Questing Beyond

 

Harry consists of a hundred or a thousand selves, not of two. His life oscillates, as everyone's does, not merely between two poles, such as the body and the spirit, the saint and the sinner, but between thousands and thousands. Every ego, so far from being a unity is in the highest degree a manifold world, a constellated heaven, a chaos of forms, of states and stages, of inheritances and potentialities. As a body everyone is single, as a soul, never.                                                                                                                          - From Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

Just a few days ago a man came to see me and he said, "I am a humble man. I am just like the dust on your feet. I have been trying for almost twenty years to achieve higher consciousness, but I have been a failure. Why can't I attain?" And on and on he went. Every sentence started with I. If the grammar allowed, every sentence would have ended with I. And if everything was allowed, every sentence would have consisted only of I's. "I etcetera, I etcetera, I etcetera," it went on and on. You are filled too much. There is no room, no space for God to enter in you. You are too crowded. A thousand I's milling inside -- they don't leave any space for anything to enter in you.                                                                                                                                                               (OSHO)

The notion of multiple dimensions doesn't explain anything, but at least it makes sense, because this phenomenon cannot be explained from a purely four-dimensional, extraterrestrial universe; or the idea that we could argue that this isn't occurring because space vehicles would take X amount of multiple years to get here from some other place, and that's not possible, and so forth and so on -- that really is beside the point. I mean, if these are beings who have mastered technologies that are way beyond anything we can now know, it's very possible that they can go through wormholes that collapse time, or that they can come from some other dimension and enter into our universe, travel by thought processes. There are all kinds of possibilities that scientists have conceived of, but which our technology hasn't even begun to approach. So I think that rather than look upon this as extraterrestrial, I think it does make more sense to use Jacques Vallee's term a multiverse, a universe of multiple dimensions from which it is possible that these beings come.                                                             [Dr. John Mack (Prof Psychiatry, Harvard), in conversation with Jeffrey Mishlove, concerning human contact with aliens]

It may be that people when they're dreaming are tapping into some other reality that enters our world filled with meaning.                                                                                      (ibid)

What if the alien encounter phenomenon were subtle in the sense that it may manifest in the physical world but derives from a source which by its very nature could not provide the kind of hard evidence that would satisfy skeptics for whom reality is limited to the material? What if we were to acknowledge that the phenomenon is beyond our present framework of knowledge?
Might not such an attitude of humility become, paradoxically, a way to enlarge upon what could then be learned? Is it possible that adopting an open attitude toward the testimony of witnesses could enable us to learn of unseen realities now obscured by our too limited epistemology, allowing us to rediscover the sacred and the divinity in nature and in ourselves?
I think of these experiences as a crossing over between the material world and what in Eastern philosophy is called the subtle realm. Like a reified “mystic's journey,” experiencers describe being brought into another dimension of reality from which a new perspective on life on Earth is possible. Sensitivity to our dysfunctional ecological and social conditions emerges as many come to feel that every living system is connected to what many call “Source,” or “Home.” An awareness of this relationship must be regained, they say, if we are to create a sustainable, peaceful world.
Having listened to the similar testimony of more than 200 experiencers from the West and from indigenous cultures, I have come to feel that the phenomenon is of great importance to our evolution, regardless of its ontological status.                                                                                                                                                                                                                  (Dr. John Mack)

The alien encounter experience seems almost like an outreach program from the cosmos to the spiritually impaired.                                                   (Dr. John Mack)

 

A largely unexplored area having implications for our understanding of the interplay between psychopathology and bodily change has to do with the type of case where psi communications seem to take the form of transient somatic manifestations. Eisenbud (1970) describes several cases of what seemed to be psychosomatic symptoms initiated as psi-conditioned responses. Other observers, notably Schwarz (1967) and Stevenson (1970), suggest that the effect is more frequent than is generally suspected. Based on his studies of telepathic impressions, Stevenson feels it is reasonable to assume that somatic symptomatology ranging from obscure physical symptoms to identifiable psychosomatic syndromes may come about as physical analogies of a telepathic message. Schwarz coined the term telesomatic reactions for responses of this nature and reported on a number of illustrative cases drawn from his own practice as well as self-observation. He points out that, since reactions of this kind evolve unconsciously, they are apt to go unnoticed unless the telepathy hypothesis is kept in mind. He cites the work on the plethysmographic registration of ESP effects as suggestive of the possible mechanism responsible for physiological changes and somatic symptomatology.

 

Two types of reported experience are worth noting in their possible bearing on the problem of remotely induced bodily changes. One is a well-documented report of the extraordinary circumstances attending the unexpected simultaneous deaths of 32-year-old schizophrenic twins (Wilson and Reece, 1964) who were under observation at the time on different wards of a psychiatric hospital. They died at approximately the same time and for causes that could not be determined at autopsy. In the analysis of the various factors that might have accounted for the simultaneity of death the authors included a "psychic" determinant.

 

Another kind of remotely induced organismic change is reported by Paul (1966) in her description of how two of her patients reacted during a period of time when she was under the influence of an hallucinogenic mushroom taken for experimental purposes. In each instance the patient went through a period of upset and disturbance followed by an amnesia of several hours duration correlating with the time the therapist herself was experiencing an altered state of consciousness. Temporary psychotic-like symptoms appeared to have been remotely induced, followed by a near total memory loss. Here again the question arises: if incidents of this kind do occur, how often do they go, if not unnoticed, then unrecognized as telepathically induced?

                                                                                                                                                                                    (Montague Ullman – Psychopathology and Psi Phenomena)

 

If astrology is right, the ego is wrong. Let us understand it this way: if astrology is wrong, then nothing remains to be right but the ego. If astrology is right then the world is right, and only I as an island am wrong. I am only an infinitesimal and trifling part of the world - I am so minute that I cannot even be included in the count. If astrology is right, then I am not there. There is a huge flow of forces in which I am only a small ripple.
Sometimes as we ride a big wave, we are under the illusion that we too are something special, and we forget about the big wave. This big wave is also riding upon the ocean of which we are completely unaware. If the ocean disappears below it, the wave will disappear and we will also disappear. Without any reason we become unhappy about the possibility of our disappearance, only because we have contrived to be happy through our belief in our own separate existence. If we had realized that there is only a big wave and the vast ocean, and that we are not - that it is the wish of the ocean that we arise on it, that it is the wish of the ocean that we die...            (Osho - Hidden Mysteries)

 

The best way to bring a malfunction to an end on either the physical or psychological plane is to totally accept the perception we have of it. This does not mean accepting it morally, but actively. Acceptance is lucid, watchful awareness. It is this acceptance that brings about the cure. Seen from an "accepting" point of view; illness no longer has any substance, and the patient then has the greatest possible chance of getting better. …"Acceptance” means objectifying the sensation, not trying to escape it, dominate it or suppress it. In this total acceptance the body regains its health for it already knows health…. To accept, to take note, this is awareness. There is no other way of expressing it than this, for memory does not intervene. Sometimes we come very near to this state when meditating, there are moments when we are silent awareness.                                                                                                                     (Jean Klein “Neither This nor That I Am”)

Do not nourish the ideas you have built around yourself nor the image people have of you. Be neither someone nor something, just don't play the game. This will bring about being, constant awareness.                                                                                                                                                                                          (ibid)

Observe the way your mind moves, works, without having any preconceived ideas about it. A moment will come when you discover yourself to be the witness. Subsequently, when all striving has left you, you will realize that you are the light shining beyond the observer. Reality is neither a product of the mind nor the result of a whole train of thoughts, it just is. The only method we can suggest is to observe impartially the way in which your mind reacts in the different circumstances of everyday life.                                                                   (ibid)
 

Deeply buried within you is the conviction that all objects and your surroundings are separate from you, outside you. In the same way, feelings and your body are just objects amongst others which can also be considered separate from you. If we adopt this point of view, the ego loses its substance. You will come to see that your thoughts, your I-thought, emotions, likes and dislikes are equally only perceived objects. This standpoint will lead you to realize spontaneously that you are the ultimate knower, and your notion of being a personal entity will thus lose all meaning.                  (ibid)

When you listen without being aggressive or resisting, your whole body becomes this listening. Everything surrounding you is included in this listening, and ultimately there is total listening. There is no longer a listener and something listened to. You are then on the threshold of non-duality. You have left conceptual patterns behind. You must live this experience for yourself. "I am" points towards ultimate reality.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   (ibid)

We exchange ideas so as to know their worth, so as to find a just way of seeing things, but under no circumstances do we try to situate ourselves in relation to a thought or a projection. Basically it is a form of reasoning which is meant to being about its own elimination, so that sooner or later you will find there is no room for personal identity.                                                                    (ibid)   

 

Reality is not limited to the body and mind. We can consider the latter to be instruments, our property to be put to use. The changes that the body and mind go through during the different ages; childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age are seen by a knower. This knower who observes these changes could not do so if he were not himself unchanging.                         (ibid)

We free ourselves by awareness, free from all reference to the past, free from bodily or psychological habits, free from choice and repetition. It is a door open to spontaneous understanding and having nothing to do with mental activity. Instantaneous total vision consumes error. The energy which previously constituted the error shifts away from it and integrates with truth that is being. The ego striving to survive either clings on to its accumulated memories, or projects desires into the future, thus using up a considerable amount of energy.                                                                (ibid)

Know that awareness without tension, where you are uninvolved and do not seek a conclusion, is total awareness.                                                                                             (ibid)

 

In the evening when you go to bed prepare yourself, so as to avoid taking your daily worries with you. Observe whatever should present itself objectively; if you feel tired, feel it deep within yourself, look at it closely, thus you will spontaneously find yourself exterior to it. Sooner or later a moment will arrive where it is no longer the focal point of your attention and it will disappear, will be burnt up by this awareness. The same thing will happen to all worries that preoccupy you. You will thus experience a feeling of harmony. Finally let your body sink into deep sleep.             (ibid)
 
When you wake up in the morning, don't do so in relation to objects, let it be in the Self, your true being. First of all be deeply aware, later the ego and the world will come to life.        (ibid)

Perception is entirely independent of the perceiver and of the perceived object, which are but concepts. Perception is living, the only reality, now, however gross or subtle it may be. Each perception is a non-dual experiencing of pure awareness. Subsequently we may say: "I thought this or that, or I heard a chord in C major" ….. at the actual time, there was no thought, no sensation, only "I am". With deep conviction, this fact will take root within us and we will no longer need to make an effort to remember it. It is this true understanding that turns the "I am" into a reality.                    (ibid)
 
In reality there is only the Self, the non-dual Self which is. Awareness is reflected in the mind's mirror, and this gives birth to the ego. Seeing this dependent and separate, we mistakenly take ourselves to be this or that, but in reality there is only the true "I am" beyond time and space.                                                                                                                                                       (ibid)
 
When one is struck by wonder or astonishment there is perfect non-duality between the knower and the thing known. It is a living reality. Let yourself be totally absorbed by it, then thought and action will derive directly from this background which is wonderment.                                                                                                                                                                                        (ibid)

A handshake, hug, or gesture of touch is a universal way of communicating. It might surprise you to know what this simple act of touch is really doing! The electromagnetic field generated by the heart not only radiates outward from the body, but also appears to carry information about our feelings, in a manner similar to how information is carried by radio waves. The HeartMath Research team wanted to know if they could demonstrate scientifically a transfer of information between people when they touch or are close to each other. This research has indicated bioelectromagnetic communication between people is indeed possible.

The research team set out to determine if the electromagnetic field produced by the heartbeat (ECG) of one person could be detected in another individual's brain activity (EEG) during physical contact. At first they seated pairs of subjects four feet apart while monitoring them during an initial baseline (no physical contact). This was followed by a period where participants reached out and held the hand of the other person (like shaking hands). Prior to holding hands, there was no indication that one subject's heartbeat signals could be detected in the other subject's brainwaves. However, upon holding hands, the heartbeat signal of one subject could be clearly detected in the other subject's brainwaves. (See graph) In some cases, the signal exchange could be detected in both directions, but only in about 30% of the pairs of participants, However it could almost always be detected in one of the participants! This was a bit of a mystery, as neither gender nor the strength of the heartbeat (ECG amplitude) explained in which participant the signal could be detected.

In later research, the answer to this puzzling finding seems to have been found. It appears that the important factor in the transmission and reception of these signals is the degree of physiological coherence that participants are in during the experiment. Do the results of these experiments mean that during a handshake or hug, another person is unconsciously detecting how we're are feeling? It appears that the electromagnetic energy generated by the heart could be an important source of non-verbal communication that occurs between people. This possibility needs further exploration, and more research is planned in this area.

(HeartMath Research)

 

There was this man who attended one of our European conferences. He had been working with a spiritual teacher for many years but he was feeling a good deal of discontent because his own male power/instinctual energy was emerging and creating conflict in the spiritual community of which he as a part. He had the following dream about his teacher: “I’m exploring the compound of my teacher. I see that in this compound children are being trained to kill animals.”

This was a remarkable dream to us, to the group and especially to the dreamer. It does not say that his training was bad. What it points out so clearly is that in this training, his feelings (children) are being trained to kill the animals, his instinctual nature. The dream had a very strong impact on the dreamer and he discontinued his studies with the teacher within a very short period of time.

We personally do not appreciate the emphasis on spiritual training that governs so much of the consciousness community. We prefer to speak about psycho-spiritual development. The name itself makes clear that transformational work requires that we move on the path of the snake, a path that is forever interweaving between psychological, emotional and physical reality on the one side and our spiritual nature on the other. From our study of the dream process it is clear that the higher mind that directs this process wants us to be in balance and requires that we embrace all of our selves.                                                                                                                                                                   (Hal and Sidra Stone)

 

To live between opposites is to learn to live with the ambiguities of life. It is the ability to hold the tension of opposites until the Aware Ego process becomes sufficiently strong that a decision occurs organically and in a way that is so natural that it hardly feels like a decision. This is one of the deeper goals of Voice Dialogue and dream work.
Always keep in mind that knowledge is the province of the primary self system. Wisdom however belongs to the province of the Aware Ego, to the ability to “not know”, to the willingness to feel as well as understand both sides of the decision making process.                                                                                                                       (ibid)

 

 

(OSHO - quoting Yakusan: Straight to the Point of Enlightenment Discourse of 18-01-89. Osho relates Zen Master Yakusan's thinking shortly before he himself withdraws from all public speaking.)

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie: deliberate, continued, and dishonest; but the myth: persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.

(John F. Kennedy)

 

Pythagoras’ biographer Porphyry tells us that Pythagoras also “soothed the passions of the soul and body by rhythms, songs and incantations,” for Pythagoras considered himself above all a healer, and used music as a remedy for every manner of illness. The Pythagoreans distinguished between three kinds of music in their philosophy: these were, to use the nomenclature of a later era, musica instrumentalis, the ordinary music made by plucking the lyre, blowing the pipe, with the singing voice, etc.; musica humana, the continuous but unheard music made by each human organism, especially the harmonious (or inharmonious) resonance between the soul and the body; and musica mundana, the music made by the cosmos itself, which would come to be known as the “Music of the Spheres.”  *

Never ask for advice, because everybody is so unique and so different that there has never been any person like you before, nor is there going to be another person like you again. So really, no guidelines for you exist. But existence is greatly compassionate. It has given you the whole program of your life in a seed form. If you don't ask anybody, and just silently listen to your own heart and go on following it, you will reach the space where you can feel at home; where suddenly you realize who you are, where suddenly you feel a synchronicity with the whole existence.            (OSHO)

 

All that is natural, the trees, the clouds, the mountains, the oceans, with all of them you will find a certain harmony. You will not find harmony with machines, big and great computers, factories, automobiles, railway trains. You may not find any harmony... there is no question, because these are heartless, lifeless things. They don't know how to sing; they don't know how to dance. Have you seen any computer dancing? Have you heard of any computer falling in love with a woman computer? Only machines will be left out.                                                                               (OSHO)

 

With all that is natural and all that grows, all that blossoms, all that moves and breathes, all that has a heartbeat, you will find a tremendous harmony. Your heartbeat will be merging and melting into the universal heartbeat ― no personal counseling.                                                                                                                                                                          (OSHO)

 

If man were immortal, love would be impossi­ble. Think. If man were immortal, I say love would be impossible. It would be difficult to love anybody if you were immortals. It would be so dangerous to fall in love. Death is there and life is just like a dewdrop on a trem­bling leaf. Any moment the breeze comes and the dewdrop will fall and disappear. Life is just a wavering….because of that wavering, because of that movement – and death is always there. It gives intensity to love. Love is possible only because there is death. Love becomes intense because there is death. Think! If you know that your be­loved is going to die the next moment, all meanness will go, all conflict will go. And this one moment will become eternity. And you will be so much love that your whole being will be poured into it. But you know the beloved is going to live, there is no hurry. You can fight and you can postpone loving for later on. If life is eternal, if you are immortal in the body, you cannot love.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        (OSHO)

 

In deep love it happens that the two persons are not two. Something between the two has come into being and they have become two poles. Something is flowing between the two. When this flow is there you will feel blissful. If love gives bliss, it gives bliss only because of this: that two persons – just for a single moment – lose their egos; their “otherness” is lost and oneness comes into being. Even for a single moment if it happens, it is ecstatic, it is blissful, you have entered paradise – even for a single moment. And this moment can be transforming                                  (OSHO)

 

Once you get in tune with your imagination, the body starts functioning. And many things you are already doing without knowing how your imagination goes on working. Many times you create many illnesses just through imagination, because you imagine that now this disease is there, infectious, it is all over the place – you have become receptive; now there is every possibility that you will fall ill. And that illness is real. But the illness has been created through imagination. Imagination is a force, is an energy, and the mind moves through it. And when the mind moves through it, the body follows.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    (OSHO)

 

Imagine energy, not substance, nothing static, but process, movement, rhythm, dance. And go on imagining until the entire universe spiritualizes. If you persist, within three months you can move to this feeling – just working one hour every day, but intensively. Within three months you can have a different feeling of the whole existence around you. Matter is no longer there – immaterial, oceanic existence; just waves, vibrations. And when this happens then you know what God is. That ocean of energy is God. God is not a person. God is not somewhere sitting on a throne in heaven. There is no one. God is the totality of what is. This whole creative energy of existence is God. But we have a pattern of thinking. We say God is the creator. Rather, God is the creative force, the very creation itself.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    (OSHO)

 

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
Do not believe in anything because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason,

                           and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

                                                (The Buddha - discourse to the Kalamas)

 

Non-attachment is the systematic practice of not automatically giving psychological energy to whatever thoughts, feelings and perceptions come along but rather having a commitment to more realistic perception, thinking and feeling, and so using various psychological and meditative techniques to reduce these automatized attachments. As a person becomes less the victim of these automatized attachments, psychological energy is freed up that can be used for more accurate insights into the nature of self and world.

A common Western error about the Buddhist concept of non-attachment is to see it as a state of having no desires, a kind of zombie like blankness where a person is at "peace" because the person doesn't give a damn about anything. Like being zonked out on some narcotic. Not so. A person who is skilled at non-attachment still has hopes, fear, desires and aversions, but they aren't attached to them, they don't hold on to them. If I see something delicious to eat, e.g., I want it - my body is designed to produce that feeling. Suppose I don't get it. If I'm attached, I get angry or sad about not getting it, I bring up memories (or more accurately, memories come up via automated processes, it's not very voluntary) of other times I've been deprived, and I generally stay worked up about it and suffer for minutes, hours, possibly days, possibly a lifetime (sadly, we all know some people who are still holding on to some slight from years ago). If I am relatively non-attached, I think (although non-attachment is not just an intellectual process) something like "Ah, what a delicious anticipation! Too bad I didn't get it, but that's past, now back to the present moment," and I forget about it.

Thus the degree to which attachment or non-attachment operates in a person's life is a major determinant of how they live their life, how much (useless) suffering they experience, and how much psychological attention they have left over after attachments to inquire into the nature of mind and life.                                                                                                    (Charles Tart)

 

In The Interior Castle, Saint Teresa of Avila describes the seventh and final stage of her journey to God:

"The self-forgetting is so great that it seems as though the soul does not even exist."

 

In his famous treatise on Soto Zen, The Shobogenzo, Dogen speaks thus:

"To study the Way is to study oneself; to study oneself is to forget oneself; to forget oneself is to be enlightened by all things."

(Shnizen Young)

 

In classical physics, the mass of an object has always been associated with an indestructible material substance, with some 'stuff' of which all things were thought to be made. Relativity theory showed that mass has nothing to do with any stuff, but is a form of energy. Energy, however, is a dynamic quantity associated with activity, or with processes. The fact that the mass of a particle is equivalent to a certain amount of energy means that the particle can no longer be seen as a static object, but has to be conceived as a dynamic pattern, a process involving the energy which manifests itself as the particle's mass... In modern physics, the universe is thus experienced as a dynamic, inseparable whole which always includes the observer in an essential way.               (Fritjof Capra “The Tao of Physics”)

 

 

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot

 

[Aldous Huxley in “The Doors of Perception” notes that our conscious brain 'filters' the input from the world around us, quoting Bagson's theory that the function of the brain, nervous system and sense organs is in the main eliminative and not productive. Bagson apparently claimed that each individual is capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The brain's job is to protect us from being overwhelmed by this mass of knowledge, leaving only that tiny selection which is practically useful in so far that, as animals, our business is at all costs to survive. Huxley points out that, according to such a theory, each one of us is potentially Mind at Large, but to make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be filtered or, as he puts it, funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and the nervous system. What comes out the other end, he says, is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet.

As Huxley also points out, the filter or reducing valve is reinforced by our gift (or is it a curse?) of speech. To formulate and express the contents of this 'measly trickle' of consciousness, man has invented and endlessly elaborated those symbol-systems and implicit philosophies which we call languages. Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he or she has been born – the beneficiary in as much as language gives access to the accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is only too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things... Most people most of the time know only what comes through the reducing valve and is consecrated as genuinely real by the local language. ]

 

Without beauty the truth becomes solemn, ponderous, dreary; and goodness becomes joyless and over-earnest. Lightness of touch, spontaneity, gaiety, even abandon, are needed if the saint and the sage are to avoid taking on an ugly appearance, not to say an evil one. And indeed the universe does not look like the product of a logician, or a works-manager, and still less like the work of a priest; but much more like that of an artist who is well aware of the value of nonsense, of play, and of the superbly bountiful imagination. In Hell we are all admirably practical and down-to-earth; we do not find life fun, but take it and ourselves very seriously. But I suspect that all Heaven is light-hearted and merry, and that the skies are one broad smile, and that the blessed galaxies are even now shaking their fiery manes with laughter, while Satan is profoundly shocked at their lack of gravity and earnest common sense.                                                                                           (Douglas Harding)

 

There are moments when you become aware not only of what you are doing but also of yourself doing it. You see both 'I' and the 'here' of 'I am here'—both the anger and the 'I' that is angry. Call this self-remembering if you like.                                                                                                                 (Gurdjieff - Views From the Real World)

Esoteric knowledge cannot belong to all, cannot even belong to many. Such is the law. [The reason is that the order of the universe, the ray of creation, would be destabilized, and the result would be chaos.]                                                                                                                                                           (Gurdjieff - In Search of the Miraculous)

 

Those dealing in the actual manufacture of mind are dealing in a very explosive material. The material is not merely the clay of which man is master, but the truths of semblances of truth which have a certain mastery over man. The material is explosive because it must be taken seriously. The men writing books really are throwing bombs.                (G. K. Chesterton)

 

What is education? Properly speaking, there is no such thing as education. Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. Whatever the soul is like, it will have to be passed on somehow, consciously or unconsciously, and that transition may be called education. ... What we need is to have a culture before we hand it down. In other words, it is a truth, however sad and strange, that we cannot give what we have not got, and cannot teach to other people what we do not know ourselves.                                                (G. K. Chesterton)

 

It was the mystical dogma of Bentham and Adam Smith and the rest, that some of the worst of human passions would turn out to be all for the best. It was the mysterious doctrine that selfishness would do the work of unselfishness.                                                                                                                                                                                (G. K. Chesterton)

 

When men have come to the edge of a precipice, it is the lover of life who has the spirit to leap backwards, and only the pessimist who continues to believe in progress.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          (G. K. Chesterton)

 

We all have a little weakness, which is very natural but rather misleading, for supposing that this epoch must be the end of the world because it will be the end of us. How future generations will get on without us is indeed, when we come to think of it, quite a puzzle. But I suppose they will get on somehow, and may possibly venture to revise our judgments as we have revised earlier judgments.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              (G. K. Chesterton)

 

To real Being we go back, all that we have and are. To This we return as from This we came. When we look outside of This on which we depend, we ignore our unity. Looking outward we see many faces, look inward and all is the One Head. If a man could but be turned about - by his own motion or by the happy pull of Athene - he would at once see God, and himself, and the All.                                                                                                                                                                                                   (Plotinus, 3rd-century neo-platonist philosopher)

 

Suddenly, while at the very depths, it struck me like a thunderbolt that I had never been born, and that my birthlessness could settle any and every matter. This seemed to be my satori.... the birthless Buddha-mind can cut any and every knot.... to live in a state of non-birth is to attain Buddhahood.... from the moment you have begun to realise this fact, you are a living Buddha.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   (Bankei Zenji (1622-1693) Japanese Zen teacher)

 

The awakened person is called enlightened because the small flame of awareness continues to burn twenty-four hours a day, whether he is awake, whether he is asleep, whether he is doing something or not doing anything. Nothing matters; everything remains on the circumference. At the centre there is only the flame of awareness, and this flame of awareness is experienced as silence, bliss….All desires are in the mind, even the desire for God, the desire for enlightenment, the desire for truth, for freedom - all desires. Desire as such is part of the mind. And mind is the barrier, not the bridge. The last desire to leave is the desire for enlightenment. It is the thickest and strongest chain that keeps you imprisoned……In fact you start seeking God only when God has already started seeking you. You move towards God only when God has stirred in the deepest core of your being. We are so unaware; that's why we think that it is our desire to seek the truth, to know the truth. We are so small that we can't have that great a desire. We are small, our desires are bound to be small. Our egos are tiny and their desires are trivia…. The energy called desire has been condemned for centuries. Almost all the so-called saints have been against it because desire is life and they were all life-negative. Desire is the very source of all that you see, and they were against all that which is visible. They wanted to sacrifice the visible at the feet of the invisible; they wanted to cut the roots of desire so there would no longer be any possibility of life… I have a totally different concept of desire. First: desire itself is God. Desire without any object, desire without being goal-oriented, unmotivated desire, pure desire, is God. The energy called desire is the same energy as God. Desire has not to be destroyed, it has to be purified. Desire has not to be dropped, it has to be transformed. Your very being is desire; to be against it is to be against yourself and against all. To be against it is to be against the flowers and the birds and the sun and the moon… Your desire is as big as the sky - even the sky is not the limit to it… The intelligent person stops desiring objects… he starts living his desire in its purity, moment to moment. He is full of desire, full of overflowing energy. His ordinary life becomes so intense, so passionate, that whatsoever he touches will be transformed.             (OSHO)

 

[Maurice Bucke, M.D. a 19th century physician describing a full blown mystical experience in the third person]:

It was in the early spring at the beginning of his thirty-sixth year. He and two friends had spent the evening reading Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Browning, and especially Whitman. They parted at midnight, and he had a long drive in a hansom (it was in an English city). His mind deeply under the influences of the ideas, images and emotions called up by the reading and talk of the evening, was calm and peaceful. He was in a state of quiet, almost passive enjoyment. All at once, without warning of any kind, he found himself wrapped around as it were by a flame colored cloud. For an instant he thought of fire, some sudden conflagration in the great city, the next he knew that the light was within himself. Directly afterwards there came upon him a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness, accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination quite impossible to describe. Into his brain streamed one momentary lightning-flash of the Brahmic Splendor which has ever since lightened his life; upon his heart fell one drop of Brahmic Bliss, leaving thenceforward for always an after taste of heaven. Among other things...he saw and knew that the Cosmos is not dead matter but a living Presence, that the soul of man is immortal, that the universe is so built and ordered that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all, that the foundation principle of the world is what we call love and that the happiness of every one is in the long run absolutely certain. He claims that he learned more within the few seconds during which the illumination lasted that in previous months or even years of study, and that he learned much that no study could ever have taught.

The illumination itself continued not more than a few moments, but its effects proved ineffaceable; it was impossible for him ever to forget what he at that time saw and knew, neither did he, or could he, ever doubt the truth of what was then presented to his mind....

 

Simply because religious experience is apprehended in an 'interior' fashion does not mean it is merely private knowledge, any more than the fact that mathematics and logic are seen inwardly, by the mind's eye, makes them merely private fantasies without public import. Mathematical knowledge is public knowledge to all equally trained mathematicians; just so, contemplative knowledge is public knowledge to all equally trained contemplatives.                                                          (Ken Wilber)

 

Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.                                                                                                                  (Euripides)

 

It is always better to say right out what you think without trying to prove anything much: for all our proofs are only variations of our opinions, and the contrary-minded listen neither to one nor the other.                                                                                                                                                                             (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

 

[In pointing out the necessity for beleaguered people to hold close to one another]... “Above all, we must not split up, if we do we’re as good as dead.” Another pleads “If we stay together we might manage to survive”…The doctor’s wife [the only one in the group who is not blind] says “The only miracle we can perform is to go on living… to preserve the fragility of life from day to day, as if it were blind and did not know where to go, and perhaps it is like that, perhaps it really does not know, it placed itself in our hands, after giving us intelligence, and this is what we have made of it.”

(Jose Saramago- “Blindness”)

 

Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even as a duty.                                                      (Simone Weil)

 

To illustrate the effects of scientism in Western life, some years ago I devised an experiential exercise to use in workshops, a "belief experiment" I called the Western Creed. It's purpose was to make people aware of the implicit and hidden assumptions that Western civilization and scientism have instilled to varying degrees in all of us, even people who think they have a spiritual orientation to life. The Western Creed takes the same external form as the Nicene Creed in Christianity, but its content is based on currently popular scientistic beliefs, put in a form to make their emotional connotations clearer. Incidentally, I want to assure you that this is not an attack on Christianity, only an educational exercise.

 

The Western Creed:

Here is the creed participants can read aloud together:

I BELIEVE - in the material universe - as the only and ultimate reality - a universe controlled by fixed physical laws - and blind chance.

I AFFIRM - that the universe has no creator - no objective purpose - and no objective meaning or destiny.

I MAINTAIN - that all ideas about God or gods - enlightened beings - prophets and saviors - or other non-physical beings or forces - are superstitions and delusions. - Life and consciousness are totally identical to physical processes - and arose from chance interactions of blind physical forces. - Like the rest of life - my life - and my consciousness - have no objective purpose - meaning - or destiny.

I BELIEVE - that all judgments, values, and moralities - whether my own or others - are subjective - arising solely from biological determinants - personal history - and chance. - Free will is an illusion. - Therefore the most rational values I can personally live by must be based on the knowledge that for me - what pleases me is Good - what pains me is Bad. - Those who please me or help me avoid pain are my friends - those who pain me or keep me from my pleasure are my enemies. - Rationality requires that friends and enemies be used in ways that maximize my pleasure - and minimize my pain.

I AFFIRM - that churches have no real use other than social support - that there are no objective sins to commit or be forgiven for - that there is no divine or supernatural retribution for sin or reward for virtue - although there may be social consequences of actions. - Virtue for me is getting what I want - without being caught and punished by others.

I MAINTAIN - that the death of the body - is the death of the mind. - There is no afterlife - and all hope of such is nonsense.

 

I suspect that some of you, from just identifying with the description, are feeling depression, nihilism and negativity.                                             (Charles Tart)

 

Sometimes I think that the greatest achievement of modern culture is its brilliant selling of samsara [living in a state of illusion] and its barren distractions. Modern society seems to me a celebration of all the things that lead away from the truth, make truth hard to live for, and discourage people from even believing that it exists. And to think that all this springs from a civilization that claims to adore life, but actually starves it of any real meaning; that endlessly speaks of making people "happy," but in fact blocks their way to the source of real joy.                (Sogyal Rinpoche)

 

Despite this massive and nearly all-pervasive denial of their existence, we still sometimes have fleeting glimpses of the nature of mind....I think we do, sometimes, half understand these glimpses, but modern culture gives us no context or framework in which to comprehend them. Worse still, rather than encouraging us to explore these glimpses more deeply and discover where they spring from, we are told in both obvious and subtle ways to shut them out. We know that no one will take us seriously if we try to share them. We can be frightened by them, or even think we are going mad. So we ignore what could really be the most revealing experiences of our lives, if only we understood them. This is perhaps the darkest and most disturbing aspect of modern civilization its ignorance and repression of who we really are.                                                                                                                                                                                                                       (Sogyal Rinpoche)

 

I am reminded of what one Tibetan master says: "People often make the mistake of being frivolous about death, and think, 'Oh well, death happens to everybody. It's not a big deal, it's natural. I'll be fine.' That's a nice theory until one is dying.                                                                                                                                                               (Sogyal Rinpoche)

 

So what is an OBE? Does the mind or soul really leave the body and go somewhere else, “out,” or is the OBE just a special ASC that is basically hallucinatory in nature, i.e. that the feeling and conviction that you are elsewhere than your physical body’s location is an illusion?

After decades of reflection on the results of my own and others’ research particularly in the light of my studies on the nature of consciousness and ASCs, I have a more complex view of OBEs that includes both of these possibilities at different times and more. I believe that in some OBEs, the mind may, at least partially, really be located elsewhere than the physical body….. At the opposite extreme, as with my virtuoso hypnotic subjects whose experience was vivid and perfectly real to them but whose perception of the target room was only illusory, I believe an OBE can be a simulation of being out of the body, and mind is as much “in” the physical body as it ever is. In between these two extremes, I believe we can have OBEs which are basically a simulation of being out, but which are informed by information gathered by ESP such that the simulation of the OBE location is accurate and veridical.

This is a messy situation in some ways, especially because all three of these types of OBEs may seem experientially identical to the person having them, at least at rough levels of description. While I would prefer reality to fall into simple, clear cut categories, I’ve learned in life that reality doesn’t care about our wishes for simplicity, though, and things are often complex.                                                                                                                                                                                                    (Charles Tart)

 

My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements on a given question, but to be consistent with truth as it may present itself to me at a given moment.               (Gandhi)

 

A crazy person is a person who has lost everything, except their reason.                                                                                                 (G. K. Chesterton)

 

Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere of politics or business in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.             (Edward Bernays)

 

Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe.                                                                                        (Albert Einstein)

 

WHAT ARE WE??

 

Figure 1.Being a product of my culture, at the top of the figure I’ve put the transpersonal or spiritual realm, and I’ve shown it as unbounded in extent. Those of you who’ve had OBEs, NDEs or other transpersonal experiences know of what realm of experience I speak here, even if ordinary words can’t grasp it too well. A part of that transpersonal realm, designated as mind in Figure 1, is in intimate relation with our particular body, brain and nervous system. As I mentioned briefly above, although this mind is of a different nature from ordinary matter, psi phenomena like clairvoyance and PK are the means which link the transpersonal and the physical, i.e., our mind has an intimate and ongoing relationship with our body, brain and nervous system through what I’ve termed autoclairvoyance, where mind reads the physical state of the brain, and autoPK, where mind uses psychokinesis to affect the operation of the physical brain.

 

The result of this interaction is the creation of a biophysical virtual reality (BPVR), what I’ve labeled ME! in the figure, to stand for Mind Embodied, with the boldness of the type and the exclamation point added to remind us that our identification with and attachment to ME! is intense! This ME! is a simulation of our ultimate, transpersonal nature, our physical nature, and the external physical world around us. We ordinarily live inside this simulation and take it for the direct perception of reality and our selves, but those of you who’ve been “out” know, as we’ve discussed above, that our ordinary self is indeed just a limited point of view, not the whole of reality.                                                                    (Charles Tart)

 


Transpersonal psychology is ............ based on people's experiences of temporarily transcending our usual identification with our limited biological, historical, cultural and personal self and, at the deepest and most profound levels of experience possible, recognizing/being "something" of vast intelligence and compassion

that encompasses/is the entire universe. From this perspective our ordinary, "normal" biological, historical, cultural and personal self is seen as an important, but quite partial (and often pathologically distorted) manifesta