Subtitles
he wrote to Ricardo Helms translation of 00:00:00
he wrote to Ricardo Helms translation of the Chinese Taoist text called the 00:00:03
secret of the golden flower it was young 00:00:09
who helped me to remind myself that I 00:00:13
was by upbringing and by tradition 00:00:15
always a westerner and I couldn't escape 00:00:18
from my own cultural conditioning and 00:00:23
that this inability to escape was not a 00:00:26
kind of prison God was the endowment of 00:00:30
one's being with certain capacities like 00:00:32
one's arms and legs and mouth and teeth 00:00:35
and brain which could always be used 00:00:38
constructively and I feel it's for this 00:00:43
reason that I have always remained for 00:00:47
myself in the position of the 00:00:49
comparative philosopher wanting to 00:00:52
balance east and west rather than to go 00:00:55
overboard with enthusiasm through exotic 00:00:57
imports but there are aspects of Jung's 00:01:01
work far beyond us that I want to 00:01:03
discuss and first of all I want to call 00:01:06
attention to one fundamental principle 00:01:11
that underlay all his work and that was 00:01:13
most extraordinarily an exemplar fired 00:01:16
in Jung himself as a person and this is 00:01:20
what I would call his recognition of the 00:01:23
polarity of life that is to say his 00:01:28
resistance to what is to my mind the 00:01:32
disastrous and absurd hypothesis that 00:01:37
there is in this universe a radical and 00:01:40
absolute conflict between good and evil 00:01:43
light and darkness that can never never 00:01:46
never be harmonized this conflict has 00:01:50
come up to us in a very vivid way in 00:01:52
recent days with the trial of Adolf 00:01:56
Eichmann 00:01:56
and with Arthur Koestler 00:02:00
passionate denunciation of any sort of philosophy of life and he's thinking in 00:02:11
mind he has in mind particularly Eastern 00:02:16
philosophers like my Buddhism and 00:02:19
Hinduism which so a slur the absolute 00:02:27
differences between good and evil that 00:02:30
in their name one could justify the sort 00:02:34
of crimes which were committed in the 00:02:36
concentration camps of Germany and it's 00:02:39
interesting to certain people accused 00:02:41
young also of Nazi sympathies because he 00:02:50
too would not subscribe to the absolute 00:02:57
state of a war between good and evil 00:03:01
going down to the very roots of the 00:03:04
universe 00:03:05
obviously when certain crimes and 00:03:12
catastrophes occur human emotions are 00:03:15
deeply and rightly aroused and I would 00:03:22
for myself say that were I in any 00:03:25
situation where an Iceman was operating 00:03:30
I would be roused to a degree of fury 00:03:30
that I can hardly imagine in my present existence but I know it would come out 00:03:42
from me I would oppose those sorts of 00:03:49
villainous with all the energy that I 00:03:52
have and if I was trapped in such a 00:03:55
situation I would fight it to the end 00:03:58
but at the same time I would recognize 00:04:03
the relativity of my own emotional 00:04:05
involvement I would know that I was 00:04:09
fighting a man like iseman 00:04:13
in the same way shall we say as a spider 00:04:19
and a wasp insects which naturally prey 00:04:23
upon one another and fight one another 00:04:25
do so that as a human being I would not 00:04:31
be able to regard my adversary as a 00:04:36
metaphysical devil that is to say as one 00:04:40
who represented the principal absolute 00:04:43
and unresolvable evil and I think this 00:04:48
is the most important thing in Jung 00:04:53
there he was able to point out that he 00:04:58
to the degree that you condemn others 00:05:01
and find evil in others you are to that 00:05:06
degree unconscious of the same thing in 00:05:08
yourself or at least of the potentiality 00:05:14
of it there can be Eichmann's and 00:05:19
hitler's and Himmler's just because 00:05:22
there are people who are unconscious of 00:05:26
their own dark sides and they project 00:05:30
that darkness outward into say Jews or 00:05:34
communists or whatever the enemy may be 00:05:36
and say there is the darkness it is not 00:05:39
in me and therefore because the darkness 00:05:42
is not in me I am justified in 00:05:45
annihilating this enemy whether it be 00:05:48
with atom bombs or gas chambers or 00:05:51
whatnot but to the degree that a person 00:05:55
becomes conscious that the evil is as 00:05:58
much in himself as in the other to this 00:06:02
same degree he is not likely to project 00:06:06
it on to some scapegoat and to MIT the 00:06:11
Muskrat and commit them as criminal acts 00:06:13
of violence on other people now this is 00:06:19
to me the primary thing that young saw 00:06:25
but in order to admit and really accept 00:06:30
and understand the evil in oneself one 00:06:33
had to be able to do it without being an 00:06:36
enemy to it as he put it you had to 00:06:40
accept your own dark side and he had 00:06:48
this pre-eminently in his own character 00:06:50
I had a long talk with him back in 1958 00:06:56
and I was enormous ly impressed with a 00:07:04
man who's obviously very great but at 00:07:06
the same time with whom everyone could 00:07:09
be completely at ease there are so many 00:07:12
great people 00:07:13
graded knowledge or great in what is 00:07:15
called holiness with whom the ordinary 00:07:18
individual feels rather embarrassed he 00:07:20
feels inclined to sit on the edge of his 00:07:21
chair and to feel immediately judged by 00:07:26
this person's wisdom or sanctity young 00:07:29
managed to have wisdom and I think also 00:07:31
sanctity in such a way that when other 00:07:34
people came into its presence they 00:07:36
didn't feel judged they felt enhanced 00:07:44
encouraged and invited to share in a 00:07:51
common life and there was a sort of 00:07:54
twinkle in Jung's eye it gave me the 00:07:58
impression that he knew himself to be is 00:08:04
just as much of villain as everybody 00:08:08
else 00:08:09
there's a nice German word in today 00:08:11
danke which means a thought in the very 00:08:13
far far back of your mind you only had a 00:08:16
hint at the danke in the back of his 00:08:18
mind which showed it showed in the 00:08:21
twinkle in his eye it showed that he 00:08:27
knew and recognized what I have 00:08:30
sometimes called the element of 00:08:32
irreducible rascality in himself 00:08:32
and he knew it so strongly and so clearly and in a way so lovingly that he 00:08:41
would not condemn the same thing in 00:08:47
others and therefore would not be led 00:08:51
into those thoughts feelings and acts of 00:08:55
violence towards others which are always 00:08:59
characteristic of the people who project 00:09:02
the devil in themselves upon the outside 00:09:07
upon somebody else upon the scapegoat 00:09:09
now this made young a very integrated 00:09:13
character in other words you know I have 00:09:16
to present a little bit of a complex 00:09:18
idea he was a man who was thoroughly 00:09:21
with himself having seen and accepted 00:09:27
his own nature profoundly he had a kind 00:09:34
of unity and absence of conflict in his 00:09:38
own nature which had to it this 00:09:41
additional complication that I find so 00:09:43
fascinating he was the sort of man who 00:09:46
could feel anxious and afraid and guilty 00:09:50
without being ashamed of feeling this 00:09:54
way in other words he understood that an 00:10:00
integrated person is not a person who 00:10:02
simply eliminated the sense of guilt or 00:10:05
the saint's sense of anxiety from his 00:10:07
life who was fearless and wooden and 00:10:11
kind of sage of stone he's a person who 00:10:15
feels all these things but has no 00:10:17
recrimination against himself for 00:10:19
feeling them and this is to my mind a 00:10:23
profound kind of humor now in humor 00:10:27
there's always a certain element of 00:10:29
malice there was a talk given on the 00:10:31
Pacifica stations just a little while 00:10:34
ago which was an interview with our cap 00:10:36
and our cap made the point that he felt 00:10:39
that all humans fundamentally malicious 00:10:41
now I was a very high kind of humor 00:10:44
which is humor at oneself 00:10:44
a real humor is not jokes at the expense of others there's always jokes at the 00:10:55
expense of oneself and of course it has 00:10:59
an element of malice in it it has malice 00:11:02
towards oneself the recognition of the 00:11:06
fact that behind the social role that 00:11:09
you assume behind all your pretensions 00:11:12
to being either a good citizen or a fine 00:11:15
scholar or a great scientist or a 00:11:21
leading politician or physician or 00:11:24
whatever you happen to be the behind 00:11:27
this facade there is a certain element 00:11:31
of the unreconstructed bum not as 00:11:36
something to be condemned and wailed 00:11:38
over but as something to be recognized 00:11:41
as contributed to one's greatness and to 00:11:46
one's positive aspects in the same way 00:11:48
that manure is contributed to the 00:11:50
perfume of the rose yun saw this and 00:11:56
Jung accepted this and I want to read a 00:12:01
passage from one of his lectures which I 00:12:05
think is one of the greatest things he 00:12:07
ever wrote and which has been very 00:12:11
marvelous thing for me it was in a 00:12:13
lecture delivered to a group of clergy 00:12:15
in Switzerland considerable number of 00:12:19
years ago and he writes as follows 00:12:24
people forget that even doctors had 00:12:28
moral scruples and that certain patients 00:12:31
confessions are hard even for a doctor 00:12:34
to swallow yet the patient does not feel 00:12:38
himself accepted unless the very worst 00:12:41
in him is accepted - no one could bring 00:12:45
this about by mere words it comes only 00:12:48
through reflection and through the 00:12:50
doctors attitude towards himself and his 00:12:52
own dark side if the doctor wants to 00:12:56
guide another or even accompany him a 00:12:58
step of the way 00:12:59
he must feel with that 00:13:02
and Psyche he never feels it when he 00:13:06
passes judgment whether he puts his 00:13:09
judgments into words or keeps them to 00:13:11
himself makes not the slightest 00:13:12
difference to take the opposite position 00:13:15
and to agree with the patient offhand is 00:13:18
also of no use feeling comes only 00:13:21
through unprejudiced objectivity this 00:13:24
sounds almost like a scientific precept 00:13:26
and it could be confused with a purely 00:13:29
intellectual abstract attitude of mind 00:13:31
but what I mean is something quite 00:13:33
different it is a human quality a kind 00:13:37
of deep respect for the facts for the 00:13:39
man who suffers from them and for the 00:13:42
riddle of such a man's life 00:13:44
the truly religious person has this 00:13:47
attitude he knows that God has brought 00:13:50
all sorts of strange and inconceivable 00:13:52
things to pass and seeks in the most 00:13:55
curious ways to enter a man's heart he 00:13:58
therefore senses in everything the 00:14:01
unseen presence of the divine will this 00:14:04
is what I mean by unprejudiced 00:14:06
objectivity it is a moral achievement on 00:14:09
the part of the doctor who ought not to 00:14:11
let himself be repelled by sickness and 00:14:14
corruption we cannot change anything 00:14:17
unless we accept it 00:14:20
condemnation does not liberate it 00:14:23
oppresses I am the oppressor of the 00:14:26
person I condemn not his friend and 00:14:29
fellow sufferer I do not in the least 00:14:31
mean to say that we must never pass 00:14:33
judgment when we desire to help and 00:14:35
improve but if the doctor wishes to help 00:14:38
a human being he must be able to accept 00:14:41
him as he is and he can do this in 00:14:44
reality only when he has already seen 00:14:47
and accepted himself as he is perhaps 00:14:51
this sounds very simple but simple 00:14:53
things are always the most difficult in 00:14:57
actual life it requires the greatest art 00:14:59
to be simple and so acceptance of 00:15:03
oneself is the essence of the moral 00:15:05
problem and the acid test of one's whole 00:15:08
outlook on life that I feed the beggar 00:15:12
that I forgive an insult that I love my 00:15:15
enemy in the name 00:15:16
of Christ all these are undoubtedly 00:15:18
great virtues what I do under the least 00:15:22
of my brethren that I do under Christ 00:15:24
but what if I should discover that the 00:15:27
least amongst them all the poorest of 00:15:29
all beggars the most impudent of all 00:15:31
offenders yea the very fiend himself 00:15:33
that these are within me and that I 00:15:37
myself stand in need of the arms of my 00:15:40
own kindness that I myself am the enemy 00:15:43
who must be loved water then then as a 00:15:47
rule the whole truth of Christianity is 00:15:49
reversed there is then no more talk of 00:15:53
love and long-suffering we say to the 00:15:56
brother within us raqqa and condemn and 00:15:58
rage against ourselves we hide him from 00:16:02
the world we deny ever having met this 00:16:04
least among will only in ourselves and 00:16:06
had it been God himself who drew near to 00:16:08
us in this despicable form we should 00:16:11
have denied him a thousand times before 00:16:13
a single had crowed well you may 00:16:23
think the metaphors rather strong but I 00:16:29
feel that they are not so needlessly 00:16:33
this is a very very forceful passage and 00:16:36
a memorable one in all Young's works 00:16:36
trying to heal this insanity from which our culture in particular has suffered 00:16:49
of thinking that a human being can 00:16:56
become hale healthy and holy by being 00:17:01
divided against himself in inner 00:17:04
conflict paralleling the conception of a 00:17:08
cosmic conflict between an absolute good 00:17:10
and an absolute evil which cannot be 00:17:14
reduced to any prior and underlying 00:17:18
unity 00:17:18
in other words our rage and our very proper rage against evil things which 00:17:26
occur in this world must not overstep 00:17:35
itself for if we require as a 00:17:40
justification for our rage 00:17:42
a fundamental and metaphysical division 00:17:46
between good and evil we have an insane 00:17:49
and in a certain sense schizophrenic 00:17:51
universe of which no sense whatsoever 00:17:54
can be made all conflict Jung was saying 00:18:00
all opposition has its resolution in an 00:18:03
underlying unity you cannot understand 00:18:07
the meaning of to be unless you 00:18:09
understand the meaning of not to be you 00:18:12
cannot understand the meaning of good 00:18:14
unless you understand the meaning of 00:18:15
evil even some Thomas Aquinas saw this 00:18:18
so he said the justice that is the 00:18:21
silent pause which gives sweetness to 00:18:24
the chant so it is suffering and so it 00:18:27
is evil which makes possible the 00:18:30
recognition of virtue this is not as 00:18:36
jung tries to explain a philosophy of 00:18:38
condoning the evil to take the opposite 00:18:43
position he said and to agree with the 00:18:45
patient offhand is also of no use but as 00:18:47
strangers in the doctor or exchanges him 00:18:51
the patient as much as condemnation let 00:18:58
me continue further reading from this 00:19:01
extraordinary passage healing may be 00:19:06
called Jung says a religious problem in 00:19:10
the sphere of social or national 00:19:12
relations the state of suffering may be 00:19:15
Civil War and this state is to be cured 00:19:19
by the Christian virtue the forgiveness 00:19:22
and love of one's enemies that which we 00:19:27
recommend with the conviction of good 00:19:29
Christians as applicable to external 00:19:31
situations we must also apply inwardly 00:19:34
in the treatment of neurosis 00:19:36
this is why modern man has heard enough 00:19:39
about guilt and sin he is sorely beset 00:19:43
by his own bad conscience and once 00:19:46
rather to know how he is to reconcile 00:19:49
himself with his own nature how he is to 00:19:52
love the enemy in his own heart and call 00:19:55
the wolf his brother the modern man does 00:19:59
not want to know in what way he can 00:20:00
imitate Christ but in what way he can 00:20:03
live his own individual life however 00:20:06
meager an uninteresting it may be it is 00:20:11
because every form of imitation seems to 00:20:14
him deadening and sterile that he rebels 00:20:17
against the force of tradition that 00:20:19
would hold him to well trodden ways all 00:20:23
such roads for him lead in the wrong 00:20:25
direction he may not know it but he 00:20:28
behaves as if his own individual life 00:20:30
were God's special will which must be 00:20:33
fulfilled at all costs this is the 00:20:36
source of his beggar ism which is one of 00:20:39
the most tangible evils of the neurotic 00:20:41
state but the person who tells him he is 00:20:46
too egoistic has already lost his 00:20:48
confidence and rightfully so for that 00:20:51
person has driven him still further into 00:20:54
his neuroses if I wish to effect a cure 00:20:58
for my patients I am forced to have 00:21:01
knowledge the deep significance of their 00:21:03
egoism I should be blind indeed if I did 00:21:07
not recognize it as a true will of God I 00:21:11
must even help the patient to prevail in 00:21:14
his egoism if he succeeds in this he 00:21:17
estranges himself from other people he 00:21:20
drives them away and they come to 00:21:22
themselves as they should for they were 00:21:24
seeking to rob him of his sacred egoism 00:21:27
this must be left to him for it is his 00:21:31
strongest and healthiest power it is as 00:21:34
I have said a true will of God which 00:21:37
sometimes drives him into complete 00:21:39
isolation 00:21:41
however wretched the state may be it 00:21:43
also stands him in good stead for in 00:21:47
this way alone can he get to know 00:21:49
himself 00:21:49
and learn what an invaluable treasure is 00:21:52
the love of his fellow beings it is 00:21:55
moreover only in the state of complete 00:21:58
abandonment and loneliness that we 00:22:01
experience the helpful powers of our own 00:22:04
natures end of quote this is a very 00:22:12
striking example of Young's power to 00:22:16
comprehend and integrate points of view 00:22:20
as well as psychological attitudes that 00:22:22
seem on the surface to be completely 00:22:24
antithetical for example even in his own 00:22:28
work when he was devoting himself to the 00:22:31
study of Eastern philosophy he had some 00:22:34
difficulty in comprehending the let's 00:22:38
say the Buddhistic denial of the reality 00:22:41
of the ego but you can see that in 00:22:47
practice in what he was actually trying 00:22:50
to get at he was moving towards the same 00:22:53
position that is intended in both the 00:22:56
Hindu and Buddhist philosophy about the 00:23:00
nature of the ego just for example as 00:23:03
the Hindu will say that the eye 00:23:07
principle in man it is not really a 00:23:10
separate ego but an expression of the 00:23:12
universal life of Brahman or the Godhead 00:23:15
so Jung is saying yeah that the 00:23:19
development of the ego in man is a true 00:23:22
will of God and that it is only by 00:23:25
following the ego that one and 00:23:29
developing it to its full extent that 00:23:33
one fulfills the function which this you 00:23:38
might say temporary illusion has in 00:23:40
man's psychic life for he goes on and 00:23:43
says here when one has several times 00:23:45
seen this development at work one can no 00:23:48
longer deny that what was evil has 00:23:50
turned good and that what seemed good 00:23:52
has kept alive the forces of evil the 00:23:55
Archdemon of egoism leads us along the 00:23:58
Royal Road to that in gathering which 00:24:01
religious experience damar 00:24:03
what we observe here is the fundamental 00:24:06
law of life in an teardro mia or 00:24:10
conversion into the opposite and it is 00:24:14
this that makes possible the reunion of 00:24:16
the warring halves of the personality 00:24:18
and thereby brings the civil war to an 00:24:21
end end of quote 00:24:24
in other words he was seeing that as 00:24:30
blake said a fool who persists in his 00:24:32
folly will become wise that the 00:24:35
development of egoism in man is not 00:24:37
something to be overcome or better 00:24:40
integrated by opposition to it but by 00:24:45
following it it's almost isn't it the 00:24:48
principle of Judo not overcoming what 00:24:52
appears to be a hostile force by 00:24:54
opposing it but by swinging was the 00:24:57
punch or rolling with the punch and so 00:25:01
by following the ego the ego transcends 00:25:05
itself and in this moment of insight the 00:25:12
great Westerner who comes out of a whole 00:25:15
tradition of human personality which 00:25:17
centers it upon the ego upon individual 00:25:21
separateness by going along consistently 00:25:26
with this principle comes to the same 00:25:29
position as the Easterner that is to say 00:25:34
to the point of view where one sees 00:25:40
conflict which at first sight had seemed 00:25:44
absolute as resting upon a primordial 00:25:49
unity thereby attaining a profound 00:25:55
unshakable peace of the heart which can 00:26:01
nevertheless contain conflict not a 00:26:07
peace that is simply static and lifeless 00:26:13
but a peace 00:26:16
that passes understanding you've been 00:26:21
listening to Helen Lots with it 00:26:21
finishing off our lecture tribute to Carl Jung tonight and Alan Watts here on 00:26:34
WFMU you yeah we'll be right back in a 00:26:40
second with part two tonight's program 00:26:44
is seeing through the game taking until 00:26:46
7 o'clock and Joe Frank at that time 00:26:48
this is freeform listening sponsored wfm 00:26:51
you in Jersey City Alan Watts brought to 00:26:54
you every Thursday night at 6:00 you can 00:26:56
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P o box 201 1 Jersey City New Jersey o 7 00:27:01
303 stay tuned I suppose that some of 00:27:31
you have read very fascinating work that 00:27:35
was written many years ago by a CG young 00:27:37
the commentary that he wrote to a 00:27:41
translation of a Chinese classic by 00:27:44
Ricard vilhelm called the secret of the 00:27:47
golden flower now you may remember that 00:27:52
in that commentary he takes up the very 00:27:56
fascinating problem of the dangers 00:27:59
inherent in the adoption of oriental 00:28:05
ways of life by Westerners but more 00:28:09
particularly the adoption of oriental 00:28:11
spiritual practices such as yoga and I 00:28:17
remember I learned a great deal from 00:28:20
that essay and appreciated it very much 00:28:22
in ever so many ways 00:28:26
because even in my own fascination with 00:28:31
forms of oriental philosophy I have 00:28:35
never been tempted to forget that I'm a 00:28:37
westerner but as I think this essay over 00:28:44
I'm not sure that young discouraged the 00:28:49
practice of yoga by Westerners for quite 00:28:52
the right reasons 00:28:53
I find so often the difficulty in Jung's 00:28:58
ideas lies in his theory of history 00:28:58
which is I feel a hangover from nineteenth-century series of history 00:29:09
encouraged by Darwinism namely that there's a sort of orderly progression 00:29:20
from the ape through the primitive to 00:29:27
the civilized man and of course 00:29:30
naturally at that time that was all 00:29:32
hitched in was a theory of progress and 00:29:34
it was highly convenient for the 00:29:37
cultures of Western Europe which were 00:29:38
then a one-up on everybody else to 00:29:42
consider themselves in the van of 00:29:43
progress and when they visited the 00:29:45
natives of Borneo and Australia and so 00:29:48
on to be able to feel that they were 00:29:50
perfectly justified in appropriating 00:29:53
their lands and dominating them because 00:29:54
they were giving them the benefits of 00:29:56
the last word in evolution and therefore 00:30:03
under the influence of that sort of 00:30:05
theory of history which is felt in the 00:30:08
work of both Freud and Jung one gets the 00:30:13
feeling of there being a kind of 00:30:17
progressive development of human 00:30:21
consciousness and Jung is charitable 00:30:23
enough to assume that because the 00:30:24
Chinese and Indian civilizations are 00:30:27
immeasurably older than ours 00:30:28
they've had the first the possibility of 00:30:31
far more sophistication in psychic 00:30:34
development even 00:30:37
though he feels and probably rightly 00:30:39
that there are things they can learn 00:30:40
from us but the reason why he 00:30:43
discourages the Westerner from the 00:30:45
practice of yoga is that he says this is 00:30:47
a discipline for a far older culture 00:30:50
than ours which along certain lines has 00:30:54
progressed much further and has learned 00:30:57
certain things that we haven't mastered 00:30:58
at all yet 00:30:59
thus he points out that when somebody 00:31:02
embraces they don't or theosophy or any 00:31:06
yoga school in the West and tries to 00:31:11
master a discipline of concentration in 00:31:15
which they have to roust from their 00:31:21
consciousness all wandering thoughts he 00:31:24
says that this for a westerner may be a 00:31:26
very dangerous thing indeed because just 00:31:27
exactly what the Westerner meinen need 00:31:30
to do is to allow free rein to his 00:31:34
wandering thoughts and his imagination 00:31:36
and his fantasy because it's only in 00:31:38
this way that he can get in touch with 00:31:40
his unconscious and that his unconscious 00:31:44
will not leave him in peace until he 00:31:45
gets in touch with it he assumes the 00:31:48
members of Oriental cultures have done 00:31:50
this long before they went in for yoga 00:31:53
practice now I don't think this is quite 00:31:56
true but I do think there are other 00:32:00
reasons why Western people need to 00:32:07
exercise a good deal of discrimination 00:32:09
and cautioned in adopting Eastern 00:32:15
disciplines and ways of life in other 00:32:20
words it's rather like the problem of 00:32:22
taking medicine you know if you don't 00:32:25
feel very well and you go to a friend's 00:32:28
medicine cabinet and you can sort of 00:32:29
look it over and see bottles of medicine 00:32:31
in there and you said I'm sick I need 00:32:34
medicine so you take some medicine any 00:32:36
medicine will do well it won't and 00:32:36
according to what's the matter with you so the medicine has to be prescribed and 00:32:42
I don't think that the things which some 00:32:48
of the Eastern disciplines are designed 00:32:50
to cure 00:32:50
are quite the same things that we need 00:32:54
now it's fundamental to my view of the 00:33:02
nature of such forms of discipline as 00:33:05
Buddhism and Taoism that there are ways 00:33:09
of liberation from a specific kind of 00:33:13
confinement that is to say their ways of 00:33:17
liberation from what I've sometimes 00:33:19
called the social hypnosis in other 00:33:25
words every culture every society as a 00:33:33
group of people in communication with 00:33:35
each other has certain rules of 00:33:38
communication and from culture to 00:33:42
culture these rules differ in just the 00:33:45
same way that languages differ and a 00:33:48
culture can hold together on very very 00:33:51
different kinds of rules I won't say any 00:33:53
kinds of rules but very different kinds 00:33:55
of rules always provided that the 00:33:58
members agree about them whether they 00:33:59
are forced to agree whether they agree 00:34:01
tacitly or whatever the reason may be 00:34:01
and these rules are in a way it's very much like the rules of a game in other 00:34:09
words take a game like chess you can 00:34:18
have the kind of chess we play with an 00:34:20
eight square board or you can have a 00:34:23
kind of chess that the Japanese play 00:34:25
with a nine square board I doesn't make 00:34:29
any difference so long as you both play 00:34:31
on the same board and by the same rules 00:34:33
but since this is a chess as a game and 00:34:41
in the same way the development of human 00:34:44
cultures is also in a way a game that is 00:34:46
to say it's the elaboration of a form of 00:34:48
life and the fun of it in a way is the 00:34:53
fun of elaborating it in just some 00:34:56
interesting form that's the same as the 00:34:59
fun of a game the fun of a game is it 00:35:01
has a certain interest 00:35:03
but it doesn't follow that the rules of 00:35:08
the game correspond to the actual 00:35:13
structure of human nature or to the laws 00:35:17
of the universe the because in every 00:35:20
culture it's necessary to impress upon 00:35:22
especially its younger members that 00:35:25
these rules jolly will have to be kept 00:35:27
they are usually in some way or other 00:35:32
connected with the laws of the universe 00:35:35
and given some sort of divine sanction 00:35:37
and there are indeed cultures in which 00:35:41
the senior members of the group realized 00:35:45
that that's a hoax that that's as if 00:35:48
it's a made-up and is done to terrify 00:35:51
the young and when they become senior 00:35:55
members of the cult of themselves they 00:35:56
see through the thing but they don't let 00:35:58
on they keep it quiet they don't let out 00:36:01
- those were supposed to be impressed 00:36:02
that this was really a hoax to get them 00:36:04
to behave well anyway after a great deal 00:36:12
of careful study I've come to the 00:36:14
conclusion that the function of these 00:36:17
ways of liberation is basically to make 00:36:24
it possible for those who have the 00:36:26
determination and we'll see why in a 00:36:31
while to make it possible for those who 00:36:33
have the determination to be free from 00:36:37
the social hypnosis in other words if 00:36:42
you were a member of the culture of 00:36:45
India at almost any time between maybe 00:36:49
900 BC and 1800 ad it would be for you a 00:37:00
matter of common sense about which 00:37:04
everybody agreed that you were under the 00:37:08
control of a process called Karma not 00:37:13
exactly a law of 00:37:15
and effect but a process of cosmic 00:37:20
justice whereby every fortune that 00:37:25
occurred to you would be the result of 00:37:28
some action in the past that was good 00:37:30
and every misfortune that occurred to 00:37:33
you would be the result of some action 00:37:36
in the past that was evil and 00:37:37
furthermore that this action in the past 00:37:41
might not have been done in this present 00:37:43
life but in a former life it was simply 00:37:45
axiomatic to those people that they were 00:37:49
involved in a long long process of 00:37:52
reincarnation reaping the rewards and 00:37:56
punishments and there were not only 00:38:01
there was not only the possibility of 00:38:03
being reincarnated again in the human 00:38:06
form but if you were exceedingly good 00:38:09
you might be born in one of the heavens 00:38:10
the paradises and if you were 00:38:12
exceedingly bad you might be born for an 00:38:15
insufferable period of years not forever 00:38:18
in a purgatory and the purgatory is of 00:38:22
the Hindus and Buddhists are just as 00:38:24
ingeniously horrible as those of the 00:38:26
Christians 00:38:27
well of course everybody knows I mean 00:38:31
anybody seems to me have any sense that 00:38:33
all this imagination of post-mortem 00:38:39
Courts of Justice is a way of telling 00:38:43
people well if the secular police don't 00:38:46
catch you the celestial police will 00:38:48
catch you and therefore you would better 00:38:50
behave and it's an ingenious device for 00:38:53
encouraging ethical conduct now but 00:39:01
remember that for a person brought up in 00:39:03
that climate of feeling where everybody 00:39:05
believes this to be true 00:39:07
it seems a matter of sheer common sense 00:39:10
that it's so and is very difficult for a 00:39:15
person so brought up not to believe that 00:39:19
that is the state of affairs take an 00:39:23
equivalent situation in our own culture 00:39:27
it's still enormous ly difficult for 00:39:27
it's still enormous ly difficult for most people to believe that space may 00:39:29
not be Newtonian space that is to say a 00:39:36
three dimensional continuum which 00:39:39
extends indefinitely forever the idea of 00:39:42
a four-dimensional curved space seems 00:39:45
absolutely fantastic and can't even be 00:39:47
conceived by people Unversed in the 00:39:51
mathematics of modern physics or again 00:39:55
as I've often pointed out it's very 00:39:57
difficult for us to believe that the 00:40:01
forms of nature are not made of some 00:40:03
stuff called matter that's a very 00:40:09
unnecessary idea or from a strictly 00:40:11
scientific point of view but it's 00:40:13
awfully difficult for us to believe it 00:40:14
to believe in other words that there 00:40:16
isn't this underlying stuff and not so 00:40:22
long ago it was practically impossible 00:40:26
for people to conceive that the planets 00:40:30
did not revolve about the earth encased 00:40:34
in crystalline spheres and it took a 00:40:40
very considerable shaking of the 00:40:42
imagination when astronomers began to 00:40:46
point out that this need not necessarily 00:40:48
be so all right so now let's go back to 00:40:53
the problem of somebody living in the 00:40:55
culture of ancient India here it is as a 00:40:57
matter of common sense you see that he's 00:41:00
going to be reborn now the some perhaps 00:41:05
exceedingly intelligent person who for 00:41:12
one reason or another discovers that 00:41:14
this idea is not so after all when you 00:41:22
get such disciplines as Vedanta and 00:41:24
Buddhism they say that the ultimate goal 00:41:30
of the discipline is release from the 00:41:34
rounds of rebirth and incidentally also 00:41:37
which is fundamental to it 00:41:40
lise from the illusion that you are a 00:41:44
separate individual confined to this 00:41:47
body but so far as both of these things 00:41:54
are concerned they also say that the 00:41:57
person who is liberated from the round 00:41:59
of rebirth as well as from the illusion 00:42:01
of being an ego sees when he is 00:42:04
liberated that the process of rebirth 00:42:08
and the whole cosmology of reincarnation 00:42:11
and karma as well as the event 00:42:13
individual ego are in a way illusions 00:42:17
that is to say he sees that they are 00:42:19
Maya and I would like to translate Maya 00:42:23
at this moment not so much illusion as a 00:42:26
playful construct a social institution 00:42:26
so he sees you see that those things are not so they are only pretended to be so 00:42:35
and you see he ceases to believe in 00:42:45
karma and reincarnation and all that in 00:42:48
exactly the same way that a modern 00:42:50
agnostic no longer believes in the 00:42:53
resurrection of the body of the day of 00:42:54
judgment I I know this to be so because 00:43:01
although you will get very many Hindus 00:43:05
and Buddhists who say that they believe 00:43:07
in reincarnation and come over here and 00:43:13
teach it as part of the doctrine of 00:43:16
Vedanta or Buddhism the the most 00:43:21
sophisticated and the most profound I'll 00:43:24
say perhaps profound rather than 00:43:26
sophisticated Buddhist that I have known 00:43:30
have said that they don't believe in it 00:43:34
literally at all and so I could say that 00:43:42
those who do believe in it believe in it 00:43:45
simply because it's part of their 00:43:48
culture and they've not yet been able to 00:43:51
be liberated from it 00:43:51
and so it seems to me very funny indeed when Western people who become 00:43:58
interested in Vedanta or Buddhism that 00:44:07
is to say in forms of discipline to 00:44:11
liberate Hindus and Chinese people from 00:44:16
certain social institutions Western 00:44:21
people adopt it and then also adopt the 00:44:26
ideas of reincarnation and karma from 00:44:28
which these systems were designed to 00:44:30
liberate them of course they adopt them 00:44:35
because they feel it's consoling that 00:44:38
one will go on living and that wasn't 00:44:39
the point at all or that it explains 00:44:42
something that y1 suffered in this life 00:44:45
was not because the universe was unjust 00:44:48
but because you committed some misdeed 00:44:49
in the past and so Westerners who take 00:44:56
up the oriental doctrines in that spirit 00:45:01
unfortunately take up the very illusions 00:45:04
from which these doctrines were supposed 00:45:07
to be ways of deliverance now that may 00:45:14
be difficult to see just because so many 00:45:18
practicing Hindus and Buddhists say they 00:45:22
believe in reincarnation and this whole 00:45:25
process of the cycles of karma and so on 00:45:28
and they after all are practicing it and 00:45:36
they should know well now look here 00:45:39
there's a certain good reason where they 00:45:41
shouldn't 00:45:43
of course I'm making an exception of the 00:45:47
Indian or Chinese who has been educated 00:45:51
in western style and he ceases to 00:45:56
believe maybe in the cosmologies of his 00:45:59
own culture but he's not liberated in 00:46:02
the Buddhist sense because in receiving 00:46:03
a Western education he's become a victim 00:46:05
of our social 00:46:06
institutions instead and he's just 00:46:08
exchanged as it were one trouble for 00:46:10
another but when you take the situation 00:46:16
as it stands or as it did stand in India 00:46:20
isolated from Western culture obviously 00:46:24
no society can tolerate within its own 00:46:28
borders the existence of a way of 00:46:30
liberation a way of seeing through its 00:46:33
institutions without feeling that such a 00:46:39
way constitutes a threat to law and 00:46:42
order anybody who sees through the 00:46:44
institutions of society and sees them 00:46:47
for as it were creative fictions in the 00:46:50
same way as a novel or a work of art as 00:46:52
a creative fiction anybody who sees that 00:46:55
of course could be regarded by the 00:46:56
society as a potential Menace but then 00:47:03
you may ask well if if Buddhism and and 00:47:05
Vedanta and so on were indeed ways of 00:47:07
liberation how could Indian or Chinese 00:47:09
society or Burmese society have 00:47:12
tolerated their presence well the answer 00:47:15
lies simply in the much misunderstood 00:47:18
esotericism of these disciplines in 00:47:23
other words that those who taught them 00:47:26
the masters of these disciplines made it 00:47:29
incredibly difficult for uninitiated 00:47:32
people to get in on the inside and their 00:47:38
method of initiating them in a way was 00:47:43
to put them through trap after trap 00:47:47
after trap to see if they could find 00:47:50
their way through in other words such a 00:48:00
master would not dream of beginning by 00:48:04
disabusing the neophyte and saying well 00:48:09
you know all these things you heard from 00:48:10
your father and mother and teachers and 00:48:13
so on were fairy tales oh no indeed 00:48:13
he would do what is called in Buddhism exercise the use of rupiah the Sanskrit 00:48:25
word meaning skillful devices or 00:48:32
skillful means sometimes described as 00:48:36
giving a child a yellow leaf to stop it 00:48:40
crying for gold after all when you 00:48:47
approach one of these ways of liberation 00:48:50
from the outside it looks like something 00:48:54
very very fantastic here you are 00:48:59
literally going to be released from a 00:49:04
literally true and physical cycle of 00:49:08
endless incarnations in heavens and 00:49:12
hell's and all kinds of states and 00:49:16
therefore naturally to do that what an 00:49:18
undertaking that must be what a 00:49:19
wonderful extraordinary person you've 00:49:22
got become and so the neophyte is ready 00:49:28
for almost anything and the teacher 00:49:33
because the the fundamental problem in 00:49:36
this whole thing is for him to get rid 00:49:43
of the illusion you see that he's a 00:49:45
separate ego if there's no separate ego 00:49:47
or sort of soul then there's nothing to 00:49:50
be reincarnated so all the teacher 00:49:53
really in his all kinds of complicated 00:49:56
ways of doing it all that he really says 00:49:58
to him is well now if you will look 00:50:03
deeply into your ego you will find out 00:50:07
that it is a non ego that your self is 00:50:11
the universal self as he might say if he 00:50:13
would have a dentist or if he were a 00:50:16
Buddhist 00:50:16
he might say if you look for your ego 00:50:19
you wouldn't find it so look for it see 00:50:23
and really go into it and so he gets the 00:50:28
man meditating 00:50:31
and trying by his ego to get rid of his 00:50:34
ego well that is a beautiful trap it can 00:50:40
last forever until one sees through it 00:50:44
in other words this is like trying to 00:50:44
you know sweep the darkness out of a room with a broom or it's like it's 00:50:54
worse than that 00:51:00
loud sigh drugs are rather had a nice 00:51:03
figure for it beating a drum in such of 00:51:05
a fugitive that's to say you know when 00:51:08
the police go out because they've had a 00:51:10
telephone call that was a burglar they 00:51:13
come racing to the house with a siren 00:51:16
full blast and the burglar hears it and 00:51:19
runs away because of course to try and 00:51:25
get rid of the ego for ones advantage in 00:51:27
some way as an egotistic enterprise and 00:51:29
you can't do it well so of course the 00:51:33
student gets to the point where he 00:51:35
begins to realize that everything he 00:51:38
does to get rid of his ego is he good to 00:51:43
stick and this is the kind of trap in 00:51:52
which the teacher gets him until of 00:51:56
course he comes to the point of seeing 00:51:58
that his supposed division from himself 00:52:03
in to say I and me the controller 00:52:06
controlling part of me and the 00:52:08
controlled part of me the knower and the 00:52:10
known and all that is is firmly there is 00:52:13
no way of standing aside from yourself 00:52:15
in other words and as it were changing 00:52:18
yourself in that way but he discovers 00:52:21
this finally at the same time he 00:52:26
discovers almost at the last minute you 00:52:29
might say the fallacy or rather the 00:52:36
fantasy nature the game-like nature of 00:52:43
the system of cosmology which has 00:52:48
existed to as it were underpin or give 00:52:56
the basic form of the social 00:52:59
institutions of his particular culture 00:53:02
or Society in other words you may put it 00:53:07
in it in another way one of the basic 00:53:10
things which all social rules of 00:53:13
convention conceal is what I would call 00:53:17
the fundamental fellowship between yes 00:53:21
and now say in the Chinese symbolism of 00:53:25
the positive and the negative the young 00:53:27
and the yin you know you've seen that 00:53:29
symbol of them together like two 00:53:31
interlocked fishes well the great game I 00:53:35
mean a whole pretense of most societies 00:53:37
that these two fishes are involved in a 00:53:39
battle there's the up fish and the down 00:53:41
fish the good fish and the bad fish and 00:53:43
there's art for killing the white fish 00:53:46
is one of these days gonna slay the 00:53:48
black fish but when you see into it 00:53:53
clearly you realize that the white fish 00:53:55
and the black fish go together 00:53:57
there are twins they're really not 00:53:59
fighting each other they're dancing with 00:54:00
each other that you see though is a 00:54:04
difficult thing to realize in a set of 00:54:08
rules in which yes and no are the basic 00:54:11
and formally opposed terms when it is 00:54:16
explicit in a set of rules that yes and 00:54:19
no or positive and negative or the 00:54:21
fundamental principles it is implicit 00:54:25
but not explicit that there is this 00:54:28
fundamental bondage or fellowship 00:54:31
between the two the fear is you see that 00:54:35
if people find that out they won't play 00:54:39
the game anymore I mean supposing a 00:54:41
certain social group finds out that its 00:54:44
enemy group which it's supposed to fight 00:54:47
is really symbiotic to it that is to say 00:54:53
the enemy group 00:54:53
fosters the survival of the group by pruning its population we'd never do to 00:55:01
admit that it never never do to admit 00:55:07
the advantage of the enemy just as 00:55:08
George Orwell pointed out in his fantasy 00:55:12
of the future in 1984 that a dictatorial 00:55:17
government has to have an enemy and if 00:55:20
there isn't one it has to invent one and 00:55:23
[Music] 00:55:25
by this means by having something to 00:55:28
fight you see having something to 00:55:29
compete against the energy of society to 00:55:33
go on doing its job is stirred up and 00:55:37
what the Buddha or Bodhisattva type of 00:55:41
person fundamentally is is one he's one 00:55:43
who seen through that who doesn't have 00:55:46
to be stirred up by hatred and fear and 00:55:49
competition to go on with the game of 00:55:52
life 00:55:52