Humor {(h)yo͞omər}

“One thing you must be able to do in the midst
of any experience is laugh. And experience
should show you that it isn’t real, that it’s a
movie. Life doesn’t take you seriously, so why
take it seriously.” ~ Richard Rose, Carillon

Born With a Hole in the Chest?

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~ Thanks to Mustafa. Image by Dresden Codak. “Dresden is on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr if you want to share directly from our pages. Sharing the comic site, new pages, or your favorite past comic pages on social media is always a great way to show support that doesn’t cost a dime!”

Epitaphs for the Living. (What’s Yours?)

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~ Thanks to BH. AI art generated by Midjourney on Reddit. “Midjourney is an image generator that lets you explore new ideas that unlocks your creativity.

Easily Entertained?

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Thanks to Michael R. for the post by Hits Blunt @hitsbluntgram.

Inspiration & Irritation

Irritation moves us; inspiration provides a direction

Something to Post on the Wall?

“To learn to be always in a state of meditation means never to let your vital energy wane. You would never allow it to do so if it were certain that you were to die tomorrow. It wanes because you forget about death. Grit your teeth, fix your gaze, and observe death at this moment. You have to feel it so strongly that it seems as if it’s attacking you. Fearless energy comes from this. At this moment, death is right before your eyes. It’s not something you can afford to neglect.” — Suzuki Shōsan (1579–1655)

~ Thanks to Shawn Nevins, who spotted this quote in a Tim Ferriss Friday Newsletter, and who wrote: “Reminds me of something I would have posted on the wall of Emblem Lodge [a rustic dormitory on the Richard Rose farm -Ed.] back in the day, or in a retreat cabin.”

Suzuki Shōsan (鈴木正三, February 5, 1579 – July 28, 1655) was a Japanese samurai who served under the shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu. Shōsan was born in modern-day Aichi Prefecture of Japan. He participated in the Battle of Sekigahara and the Battle of Osaka before renouncing life as a warrior and becoming a Zen Buddhist monk in 1621. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Delusion

On one occasion, events conspired to perfectly illuminate the flaw in Poonja-ji’s teaching. A small group of experienced practitioners (among us several teachers of meditation) had organized a trip to India and Nepal to spend ten days with Poonja-ji in Lucknow, followed by ten days in Kathmandu, to receive teachings on the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Dzogchen. As it happened, during our time in Lucknow, a woman from Switzerland became “enlightened” in Poonja-ji’s presence. For the better part of a week, she was celebrated as something akin to the next Buddha. Poonja-ji repeatedly put her forward as evidence of how fully the truth could be realized without making any effort at all in meditation, and we had the pleasure of seeing this woman sit beside Poonja-ji on a raised platform expounding upon how blissful it now was in her corner of the universe. She was, in fact, radiantly happy, and it was by no means clear that Poonja-ji had made a mistake in recognizing her. She would say things like “There is nothing but consciousness, and there is no difference between it and reality itself.” Coming from such a nice, guileless person, there was little reason to doubt the profundity of her experience.

When it came time for our group to leave India for Nepal, this woman asked if she could join us. Because she was such good company, we encouraged her to come along. A few of us were also curious to see how her realization would appear in another context. And so it came to pass that a woman whose enlightenment had just been confirmed by one of the greatest living exponents of Advaita Vedanta was in the room when we received our first teachings from Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, who was generally thought to be one of the greatest living Dzogchen masters.

~ The above excerpt is from pages 131-133 of Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris. Photo of H.W.L Poonja (aka Papaji, Poonja-ji) is from Wikimedia Commons.

From p. 116 of Harris’s book: “How can we know that the conventional sense of self is an illusion? When we look closely, it vanishes.”

Q: Does not (yet) seeing anything when looking for one’s self prove that a self doesn’t exist?

And from p. 135: “I came to Tulku Urgyen yearning for the experience of self-transcendence, and in a few minutes he showed me that I had no self to transcend.”

Q: Does lack of evidence of the existence of something prove its non-existence?` And does a real teacher of possible self-transcendence try to lead a seeker to a  predefined solution or try to encourage the seeker to walk a possibly invisible path to transcendence?

Notes from a recent Pittsburgh-based group meeting with Tyler Matthew:

“For one who is seeking, when ‘“hair catches fire’, it is the energy state that rises up.”

“It can be felt as it moves through the body as it moves upward, one can even feel uplifted.”

“One learns how to transmute anger, feeling of inadequacy, as a lifting mechanism; use anger as part of the search.”

“Not make enemies out of emotions; memories are triggered of shame or guilt, let them rise, relax in themselves.”

”Flip the script; it may take days for something entirely unpleasant ‘to come up’ as a transmutation of one’s energy.”

“Thought keeps energy imprisoned, when rises up, one actually feels lifted, fearless.”

He referenced what he termed the Unborn: “An aspect that is always there, ever present, never moves, not seen, not thought, the very first memory as a child, Self-sense outside of space & time, like a substratum; True Self.”

“There comes a point when one is totally on his/her own way, and can only sincerely ask Self for direction.”

~ Thanks to Bill K. See TAT-Affiliated TAT Teachers & Friends for a brief biographical sketch of Tyler and for his responses to a Finder’s Questionnaire. Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash.

Prayer & Light?

~ I watched the first 10 minutes of so of this 17-minute video by Alice Carter of her NDE and found her description of the connection between prayer and light interesting. -Ed.

Please your thoughts on the above items.

Reader Commentary

Encouraging interactive readership among TAT members and friends

A reader wrote that what would make the Forum more interesting would be:

Hearing from people who are searching—and have questions instead of those providing endless advice and “answers.” What challenges they are facing. What their doubts and questions are. How they perceive their path is going. What they are doing in their lives. Where they think they will end up, etc., etc.

Can you help make the Forum more interesting?

The Reader Commentary question for the January TAT Forum—the first of two questions from a “Certainties Discussion” on Friday evening of the November 2024 in-person TAT gathering, for which participants broke into threesomes to compare notes on their beliefs:

What is something you feel quite certain about regarding self (identity)?
What evidence to you feel supports it? Challenges it?

Responses follow:

From Michael R:

I feel quite certain that whatever is aware is what I am. The view is not the viewer remains a helpful tool for inquiry, though I sense that it’s not the whole Truth and have yet to find a meaningful line between view and viewer.

The evidence that supports self/identity as what’s aware is the continuity of awareness, the view can change in myriad ways, yet I/what’s aware remains. The evidence that challenges this is dreamless sleep, as self-consciousness and any memory of a something that’s aware through dreamless sleep seems to vanish in deep sleep.

Attempting to feel into the “something” that remains through deep sleep, a “something” that may be here during waking/dreaming states as well, is a primary point of meditation these days. I think the question “what is aware” hits it on the nose more than “what is awareness.” In my own experience the wording of things seems to matter as it directs attention and intuitive feelers differently.

From Tina N:

The times I felt like I was fighting for my life (for example, grave illness), I felt quite certain in such moments that my identity was this body-mind. Supporting evidence: the perceived aspects of the body from firsthand experience seem to indicate that this body, visually and proprioceptively, the familiar set of memories and sense of self that accompany it, is in the view more constantly than another body-mind, for example. 

Challenging evidence: what perceives the body-mind seems to precede the body-mind. How can something be known without the knowing of it? My working definition of consciousness is this knowing. I seem to get glimpses of its sole appearance upon waking in the mornings. There is a palpable knowing that seems to be here before anything else appears, for example sensations like sound (worded thought or a sound in the environment, like the alarm clock), vision (images in thought or image in the environment upon the eyes opening), and memory.

In moments where attention isn’t preoccupied by the demise of the body or demands of daily living, I am more convinced of being a limited consciousness. Limited as in being bounded by time, space, capacity. Supporting evidence: this consciousness seems unable to register information out of earshot and eyeshot. It also seems to come and go, for example while under general anesthesia. Challenging evidence: no direct experiential data so far.

From Dan G:

There has to be more to the story of what I am than this individual view.

Proof:
 If individuality is real, there’s a mystery as to why I am this one. I could be any other viewpoint in the universe’s history, and I pulled this one. The probability of embodying this one view in the universe’s history, not no views, and not two views, is 0. Given a zero probability event has occurred, there has to be more to the story of what I am than this individual view.

On the other hand, if individuality isn’t real, how can attention focus on one view? Perhaps Indra’s Net is real, and there are layers of connection I don’t see. Yet, how can any non-individual viewer fit into the itty bitty living space of one individual point of view? (Or plane of view if Harding is right or space of view, it doesn’t matter. It’s still an individual view.) If that’s true, there has to be more to the story of what I am than this individual view. It’s just not currently in the view.

Perhaps individuality is paradoxically both real and not real. Or perhaps individuality is neither real nor not real. Maybe some assertion I do not see other than all the above would be better. In all three cases, there has to be more to the story of what I am than this individual view.

Therefore, there has to be more to the story of what I am than this individual view. QED

What challenges it? The myth that individuality is all there is to the story of what I am. And maybe peer pressure to act like I believe it. And I haven’t proven the itching doubt that maybe that’s the truth, wrong.

From Patrick K:

I’ve been asked about my self definition a good few times now on self-inquiry meetings and always I am tripping over my tongue trying to convey some semi-coherent answer. I feel it is a really good question to make me realise how clueless I am about the big question of “who am I?”, so “certainty” doesn’t come into it for me right now. Because I have never “experienced” myself as being apart from the body, like I hear from the many accounts of NDEs, I instinctually feel that I am the body or am a conscious energy emanating from the body, depending on the body, mainly the brain. What I am also seems to be something that “sees”, is “aware”. So that seems to contradict my previous statement, because how can an “energy” be “something that sees”. It could be, but those two identities don’t feel compatible/same, energy and awareness. Or awareness is an energy of a much more subtle nature than I can currently conceive of.

Then in further contemplation I feel that you can’t have awareness without a “screen” onto which to see what I am seeing. Can awareness see without a screen? Can awareness register anything without having something for the images, that are mentally occurring, to fall upon? Like the eye detects incoming images at the back of the retina, this being the physical screen unto which physical/external images fall, understanding that this is but the beginning of a complex series of operations before the image is consolidated for the mind to see it. But what about the intuitive mind’s ability to know itself, to capture the character self? Where do the images for that land/reflect off of? When you reach satori on some concept, what is the screen onto which that gets registered/seen? Is that a physical screen or a metaphysical screen?

On top of this I also feel incorrectly identified as the mind. Since everything gets filtered through it, gets interpreted/processed by it and then gets projected back out by it, it has to be the greatest obstacle to going deeper inward toward that “seer”. The mind takes up the activity of all the “seeing” so that I have lost connection to that screen unto which all the seeing takes place/lands on. I feel that perhaps waking up involves a separation from the seeing to become the seer, that which sees. The separation from the mind. One thing I’m certain about is that the mind holds a great hypnotic pull, as being my identity and keeping me distracted from reaching beyond it.

From Saima B:

One thing I feel quite certain regarding
self (identity) is that my inner sense of being feels exactly the same as it felt when I
was a kid. It never aged. It never ages, actually.
The evidence is experiential – It feels like my body aged, my mind matured. But the thing that notices all
that (as well as processes the environment) stayed exactly the same. 

What challenges it? Society telling me what I am is born, gets old and dies. And me believing them. So my belief challenges it. 

From Art Ticknor:

After consciously seeking for the truth of my identity since meeting Richard Rose in 1978—arguably not very productively—by 2004 I had pared down the beliefs about my identity to “I’m a separate something that’s aware and that may depend on a functioning brain for survival.” My life-experience to date hadn’t provided any strong challenges to those beliefs.

If I’d heard or come across Rose’s statement about the difference between consciousness and awareness, it hadn’t registered, since I still used the two words as synonyms.

But during the final evening of a solitary retreat in May of that year, something changed. When I looked back at “where I look out from” (see the Douglas Harding “pointing experiment”), which I had done numerable times without seeing anything (“empty space”), I did see something. It felt as if my normal thought-stream had moved into peripheral vision and I was largely thoughtless except for an occasional thought that hit my conscious as I kept staring at this new view. One of those thoughts was that thinking was no longer an impediment to direct looking. In retrospect, it felt like something was holding my gaze into looking back at that new view and that I couldn’t have turned my head away from it if I’d wanted to.
Read More

From Mark W:

Something I feel quite certain about regarding self (identity) is the uncertainty of identity. That uncertainty seems to be the closest thing I know for sure about identity and that it’s always changing. Every day is at least a little different in that I never know what mood, thoughts, or feelings my self will be wearing from day to day. The primary challenge to the uncertainty of self is the programmed assumption that I am the same self perspective or thing each day based on having essentially the same memories each day. It has become an increasingly less stable concept for me as I age, but remains a stubbornly separate householder self.

From Mike Gegenheimer:

The only thing we can know for certain is True Nature/ Source.

All else is in the mind, and relative mind stuff.

For example, the question “of what thing are you certain?” The answer is always conditioned.

Nothing that the human mind experiences in life is permanent. The nature of the world that the human mind experiences is ever-changing. Time and space arise in the mind dimension along with the things of experience. And all things that arise are seen to be subject to forces that tear them down. All creatures that are born will, in turn, age and die. However, even certainty as to death of the individual creature is based on relative experience.

What evidence challenges the certainty that nothing the human mind experiences in life is permanent?

Realization of Essence / Absolute / Self, the permanence of True Nature, which is Life, the Source of all things which appear to arise and be experienced and pass away.

Other Reader Feedback

From Matt Cardin regarding Bill K’s commentary in the January Forum regarding Matt’s article “Unraveling the Illusion of Existence” in the December 2024 Forum:
I think my answer to Bill K.’s question (“Could he identify that part of himself that was blocking whatever was calling him to his desk, his typewriter or to simply, create?”) would have to be that the block was my very self itself, my sense of being a separate entity whose calling is to be creative. Looking at it from that cut-off point of view, and also waking up and learning to see beyond that creative and cosmological cul-de-sac to inhabit a new viewpoint from which creativity is something that simply happens — including the creative expression that is this appearance or image of a separate self inhabiting an objective world — was and is the whole point.

Speaking of these things, I just read the email about the January TAT Talk with Jerry Wennstrom, and this led me to spend a few minutes reading about his book A Second Wind. And holy moly, the winds of synchronicity are blowing at gale force on this end. The core point of Mr. Wennstrom’s book, as articulated in Brian Swimme’s afterword as “his discovery of a pathway into cosmological creativity,” and by Mr. Wennstrom himself as “art abandoned for the meaningful allurement of a higher calling … and the return to art without compulsion, for no reason at all” — all this resonates so very directly with the position I’ve been articulating myself, as in the essay that I shared with you, and as in my recently completed book Writing at the Wellspring: Creativity as Refuge and Revelation for an Age of Upheaval (which incorporates that essay plus others in the same series) [not yet published – Ed.]. Wennstrom’s “cosmological creativity” is equivalent to, and probably a better term for, what I call cosmic creativity in the book. And the abandonment of one’s efforts at art and creativity in a bid to find what’s really real, and to allow creativity to return, or not, of its own accord based on a newfound alignment with reality, likewise locks hands here. So does the overall ongoing engagement with numinous darkness that seems to be part and parcel of deep creativity and our fundamental human experience.

Next Month

The Reader Commentary question for the March TAT Forum is:

What, in your experience, does it mean to “fool yourself”?

Background: The question came from Brett S., based on a question proposed to a mailing list of TAT folks by L.S.:

“Know that the mind outwits the anterior, observing Self” ~ The Essence of the Albigen System by Paul Constant, and
“The outer mind outwits the essential self. ‘When one part of a man fools the other part, then the part that has been fooled is the essential self.’ (Richard Rose, Psychology of the Observer)” ~ The Core Albigen System Principles of Richard Rose)

Is self the same as Self in these 2 statements?

Please feel welcome to respond to one or both questions,  your response by the 25th of February, and indicate your preferred identification (the default is your first name and the initial letter of your last name). “Anonymous” and pen names are fine, too.

PS: What question(s) would you like to ask other TAT Forum readers?

Q: What are your thoughts on this month’s reader commentary? Please your feedback.

Richard Rose described a spiritual path as living one’s life aimed at finding the meaning of that life. Did you find anything relevant to your life or search in this month’s TAT Forum?

We can look at our actions/inactions, look at or speculate on the self-beliefs that influenced them, and then check the facts that support and challenge them. Faulty self-beliefs may be the “penny that blocks the sun.” Photo by Ron Lach on pexels.com. 

We like hearing from you! Please email your comments, suggestions, inquiries, and submissions.

Sign up for notices of TAT’s four annual events, other virtual events, and free monthly Forums on our contact page.

Founder’s Wisdom

Richard Rose (1917-2005) established the TAT Foundation
in 1973 to encourage people to work together on what
he considered to be the “grand project” of spiritual work.

Where Does Truth Begin?

I believe the Truth begins with truth in living, not with a tricky mathematical formulation or with very hypothetical thinking. You have to become the Truth and becoming the Truth means you can’t afford to be a damn fool! We can’t afford to be snowed. We can’t afford to be snowed on any level, whether the government is doing it or the guy who is selling you automobiles is doing it, and I’m sure he’s doing it.”
~ From “Lecture on Between-ness” by Richard Rose (The Direct-Mind Experience).

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ChatGPT: I can help you conceptualize an artistic image based on the theme “where truth begins.”

Conceptual Ideas for “Where Truth Begins”

1. Dawn and Light:

Imagine a scene where the first light of dawn breaks over a horizon, symbolizing the emergence of truth from darkness. The interplay of light and shadow can represent the clarity that truth brings.

3. Mirror Reflection:

A mirror reflecting a clear, serene landscape could represent self-reflection as a starting point for discovering truth. The mirror might show a different reality than what is directly in front of it, suggesting deeper insights.

5. Child’s Perspective:

Depict a child gazing at the stars or exploring a new environment with curiosity and wonder.

Definition of Terms

Index of many of the key terms and principles in Rose’s work, with brief definitions, from Richard Rose’s Psychology of the Observer: The Path to Reality Through the Self by John Kent.

Jacob’s Ladder © 2001 Richard Rose. See this transcript of a talk on the topic by Rose.

Homing Ground Update

… A spot on earth where people can do retreats and hold
meetings; where the emphasis is on friendship and the search.

January 2025:

As we look to 2025 for a new year of TAT Retreats and Friendship on the spiritual path, there are a few important updates to share. 

Since 2019 when we first moved into the current TAT Center, this home away from home has been developed and supported by many. Through donations, workdays, and the ongoing efforts of our caretaker, the property has served as a retreat center, a spiritual library, and a gathering place for friends. It would be difficult to sufficiently put into words how grateful we are for these efforts, contributions, and time together at the Hurdle Mills TAT Center, and for all who continue to support and have played a part in making the TAT Center a reality. 

To enhance the ability for TAT to provide a center for meetings and retreats, after much careful consideration, discussion, and engagement with TAT members for input, we have strategically decided that, while the current TAT Center is very good, it is not as well-suited for the future as we would like.  In the spring of 2025, the TAT Center will be for sale, and we will transition the 2025 quarterly TAT Meetings and Retreats to Claymont (Charles Town, WV) and other retreat facilities. A committee is actively looking at properties to find a future home for TAT. 

A unique piece of land with a purposefully built retreat center building, acreage for solitary cabins, and a modest caretaker home is the view we have in mind. A place that feels more like a quiet retreat center than a large suburban home, and one that requires less ongoing live-in maintenance than our current home are additional items that have been discussed. The net is cast widely, but we are focusing on the Appalachian Mountain range for property searches, seeking the right balance of solitude and accessibility. 

The right property will come when it is meant to, and we look forward to that next chapter for TAT. In the meantime, many have expressed a fondness for the Claymont center, and we intend to hold retreats there until a new property for TAT is found. Over the next few weeks, we will finalize dates for TAT’s 2025 Meetings and Retreats and announce them through January’s Forum and share them on the TAT website. 
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A very special thank you to all who have been involved in creating and supporting the Hurdle Mills TAT Center during the last five years, and likewise to those planning TAT’s future home. We look forward to the coming year of TAT Meetings and Retreats and very much hope to see you there. 

In Friendship, 
Michael, Shawn, and Mike
[our current trustees]

Did you enjoy the Forum? Then buy the book!
Readers’ favorite selections from seven years of issues.
Beyond Mind, Beyond Death is available at Amazon.com.