Cross-references

Sutras in the main text whose numbers are red in color have endnotes. Clicking on the button directly below will take you to the endnotes, from which you can link back to these cross references.

Refer to Endnotes

1. The subjectmatter will now be indicated.

2. ``Meaning'' is the subjectmatter.

3. We will not speak of ``meaning'' directly. We will, instead, discuss a special expression. This expression is the term ``Equilibrium.''

7. Such system-dependent meaning is not unusual, nor is it limited to words alone. Tools and processes, artifacts and procedures, as well as words, can remain opaque to the understanding when separated from the systems to which they belong.

9. ``Equilibrium,'' then, refers here to a state of being that cannot be experienced separately from participation in an organized system of behavior of a certain sort. There may be, however, more than one way to organize behavior to bring about Equilibrium. But there will always be a certain relationship among these ways that identifies them as a group. Words, for instance, may or may not be involved. In the present case (this text), obviously, words are present. When we say that Equilibrium is only accessible through certain behavior-systems, we state a common requirement for many sorts of experiences. It is the same requirement that any child must meet in order to learn the language of its culture.

10. The limiting case here is language as a whole. It cannot be explained to anyone who has not experienced it. But to experience it, one must first learn it. And to learn it, one must first be capable of learning it.

11. Language itself is essentially undefinable; but it is experienced. And once the experience of language is present, complicated networks of words grow up around and about this experience: One can talk ``about'' language, almost as though it had a definition.

13. The process of coming to understand any new basic expression, together with the specialized network of words and actions connected with it, is an intrusion into one's language that expands it.

14. Above we use ``intrusion'' and ``expand'' in a simple sense, in the way that learning to play a guitar or row a boat both intrudes into one's old pattern of activity and expands one's relationship to the environment. Such expansion is very common. All learning depends upon it. When one knows how to row a boat, she can cross the river on business that was closed to her before. We speak, as always, of easily (empirically) observable things.

16. There is evidence that the experience we call here Equilibrium releases great amounts of energy. In speaking of ``energy'' here we mean nothing mysterious, but rather something so simple that its very simplicity often causes it to be overlooked. When we say that the experience of Equilibrium releases energy, we mean that a vast and complicated network of both verbal and non-verbal materials, which have a formal organization, has grown up around and about it. This network is connected with behavior patterns that are clear expenditures of energy, such as the construction of buildings and the singing of songs. One may include the energy that has been expended in preparing this text, and the energy you, the reader, are using in reading it, as part of that fund.

17. The organized network of meanings that is so related to Equilibrium is here identified as religious language.

23. The significance of calling these theoretical states of being ``poles'' is very great. It means they are part of a polar system, and are therefore linked in a special way. Just as the two ends of a rod are nothing without the rod, these poles are nothing without the system of which they are a part. Yet just as there is no rod without ends, there is no religious system in the absence of these poles. We therefore call them the structural axis of religious language.

24. The dynamic axis of religious language is the process by which a person is said to move from one pole of the structural axis to the other.

26. Using the metaphor of a ``path'' and understanding that movement along the path represents the dynamic axis of religious language, we may state one of the fundamental organizational characteristics of the system:

Energy moves along the path in both directions.

27. The path is defined by downward, as well as upward, movement. This idea may be expressed in terms of a cyclical or ``vibratory'' diagram (Figure One).

28. It is very important to understand how the diagram in Figure One is used. It is not used to picture some mystical ``reality.'' It is a partly complete device for showing the characteristic relationships holding among certain elements of religious language. The left-hand arrow represents the path of energy moving from the lower to the upper pole. The right-hand arrow represents energy moving from the upper pole to the lower pole. Since these two movements differ by 180 degrees, they also mark ``poles'' that define the dynamic axis of religious language: the tension in Figure 1 between SALVATION and DAMNATION.

29. Sometimes the same diagram, with the general meanings supplied, is referred to as the cycle of INVOLUTION and EVOLUTION. The upward arrow indicates evolution and the downward arrow indicates involution. The latter is usually associated with ``loss of consciousness,'' and the former with ``gain of consciousness.''

30. In sections 26 and 28, the term ``energy'' is used. What is meant by ``energy'' in this case?

31. The answer to the question in section 30, if discovered on one's own before further reading, has greater impact.

32. It is better not to ask what ``energy'' means here, but to ask instead: ``under what observable conditions are we to understand that energy is moving along this cycle, and in a given direction?''

33. The answer to this formulation of the question is contained in the nature of the ``poles'' -- that is, in the structural axis.

34. These poles represent a set of theoretically alternate states. The dynamic axis represents the process of changing from one state to the other. The character, or essence, of the force involved in this process is therefore a function of the nature of the alternate states. [23]

35. Religious language understands the process that defines the dynamic axis to be a process of change in consciousness. Sometimes the idea of ``change in consciousness'' is thought to be puzzling. This idea is easily illustrated by mentioning (again) simple observables: the difference between hypnosis, sleep, and the waking state; between animals and humans; between the infant and the adult. The religious usage indicated here may or may not include these, but it is more extensive than these. This is more strongly stated in converse: As it appears in religious language, change in the quality of consciousness is defined by movement along the dynamic axis. [14]

36. A suggestive way of expressing the thought of section 35 is:

This is because the expression ``moral'' in religious language is organized around the structural axis.

37. A typical example of all this is the story of Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. The transition represented in this story by the eating of the apple is a change in the capacity to know, not merely a change in the quantity of things known. Otherwise, the Serpent might just as well have told Eve about the nature of good and evil. The operation of the faculty of intuitive insight, which is precisely a change in the quality of consciousness, is often represented symbolically as the result of eating a fruit or a seed, or even part of an animal. This sort of change, indeed, reminds us of something we have previously touched upon.

38. This was the idea of the change, in the sense of an expansion, in one's language by the intrusion of a new basic expression, that is, by the recognition of a new pattern of meanings. We indicated then that this involved a change in behavior, at least potentially. [13,14]

39. Ludwig Wittgenstein called such a transition ``the dawning of an aspect.'' Franklin J. Shaw speaks of it as the ``transitional experience'' that brings about ``an enlarged orientation'' through ``higher-order constructions.''

40. We can suggest here the possibility of a continuum, graded from momentary flashes of intuition to a more permanent set of qualitative changes involving wide-reaching behavior change. If we were to call increase in aesthetic sensitivity a change in the quality of consciousness, we might be able to observe many phases of this continuum at once among members of a class in music appreciation, for example.

41. In general, ``consciousness'' as used here is intended to cover a wider area than ``noticing'' or ``awareness.'' A change in consciousness is not merely a change in awareness, or ``noticing something else. '' It is rather noticing something new.

42. When a person recognizes a pattern of meanings that is new in this sense, she does two things: First, she brings her behavior toward the events or objects involved in that pattern under the potential control of her conscious will. Second, she relates the events or objects involved in the pattern to a ``center'' that is sometimes called the ``ego.'' [37.38]

43. For this reason both ``freedom of will'' and a sense of selfhood, or separateness, are associated with The Fall. As the dawning of the knowledge of good and evil, The Fall is a case of recognition, a change in the quality of consciousness. But the ability to become aware of -- and select among -- possible alternate perspectives entails awareness of the finitude of any one of them. Nietszche linked liberation and loneliness, and Descartes attributed error to wrong use of will. The apple is both a blessing and a curse, and the pain it brings nourishes the root of Joy.

44. Responsibility toward one's self is the trait that has been suggested by section 42. This can be painful, since a real change in consciousness entails a real change in behavior; and behavior, as habit, has a physical ``anchor.''

45. Such a trait is called by the biologist C.H. Waddington the ``authority bearing'' and ``authority accepting'' mental function. He proposes that this function, as the internalizing of authority, is a logically necessary condition for the evolution of a socio-genetic system in which behavior is transmitted socially as well as genetically. This he takes to be an evolutionary advance, and links with The Fall. [29]

46. This association of authority with The Fall can be misleading if based upon a Freudian notion of the ``superego'' (dominant father). It is comparable, however, to our later discussion of sacrifice, self-correction, and The Word. [136]

47. Self-responsibility as a trait marking the human stage of evolution is the underlying idea in these lines from a Tibetan text:

48. It can be illuminating at this point to associate the dynamic element here, as a matter of action, with the expressions ``repentance'' and ``blasphemy.''

49. Repentance is letting in the flow of Truth: Movement upward.

50. Blasphemy is shutting out the flow of Truth: Movement downward.

51. Between the two lies ``choice.''

52. The choice between repentance and blasphemy defines the dynamic axis of religious language.

53. Such choice involves a change in the quality of consciousness as an act of will.

54. We understand that it is the energy of will that moves along the arrows of figure 1. This is how the expression ``will'' is organized with respect to the diagram. [30]

55. What many people refer to as ``will'' is not so at all. Will involves change in the quality of consciousness; a multitude of actions leave things as they are. [36,37]

56. Practice in the exercise of will, letting in the flow of truth, abandoning narrower perspectives -- practice in repentance -- is known as meditation, prayer, ``silence.'' Gurdjieff calls it ``self-remembering.''

57. All such actions affect the ego, the center of consciousness. This accords with much religious and psychoanalytic thought. In Jungian psychology, the relation between ego and the larger ``Self'' determines the quality of consciousness. In Upanishadic thought, Atman reaches out to Brahman. [36], [42,44]

58. Changes in the qualitative relationships of the ego have acquired the simple colloquial title of ``Changes.'' This expression conveys the best sense of the character of the action that defines the dynamic axis.

59. Such changes define the Teleology of the Soul.

60. These changes can be accumulative: As the stream of individual acts takes on pattern, consistency, and resonance, the ego ``moves.'' The overall pervasive quality of life changes. And the changes have a direction. They aim for one sort of thing and away from another. With attention and guidance, one can observe these qualitative teleological changes and experience a sense of their direction. [40]

61. Refusal to observe these qualitative differences and patterns; denial that there exists any direction in which the soul can move; repudiation of the possibility that any such energy exists -- this is blasphemy. Blasphemy ignores qualitative differences in life; all direction is understood in quantitative terms only. Changes in mere quantity of experience are mistakenly perceived as qualitative. Thus experience is impoverished.

62. The direction of change defines the nature of the poles of the structural axis. Note that we do not define the poles independently of the dynamic. [34]

63. That which so changes has been traditionally understood as something in an intermediate state.

64. In the Chinese scripture, the I Ching, it is represented as ``Man'' in the threefold division EARTH -``MAN''- HEAVEN (Figure Two). (In this division "Man" is placed in quotes because here it does not refer narrowly to gender, but to the condition of human embodiment, male and female alike.)

Figure 2. "Man" as the Intermediate Term

65. Sometimes it is named as the midpoint in the series

66. All three are phases of a wider ``consciousness'' understood as broadly as ``life'' might be. But the middle phase is itself called ``conscious.'' This forms a narrower sense of the term, derived from the predominance of the ego-center in this phase. It is a good idea to remember this ambiguity of the expression ``consciousness.'' Section 64 associates the narrower, intermediate sense with ``Man'' (in its sense as "humankind.")

67. The idea of a defining condition of humankind, in which humanity is understood to be at an intermediate point in the ``drama of salvation,'' is a recurrent religious theme. The defining condition is always a certain ability to know and to value, a sort of cognitive teleological impetus, logically presupposed by the notion of self-responsibility, and covered in a very general way by the expression ``moral.'' [36], [47]

68. Moral evaluation is cognitive, in that it is referred to a goal (teleological), and non-cognitive, in that it is felt in terms of misery, suffering, exaltation. [43]

70. In Zen Buddhism we find the concept of Hsin (``shin''), which can be translated either ``mind'' or ``heart.'' Alan Watts says of this:

"Hsin means the totality of our psychic functioning, and more specifically, the center of that functioning, which is associated with the central point of the upper body."

72. An expression of this general theme is to be found in the ``three of swords'' card of the Kabalistic Tarot. This card, which depicts a red heart pierced by three swords against a stormy background, represents the conscious advent of the sacred desire to know the body of God.

74. The heart, as the center, is also dynamic. It is associated with compassion, and is generally the symbol of the human being as one who desires God. The desire for God has as its complementary notion the desire for Satan. Knowledge of the one involves knowledge of the other. [43]

75. Empoedocles conceives of ``Love'' and ``Hate'' as opposing forces that move to and fro between unity and diversity (Figure Four).

Figure 4. Desire as the Dynamic

76. It is a premise of yoga that intense desire for union with God is a condition for advancement. There must be a ``great love'' for the aim. A Rosicrucian text tells of a youth who asks his master what he must do to become wise, and is answered by being held under water until he is nearly drowned; When he recovers from this experience, his teacher points out that in order to become wise he must desire wisdom with the same intensity with which, moments before, he desired air to breathe.

78. And therefore is Eve also named ``Desire.'' [37], [67]

79. If we combine the cyclical polarity of figures 1 and 4 with the three-layered concept of figures 2 and 3, we obtain an interesting hybrid, shown in figure 5. This arrangement emphasizes the vibratory, ``push-pull'' nature of the central (intermediate) level.

Figure 5. Union of Levels and Dynamic

81. It should be clear that while the organization of the terms depends upon the logical character of the system, the meaning of the terms depends upon the content of the system...that is, upon the nature of the energy in the system.

82. This energy has been associated with ``Man.'' [64]

83. When ``Man'' is known, the meaning of the terms becomes known. [81]

85. When the entire nature of the teleological system is hidden, the meaning given to the terms is derived from localized, personal teleologies belonging to the limited ego-center or persona, at the level of the primary cultural life predominant. [57]

86. How is it possible to hide the nature of the system? -- When behavior that can produce consistent experience of the central energy of the system is inhibited by social means.

87. To do this, society must restrict perspectives, and especially prohibit practices that encourage free choice of viewpoint, change, experiment, and spontaneous intuition.[41]

88. In other words, society must inhibit the processes of self-evaluation. [67]

89. In the resulting absence of coherent relationship to changes in the quality of consciousness, the child can neither experience the flow of truth, nor conceptualize it. Then an entirely false use of religious terms arises, when parents teach them to their children in what are really morally empty circumstances. In this way people become confused; they think they understand these terms, but they do not. And nothing arises to show them they do not. [9], [13], [81]

90. The difference between these two levels of understanding is that between the esoteric and the exoteric.

91. We are, therefore, speaking esoterically: that is, the meaning of the terms we use is drawn from the nature of such things as self-responsibility, repentance, prayer, Love, Will, desire for God, and so on, when they are experienced as part of a certain system -- the Teleology of the Soul.

92. Essential Atheism rejects absolutely the validity of the polar model as an interpretation of experience. It denies that there can be any polarization, or qualitative movement, of consciousness -- any depth.

93. Essential Atheism shuts out the flow of truth; thereby it blasphemes. It denies that life has a ``vertical'' dimension; thereby it blasphemes. It ignores spiritual pressures, so that its idea of ``progress'' is material rather than spiritual. As a result, the ego is isolated from the larger self and made incomprehensible. Then ``freedom'' means only ``chance'' and spontaneity is shunned as chaos. This results from ignorance of the heart. [79]

94. When Truth whispers, one's heart must listen. When Truth demands, one's heart must speak. Essential Atheism refuses to listen, so it cannot speak.

95. To learn the language, one must listen; and to listen, one must learn the language. [10], [17]

97. Science in its best form depends upon systematized means for maintaining conscious flexibility of perspective through self-correction. Science seeks to know itself in order to improve itself. In recent times it has under pressure of this requirement discovered that to know itself, it must know the nature of the investigator. But the investigator is the person. To know itself, Science must know the person. It is to be expected, then, that scientific language and religious language would eventually converge. [45], [83]

98. Science, to be Science, must engage the quality as well as the quantity of experience...without this, it is not complete.

99. Science, therefore, in its essence, cannot blaspheme.

100. The Listeners and the Scientists are One.

104. We have identified the upward moving energy with ``desire.''

105. But sometimes the upward moving energy is understood to be renunciation, or self-sacrifice: quite the opposite of desire!

107. Lust is the will to blaspheme. [50], [93]

108. Virtue is the will to listen. [95]

109. Lust, or the will to blaspheme, is a form of fear.

110. Fear of what?

111. Fear of death: Lust is the result of the fear of death.

112. This teaches us how to recognize lust, and how to distinguish it from desire.

113. Death, in this case, means correction of error. [44]

114. ``Correction of error'' is a common occurrence, often called ``admitting one's mistakes.'' The therapeutic value of confession, the admonition to ``turn the other cheek,'' and the ``non-attachment'' of eastern tradition are among the various religious forms of this.

115. What really dies is the identification of the ego with a given perspective.

116. With death, the ego moves to a qualitatively different context. [39], [42]

117. The new context must invalidate the claim to primacy on the part of the old context.

118. The new context must also embrace the old context in a way that explains it and evaluates it.

119. To correct error, to embrace a wider context; in short, to die, is self-sacrifice, renunciation.

121. What is to be avoided, then, is lust, not desire. Desire is the will to die, and implies sacrifice.

122. A traditional way of expressing the content of sections 117 and 118 is to refer to the qualitative movement there described, as a change of level.

123. It is the fashion now to frown upon the notion of ``levels'' as expressing an undesirable elitist hierarchy, or at least to view ``levels'' as a metaphysically unclear notion. But the requirement imposed for making it clear is that some single verbal formulation should be found that will, upon being heard or read, bring about understanding of the qualitative aspect of life. [92-93]

127. What is lacking, then, is an understanding of religious language. [83]

130. Essential Atheism is the denial that there is anything to hear, that is, refusal to learn the experiential meaning of the concept of a ``level.''

132. The notion of states of being arranged according to an hierarchy of levels, on the other hand, is inherent in the schemes of Figures 1 and 4. Taking the poles of the structural axis as ``unity'' and ``diversity,'' we note that the basic characteristic of a move upward must be a change in which the many (diversity) are seen as one (unity). Psychologists Jourard and Overlade express this precept in their book Reconciliation as follows: ``The larger view takes the form of a reconciliation of contradictions.''

133. John Dewey refers to such a change as the change from an ``unsettled'' situation to one that is a ``unified whole.'' A sudden, overwhelming sense of this kind of change is sometimes given the status of a ``religious experience.'' [35]

135. Consciousness of plurality within unity is called by Kant the ability to synthesize concepts. Perception, conception, and judgement, therefore, may be considered as forms of sacrifice: consciousness abandons the egocentricity of isolated sensation and adopts positions of increasing ``objectivity.'' [37-38]

136. Abstraction or Logos, and self-correction or sacrifice, are correlative notions; but their special relation is seldom noticed in these contexts. [68]

137. It follows that the ability to form abstract concepts is also an expression of movement along the path; it is language itself. Here we give the esoteric meaning of ``language.'' [10]

138. Exoteric conceptions of language cannot admit this. A deep appreciation for the essential relation between the indefinable nature of language and the indefinable nature of personhood is necessary. Then it should be self-evident why language is essentially connected with ``MAN'' as the expression of the dynamic axis. [97]

139. Language is communication; therefore it provides the possibility of conscious love.

140. It is The Word: One who can listen, can also speak.

141. That which speaks is called the ``I AM.''

142. It is the agent aspect of the energy within the polar system. A related concept is the Magus card in the Kabalistic Tarot. (A study of the etymology of the word ``magus'' can prove illuminating here.)

143. It is the concept-former: It produces the world of name and form (nama-rupa).

144. It is transpersonal, in that it unifies; It is personal, in that it is necessarily apart from that which is not yet unified. Out of this duality, consciousness arises. [65-66]

145. Kant's ``transcendental ego'' has the same transpersonal character. It is that which makes possible the unifying copula, the verb ``to be.'' John Dewey calls it simply ``mind.'' Religious texts give us the image of the Creation of Being through The Word.

146. The capacity for creation is the capacity to join that which is apart, and the capacity for destruction is the capacity to part that which is one. For this is needed the secret of the unity of opposites. The process of synthesis and analysis is God's play of creation. Concept-formation or the name, is God's tool.

147. W.V. Quine speaks of an ``objective pull'' that draws evolving consciousnees upward from proto-conceptual ``mass terms'' to the naming stage of ``divided reference'' and beyond. Biologists Hockett and Ascher speak of ``the opening of the call system'' as the great step in evolution. John Dewey says concisely: Of all affairs, communication is the most wonderful. [139]

148. This ``objective pull'' is none other than what we have called ``desire.'' Science, therefore, is in its essence an expression of desire. [78], [100], [104] , [121]

149. This view of Science, when ``desire'' is understood as we here understand it, is the mark of John Dewey's definition of inquiry as self-renewal through unification. [133]

150. Religious language represents these ideas by identifying God and ``MAN'' in various ways. ``MAN'' is ``in the image of God.'' ``God is the Universal Self; The individual self is Heaven In Us.'' [146]

151. ``I and my Father are one, yet is my Father greater than I; I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.''

152. Movement along the upward path, then, means a gradual identification of the part with the whole, as wave to ocean.

153. But consciousness of the mutual support of individual and environment, and of the general laws governing this relation, is ecological. Complete understanding of the mutual dependencies of persons and the universe as a whole is the subjectmatter of Science. [97-100]

156. Yet the final sacrifice is the Sacrifice of Sacrifice itself: the sacrifice of consciousness.

157. This is the answer to the paradox of desire: desire for the desireless state can be fulfilled, by abandoning all fulfillment. [105]

158. The way of sacrifice is therefore paved by desire. Desire for unity is desire for the death of that which is separate. [78]

159. The Sacrifice of Sacrifice is the ultimate stage of self-correction: when one's being is so ``correct'' or ``in accord with the will of heaven'' that all effort to correct oneself automatically ceases.

160. This is called Tzu-jan, ``spontaneity,'' in Zen Buddhism.

161. It is represented as ``The Fool'' in the Kabalistic Tarot.

162. It is a state in which opposites are reconciled.

163. We may refer such a state to the center of the circles in Figures 1 through 5.

164. If the final sacrifice is complete, movement ceases; Consciousness reaches the center.

165. Abiding in the center is Equilibrium.

166. It means that the forces of the opposites are reconciled in him or her.

167. This is sometimes called ``The Middle Path.'' [337], [344]

169. In the Upanishads we read:

That being, of the size of a thumb,
Dwells deep within the heart.
He is the Lord of Time, past and future;
Having attained him, one fears no more.
He verily is the Immortal Self.

170. The reader shall not make the mistake, at this point, of thinking that any departure has been made from down-to-earth, observable materials of experience. [14]

172. But we are discussing religious language. Every occurrence of terms associated with religion, therefore, shall be understood as a ``display,'' not an ``argument.''

173. Such great simplicity! We have chosen a specific sort of act, and defined its occurrence as the requirement under which energy is said to be moving within the polar system. [35]

176. However, observation is always observation within a language. Only the arrogance of early ``empiricism'' established the prejudice that the observer is an absolute. Science today knows better than this.

179. Socially reinforced repression of the formal unity among acts of moral quality, identifiable as a form of blasphemy, can also be understood as fear of psychology. [83], [61]

180. We have displayed some of the many names of the act and the many forms of the act; The agent, however, remains the same:

a. It is that which moves along the path. [26-34]

b. It is that which is the subject of qualitative change in consciousness. [35]

c. It is that which performs acts having moral import. [36]

d. It is that which came into being when The Apple was eaten, and also that which ate the apple. [37]

e. It is that which can expand its language and experience the dawning of an aspect. [13-14]

f. It is that which has a sense of center, or ``ego.'' [42]

g. It is that which can suffer from loneliness. [43]

h. It is that which can be responsible to itself. [44]

i. It is that which both bears and accepts authority. [45]

j. It is that which can regret, repent, blaspheme, choose, and will. [47-54]

k. It is that which meditates, prays, is silent, and remembers itself. [56]

l. It is that which undergoes ``Changes.'' [58]

m. It is that which is intermediate. [63-65]

n. It is that which knows and values. [67]

o. It is that which desires God. [72]

p. It is that called ``MAN.'' [67]

q. It is that which can hide itself from itself. [86-93]

r. It is that which Speaks and Listens. [94-95]

s. It is that which lusts and fears. [107-112]

t. It is that which sacrifices and dies. [113-119]

u. It is that which perceives, conceives, and judges. [135-140]

v. It is that which names, communicates, and loves. [139]

w. It is that which can consciously experience its inner relationship to all things. [150-153]

x. It is that which can sacrifice even sacrifice itself. [156-161]

y. It is that which can reach the center and reconcile the opposites. [162-167]

z. It is that I AM. [141], [169]

181. The addition of the "center" gives rise to new possibilities. [163]

185. But strict attention to the model provided in Figures 1-5 shows that it is impossible to come to rest anywhere but in the center. This is due to the nature of the poles, which are merely abstract potentials across which the energies of Love and Hate are discharged. No being on the rim can be at rest, for he or she is always subject to the attraction of the poles.

186. Being subject to this attraction is what defines ``being on the rim.'' Nothing on the rim is free.

187. Exoteric Christianity, therefore, generally avoids deep exploration of the circle as an emblem.

192. Essential Dualism is the form of thought that denies the spiral path. It keeps the opposites forever separate.

193. From the point of view of dualistic Christianity, the spiral is the most pagan symbol of all. And we can see why, because the center appears to represent a point that is, perhaps, ``beyond good and evil,'' beyond morality. [187]

195. Fear of the center (dualism) is due to misunderstanding of the model, that is, incomplete grasp of Religious Language (Ignorance-Avidya). [127]

198. From the standpoint of Essential Dualism, ``immaculate perception'' is necessary to protect the boundaries of the individual ego-self, to maintain the objectivity of knowledge, and to allow freedom of the will. From the perspective of Religious Language, it is a radical misunderstanding of ``self,'' ``freedom,'' and ``objectivity.'' [195], [89]

199. Non-dualism or Transactional Philosophy affirms, with Heraclitus, that ``the path up and the path down are one and the same.'' There are no one-way relationships in all existence. Nothing merely interacts: everything transacts. the spiral path from ``MAN'' to God is also the path from God to ``MAN.''

202. Which may also be drawn as shown in Figure Eight.

Figure 8. Open Double Spiral

203. Or a compound of the two (Figure Nine).

Figure 9. Spiral of Infinity

204. These symbols assert the unity of the knower, the act of knowing, and the known; the identity of the Law, the Lawgiver, and the Manifestation of the Law.

206. An eleventh-century Tibetan Buddhist text reads

For one of superior intellect, the best thing is to have thorough comprehension of the inseparableness of the knower, the object of knowledge, and the act of knowing.

207. This is also a fundamental postulate of modern pragmatic naturalism (Transactional Philosophy). John Dewey writes

Knowings and knowns are to be taken together as aspects of one event.

208. Philosopher Abraham Kaplan, discussing Popper's view that no distinction can be made between ``phenomenal language'' and ``theoretical language,'' points out how this echoes Dewey's view that there is a functional correlativity between ``perceptual and conceptual materials'' such that ``theories are as much involved in the determination of fact as facts are in establishing a theory.''

209. Echoes of Kant: The known object (percept) and the activities of the knower (concept) are inseparable correlates.

210. But this is the same as denial of division between the subject and object.

211. Denial of the subject-object dichotomy is esoteric in the highest sense. To exoteric understanding it is ``subjective idealism,'' but to esoteric understanding it is science. [148-149]

212. That Science, to remain Science, depends upon a continuity between experience and nature, is a key theme of Transactional Philosophy. Dewey writes,

The investigator assumes as a matter of course that experience reaches down into nature and expands without limit throughout it.

213. By ``without limit,'' Dewey implies the unrestricted application of the Hermetic Maxim. The essential meaning of the spiral path appears in Dewey's ``Postulate of Continuity.''

The processes of living are enacted by the environment as truly as by the organism; for they are an integration.

214. This Transactional postulate constitutes the esoteric meaning of the Tibetan dorje emblem (vajra), the double-ended diamond sceptre: [202-203]

Its center is a sphere which represents the seed or germ of the universe; its potential force is indicated by a spiral issuing from the center of the sphere; the vajra is an abstract double-mandala, the duality of which expresses the polarity, the relative dualism, in the structure of consciousness and the world, and postulates at the same time the ``unity of opposites,'' i.e., their inner relationship.

215. Science, just as ancient esotericism, accepts the meaning of the spiral-dorje, just to the extent that it is required to incorporate the nature of ``MAN'' into its fabric. But it must incorporate the nature of ``MAN'' completely into its fabric. [97]

217. In Figure Seven, the spiral form draws attention to the space between the center and the rim, adding a new dimension to our understanding of the figure. [181]

219. This area is the path of the double spiral. Our simplified representation conceals the fact that the double spiral covers the entire area.

231. This has been plain from the first: ``Heaven'' as the final state or ``goal'' of a subjectively separate ego can never be maintained, because as such it belongs to a dualistic scheme; while on the other hand each act of sacrifice is an ego-death toward the ``center'' and a remission of dualism. This point is one of the foundations of Buddhism. [185-186]

232. There is no path but the spiral path! [213-215]

235. It can only represent the unity of the center and the rim.

237. Therefore this ``final'' center is a center that is not a center: it is no-center.

239. The ``distance'' from oneself to God is infinite: it can only be traversed by an infinite expansion of being.

240. That ``MAN'' is capable of infinite expansion of being is presupposed by the ``opening of the call system,'' the ability to synthesize concepts, or language itself, which can be neither denied nor defined. Equilibrium is as far beyond description as is the no-center. [135], [139], [145], [147], [11], [212-213]

248. The spiral path inward proceeds by means of temperance and humility.

251. Movement inward means broadening of perspective. Movement outward means narrowing of perspective.

253. Narrowing of perspective means that fewer things are experienced as part of oneself. Psychological projections increase (Maya).

255. ``Love thy neighbor as thyself'' describes a result of moral practice, not a cause; she who can do so has already moved far inward.

256. Widening of perspective is expansion of being. [116-117]

257. What are the dimensions of this expansion?

258. Direct experience of the dynamic of the spiral path provides the answer. [179]

259. In empirical terms, the psychoanalytic concept of making conscious that which is unconscious gives a clue.

260. The concept of the unconscious in psychoanalysis is connected with the direction of the expansion of being. This gives the esoteric meaning of ``the unconscious.'' [83]

261. Jung enlarged the meaning of the unconscious until, at last, he gave it infinite extent within the psychic dimension. By daring to conceive of it as reaching beyond the personal ego into a ``collective,'' he opened it. Yet he was careful not to consider this opening as expansion into a metaphysical dimension, but only into a broader psychic dimension.

262. But Jung's ``collective'' cannot be so limited, because it is actually a reflection of the general Postulate of Continuity. Application of the dorje integrates the psychic with the non-psychic. The boundary Jung wished to draw cannot be drawn. [213]

263. Expansion occurs, then, in a dimension that is both psychic and non-psychic. [204]

264. Widening of perspective moves the ego away from local concerns toward broader systems of relationship. The family, the community, the country, all humanity, and all sentient beings, provide successive stages in this process. [116]

265. This movement is expansion beyond the individual body; one's deepest interests and energy are taken increasingly away from private gratification and are connected with wider concerns. (The pseudo-concept of "leaving the physical body" is a dualistic misunderstanding of this.) [170], [137]

266. At no-center, perspective is total. Consciousness embraces the entire system. It is both at rest and in motion, both collective and personal, flowing in and out, filling the circle and not filling it. [219]

273. The direction of expansion is toward this perspectiveless perspective. [262]

274. From a dualistic viewpoint, the prospect of such a movement is terrifying . This is why the dorje is called ``the Thunderbolt'': continuity generates ultimacy. [213-215]

275. Essential Cynicism is the denial that any such state is possible. It results from fear. Here we give the esoteric meaning of ``cynicism.'' [109-111]

276. Movement ``beyond'' the body -- the direction of expansion -- defines the spiritual dimension. [263-265]

277. That which moves one through the spiritual dimension, toward the no-center, is the energy of sacrifice, temperance, and humility. [248], [119], [54]

278. This energy must be developed continuously in order to create continuous movement: such process is called yoga. [60], [76]

279. Yogic power (siddhi) is the power of movement in the spiritual dimension. Here we give the esoteric meaning of ``yogic power.'' [89], [91]

281. Karma, the law of action, is the name for the directionalizing (moral) dynamic of the system seen as a causal network.

283. From these examples it should be clear how religious language depends upon the central dynamic of the system. [17]

284. This is called a transactional system because all of its parts are functions of the whole, as are the parts of an organism. [23]

285. It follows that no term of Religious Language can be understood through description alone. This is true, of course, of language itself, and shows that the religious system is essentially empirical, or a matter of experience, just as language is.[11]

286. But since the entire system embraces all perspectives, section 284 guarantees that every term of religious language extends in meaning throughout all perspectives: the meaning of religious terms is inexhaustible.

287. Inexhaustible terms are called symbols.

289. Essential Cynicism denies that there are any such meanings. This is blasphemy: to say that there can be no symbols.

290. Religious Language, being transactionally a single unit, may be understood as a single symbol. This is ``The Great Symbol.'' We will call this the narrower sense of the expression ``Religious Language.'' [83]

292. Because all symbols extend in meaning through all perspectives, any attempt to understand a symbol must be endless.

293. We may call this ``unwinding'' the symbol.

297. Because the symbol represents the process, and at the same time it is capable of producing that process in a person, it is unique in that its meaning, or logic, and its causal force, or dynamic, are the same.

298. The symbol participates dynamically in the very process it symbolizes conceptually.

299. Numinosity is the name given to this property of symbols.

304. This constant threeness stems from the fact that the central dynamic is concerned with synthesis. [136], [43]

307. The opening of the eye is accompanied by an influx of energy, which comes from engagement in a new, more extensive and potent meaning pattern, ``shifting gears.'' [16], [42]

312. The opening of the eye is a symbol of creation. The act is the creative act,``insight,'' ``inspiration.'' [146], [140-145], [150]

313. In occult terminology such creative work in the spiritual dimension is also called the ``magical operation.'' [54]

314. Such powers are regulated by the fact that there is a change in being involved, which means a change in the context of motivation. [44]

316. The action (4) of the energy (3) created by the tension between the poles (1 and 2): The four-legged Magician's table, shown in the Magus card of the Kabalistic Tarot, has this meaning. The four legs support the ``Platform of the World.'' [313], [142]

318. The unity of the threefold polar system is expressed by the equation: the energy is the product of the poles. [34], [62]

323. We assign the number five to the center of the cross.

324. ``Five'' is the number of freedom.[159-160]

337. The Middle Path is represented by the center of the cross. [323-324]

344. (5 = 10) expresses the principle that the Middle Path and its goal are the same. [219], [237], [266]

348. (5 = 10) means that the pursuit and the goal are the same: the rim, the spiral, and the center are the same. [217-218]

349. (5 = 10) means that doing and being are the same. [214]

366. Descartes replied: I have in my mind the Idea of God. [70], [290]