William Blake Naropa Lectures continues – 7

Allen Ginsberg continues with his Commentary on William Blake’s The Book of Ahania continuing from here  – (on  Chapter IV).

AG:   “Forth flew the arrows of pestilence/ Round the pale living Corse on the tree For in Urizens slumbers of abstraction/In the infinite ages of Eternity”
That’s nice.  “Urizens slumbers of abstraction.”  Does anybody know what that means?
It seems obvious.
Student:  It seems like he’s not awake, he’s not awakening.  He’s slumbering in his own thoughts.
AG:  Yes.  And the abstractions are like…  go ahead.
Student:  He calls it Newton’s sleep. [Editorial note -“Now I a fourfold vision see/ And a fourfold vision is given to me/ Tis fourfold in my supreme delight/ And three fold in soft Beulahs night/ And twofold Always. May God us keep From Single vision & Newtons sleep.” – (from a letter to Thomas Butts,  22 November 1802)]
AG:  Yes
Student:  Scientific thought.
AG:  Yes.  The Buddhist term is (the) same –  wake and sleep.  The quality of awake or the quality of sleeping.  The Buddhist analysis is very similar.  In this case, awake from what?  Awake from daydream, awake from sleeping, but daydreaming or awake (or) awakening from a state of consciousness which is filled with conceptual thought forms (and) conceptualizations – abstractions and conceptualizations – or daydreams removed from one’s own presence in the material world, the senses.
Student:  Non-synchronization of sense of time and (place)
AG:  Well, non-synchronization of the thoughts with sense ….
Student:  Both mind and body.
AG:  Yeah, okay.  With the senses.
Student:  (Distracted from the) present moment.
AG:  Okay.

Student:  Mind (is inherently) visionary..(It has a) point, five different points, it seems like.
AG:  Well, see you’re making it so complicated now.  You’ve got a system of your own.
Student:  Possibly not.  I’m just saying there might be a system outside (traditional) systems.
AG:  There’s millions of systems.  He made his own.  So what we’re trying to do is check his own against the Buddhist one, which is the one most commonly known around here, and also, if anybody’s got the wit, which I’ve asked before, if anybody knows Kabbalistic or Hermetic systems.
Student:  I was thinking of the Tree (Yggdrasil).
AG:  No, this tree comes from the Kabbalah.   Yeah.
Student:  Coming out of the void of Heaven and Hell.
AG:  Yeah.  Yes, right.  That’s right.  Your original thing … wait a minute, go back to your original thing, (which) was mind as abstraction, body as present … was that it?
Student:  No, mind (as visionary). Mind being synonymous with possibly imagination, although you go into (complex..)
AG:  We’re just trying to explain this number of abstraction… We’re just trying to get this number of abstraction in a simple way so everybody can understand it.  Can you contribute to that?
Student:  Yeah, asleep or awake.
AG:  Huh?
Student:  It would be (different asleep or awake).
AG:  No, no, what were you saying?  Were you talking to this point?  Yes, you were.  You were saying that body….
Student:  No, I said, synchronous with your body and mind …
AG:  Yeah.
Student:  … (you) would be awake and present.
AG:  Okay.  So then could I interpret that as meaning that the thoughts in the mind refer to the senses, and you could check against the senses?  Or what did you mean by body?
Student:  In that sense, yeah.  In that sense.
AG:  Then we’re …
Student:  In the present sense.
AG:  … okay, then we’re in synch.
Student:  In a future sense, (tho’),  beyond senses…
AG:  No, no, wait a minute.  Now you’re taking it to a number of abstraction.
Student:  No, I’m just taking it to (the year) 2000.
AG:  What?   Say it.  Say what you said.  We want to hear that number of abstraction, right? ….. Two thousand what?  Okay? – numbers (are merely) abstraction! Okay.  So in relation to Buddhist systems, which are the most commonly known around here, the quality of awake, the quality of sleeping being conceptualization, and dependency on conceptualization, rather than checking against the senses, or letting go of conceptualization and allowing some space in between.  So that space would be “The Tree still grows over the Void.”
The curious thing about Blake’s system is that it’s not far away from any pretty sensibly grounded system, using East/West/North/South basic (human) qualities or principles, or Zoas, like body, mind, intellect and feeling, (and) so forth. Later on, as we’ll get into The Four Zoas,  I’ll make a parallel diagram or mandala between Blake’s system and the Buddhist system, and if anybody can contribute maybe a Kabbalistic parallel with the directions, or a Hebrew Kabbalistic, I’ll check that out, or somebody can check it out.  There have been some recent lectures around town on the basis of the Buddhist Mandala, and they are very close to the Blake forms also.  The Blake Mandala.

to be continued