1973.07.18-serial.00124

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SF-00124
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Differences between exoteric and esoteric religious traditions.

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you may have angel
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founded manager
believe and of the manner
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new security right well and he wrote the paper
paperback new edition
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camera department man not calendar
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big man
in anatomic iran that pretty on
fourteen years
are you
i moved by it

i know i i would prefer to set but i think maybe
ha
when the realm of this size
i don't know i know i can't see everyone i guess i really want to stash and hadn't had jason

i'm glad you mentioned down
suzuki roshi and shame because i do feel that there
anything that i would say here should be said in
the living memory of that life
well i welcoming this opportunity thought i went a kitten
i use it
two
think with you about what has
ah i guess without giving it too much thought i had assumed that the
chief
distinctions within
religions were you might say
he insisted of a vertical line which could represent divisions between as a major great historical traditions ah but hinduism buddhism ah
thou is and so on judaism
christianity
and islam just to mention some of the principal ones now
recently i've come become convinced that the basic distinction
is really a horizontal one
which should be drawn this way
and which cuts right across all the traditions
and
i've been using in my own mind the words esoteric
an exoteric
to designate this distinction
let me move into at the this quite personally
ah i have sat with and i can just move ran through my mind
swami sought percussion on the in hinduism
goto sudan roshi
and now shenmue suzuki roshi and buddhism
ah i would have to leave the chinese area blank even though i was born there because i haven't been back to the mainland since my youth so i can't name any one in that tradition in judaism hugo bergman in jerusalem thomas merton in
christianity the sheikh isa in islam as i say i have sat with these men in absolute a core just not a off nana thread of division
ah present
meanwhile i could take well if i take the tradition that i grew up in christianity
i can turn on know about an evangelist from los angeles there's some of the intervarsity fellowship people say at mit and all kinds of spanning going on across this land
and while that's why experientially ah
and i couldn't duplicate than in the other traditions to there are certain representatives in those traditions for as whom i sense i'm just an enormous
in ways unbridgeable gulf so this seems to be
and the basic distinction and it's that that i want to explore i'll use about fifteen or twenty minutes to
unpack pack to
lift to direct attention the differences between these two loads of apprehension or reproach in the religious field and then we can open it up to your comments or quest
june
i just one more word before going into specifics on the differences
oh when i have come to the conclusion provisionally is that
there are different spiritual types personality types and this is perhaps the most basic
there might be another one if we had the purely secular view out here that has no religious sensitivity sensibility than that's a huge divide to but this is the divide with in field or religion itself and they've been all manner of of carrying kerala
jay-z you know delineations of personality types
in the west are carried toronto geez tend to be on a plane no sense of better or worse
the greeks had the phlegmatic the bill years the sanguine the caloric and but those are just differences on the same plane and similarly young has his extroverts and introverts and young has another classification of the intuitive type an irrational tidy
what is it and the sensing type and feeling type i guess i'd again ah know better or worse no quality of different just differences in kind in asia the character allergies do tend to have a hierarchical and value distinction
in india for example we have the sattvic type roger stick type and thomas the type no point in going into that at length but just to say that those are ranked in a hierarchy and they say that that hamas is overcome by raja and rogers is over common
turn by sought bar so you do move up a scale
i forgot to mention in the west the recent character algae i guess is william sheldon's where he has the samantha types
ah serene
well i forget the terminology but it's often important
i put this to come back this seems to be a fundamental difference in human personality types within the religious field now what are what are the differences too
well let me begin with the object of religious apprehension
and if we take the
the governing word god and rather inclusive sense
for the exoteric god is conceived and personal mold
and judaism and christianity are primarily exoteric religions and that not exclusively but primarily in as much as the personal motives so much in the foreground and the by a personal deity we can think of one who creates the world
by a deliberate act of in and will who
governs history
through providence who is aware of each individual and loves each individual
for the esoteric
god is conceived in a trends
transpersonal

i think there's something to be said all the way across for both of these types
the fact that we are persons makes a natural that the ultimate shall appear to human beings in some way bearing that coloration but also this comes into all kinds of logical problems if one tries to stay with that view
you and as i say these are those for whom the personal god seems anthropomorphic and personality seems confining and restricting and therefore their intuition a breaks through that and moves for an odd
object which is unlimited
and so we have in hinduism near luna brockman brockman with out attributes on the exoteric lang level their saga brought monograph on brockman web attributes and buddhism of course they're the three bodies of the buddha
amazon okay i would be more on this level because it would have more a personal attributes but them nirmala kayak
i mean sorry that that the dharma kaja would be the trans person or other terminologies nirvana or shunyata
transpersonal views of god and the chinese tradition one has the dow that can be spoken that's down here but up here the dow that cannot be spoken because it's infinite and transcends capacities for conceptualisation and judea
zone one has the god of abraham isaac and jacob on the exoteric level but one also has the tetragrammaton
those for hebrew words which because the vowels where the points were assumed rather than spelled out nobody knows how it was pronounced are we used to think it was jehovah
probably yeah way more like that but nobody really knows because for two thousand years that's been so sacred among the orthodox that has been verboten to speak at even this is the transpersonal god within judaism and then in christianity
ah
the person on do the theistic few predominating as i mentioned but when also does gap among the mistakes the concept of the godhead
a card sir
view and also coming out and our time and it's god above god
the god that appears when the personal god disappears and then in islam one has a lot down here but then they all of the supreme name on this level
so an object than this seems to be the difference between
between the two by the way i haven't let you in on this but i think you're all esoteric way because i think of zen as ah
clearly and esoteric or perhaps the esoteric expression a par excellence with in buddhism
i right this is one difference into object what is the object of
religious snowing
and then
on a second difference would be in mode of disclosure

and the difference here is that in the esoteric for the esoteric the mode of disclosure is really formless
now there can be symbols of the divine but on this level they're clearly recognized as simply fingers pointing at the moon
and when the buddha nature's apprehended
or the shunyata realized it there's a clear realization this cannot be
this is beyond for because forms are limiting and the infinite cannot be
a limit
so as a were were one sees through the forms to the that which ah is symbol now
exo terra eggs
for exoteric what i've just been saying is
really meaningless because the formless is by their lights non anything to be to be real requires definition and that means some form
so are the absolute one might say ah
added i do think of this is hierarchical the transpersonal iraq thing on you might say a lower level come in order to make contact with those for whom form is essential if any
thing is to get through to them
now the two major mode see the distinction here and motive disclosure the esoteric is form less
the divine is form less but for the exoteric the divine appears in farms so we say it's formed the two major forms arm
language
and lives language would be the
revealed scriptures which one can take as the absolute breaking out
on the discursive
verbal level
ah and manifesting itself to whatever extent it can be manifested on that level and then in lives we have the incarnation the avatars the bodhisattvas and the life these are the modes in which the divine can make contact with the exoteric
craig who by definition as i've said require
warm for their to be meaning
now
a third and we won't go on indefinitely but to more third distinction would be the
i caught the instrument the faculty the faculty for apprehension

and
can we start with the exoteric there for the exoteric the faculty for religious apprehension is preeminently face
which is the evidence of things unseen as paul put it well i think
if there is direct immediate disclosure know face is needed
now the faculty of discernment for the esoteric it's called various lay in the
the sufi tradition and sufi sufiism would be the mr the esoteric mold of islam in sufism has called the i have the heart
perhaps the boot he might be
are the dharma i within buddhism

the difference between these two modes of apprehension at route is that
in faith there is still a separation
whereas in the discernment of the eye of the high it's a mode of knowing that unites the nowhere with what is known so there becomes an identity
when becomes what one knows and lap know but precisely because that
transcends the subject object dichotomy and all perception and knowing on the lower level proceeds in terms of that dichotomy one that the economy collapses what's left is nothing really zero for the exoteric
and but not so for the esoteric
the mode of discernment down here is discursive it's spelled out through words and concepts there ingredient parts and proposition but in esoteric knowing it's pure simplicity
not only is there does the distinction between nowhere and knower collapse so the one it is what one knows but even the temporal distinction collapses so you can't say one becomes what one knows because thou there's a distinction between past and present you have to say one
seize the one has always been rat which one know
because there's no time in that room
now finally as a fourth difference if we look now at the real the whole field of religion and ask about the relations between religion are they you know the oft asked question perennial question
ian ah our religion saying the same thing
and again the answer
must i'm convinced turn on this distinction
for the esoteric basically yes because
in his eyes
ah
at the heart of all of them stated in varying degrees of clarity is the ultimate truth of a reality which is infinite and which transcends all distinctions and he can find that in awe
him that's what is most important
but for the exoteric or his the mode of disclosure comes through scriptures as we've said it's discursive proposition and their the revelation both in terms of incarnations they differ you know christ and the koran and up the same
and buddha and christ or different different incarnation and different scriptures which will not be accommodated one to the other
they hadn't to be different because they were addressed to different civilizations and as those civilizations were distinct in character temperament and type in order for the divine to make contact with them it had to speak you might say
to each civilization and its own tongue its own language so on that level i think nothing good comes from trying to
the sandpaper the edges and get them to a
seem like they were saying the same thing it
on on this level they will appear irreducibly
many
ah
well one could go on but i think rather than prolong a prolonged this or even try for a peroration on just snap it off right there and invite the questions
if it seems swear it seems either obscure or in error ah our comments as you like yes
it
you leave our perception
one would make many mistakes
the scandal we are taught will
we make something happen or we make it not happen by deciding how to do something voluntarily or involuntarily
then from that we set up a state of consciousness or feel activity which is our world of some salad
in order not to recreate rural with some sarah
we have to grow beyond life in there
we have to die
this world
this can be done
the practice of them
i just wanted to
not to argue with you
to complete your and can give you want the papers
lost my hometown of shifting and what is this an idiot
thank you very much i should knew that happily
people may corner
are down there corner maybe you've watched it up with your believer
down
it may not be are reading this way let me point to it curious
oh yes i stances are on fire your time it's not hard on side with regular
you
it's even better
valuation of the currency is going up
catch them in a bedroom
yes
keynote a political points street
in the christianity year some near where
you mentioned yeah
a term of ticks
i gotta go and go beyond god he uses both of those chains
when interesting point in relation to that is
this again is that relates to election that mean here six months ago by after ave with that
emma jones class he was he referred to tilak kill felix turning out yes and yeah
in terms of trying to i guess actually
maybe made pretty much the same assumption in your maiden and he was trying to to make some connection you try to use terminology or go into a traditional see what
one of the things that he said at the time i've been sitting here
your response to it is it in two weeks framework or that kind of frame christianity he seemed to feel that
esoteric christian tradition that it was expressing still in comparison with prison was emphasized the side of be o not be there was not
kind of equality the which dr ali was president it
to him might
service son distinguishing feature become esoteric christianity our tradition in
buddhism which
does it
put one already
yes yes you have any
ah
no strong ones i
have heard professor are may speak on this theme and to one on the lectures was in kyoto and it's it struck me as suggestive and true but ah
but i have found
but a bit beyond me in the sense spent his equal affirmation of non-being with being
i'm inclining a
it's a yes that's right but i haven't grasped why it's important
do i say more about that you think maybe is still sort of toeing the line between know i don't think so i think is fully esoteric maybe a little bit more than i and that's why i don't i didn't really grab
rasp
it it's very abstruse i don't know how how you found it here but i'm finally was something i would really have to dwell on for in our per semester something rather than at least rather than hearing it in a lecture to move or a factory worker
regulation of e-cigarettes vaping ethics ethical
typical version of the same not be hit the west or the christian tradition ah
since the ideal a good for i'm going above evil gas
has a good use a something to be the or nine people have something to be suppressed country right whereas his view and used it in greece them there's more oven
ah that's good that's just look at more countries now that's right one comment he made about in particular day job
i recall in in job
more you try to get rid of the evil which lurks within you and more deeper you
my name's right well now that confirm my point is not only see but as an authentic spokesman for zen buddhism is very as esoteric and those statements do make sense
it's up here but you can't get along with those statements down here
and i think it's true that if we compare traditions are western tradition ah it has been more exoteric than esoteric so they're more at home in the way he's talking then we are
which i guess is just what he was saying perhaps
yes financial reporting from saying about forest attitude
general western
well to understand
something
what i've noticed since and i've always sort of stumbled over in our practice here internationally relates to the movies the same
just assuming
organic gardens was recited we need to stop all evil on the to smooth
but but just came to my mind imagine what i'm saying is that something to me it kind of sticks out of zen practice ordinarily i don't find that and spirit is on practice but i was a little funny when i say that will get nebula three
so i'd better put in a renovated to honor and shape on the east remember when you were rude boy people don't have any idea of guilt
sin they have an idea of honoring their father and mother their country i can be treacherous people
worry son who is probably need right now praise go with me i grew up in the second world war face pack us at pearl harbor that was not a matter of being guilty of doing anyway it was treacherous it was shameful general paul john committed so
suicide because of it
i have to make this honor their mother and father they dishonor the emperor from they lead into a war
when you have honor you can live
study buddhism
go on
beyond life with them
this is more it's crux of the mentality of eastern people and western p
hi i would like to pick up on that bad translation for more months old because i think at the alerts us to a very important question and perhaps my mind when the leading unresolved and one is the relation of forms
through which religious apprehension
stein that sentence wrong to mecca with out which religious discernment cannot function on this level i what is the relation of forms to this lab
and down
my thesis for my tentative view and it but this is the one i guess i wobble monster is that
even for the answer terrorist
add in the long run the forms
cannot safely be skirt in other words an esoteric is not one that bypasses reform but you might say sees through the forms sees the meaning in the for
ah
delves into them now this in contrast with
wow what would be the alternative those who
their their religion is entirely formless they don't have any form because the viewers while god is everywhere and so on
and we can encounter him directly i guess my feeling is that though in principle that's true
ah
forms are
important not only for the o terrorists but for the esoteric to keep their vision in place
well i don't know the well how does it come back to the bad translation that something like that the for free as for me to stop stop oliver on this level that still has a meaning and part of our lives you know we are
form in some sense and therefore a ragtag the key is to see the relationship of the levels and what is appropriate at one level and yet can be transcended and another

d d c this
right yeah possibility any rate and some actual
the on be reading a book common ground while listening to some actual common religious experience
basic
imagine a world practice and basic
awesome some terrorism or something is is a possibility that the right
well
see i think most people unless we have a mutation in humanity type human pipes which i am not
ha
waiting for
hi
most people are eco terrorists the multitudes
most people are in this mode but on this mode
ah religions differ
so i think they hope if if if there's an if anyone wanted to hope for one exoteric really meaning that having text you know explicit statement and a common symbolism and on i think that is in vain it's not
going to happen they will conduct and collectivities the religions will stay different now meanwhile you can and essere terrorists but will continue to be able to understand one another
present for but it seems like even on the esoteric level princess the he referred to earlier than you had sat with him felt samuel common ground
air very common experience together me in you but it seems to meet it and we stopped now that even yes of terrorists are the best of us here as each of these traditions never actually talked to one another remit one at a very much tibetan lamas never ended up talking to suit his to mature i don't know if been anywhere in the suit
he's a ninja talking to has he ever can turn you do it seems like it if they really they really had their own separate bags and the stadium it
hey because of communication problems or whatever seems like now there's actually some possibility that these things are all coming out
maybe old next period of time something along these lines actually
do you think it's possible that your homework you have any idea what what what's division esoteric so the world re-unite heard something lacking with it
i don't know what will what what our hope is what are we reaching for the fact that the that the great masters ah didn't come together is there any law sir why shouldn't they
soon with all the one for me i am not aware there war chapter three warm water on the a bot of the matter is a all things are radically be clause to retain complete unbounded bounded liberation nearby
so that's all that's happening he is telling so goofy how to be a bodhisattva
he says but any my person or at least idea of evil entity in personality
cannot possibly a pay the the sidebar
i want to mention a more direct roses and s appearances with that you map out is the north american in how very good the first god emperor of mexico nets iraq where you are
stayed in a poem written in jed lyons little my gay brooke would you can get from him
that we go directly to death
he sat his whole life he was celibate
they appoint to rot out ruin the guy
and it's only friend was a parrot who sat on his pipe
probably tobacco
maybe bullion a tiny bit of murtha
the next emperors were pretty much the same but then they corrupted themselves when they started to pray for rain and drought game when they didn't believe any more in depth
so i'm not the zoomer became what is clinically called paranoid
he was frightened and he started to pray for a white god cast decided to come from across the ocean
when canine cortez reach the shores of mexico what happen five hundred men country healthy workout a city of three hundred thousand they defeated them again cortez said at the an audible the not three straight that the three of the sad nine
ankara in a coma
but came back rate the country brought european rocks of a mexico our world laughs
these people the next emperor
out mark refused absolutely to tell anybody where the gold was this is willpower i won't tell you you can do anything you want to
is and they burned the soles of their feet
he said to his friend if you think i am enjoying this footpath of fire you are mistaken
it shows you the character and quality of mexican indians this goes through the yaki a patch in charlotte for boston says gahanna all of them are pretty much the same it is my theory and this is strictly theory that we are all descended from the great iraq
option but took place in central mexico which from mexico city
that all civilization went from that spot and he did not go the other way
the on the sides of this mountain will put the things that buddha top top born in ear morning fire or the balloon little plants plankton like and etc
those who stayed in the deserts on the middle part of them up where there was no rain
they became the jews
they invent the pill i know i'm jewish

i
behind my back and are you doing putting away the triumphs of something or other walking across the street new meditating not guilty
that's how you got hit by a car it was a mexican girl thinking about her boyfriend she will not a way to an english lesson renders the him that goes beyond life and i don't blame my father is an old man
damn rich all the money goes to censor herself
time
yes
kenny
pink a little bit
i prefer
my mom
meet you
i am in
are they thinking
i'm a big one more primitive
notably how my
i'm very glad they are plenty of glad you brought up the an initiative
again i'm not a
certain of have fun i'm going to say but this is my ah
intuition
that ah early man
was more in touch with the ground of his being when we are is so sophisticated in innumerable ways but i don't think the transcendent shines through the camera as it did another doesn't mean
an easier for them many ways it was not harder but they good or bad and and beyond good or bad a sense of there being waves on a sea of the infinite with the waves are a part of the sea was more
more evident to them of course in the indian tradition and indeed all the great traditions or it's not a matter of evolution and history but devolution in know it's been downhill i think this is what this is the accurate thing in what that thesis says were in the kali yuga the iron a
age and that means that the divine while just what i've been saying that the infinite is
rarely discernible today only by a few and we have to work so hard to try to perceive it inside so when we speak about the primitives i think in this respect they were our betters
as so carry
craftsman
ah yes i think only one could get the distinction even there but i think they asked for terrorists our were
oh i don't know now i guess i'm beginning to add the
the questions beginning to and a phase out because i'm trying to psych out the mentality of primitive