Spirit & Mind

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THE CYCLE OF BEING: SPIRIT & MIND

Dane Rudhyar

The two aspects of spirit

The word spirit has been interpreted in many ways, and the adjective spiritual has been so misused and abused that it has lost much of its real meaning. Yet these terms are so basic in Euro-American culture that one can hardly avoid using them. Therefore I must explain precisely the meaning I give them in this book by referring to what occurs at the beginning of two hemicycles of the Movement of Wholeness. For the present purpose I will consider the hemicycles beginning at the symbolic Midnight and at the Noon of the cycle. At each of these points, the principle of Unity most characteristically impresses its power upon the Movement of Wholeness. This power is spirit.

During the Midnight phase, when the principle of Unity is the most intense, almost overwhelming, spirit is the dynamism of the supreme Compassion of the Godhead state. The release (at a nearly totally subjective level) of this Compassion starts the process of formation which, as the image-making divine Mind in operation, leads to the creation of archetypes and eventually of the Word (or Logos, the totality of these archetypes). At first altogether subjectively, then more and more objectively, this process is "mental." It has been mythologized as the work of different levels of creative Hierarchies, but the driving power at its core is spirit — the Compassion of the Godhead gradually revealing its purpose in answer to the cosmic need which must be met.

At the symbolic cosmic Sunrise, when kinetic energy is let loose in the creation of the physical universe, spirit acts as the power that keeps the rising and aggressive impulses of the principle of Multiplicity from operating as an explosive, random outburst, compelling it to be released in cosmic quanta (or packages) of energy. Thereafter, spirit may be thought to be the still mysterious power manifesting to us as gravitation. Eventually it manifests as "life," the power that integrates material and chemical elements into the existential wholes we call cells and that maintains the integrity of the multiplicity of biological orders, families, genera, and species developing in the earth's biosphere.(1) As evolution proceeds, these systems of biological organization actualize the appropriate archetypes that were formulated between the symbolic Midnight and Sunrise.

1. For the vitalistic consciousness dominating pre-Greek and pre-Buddhist times, and still active in many parts of the world today, the foundation of the universe is the "One Life," also called the "ocean of life." The main characteristic of this One Life is its power to move, to transform itself, and to become gradually less conditioned by matter; less heavy, more light and subtle. The evolution of life-species led from crawling beasts to flying birds.

Eventually an immense variety of classes, orders, families, genera, species, and varieties develops within a biosphere feverish with the differentiation of specialized features. By now the biosphere is teeming with a multitude of lives in the throes of conflicts, catastrophes, and cycles of disease and barrenness necessary to avoid a plethoric crowding of entities feeding on one another. Then the Movement of Wholeness, having allowed the principle of Multiplicity to dominate the earth, reverses its direction. The archetype Man takes a more concrete form, gradually revealing its complex plenitude of being through a series of Avatars.

In and through the series of planetary, racial, and cultural Avatars, and eventually through personages with definite missions and illumined individuals nearing the consummation of humanhood in the "divine Marriage," spirit acts within a human framework. It seeks to integrate archetypal Qualities — Letters of the creative Word — with generic human nature (which it slowly but progressively transforms), and with cultures and social communities.

Also, whenever possible archetypes, are actualized in and through individualized persons eager to experience attunement with their essential beingness, that is, with the particular spiritual Quality it is their dharma to embody in everyday living, through ever-renewed acts of theophany (divine revelation of the spirit within).

Spirit therefore operates in the Movement of Wholeness as an integrative principle. In my book The Planetarization of Consciousness, which was concerned mainly with the Day period of the entire cycle of being, I strongly emphasized the concept of ONE as the universal principle of integration — a catalytic agent whose "presence" is effective in drawing together disparate elements at all levels of material, organic, and human organization. I particularly stated that this word did not refer to "the One" or to a Supreme Being, but to an impersonal integrative principle to which no particular form or identity could be given. This integrative principle operates in the whole cycle of being in two basic ways: as the Compassion radiating from the Godhead state at the symbolic Midnight — and after Noon as the power seeking to integrate human organisms (in their successively developed biological, cultural, psychic, intellectual, and individualized aspects) with spiritual Qualities.

The latter gradually take more definite forms, first defining the dharmas of sociocultural collectivities, then the dharmas of individualized human beings. (After the Pleroma state is reached by illumined beings in whom the "divine Marriage" has occurred, spirit acts in a more subjective way, but for the normal embodied consciousness today such an action must remain a mystery. It may have something to do with the repotentialization of energy at subtle levels of materiality and the intensification of what will become divine Compassion in the Godhead state.)

Because spirit is the "power" (shakti) in and through which the principle of Unity operates within the Movement of Wholeness, its action is most intense when this principle reaches maximum strength; its intensity decreases when the principle of Multiplicity waxes. Yet the drive toward an ever greater and more differentiated multitude of relatively separate forms of existence also operates within the Movement of Wholeness. One may think of it as anti-spiritual, but this may be misleading because its operations take a great variety of forms. While it is active in egocentric desire and the will to be different and unique at any cost, to speak of it as "evil" may be confusing. The process of individualization certainly is not evil in itself, although religions often misunderstand its nature. Above all, one should take care not to personalize this power of differentiation, that is, not to give it a "human, all too human" character. It is simply the trend toward an expansive multiplication and fragmentation of being, and it opposes the integrative action of spirit.

One may consider it the shadow aspect of being, but only after the human stage of evolution has been reached. For only after the power of the principle of Unity rises in and through humanity does the "sun" of Unity begin to shine. Then can the opaque materials of which human beings are made — not only as physical bodies but also as opaque systems of mental beliefs and religious dogmas — cast a "shadow." Shadows begin at the Noon of the planetary cycle because the future state of Illumined Man becomes a potentiality then, as soon as the avataric series begins. A very small vanguard of human beings already has actualized this potentiality (at least partially). But the "sun" of avatarhood casts an inevitable shadow when it strikes those human beings who as yet cannot or deliberately refuse to see its light. As the consciousness and the will of human beings becomes increasingly translucent, the shadow becomes less dark.

In human beings operating at the tribal level or in religious or socialpolitical communities still strongly unified by an original avataric revelation, this shadow manifests as the product of a centrifugal force alienating the person from the unanimous whole. But when the process of individualization begins as a definite transition between the still biologically conditioned state of culture and the planetary , Pleroma state, a special situation develops. As the principle of Multiplicity wanes, its power becomes internalized or introverted, giving a sharper, more exclusivistic character to the ego — that is, to the individualized capacity to adjust to increasingly unique family and sociocultural situations.(2)As the principle of Unity simultaneously waxes, it strengthens the operation of the true "individualizing principle" or "higher self" (terms which will be defined more precisely in Chapter 9), which seeks the integration of a spiritual Quality and a human being. Thus the nearly unavoidable conflict between Unity and Multiplicity begins to operate more definitely subjectively — that is, in the human consciousness and mind. It is experienced as that between the exclusivistic ego ("I am uniquely what I am and all I possess is strictly mine") and the "higher self." The conflict becomes psychological. What the psychologist usually fails to realize, however, is that what Jung (in a limited sense) called the Shadow is built by the same force that once generated an immense multiplicity of life species out of the one ocean where life is said to have begun. But in human psychology this force operates within the new frame of reference generated by spirit since its power began to rise at the symbolic Noon — that is, within the psychism of human beings operating in cooperative communities.

2. I mentioned a special approach to this internalization of the trend toward Multiplicity in an early series of articles (1942-43) now revised and integrated in my book The Pulse of Life, which was later retitled Astrological Signs: The Pulse of Life by the publisher (Shambhala Publications, Boulder, 1970). This book interprets the cycle of being in terms of the seasonal cycle of the year and the zodiac. See pages 21-25.

Though waning, the power of Multiplicity and differentiation is still dominant during the Noon-to-Sunset quarter of the cycle, the period during which "human history" takes place. Most people today are still dominated by its internalized manifestation — a strong, exclusivistically self-concerned and self-limiting ego-will, which casts the darkest kinds of shadows upon what pejoratively has been called "the human condition" by existentialist philosophers shocked by the seeming absurdity of existence on earth. Indeed, the problems human beings face seem insurmountable as the process of individualization rages in an anarchistic human world increasingly featuring mental as well as physical terrorism and torture. Nevertheless, as the principle of Unity waxes spirit is released through Avatars inspiring the formation of religions and cultures, and eventually through individuals who realize and actualize their innermost, divine center (a spiritual Quality, a Letter of the creative Word).

But while spirit is playing an increasingly important, transformative, and illuminating role in the evolution of humanity, the forces that oppose spirit are leading a vast number of people to what can only be qualified as partial failure. Numerous total failures also occur; in them, being is gradually reduced to the state of a quasi-dimensionless point without any contents or meaning whatsoever. But from the point of view of the philosophy of Wholeness, these failures polarize the gradual emergence of spirit-illumined beings; yet the ratio of failures to successes may be undetermined.

Partial failures have been called the "laggards" of human evolution, in which they probably constitute a majority of human centers of being. Because they cannot overcome the inertia of desire for life in a physical body swayed by the exciting dramas and frustrations of love, of the desire for possessions and their tragic albeit stimulating loss, and above all of the desire for personal existence as a uniquely valuable (even though separate and alienated) "I," these human beings do not reach Illumination at the fateful "Last Day" of planetary evolution. They may lag behind even at the end of a lesser period when a decision for or against spirit has to be made — the symbolic separation of the sheep and the goats. One might say that these "laggards" drop out of the planetary evolutionary movement into a partially subjective state of "sleep." In this state, they are absorbed in "dreams" which mainly repeat or develop memories of past life-periods. Karma will compel them to reawaken in a new universe, where they will have a second chance to reach illumination and the Pleroma state of unanimous being.

The total failures also will be given a second chance, but for them this means more than merely reawakening from "sleep." It necessitates a powerful reenergization and mobilization out of a nearly absolute, negative condition of indifference to existence and to relationships of all kinds. It demands a new universe in which they can once more experience the pull of love, relationship, and the light of meaning. This demand is met at the symbolic Midnight by a surge of total, all-remembering compassion — the fountainhead of spirit in its supreme state. It is met by an incomprehensibly all-inclusive "vision" (such an inadequate word) emanating from the Godhead state — the vision of a new cycle of being.

This vision must acquire definite form, indeed an immense multiplicity of forms, each of which potentially will be a particular instrumentality for the regeneration of a particular type of failure, total or partial, of the past universal or planetary cycle. The vision must be defined, differentiated, and formulated in a vast number of spiritual Qualities of being which in their togetherness constitute the creative Word or Logos. While there is only one Word, it has many "Letters"; similarly, in religious symbolism, God the Creator, the One, has many "Names" (for example, Power, Compassion, Love, Beauty, Justice, Intelligence, Omniscience, Beneficence, Charity, Perfection, Plenitude of Being, Permanence, Destroyer, Redeemer, and so on).(3)

Each of these spiritual Qualities will seek concrete manifestation during the period of the new universe — or in a more restricted sense (as the universal Whole is a hierarchy of subwholes, sub-subwholes, and soon) during a planetary cycle in which some kind of "humanity" develops and seeks Illumination. After the symbolic Noon of this cycle, the evolution of humanity will be essentially an attempt to establish a permanent link between each of these Qualities and corresponding lines of development of human beings in concrete physical organisms.

3. In Occult terminology, the creative God often is considered one "Ray" of Light which differentiates into three basic Rays, which in turn differentiate into a multiplicity of colors and shades. Or, the creative power might be considered as a mysterious, physically inaudible because mainly subjective Sound (nada or Aum) which has a quasi-infinite number of overtones, or rather of undertones, as the creative Tone operates in a "descending" mode. The energy of this creative Tone (also called Fohat) compels the total failures to break away from the condition of total indifference to relationship and existence. It whirls these utterly separate, static, almost dimensionless points of being into immense whorls of cosmic proto-matter — the first stage of existence assumed by the failures that in their nearly total separateness had become the dark roots of matter, pure chaos.

At first this link is only generic and collective. Each racial line of human development and each culture — each originally related to a particular continent and region of the biosphere — is linked with a particular spiritual Quality (Ray and sub-Ray). The Quality is "projected upon," or reflected especially clearly by, one or more prototypal beings later worshipped or revered as the "great ancestor" of the race, tribe, or nation, for even modern nations are not without revered "Fathers" and heroes having embodied a highly valued way of life under difficult conditions. Such prototypal personages become at least symbols of a human collectivity's rootedness in a past which is glorified and idealized long after it actually has taken place. At least in terms of the salient features of their characters and deeds, they can be considered Avatars for the collectivity for which they represent a particular quality of being (or a small group of such qualities).

Collective avatarhood can become individualized avatarhood once the process of individualization has been successfully undergone, once a person has freed himself or herself from bondage to the set patterns of family and culture and has achieved a radical independence from the collective power of society and at least a degree of authentic spiritual autonomy. When this happens, a definite linking of a particular spiritual Quality and an individual person occurs. I have referred to this in previous writings as a "one-to-one relationship" between a spiritual entity (or Quality) and a living human being.(4) The process of establishing such a one-to-one relationship may have been attempted and partially or temporarily achieved during a succession of human lives — a process which we shall examine in Chapter II when we study the complex and usually misunderstood concept of "reincarnation." For now let us say only that the ultimate goal of such a process is to effectuate a meeting of spirit and matter in the "divine Marriage" of a single spiritual Quality (or Letter of the creative Word) and a single individualized person.

4. See The Planetarization of Consciousness, Part Two, Chapter 7, "Soul-Field, Mind, and Reincarnation."

This meeting and the process bringing it about involve and require the activity of the mind, which is a complex and extremely important factor in the cycle of being. It operates in several ways, depending upon what is needed during particular periods of the cycle. All aspects of "mental" activity can, however, be understood if we realize that mind is the type of activity through which the principle of relatedness operates — and this principle is the most essential factor in Wholeness.

Mind as the Formative Agent Inherent in Relationship

In its most fundamental aspect, the concept of Wholeness includes that of relatedness, and the essential relationship implied in Wholeness is that of the principles of Unity and Multiplicity. This relationship is dynamic and ever-altering, but it is a structured relationship taking the form of a cyclic process, the Movement of Wholeness. The structuring, form-giving factor is mind. In its primordial and universal aspect, it is the "mind of Wholeness." Less metaphysically, at any level of being, the phrase "mind of wholeness" essentially refers to the mind that realizes in every situation, perceived and experienced as a whole, the interplay of the two great powers active in being. Unity and Multiplicity. Such a mind is able to assess (as it were) their relative intensity, which defines the state of being in which the particular situation operates.

The philosophy of operative Wholeness presented in this book recognizes and fully accepts a dualism of opposite and complementary trends in every manifestation and at every level of being; but it is not a dualistic philosophy because its essential reality is the relationship between any two polarities — or, more abstractly, their relatedness. Wholeness is relatedness considered as the supreme, all-inclusive reality of being. As mind is implied in all dualistic relationships as a third factor because of which the relationship has "form," mind can be considered the direct agent of Wholeness. At every moment of the cyclic continuum of change — the foundation of what human consciousness interprets as time — mind gives a theoretically definable form to the relationship between the principles of Unity and Multiplicity. The particular form is made possible by the balance of the two great principles at that moment; a human mind's perception of it also is conditioned by the kind of frame of reference that mind is able to use.

As the ratio between the drives toward Unity and Multiplicity unceasingly changes, and as this changing relationship engenders predominantly subjective and predominantly objective realms and conditions of being, mind operates in ceaselessly differing ways. The activity of mind during the period between the symbolic Midnight and Sunrise does not resemble mind as it develops, culture after culture, throughout the history of mankind on earth; yet there is a polar relationship between these two types of mind — the first "divine," the second "human." Similarly, the operations of mind at work between the symbolic Sunrise and Noon — from the beginning of the physical universe to the appearance of Natural Man and the beginning of the avataric process — evidently are most unlike the activity of mind within the series of planetary and cosmic Pleroma formed after the symbolic Sunset, the point of Illumination. Each period, subperiod, and sub-subperiod of the cycle of being witnesses and requires the operation of a different kind of mind; but at all times mind gives form to the then effectual relationship between any pair of opposites. What then is form?

In the most basic sense of the term, form is the more or less complex interweaving of relationships linking more or less numerous elements within the field of activity and/or consciousness of a whole. The whole may be a concrete, physical organism, a musical sonata composed of many notes arranged in a specific order according to a system of organization (tonality in Western culture), a mathematical theorem, the constitution and legal system of a nation, or any other organization of multiple elements, entities, or concepts. The terms form and shape often are used carelessly and interchangeably, but the word shape should be used only with reference to an entity's external appearance. The shape of an object or a body can be described objectively and in terms of physical sensations; it can also, at least in principle, be measured. But one cannot measure the form of a concept or a metaphysical system. One can claim that form exists in space; but if one means only the space of the physical, material world, one ignores the fact that a system of closely interrelated ideas has form (but one might also say "structure") yet exists only in a mental kind of space. It is "mental" because the system is a complex organization of relations which are not necessarily embodied in material entities, though the creator of the system may use concrete images or physical experiences as symbols to evoke his or her meaning.

Today we are well aware of the principle of inertia, which states that any object at rest or in uniform motion in a particular direction will remain at rest or continue in motion unless acted upon by some external force. Inertia, in the broadest sense of the term, is resistance to change. The speed and direction of a moving object resist change; similarly the basic character of any form is to resist change, that is, to perpetuate the particular set of relationships which made it what it is. All religious, social, and cultural institutions have intense inertia. Once formed and set into operation, usually they can be transformed only with great difficulty. A culture as a whole slowly — or in some instances rapidly — changes; it "evolves" generation after generation insofar as its outer modes of operations, fashions, and even some of its ideals are concerned. Yet its basic assumptions, religious beliefs, and fundamental symbols and characteristics of living are extremely tenacious; violent crises or disasters may be needed before a really new beginning can occur. The same can be said of a person's ego which, in a sense, operates as a private institution with its own routine, long held beliefs, and resistance to transformation.

If mind (at whatever level it operates) is the formative agent that produces form out of sets of relationships, what then transforms mental organizations or physical organisms? What is it that overcomes the inertia inherent in formations once they are stabilized? It is the momentum of the Movement of Wholeness manifesting as the continuum of change — the foundation of what we call time. Again we encounter a dualism: continuous change and the tendency in forms (complexes of relations) to persist and perpetuate themselves. Such a dualism is not essentially different from that of Multiplicity and Unity; for just as human beings have sought and still seek inner psychological security in imagining and deifying a Supreme One, beyond and impervious to multiplicity, they have conceived of Him (or It) as changeless — often as the Perfect Form of being.

The acceptance of both constant change and permanent forms of being gives rise to the concept of a divine (or quasi-divine) realm of persistent archetypal forms and the world of ever-changing earthly existence in physical substance. Mind operates at both levels, the archetypal and the existential, but it operates differently at each because the types of forms it produces at each have different functions in the cycle of being. In both cases the function of mind is to give form to the energy of spirit; yet mind also can act in the service of the forces that work against spirit.

Mind indeed is neutral. So is the principle of relatedness, as is Wholeness itself — because forever unconcerned with Unity or Multiplicity as such. Wholeness is the perfect though dynamic and ever-changing relatedness of all there is and can ever be. In Wholeness form and movement stand in contrast, but not in conflict. Contrast means form; and form, mind. Mind therefore is inherent in Wholeness; yet it acts in a different, particularized manner in every form or category of forms.

During the period of the Movement of Wholeness between Midnight and Sunrise, mind acts by giving a cosmic outline to the supreme release of divine Compassion — the spirit radiating from the Godhead. This cosmic outline is the "Form" needed to make divine compassion effectual and therefore to meet the need of the many types of failures of the once human past. The "creative Hierarchies" at work between Midnight and Sunrise operate as aspects of the divine Mind. They become increasingly defined and relatively individualized as the principle of Multiplicity waxes. Yet they are held together as a divine "Host" by the power of the still dominant principle of Unity, and the vast number of archetypes they create are forms in (rather than of) the divine Mind.

These archetypal forms retain their power during the immensely long period of evolution from Creation to the coming of what I have called Natural Man. They act, one might say, as "guiding fields" for the development and activities of biological orders, families, genera, and species — thus for the operation of "life," which (as we have seen) is a new manifestation of the integrative activity of spirit acting upon a multitude of material elements. In any particular life species, instinct results from the combination of the energy of life intent upon perpetuating its specific rhythm and the persistent presence of the archetypal form built by the divine Mind for a particular manifestation of life.

During the last part of the period between Sunrise and Noon, protohuman races may be considered extreme manifestations of the dominance of the principle of Multiplicity, because in them the power of archetypal forms is as weak as it can be. In Occult cosmogonies they are called "mindless," not only because the truly human mind has not yet appeared, but because their forms apparently were unsteady, indefinite, and often altered by interracial mixtures.

At this Noon point in the cycle, the power of Unity is at its lowest ebb. It is reenergized by the "descent" (or projection) of the archetype Man through, yet also in, the person of the Avatar or series of Avatars. The Compassion radiating from the Godhead state vibrates wherever beings of a new and truly human type appear on our planet. Because the balance between the principles of Multiplicity and Unity is definitely altered after the symbolic Noon, Wholeness assumes a new form of manifestation; a new mind begins to develop in what has really become "humanity." Out of the operation of this human mind, cultures take form. A culture is a complex form of mind "inspirited" by the energy released by the Avatar at his death. (During the Avatar's life this energy was focused and "condensed" in a potential mode in his total person.)

In the first chapter of this book, I dealt briefly and succinctly with the basic stages through which cultures develop; much more has been discussed in my previous works.(5) This development is a collective manifestation of the growth and complexification of mind during the Noon-to-Sunset period of the great cycle. Ideally, the development of mind in the human mode closely follows the gradual rise to power of the principle of Unity — the energy of the "holy spirit" released through Avatars. Each culture has its particular "creative Word" which is both a vibratory spirit-energy (or "tone") and a set of mind-created forms (prime symbols, religious assumptions, rites, and so on). But because the power of the principle of Multiplicity is still dominant, human beings can respond to this "Word" in many ways. They interpret the Word intellectually and react emotionally to the "tone" of the new release of spirit-energy, according to the state of mental and psychological development they have reached. This state depends largely on the condition of the old, disintegrating culture (which was impressed upon their child mentality) at the time the new surge of avataric power occurred.

5. See Culture, Crisis and Creativity (The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Illinois, 1977) and Beyond Individualism: The Psychology of Transformation (The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Illinois, 1979).

As already stated, while the human will can be attuned to the rhythm and tone-quality of the Movement of Wholeness, it also may choose, or be inwardly compelled by an overwhelming accumulation of "karmic deposits" (subconscious memories of an ancient past) to oppose a new release of spirit. An individual can resist change and refuse (consciously or subconsciously) to fulfill his or her dharma because he or she is controlled by an ego that is emotionally attached to its form and has developed intense inertia; the more beautiful the form, the more difficult the act of severance may be. While the will of the individualized person is in principle the spiritual determinant, there is both an ego-will and a spiritual will released by the true "individualizing principle" (see Chapter 9). The ego-will is attached to the form built by the mind — the personal self, "I" myself. Peter or Jane — and that form normally is an outgrowth of the equally rigid and taken-for-granted assumptions and forms of behavior of the culture within which the ego was impelled or compelled to develop a particular character.

The mind, consciously controlled or semiconsciously fascinated by a strong and rigid ego-will, "freezes" within a particular form. It may develop its potentialities in greater depth, revealing a more complete and encompassing meaning, but it also may totally stiffen and shrink. The circumference of the mandala of personality, the center of which is the ego-will, may become smaller and smaller as the contents of the circle die of starvation. In the end, circumference and center are reduced to a nearly nondimensional point. For human beings this is total failure, even if not absolute non-being. The emptiness of such a condition polarizes the Godhead state of utterly condensed but all-encompassing plenitude of being. Both states are almost totally subjective, but subjectivity can be either the quintessentialization of objective experiences of relationships fully lived into an all-encompassing wholeness of meaning, or a quasi-absolute withdrawal from objectivity and all modes of relatedness — an utterly empty and meaningless state of isolation, a mindless caricature of individual selfhood.

As the progressive actualization of all the potentialities of the archetype Man proceeds through a long series of societies and cultures, each of which has the development of one particular aspect of this archetype as its collective dharma, mind becomes an increasingly dominant factor. At first it is the servant of life in an animal-like, instinctual way; but instinct is bound by form and by the need to perpetuate the generic morphology and character of the species with only very gradual changes. In human beings, however, while instinct still operates at the strictly biological level, it is superseded by intelligence — that is, by the capacity to adapt oneself (not only the physical body but the psychic being and the whole personality) to the requirements of any situation. The aim of such adaptation is to provide a maximum of well-being and happiness — and a minimum of discomfort, pain, and organic deterioration. Intelligence refers particularly to a person's capacity to adjust to the demands of his or her sociocultural environment, which also means the ability to acquire the kind of knowledge society expects its valuable and important members to have.

Today mind usually is identified with the ability to learn and to accumulate information; but as long as what is learned are systems of interpretation almost totally biased by the culture's basic assumptions and approach to knowledge, the learning mind is the "culture mind." In Euro-American society, which extols analysis, empiricism, a special kind of logic, the proliferation of research projects, and the accumulation of sense data and mechanical information, the culture mind is often called the intellect, even though the word had a far deeper, spiritual meaning in early Greece. Intellectuals now persons of knowledge, well-informed, learned; yet their minds are mainly memory banks, storage depots for undigested and unrelated information. Indeed, information is an unfortunate and confusing term, because unrelated data have no form, and what is called information today is mostly data that are unrelated as yet.

The question is, however, related to what? For most people, the taken-for-granted relation is to a culture which always is based on more or less exclusivistic concepts defining what should or should not be accepted as knowledge. The strictly physical, sense-conditioned, reductionist, and statistical methods from which "scientific" knowledge is now solely derived exclude whatever cannot be studied and measured objectively. This is the culture mind at work. Yet as human evolution becomes increasingly polarized by the rise of the principle of Unity, subjective factors inevitably will gain ever greater importance and meaning. For the mind of wholeness is the mind able to integrate as fully as possible objective and subjective experiences. It perceives all situations as integral wholes; it sees Wholeness in operation everywhere and at all times. It perceives humanity as a whole, even though a society based upon the wholeness of mankind today seems more an unattainable Utopia than a possible reality in a relatively near future.

The realization that all individuals and communities of human beings constitute a whole cannot be held significantly by a decisive majority of men and women as long as the various collective egos we glorify as "sovereign nations" hold onto their exclusivity. World unity cannot occur when nations have not surrendered their emotional, cultural, religious, and political exclusivism and their animal-like dependence upon a particular territory which has to be controlled by their "maleness" or which, they believe, was given uniquely to them by God. The basic issue not only involves easily roused mass emotions and economic and business interests; for basic as the latter are today, international corporations have globalized them. The issue refers to the quality of mind now in operation on all continents; for mind alone can effectively focus the imprecise and diffuse aspirations of many human beings toward what can only be a dream of unity. Many people assuredly indulge in great subjective dreams of a millenial "New Age," but subjectivity alone cannot engender reality. Reality is the interrelationship of subjectivity and objectivity. Wholeness is reality, and Wholeness, being relatedness, is realized in form. The Movement of Wholeness is form in perpetual motion and re-creation. And this motion at every moment creates in mind the ever-changing yet always harmonic form of the Whole.

This Whole is the cosmos. It is also archetypal Man - and it is also you and I, if we allow the mind of wholeness to structure our total being in the image of Wholeness, so that we, too, become Reality - instead of a dream spasmodically mated with a composite of potential greed, lust, anger, and ambition.

Rhythm of Wholeness