Franklin Merrell-Wolff discusses the nature of paradox. He offers a number of examples of paradoxical statements such as the modern physicist’s description of light as both a particle and a wave and the mathematician’s handling of Zeno’s Achilles and the Tortoise race. He then elaborates upon the Buddhist doctrine of anatman within the context of the logic of our universe of discourse and maintains that the Buddha has not given us a critique of reality, but a critique of cognition.

Franklin Merrell-Wolff offers a brief review of the path of the yoga of knowledge. He outlines the philosophical background for the self-analysis that breaks the false identification with all that is not the Self and opens the door to the Realization that “I am Atman.” He goes on to affirm that the renunciation of this nirvanic delight brings a still more comprehensive Realization, which he calls the “High Indifference.”

Franklin Merrell-Wolff continues to elaborate on the moral code of the Buddha that is necessary for the practice of the yoga of knowledge. He gives an extended exposition of Tantra yoga and issues a serious warning against practicing it without the personal supervision of a qualified teacher. He goes on to discuss the caste system, Jung’s description of psychological types, and cautions that the right method with wrong man leads to wrong results.

Franklin Merrell-Wolff discusses the appropriate philosophic orientation necessary to understand and practice the yoga of knowledge. He describes the theory of illusion or maya presented by Shankara and then outlines the discipline that is needed for the successful practice of this yoga.

Franklin Merrell-Wolff describes various schemas that have been used to represent psychological or philosophical truth, and points out that any such statement is true or false with respect to a base of reference. He argues that any conceptual representation can at best “point” to a reality, and that this holds true whether the referent lies in the perceptual order or in the introceptual order. He concludes with the suggestion of a schema that may lead one from the conceptual order to the introceptual order.

Franklin Merrell-Wolff elaborates on why he avoids the use of the word ‘mind’ and discusses its ambiguity by commenting on a lengthy quote from Jung’s introduction to The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation. He presents an outline of the story of Western philosophy to help clarify this issue and goes on to suggest that a precise analysis of the nature of consciousness requires the recognition of three functions of consciousness; namely, sense perception, conceptual cognition, and introceptual Realization.