Observe yourself, not on the basis of race, color, caste, creed or nationality, rather on the basis of spiritual individuality. Change the emotions. Dissolve the dark auric colors, the lower force fields, into the actinic radiance of blue, yellow, lavender and white. Control the intellectual mind, buddhi chitta, one tenth of the mind, by governing the forces of nature, through memory, reason and willpower. Yet this is not the end of the path, the subconscious and superconscious make up the other nine tenths of the totality of man. Opinionated knowledge can be a harmful barrier. Control of thoughts builds the seventh aspect of man, vijnanamaya kosha. Access great truths, the book that's within. "The ego separates people from people, nations from nations and the soul from realization of the Self."

Master Course Trilogy, Merging with Siva, Lessons 221, 222. Cognizantability.

Unedited Transcript:

Good morning everyone.

We are continuing with "Merging with Siva" lessons in chronological order and we are in Chapter 32, "The Astral Body" a talk given in 1960.

Continuing Lesson 221 on:

"Harnessing Instinctiveness

"Another dimension of the instinctive mind is the habit mind. Habits are built into us from childhood. Some remain conscious and others enter the subconscious. The most difficult to overcome are our habitual identifications with the force fields of our city or state, our country, our race, and even the world itself. (Even if we identify with the world, we have to transcend that. Okay.) The many ramifications of human behavior which pertain to a study of the habit mind could fill many books. Prejudice is one of the negative emotions contained in the habit mind. We may not think of prejudice as being a habit, but it is. Many adults retain very strong habitual prejudices. They do not care for people who do not belong to their particular race, caste or social class.

"When there is any sudden shift or disturbance in the race's instinctive mind, its forces may very suddenly and quickly become aggressive, arousing the lower instinctive emotions. When, however, the race mind is allowed either to run its natural evolutionary course, or it is kept under control and its own sense transcended, then man realizes that he cannot judge himself or another on the basis of race, color, caste, creed or nationality, but rather on the basis of spiritual individuality.

"Make a list of all the negative emotions which still reside in your instinctive force field. Should you find that you are dominated by one or more of these emotions, admit it to yourself honestly. This admission, this facing yourself, loosens the hold of the odic force and allows some actinic force to penetrate and dissolve the lower force field of the instinctive emotion you are examining. First step--admission; second step--observation. When, for instance, you become angry, fearful or jealous, observe yourself in this action. Immediately become aware of actinic force. Become an empty being of colorless energy; see the dark auric colors dissolve into a radiance of blue, yellow, lavender and white. You can do this with your present understanding that the actinic force is much higher than the instinctive mind, much greater than the astral or the physical or health bodies."

Very interesting idea there, I didn't write down a comment but just came to me that it's similar to the idea of breath. Breath and thoughts are interrelated. If our thinking gets agitated our breathing gets faster. If our breathing gets faster our thinking get agitated. If our breathing slows down our thinking slows down. So, it goes back and forth. So, here we're saying that instinctive emotions generate colors in the aura. So, if we change the colors in the aura we change the emotions. A very interesting inter-relationship there. So Gurudeva's just making a simple suggestion on bringing blue, yellow, lavender and white into the aura and thereby changing the emotions.

So the commentary:

Those things to which you still react represent your low points and must be turned into actinic understanding before you can dissolve the odic force field that contains them. This goes back to the same lesson but the part we read last time. Those things to which you still react represent your low points and must be turned into actinic understanding. So, the idea is we identify, we understand and we find a practice to overcome it. For example: when you interact with others who have possessions fancier than the ones you have, it makes you feel envious of them. This can be countered by focusing on feeling content with what you already have. So three step process: identify, understand and find a practice to overcome it.

Then, we get Lesson 222:

"The Intellect, Or Outer Ego

"The fifth aspect of the soul is the odic causal sheath, or intellectual mind, known in Sanskrit as buddhi chitta. It functions on the odic causal plane within the Second World of existence, Antarloka, the creative realm of the intellect. Here the individual organizes information, gains new ideas or new ways of looking at old projects, and uses this knowledge to move vast magnetic force fields around on the Earth's surface. This plane is primarily subconscious, with occasional influences from the superconscious. It is basically a mental plane where odic forces are manipulated. The intellect is the aspect of the soul you use when you sit and think, memorize or reason. The intellect can also be projected to distant places without leaving the physical body. Through this aspect, the adept can perceive what is there and accumulate knowledge or information. (Patanjali talks about that.)

"The first shining forth of man's individuality comes when he has the conscious control of the intellectual mind. After the practice of internal and external concentration has been perfected and the subconscious processes of meditation have taken hold, the thought forms of the yoga student become distinct and clear. A thought form is made of astral matter. It is odic force and has a color and is created within the consciousness of man. The intellectual mind works through the mechanism of creating, preserving and destroying thought forms. The intellect is the manifestation of a series of well-constructed thought forms. Therefore, the better a person is educated, the more distinctly and clearly does the intellect function.

"There are people all over the world today who have only unfolded to the fourth and fifth aspect of man and are guided simply by the habit patterns of the instinctive-intellectual mind. But the governing of the odic force fields in the world as it is today is done through the conscious control of the intellect or the odic causal sheath.

"Diplomacy, a kind of love--one not wanting to hurt one's fellow man, suppression of the emotions of hate and anger--brings about a kind of harmony. These are products of the intellect which when developed into a strong intellectual sheath is able to control the baser emotions through controlled memory, controlled reason and controlled willpower, the three faculties of our ability to govern forces of nature."

So, the last idea is very important. The strong intellectual sheath is able to control the baser emotions through controlled memory, controlled reason and controlled willpower, the three faculties of our ability to govern the forces of nature. In other words, we gain the ability to control the instinctive nature, the baser emotions, by strengthening the intellect or specifically by acquiring the abilities to control memory, reason and willpower. So the intellect is very important in that regard. The instincts won't get controlled without developing the intellect. But developing the intellect as we'll see is not the end of the path here. It shows the importance of this and that's of course a by-product of going to school.

"Neither overrate nor under-rate the intellect, for it fills several important functions in life, the great experience. But remember, the intellect is not the totality of man, it is only, figuratively speaking, the fifth aspect. The intellect is not the full mind, it is only one part, about one-tenth of the mind. The subconscious and the superconscious make up the other nine-tenths. "

So my commentary is:

We can compare the intellect to the internet. The internet can be a great tool for communicating and quickly acquiring knowledge and thereby increasing your productivity. However the internet can also be a major distraction in life and make you less productive. So the intellect is the same way. It depends on how we use it. If it's beneficial or an obstacle.

Text:

"Opinionated knowledge is a faculty of memory. We study, we listen, we hear and we quote the opinions of others. Opinionated knowledge is stored up in the memory gridwork of the subconscious mind. This provides security, or a platform, for the intellect, making it strong, developing an ego. Therefore, intellect is our ego. The ego separates people from people, nations from nations and the soul from realization of the Self."

Then there's an excellent aphorism in "Cognizantability" I'm using as a commentary that elaborates on the idea of opinionated knowledge. So we were talking about how the intellect is valuable and needs to be developed with controlled memory, reason and willpower to control the instinct but this is showing the negative side.

"The intellect strengthened with opinionated knowledge is the only barrier to the superconscious."

So that's the other side of an intellect. It can become a barrier to the superconscious by our clinging to its opinionated knowledge.

"Opinionated knowledge can be harmful, for it is strictly of the subconscious realm of the mind. It is stored away in an effort to set up some security for the conscious and subconscious states of mind, something for them to cling to and lean upon--that is, the opinions of others... It is stored away in an effort to set up some security for the conscious and subconscious states of mind, something for them to cling to and lean upon--that is, the opinions of others, intellectual assertions made on happenings of the past based upon only what the eye and ear have received. (That's a challenging sentence.) This well-formed barrier makes it possible for the mind to convince itself of anything outside of reason or with in the realm of reason. It manufactures a large percentage of the world's so called thinkers. When, however, you ask them their own opinions, they only reformulate opinions of others and culminate them into one of their own. This makes one think that by this rearrangement of knowledge the thinking process has been stimulated. However, it has not. It has only run its natural course and is conditioned only by the faculty of memory. Memory, too, plays a part in the intellect, as you well know, for if very little memory exists, very little intellect would be present.

"When the superconscious mind is tapped, the essence of memory has been reached. All knowledge is awakened from within to the extent of the intellect. Your intellect at this very moment may be searching for a way out of accepting this treatise. That is why I say try to intellectually disprove all you read here, after you have read and re-read it. Give your mind a break, and let it make you think by turning itself back on itself. You'll be pleased with the outcome."

Then we get back to the lesson; so all of that was just a diversion on opinionated knowledge and how it's a barrier.

"'Your real education is the innerversity.' Perhaps you have been thinking that this statement is anti-intellectual, against education. Let's examine the real meaning, function and purpose of education. Education is not worn. It does not stick to you. It is not your collection of someone else's opinions. Through education, you stimulate your intellect. Education is that which you bring out from within yourself as a result of your personal interest in the fulfillment of your birth karmas, or prarabdha karmas. Education means exposure to new ideas and old opinions, giving you the tools to explore your own opinions freely, make decisions, research and review them and advance your understanding of God, soul and world. This is education. It is not static. It is as fluid as a river. Or it should be. You have the choice, the ability, to remold your intellect any way you want. The great truths of life are a part of your being. They are within you. They unfold to you slowly as you evolve your comprehension of them. Yet, they are always there within you, waiting to be realized.

"The only real, permanent education is your unfoldment into the building of the intuitive mind through the control of the intellect."

Then we have a Yogaswami quote. He was very strong on this idea.

"Stop reading books. (There goes our book sales, right?) The greatest book is within you. That is the only book you should read. The others are just trash. Open the book that's within you and start reading it. Be very quiet, and it will come to you."

So of course, you need to take that in context and context, if you look at Yogaswami's life is up to maybe age thirty, something like that, he was involved in scriptural study and all as well of course his meditation. But he did study scripture in his younger years. But you need to reach a certain point where you say: Okay enough books, now let's read the book that's within. So it's not that you never read books it's at a certain point to go further you need to access the book that's within.

And back to the text, one last paragraph:

"Since the intellect is made fundamentally of thoughts which are ever creating, preserving and destroying themselves, the control of thoughts builds the seventh aspect of man, the intuitive mind, or actinodic causal sheath, known in Sanskrit as vijnanamaya kosha. Intuition, knowing, awareness and understanding--these are products not of the intellect, but of the intuitive mind. The dedicated student who has applied himself seriously leaves college not with a 'know it all' feeling but with an awareness of the limits of the intellect, and profound respect for the vast amount of knowledge that he has yet to discover or unfold. Conceit is a sure sign of insecurity; humility denotes awareness."

So, I have a good way of judging that. Praise somebody, see what they say. "Oh, this essay is really great; you know you did a marvelous job, congratulations." See what they say back, do they say? "Well, of course, I'm brilliant." "Thank you very much..." (it's a good one) "...all because I had a great teacher. " You know that's the last one is really what we want. or all because of the grace of Ganesha or something. Where you're really feeling that it wasn't just your own effort, that it, there was a grace involved from someone who knows more than you do. So that's how you can test.

Wonderful day.