you find that the entire relationship is therefore factually mind body and person mind body and person indicates
For example that a mysterious Loom is set up the monocord Mundi of Pythagoras a mysterious bridge is used to span between mind and matter and this bridge that spans this interval produces a series of factors which ultimately cause what we call man therefore Heaven is the flower or mind is the
Flow body is the leaf because it does not bear fruit and the bud is man who is the potential God and from whose growth must ultimately unfold the entire mystery in the Buddhist Lotus which is often used in the same symbolism the Lotus becomes the living symbol of the ineffable
Word it becomes so because its roots are in the earth its stem passes up through the element of of water its surface and its Blossom Break Forth into air and its face is turned upward and nourished Forever by the Light of the fire of the sun therefore it ascends through the elements or
Qualities and in so doing tells us uh the essential pattern of life in Oriental art also every pattern must in some way be triangulated uh there must be in every Perfect Design the essential symbols involved in the great concept of the word for all these things are pictures of a kind of
Word thus you will find some very simple and uh conventional design you will find a mountain on on a painting you will find a representation of a mountain and at the foot of the mountain forests and in the midst of the forest a stream flowing and by the side of the
Bank of the stream an old man fishing there is a complete statement of the omara or the sacred word the mountains the sky the great distances represent Heaven uh the water and the earth below and the forest represent the element of Earth and always between them in some relation is placed
Man either fishing in the waters of life or contemplating or in some way taking his sustenance from nature but separated from it sometimes this old man may be riding a horse or a buffalo or some creature to indicate again that man rides upon his body which is another
Fact and by his body is bound to the element of Earth Below uh you will also sometimes see of other interesting thing and that is an Old Gentleman uh riding upon some kind of a creature and bearing in his hand a scepter or a long pole surmounted by a
Tassel of some kind the scepter if you examine it in the Chinese art is always composed of clouds the cloud scepter therefore here we have again the triangle The Oxen the man and the cloud scepter Heaven the scepter Earth the ox man writing between always the return of this
Triangulation now apart from the symbolism either in flower arrangement or in art statuary or in architecture where it frequently and almost inevitably occurs like the triple Dome of the Temple of Heaven in P King or in the triple-headed uh Brahma in the tramuta cave in in the harbor of
Bombay always this triangulation means something it means the intimate experience of the relationship of all that exists now how is this uh sacred monosyllable therefore to be pronounced and according to the uh the great Northerns system which has to do with the Turning of the wheel of the law the great dham
Chakra the word is spoken not by sound not by lip uh not in any of these words or any these ways it is spoken by a process of internal visualization actually the Thundering of names either before the temple or on the street cannot produce the solution to the
Mystery the thing must be spoken out of an experience of some nature it must be derived as the mudra posture is also an unspoken language but the mudra is not merely a means of conveying the udra is a means of experiencing within the self by controlling and directing
Motion it is all much more subtle than we might at first imagine so let us see now what uh we have here uh in our pattern of either the flower arrangement or the painting or the three letters which can be placed side by side or one above the
Other if we place them one above the other or in a hieroglyphical pattern attempting a totality let’s see what the three letters stand for if the three letters do begin with the principle of agne pass from Agy to veruna and from veruna to the mayh hats what are they
Actually telling us they are telling us that illumination or the total spiritual experience of man is dependent upon the inter relationship of three factors the first of these factors the fire principle is man’s own Consciousness the second of these factors in this case the air principle has to do with
Environment air is the frame in the Zen philosophy the frame upon the great picture of all things in other words air is associated in philosophy with the concept of the not self air is a mutable Factor invisible in its own nature and made visible only when it moves
Things if you were in a vacuum and air struck you you would not be aware of its existence but you might know there was wind if you saw a tree in the distance moving therefore air itself is invisible but is a cause of motion air then represents the total concept of
Illusion the not self phenomenon fire of numon these two are Heaven and Earth Heaven being the Transcendent self Earth being the transitory not self now between these two stands man symbolized by Pythagoras and all other teachers of importance by the number five the number five the pentagram or the five-pointed
Star in esoteric philosophy corresponds to the five sensory powers of man which form so to say the bridge between Heaven and Earth therefore we have internal Consciousness external the object of Consciousness or environment and between these two the bridge of knowing the bridge of communication represented perhaps by a
Little boat floating upon an ocean or upon a river thus we have the thing cognizing the thing to be cognized and the instrument of cognition if the instrument of cognition is destroyed in man man no longer cognizes if he loses his sight he is no longer able uh to see even though in
Consciousness he may possess the power to see the instrument or the media therefore is essential to the existence of the function or the process of a thing happening but Indian philosophy is not concerned only with this but with an important development of this theme so let us say uh for the moment
That we now have the blossom Consciousness the leaf the object of Consciousness the bud the unfolding means of Consciousness representing again the a the U and the M because the U was anciently a hook and represented a binder something that connects two separate things together and as the hook or the uh the
Can hook it is a symbol of man as the binder between two things if therefore we begin the contemplation of yoga or verant what happens you have often heard the expression that the individual on a certain occasion being greatly concerned in something or with something lost
Himself in his work you may have used the term with some uh frequency on one occasion IM man says I am lost in Ry I am lost in contemplation what he is telling you is I I am is lost that is what he is actually telling
You he is telling you for example that under the condition of an intensity his entire energy quotient is directed away from himself and toward something or is immersed in something the nagging parent complaining constantly over the difficulties of the occasion suddenly hears is the Cry of a sick child instantly the problem
Vanishes the nagging vanishes the selfe equation vanishes and the individual becomes lost in the significance of that cry we go to the motion picture we sit in a seat some distance from the stage with bobbing heads in front of us are we are looking upon a shadow uh cast upon a
Screen we know that our favorite Stars face as we look at it in a closeup has a mouth 9 or 10 ft wide perhaps and that also that this face is large enough to fill a bond door we realize that the whole thing is projected by a piece of Machinery that
There is no one there except a sound device and a shadow and yet after five minutes how many of you are aware of that in the very few seconds you become lost in the theme if the picture is worth seeing if you are aware of the
Details you should get up and leave the picture is not for you and nowadays people frequently do that but in a very brief time all of the peculiar stenographic shortcuts of theatrical production are forgotten you find it perfectly possible to make a transition of years in a few
Seconds you find people moving in and out of rooms without the common courtesy of opening doors it doesn’t bother you in the slightest you have accepted and while you are watching the picture what has happened to you where are you you have attained merely the position or condition of the
Perceiver you are not aware that you are the perceiver you are not aware that you exist you are simply an area of cognition if the picture is any good you may forget even for a moment some aches and pains that have annoyed you you forget the fact that taxes are due you
Forget the fact you have just had a religious argument with a friend these things cease why because you as a center of personal integration you have ceased you will come back the moment the scene changes or the picture ends or the commercials begin but even on the little screen of a television
Set you can still to a measure attain the same illusion you become identified with object and lose identity of subject now actually this is the phenomenon upon which the complete concept of samadi has been developed in eastern thinking it is also the concept cep that underlies the par of honor of the
Buddha cognition without self in other words the pronunciation or the envisioning of the power of the Sacred name and it is frequently represented on a mandala by a design or by a formula of letters uh as in the case of certain of the Japanese sect particularly niran in the
Nenu the entire formula of Salvation is an elaborate fantastic design of letters through the contemplation of which the individual attains illumination what is the illumination then the illumination is cognition without self it is the complete disassociation of the individual with his own Center of awareness this presents the great
Problem this is why in the Indian concept it is usual to place the omara or the sacred monosyllable or the mysterious character which is composed of Parts but appears to be one within a radiant oral of some kind raay pouring from it sometimes it is placed in the face of the sun sometimes
It is placed in a cup consisting of the Union of the Sun and Moon and as particularly relating to the Thousand petal chakra in the brain sometimes it is placed upon the open pedestal of a Lotus Flower again the lotus flower or the blossom representing by its unfolding the
Revelation of the omara or for the Divine name man seeking for the experience of the name must therefore attempt to define the nature of that Consciousness by which he perceives and without which and with which the same time he is without perception of his own existence now this is a very fine point
Yet while it is almost incapable of definition it is commonly and daily experienced by nearly everyone this is why who names it shall never find it and who substitutes the name for it or who spends his life in toning the mantrum will as the Ancients themselves pointed out fail in the
Work he why does he fail in the work because in the ENT toning of the mantrum he must by volition perform the action now the point of involvement in the esoteric system is that Insight completely removed from and apart from the volition of the will it makes possible the immediate apprehension of
Reality in other words the formula is that that which can perceive without being aware of the perceiving factor can and does perceive totally in that instant the universe bursts open and the individ idual beholds the radiant form of the symbol of the ineffable as long however as perception is
Dominated by the will to perceive as long as the individual looks because as long as the consciousness of you being the one who sees remains you you are captured on the bridges which link the internal and the external the moment your own sense of selfhood is permitted to stand between you and total
Apperception you will never totally apperceive why because immediately that which is seen Bears a relationship to the one seeeing the individual perceiving we will say a certain thing around him supposing he looks out and he beholds a house as long as he sees a house this in turn causes the
Rise of the qualities with in the nature by which truth is blocked the individual says I like the house I do not like the house I like the color of the house I wish I had the house I am glad I do not have the house the house is good the house is
Bad all of these re resemblances and all of these relationships are based upon the acceptance of the indiv idual as the judge of the house he has determined in terms of a kind of material utility that which he will permit himself to see and that which he sees he likes
Dislikes accepts or rejects upon the censorship of his own faculties thus in all of this procedure there can never be total definition total understanding total apprehension of house if however the individual perceiving is unaware of himself as the perceiver he does not con construe qualify or censor that which is
Perceived in VD and yoga therefore truth is is never further from any living thing than the power to perceive it without selfhood and it can never be any nearer than the self will permit it to be we are all seeking for the definition of truth truth is the absolute
Unconditioned fact of a thing it is that which absolutely is we can only perceive this when we neither add to nor subtract from the testimony of the a perceiving power of the individual and to achieve this we must suspend the faculties of comparison analysis acceptance and rejection
We must cease forever to say what does this mean to self and we must say what is this by thinking therefore the mandala concept the individual app perceives the nature of being from uh the nature or substance of the Omar formul now he may a perceive not only with his
Eyes he may I perceive also with his ears it is therefore absolutely necessary to disentangle the sense of hearing from the censorship of self-interest the individual who hears only to interpret will never hear the voice of the silence the individual who allows his ears to serve only as a
Channel between externals and his own ego will never hear more than the ago will permit but the total absorption of the perceiving power in that which is experienced in hearing is the secret of the Sacred mantrum and of course here again we are not dealing with something weirdly abstract and unbelievable but something
That you yourself can see even if you cannot participate in it by going to a great philarmonic concert or attending a great piece of symphonic music you will find the audience divisible into a large number of specialized groups way up in the less expensive seats the young students with a score watching every
Note and studying every part of the performance the individual who really was there by accident and wishes he was elsewhere who will fidget throughout the entire performance and feel that every composition is too long the individual who appreciates who says to himself I I know music therefore this is
Good it is the way I feel it should be the conductor is great or here is a version or a rendition with which I am not familiar I doubt it I am not willing to accept it as truly great because I have not already decided that it was
Great then you find the individual who is the true musician and he is the individual comp completely lost in the music he no longer knows that he exists he has discovered a universe of sound a total area like a great mandala a tremendous symphonic pattern of acceptances the music exists he does not
And he awakens from this piece of music with a start seeming to come back again into a world of conditioned existence in the vant and yoga we know that the individual who is totally identified with the music is not a listener he is the music he has bridged the interval which
Divides himself as a being from the the total experience which he wishes or which he is willing to accept he is no longer analytical he is no longer interested in composition alone or anything of that nature he is responding totally to the Sublimity of impact the totality of
Music thus we live in also in a universe of sound and we have something else we live in a universe of form while we examine form estimate it as the artist does we may be critical of this critical of that we are School bound we are worried about modernism we
Are worried about impressionism we are worried about the prer raites we are worried about this tradition against tradition against tradition then we have the individual who is the total artist the total artist is completely free from the boundaries and barriers of tradition he is seeking the experience of complete
Beauty if he attains that experience he is unaware of self he is aware only of beauty and being aware only of beauty he is beauty there is no longer any interval nor is there any qualification of beauty that which he experiences is eternal man seeking truth seeking God seeking The
Experience therefore passes through this patterned formula and this formula is contained in the concept of the three conditions which have to conspire wherever the situation of reality is possible therefore the name is at actually the anatomy and physiology of the divine nature therefore in the contemplation by vant of total
Being we are told that it may be experienced by different persons in different ways to one uh the suspension of ego in the absorption in the circumstance or in the condition itself May loose a universe of sound it may cause the complete experience of identity with
Sound or it may form an identity with color or it may form an identity with rhythm or motion thus was expressed in D ISM where reality is absolute rhythmic Motion in which the self is completely lost by being one with a motion which is so profound and so
Tremendous that there is no longer the possibility of experiencing the motion and still remaining self-aware in in the uh same system there is presented to the individual in vanta and yoga and in under the symbolism of the ineffable name the concept of a total and complete infinite being an infinite being variously
Described and defined but perhaps most available in Vidant at least by the concept of absolute and infinite love now in this concept of absolute and infinite love the mind has already been trained from that kind of affection which is truly personal to that kind which is truly Universal if therefore in the
Contemplation of the universe the Mystic but finds his total absorption or identification with the serenity the beauty or the Divinity of the Divine love or the infinite compassion of the universal existence for the creatures which it has fashioned then in this experience the individual ceases in the very fact of
Loving he becomes intimately emotionally identical with the totality of the universal emotion as he senses it feels it or perceives it without retaining any identity consequently what is true self the infinite self which lies beyond the conditioned self that very infinite self which is also symbolized by the omara
Emblem that infinite self is the state of you in which you are unaware of your personal self therefore you cannot say of this infinite self this is its shape this is its nature this it likes this it does not like nor can you say to your yourself this I will
Explore for the moment you turn your attention upon it your personal selfhood is reborn and the thing ceases immediately the true and absolute consciousness of life is that Consciousness which is all perceiving without self- perceiving that has no Center but is diffused throughout the entire area of its acceptances thus
Identification brings with it this total sense of knowing without the sense of a Noah without the fact that you know anything you are in a state of knowing but not in a state of self- knowing and in this suspension of all all faculties and all powers you have an ineffable
State an ineffable state for which no conceivable symbol can be devised in its own uh nature nothing can represent it perhaps the nearest thing to it would be light itself but in this sense of the complete power to experience without Central Focus you have infinite diffusion of self you have the possibility of
Pointing out the the situation described by the Swami vand namely this sudden realization that you are everything simply because you have ceased to be something man must be something or everything to be something is Earth to be everything is heaven to be growing from something to everything is to be
Man and this unfolding is represented by the bud therefore in the ancient symbol the a signifies the everything uh the M signifies the something the U is man you yourself the youu the hook the thing by means of which everything and something are in Eternal relationship to each other therefore within each individual
Is the infinite capacity to attain to everything by the absorption of Self in the contemplation of existence and whether this existence be a small flower growing in the garden whether it be a great painting by mikelangelo like the walls of the cinee chapel whether it be a magnificent piece of architecture
Like the Taj Mahal or a tiny inscribed Leaf of Vellum by some ancient monk that which causes the imediate sense of comprehension the immediate absorption of Self in the contemplation of that which is Superior or that which is more than meaningful whenever this occasion takes place the individual has the experience of
Samadi he has the experience of existing Forever Without existing as a person at all in those moments of complete Detachment from self there is neither beginning nor end old or young up nor down there are no attachments and no detachments there is a complete absorption and when this
Absorption is the result of man’s directing his attention to Sovereign reality so that he is able to have the complete experience of reality apart from selfhood when that occasion occurs he is said to have completed the formula and the form in which it comes may be one of three and each will sound
Its own keynote for in this final analysis three factors are related and the relation of these three factors makes the experience so that your real nature the Divine symbol in you is this mysterious thing by which you can be conscious of things without being aware that you are
Conscious thus awareness is less than Consciousness self-awareness blocks it but the fact that there is a kind of Consciousness Superior to Ego is demonstrated by its complete function free from ego in fact it’s perfect function under that condition this is only the beginning of our discussion but I see the time is up
So we’ll save the next of it rest of it for next week but we want to do a little more with the name and then we want to go on to another phase of General Pike’s research
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