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TAT members share their personal convictions and/or concerns
What I Found Questions and Answers From a Finder Questionnaire
1. What did you find?
I found what I was essentially, and what I was essentially not. I found that there was no death because there was nothing to die. What I had taken myself to be, i.e., personal self-consciousness, was not independently alive, but rather it was born of experience, a stream of experience that gave rise to an experience-er. I found a pure living Awareness that was omnipresent, unborn and undying, that preceded all, that contained all, yet was simultaneously utterly empty and containing all life and all things seen and unseen. I found that I was this eternal impersonal omnipresent Awareness. Yes, the body dies and turns to dust, and the mind we proclaim to own is dependent upon that body and so likewise vanishes in the dust. What remains of you is nothing. But what you are essentially is eternal. The dreamer in the dream and the dreamer of the dream are no more—yet that which was always watching, was present before the dream began and remains after the dream ends. I am that, and so are you. You’re just too busy being you and staring at your body in the mirror of experience to see your true Self.
2. What is your general advice to seekers?
Define yourself. Go within. Develop an inward momentum of attention sufficient to not be deflected outward by the ceaseless stream of experience. Never look away from self-diminishing experiences that throw you back upon yourself. Always look behind and underneath self-affirming experiences that bind you to the false and temporary. Be wary of thought. Cultivate doubt. Know your priorities. Watch your fears and desires and be suspicious of the thinking that both generate. Strive to see clearly, to understand, and to live your understanding. Overcome your self-centeredness by helping others.
3. Answer any or all of the following that you feel are relevant. What are your thoughts/feelings about:
a) Abiding and non-abiding awakening (i.e., knowledge of the Self/Truth vs. abiding as the Self/Truth)
Realization of one’s eternal Essence is permanent and unforgettable. It is not merely a glimpse of something transcendental. The degree to which the personal self is conscious of eternal impersonal Awareness is throttled by the focus of attention on the stream of experience. An awakened person never loses the capacity to withdraw that focus of attention at any moment in any circumstance on external experience and abide in Awareness, that was never absent—even in deep sleep, when the personal consciousness seemingly disappears due to an absence of experience. The notion of having had a “glimpse” of the Absolute is misconstrued. You might get a glimpse of being more than your body, more than your mind, of being something transcendent and spiritual, but such a glimpse is still egocentric. Permanent awakening requires a death experience of ego. Paradoxically this does not mean that self-consciousness or identity ceases, for as long as the body lives, the stream of experience continues, along with the experience-er.
b) Are “Who (or what are you), whence (where did you come from), and whither (where are you going)?” fundamental questions for a seeker?
Yes, of course. But as literal objects of one’s attention they are not so useful. One can best answer these questions obliquely. By that I mean by self-observation, seeing oneself in action, noticing one’s reactions, especially to experiences that diminish one’s sense of self.
c) Bliss
The conventional or popular definition as “joy” or “happiness” is not what I found. No such coloration or property exists in Absolute Awareness. For me, the better word is equanimity. Self-realization is not an experience in the normal meaning of that word, but the individual who realizes has a reaction to that realization, and that reaction is the experience, and that is different across people, according to their personal histories. Hence the variation in descriptions and language used by awakened people to explain what happened to them and what advice they give to others.
d) Doing vs. not doing
Irrelevant double-talk dreamers distract themselves with instead of turning their attention inward to see who is doing or not doing. You won’t see if you don’t look. You better do all you can to see clearly. When awakening happens it will not be your doing. Rather it will be a momentum of inward looking that makes looking away from what you are impossible and makes possible the acceptance of what you are not.
Individual consciousness of awareness. Transcendence of identity. Self-realization. It cannot be explained or adequately named or described. All such attempts become paradoxical at best, or nonsensical sounding at worst. It must be experienced – yet it is more than a mere experience. It is more of a realization, a deep and clear seeing without eyes, a direct knowing of something unknowable, an awakening that evokes an experience. Awakening impacts you the dreamer powerfully, and powerful dream experiences are your reaction to it.
f) Hypnosis (influencing another person mind-to-mind)
Until you awaken to your true eternal nature you are in a continuous state of hypnosis, sleep-walking your way through life. The ceaseless stream of experience subjects you to an endless barrage of suggestion and you react endlessly.
g) Identity
The intersection of awareness with the individual body-mind stream of experience. Defining and building identity is your programmed life’s work—and the biggest distraction from seeing what is eternal about you. You strive to magnify and affirm your identity and you avoid and look away from all that subtracts from and diminishes your identity. This is your natural programming, and it unfolds across the distinct stages of your life from birth to death. You can witness the process and transcend identity before physical death, and in so doing discover that which is eternal about you—your identity before you were born!
h) Individual consciousness of awareness
Enlightenment.
i) Meditation
An inward focus of the attention that leads to dispassionate witnessing of experience as opposed to being lost in and distracted by experience. Meditation is essential yet insufficient for awakening. It must be paired with actions that manifest one’s desire and commitment to awakening to one’s true Self. Such actions will generate tension and energy that will result in an inward momentum of attention sufficient to overcome the innate urge to look away when faced with loss of self. Actions impact the attention and action in service to your spiritual path counters your default action mode of dreaming only of that which magnifies and affirms your body-mind, mortal self. Experience is binding. Witnessing experience is liberating. Your most immediate experience is your sense of self, your sense of being alive as “I.”
j) No-self
Not useful to discuss.
k) No-thought
Not useful to discuss, other than to mention that thought is mostly reactive or imposed upon us. It can be useful to watch the thought process, which can lead to the realization that you are not your thoughts, you do not control your thoughts though you have some small capacity for control of the focus of attention, and that your thoughts can provide a window into discovering the lies you tell yourself, hence watching them is a part of the pathway to self-honesty.
l) Rapport (contacting another person mind-to-mind)
An experience of rapport opens you to the glimpse that your being is possibly more than individual body-mind-based identity. The conditions for such an experience require a loosening of self-centeredness, compassion for others, self-acceptance, mental stillness, and openness. It can occur in a formal planned group sitting, or spontaneously between strangers. It is always spontaneous.
m) Reality
The ground of being. The empty container of all space. The eternity in which time unwinds. The blank screen upon which dreams appear.
n) Self-Realization (peeling away fabricated layers of one’s own personality to understand the true self and hence the true nature of reality)
See previous entries for items a through i.
o) Silence
Another word for the source of your true and eternal being. Spending time in wakeful silence is essential on your spiritual path. Abiding in a state of wakeful silence can be the result of active meditation, i.e. self-observation, self-inquiry, and an inward focus of attention. Passive meditation, i.e. focus on one’s body or breathing, or an inward projection of imagination is more likely to resolve into sleep, or pleasant daydreaming.
p) Tension
A prerequisite for going within. It must be paired with a conscious commitment to your spiritual search and a daily practice of what in Catholicism is called an examination of conscience. Tension involves some degree of threat to ego, evokes the question Who and what am I? and provides the energy to see the answer before the conditioning of self-preservation leads one to look away from what lies within at your core.
q) Transmission
The evocation of Self-realization in another individual through rapport with an individual who is self-realized. Such rapport might be preceded by intense anger, or other intense emotional state, but whatever the trigger, the mind of the non-realized individual is moved to dead center from which vantage point it is possible to drop all attachments and see clearly beyond individual body-mind self. Inexplicably, this can occur across space and time because nothing is transferred between the two individuals. Rather, the two individuals share a common Being, and abide in the same Presence.
r) Truth
With a capital ‘T’ another word for Enlightenment, Reality, Self-Realization, etc. It cannot be postulated. It is what remains when everything that is false is subtracted.
s) What can we know for sure: What we are? What we aren’t? Other?
Before enlightenment, only that you are alive as you, that you are conscious as an individual and that the body you seem to inhabit will perish and turn to dust. Everything else is just beliefs, noise, and dreams—including the notion that you can exist as you without a body. After enlightenment, that you are one with an impersonal, universal, and eternal awareness that intersects with that body and gives rise to that individual consciousness. In other words, Awareness is with or without you, but you, a personal individual consciousness, cannot exist outside Awareness. It is possible for you to see this relationship before dying. After dying who would be left to see it?
t) What is your certainty based on?
Personal realization and experience that is impossible to objectively prove.
u) What prevents a seeker from knowing the truth?
Obsession with magnifying and affirming individuality. Nature’s programming through the stages of life from birth to death. Unwillingness to accept any degree of loss of self in a process of going within to find that self-transcendent truth at the core of their being.
v) “You are aware prior to birth and aware after you die, so you begin with awareness, but you are not conscious of awareness.” ~ Richard Rose, The Direct-Mind Experience
But here’s the rub: You must define that “you” of which he speaks. Awareness is aware after you die, but if you never defined your ultimate self, never becoming conscious of your source, then who remains to be conscious of awareness when death pulls the rug out from under that consciousness?
w) Other comments:
First know thyself. To thine own self be true.
~ Thanks to Bob Cergol. See a short bio. Bob’s comment on the Magic Mirror image from Wikimedia Commons by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta:
Whatever the painter himself had in mind with this image, I think it depicts multiple themes, all rotating around the most fundamental human desire, that of self-definition, and our misplaced search for definition in the external world instead of looking inward. On another level, it raises the question of where is that boundary for what is external to you. Perhaps your sense of individuality is as much a reflection as is the bodily image you witness reflected in a mirror. Perhaps all life’s experience is merely a reflection in a magic mirror? If so, who is gazing into it?
It’s all about “ladder work” – helping and being helped
Richard Rose, the founder of the TAT Foundation, spent his life searching for the Truth, finding it, and helping others to find their Way. Although not well known to the public, he touched the lives of thousands of spiritual seekers through his books and lectures and through personal contacts with local study groups that continue to work with his teachings today. He felt strongly that helping others generates help for ourselves as well in our climb up the ladder to the golden find beyond the mind.
Call To Action For TAT Forum Reader
With the intention of increasing awareness of TAT’s meetings, books, and the Forum among younger serious seekers, and to increase awareness of ways to approach the search for self-definition, the TAT Foundation is now on Instagram.
You can help! A volunteer is producing shareable text-quote and video content of Richard Rose and TAT-adjacent teachers. We need your suggestions for short, provocative 1-3 sentence quotes or 1 minute or less video clips of people like Rose, Art Ticknor, Bob Fergeson, Tess Hughes, Bob Cergol, Bart Marshall, Shawn Nevins, Anima Pundeer, Norio Kushi, Paul Rezendes, Paul Constant, & other favorites. (An example here is selected by the TAT member who volunteers to oversee the Instagram account.)
Please send favorite inspiring/irritating quotes—from books you have by those authors, from the TAT Forum, or any other place—to TAT quotes. If you have favorite parts of longer videos (ex: from a talk at a past TAT meeting), please email a link to the video and a timestamp.
Thank you!
TAT Foundation Press’s latest publications
Message In A Bottle: Reflections On The Spiritual Path
Message In A Bottle: Reflections On The Spiritual Path relates the ongoing struggles and triumphs of fellow seekers. This collection of insightful essays serves as a testament to resilience, patience, and unwavering determination in the pursuit of inner truth and understanding. It is now available in print and Kindle versions as well as TAT Press’s first audiobook (individual purchase or membership) on Amazon.com.
What is the difference between the wisdom of seekers and the wisdom of “Finders”? This book suggests a surprising alternative to those experts, gurus, teachers and authors who are supposedly the Finders in the fields of spiritual seeking, psychology and healthy, happy and successful living.
We are a culture addicted to success, and honor those whom we consider a success by seeking their expertise, authority and insight as if to guarantee our own success. There is a huge fallacy possible in seeking advice from outside when we avoid or ignore inner guidance, intuition or wisdom that might already be active and available to us. That is just what this book is about: if one could summon their best advice to guide one’s self in the past. But really, that advice may be just as applicable in the present, if I only listen. The wisdom of 14 seekers in the book is spellbinding as they relate wrestling with night-terror, drug experiences, making commitments, “restless psyche syndrome,” the mysteries of the “unseen,” facing “a change somewhere within me now,” to “be still,” committing to solo retreats, giving in to “nostalgia and love” and the big one: pride and the ego-self. I found myself throughout the book “spinning-off” to contemplate many of the same “what if’s” and “had I onlys” along with my own ensuing insights as a result.
There’s a quote in the preface that sums up these first-hand accounts nicely: “If (someone’s) tale ends with ‘I struggled, rested, struggled, rested (and that) feels like I haven’t made a bit of progress but am still struggling’—that would be encouraging to read.” The same person adds that the wisdom of seeking is that we learn by contrast and comparison. I believe people seeking answers to life’s “Big Questions” either through spirituality, psychology, philosophy, religion or academia will find this book eye-opening by both the wisdom and folly described by seekers who experience so many things rarely revealed with which the reader might resonate and contemplate.
Please add your review to the Amazon listing. It makes a difference!
January TAT Talks online event: January 27, 2024 at 12 PM ET February Virtual Gathering: Saturday, February 24, 2024 March TAT Talks online event: March 23, 2024 at 12 PM ET April Gathering: Friday evening through Sunday noon, April 12-14, 2024 May TAT Talks online event: May 11, 2024 at 12 PM ET June Gathering: Friday evening through Sunday noon, June 14-16, 2024 July TAT Talks online event: July 13, 2024 at 12 PM ET August Gathering: Friday evening through Sunday noon, August 16-18, 2024 September Virtual Gathering: Saturday, September 21, 2024 November Gathering: Friday evening through Sunday noon, November 8-10, 2024
Have you seen the TAT Foundation’s YouTube channel? Subscribe now for spiritual inspiration (and irritation)!
Volunteers have been updating the channel with hours of new content! They’ve also curated some great playlists of talks by Richard Rose, teacher talks from recent & not so recent TAT meetings, episodes of the Journals of Spiritual Discovery podcast, and other great TAT related videos from around the internet.
Featuring: Richard Rose, Bob Cergol, Shawn Nevins, Bob Fergeson, Mike Conners, Anima Pundeer, Norio Kushi, Paul Rezendes, Bob Harwood, Tess Hughes, Art Ticknor, Shawn Pethel, Tyler Matthew and other speakers.
This month’s video is an interview of Tess Hughes by Michael Whitely:
Local Group News
(Groups with recently updated information are listed first. Click the “read more” link to see a complete listing of local groups. )
Update for the Online Self-Inquiry Book Club: October plan being developed. Check the link below for updates.
Update from the Pittsburgh, PA self-inquiry group: > Use the e-mail link below for invitations to all meetings and to receive internal email announcements. > In-person bi-weekly meetings Mon. 7-9 pm: Univ. of PGH Cathedral of Learning, Main Room (look for red raincoat on the back of a chair!) – Mon, Oct 21, 7-9PM: “Who Am I?” Group Confrontation. – Oct 28, 7-9PM: Gloria N. presents topic. > Online group confrontation and individual contributions every Wed, 8:00 pm ET via Zoom. – Wed, Oct 2: Online: “Is Existence Experience?” – Wed, Oct 9, 16, 23, 30: Online Topics and Presenters TBD. > All Forum subscribers are welcome to join us. Email to receive weekly topics with preparatory notes and Zoom invitations. Current events are listed on Meetup as Pittsburgh Self-inquiry Group and on www.pghsig.org.
Update from the San Francisco Bay area self-inquiry group: Twice-a-month meetings alternate between in-person and virtual formats. Our first in-person meeting had six attendees. Each meeting, we explore a new chapter of the Workbook of the Self, a guided set of 24 exercises designed to catalyze a spiritual realization by questioning our core beliefs. The meetings are open to anyone within driving distance of the San Francisco Bay area. ~ Email for information about upcoming meetings and events.
Update for the Amsterdam, NL Self-Inquiry Group: The group is not holding meetings currently, but email for information.
Update from the Central New Jersey Self Inquiry Group: The Central Jersey Self Inquiry Group welcomes serious participants. We are a small group and meet every other Sunday from 6pm to 7pm eastern time on zoom. We had a retreat together Sunday April 28. Members of the NY City Self Inquiry Group and the Central Jersey Inquiry Group worked together to hold a one-day retreat recently. The retreat was open to the public; one new person came from a Facebook posting, 2 who drove up from Maryland, for a total of 11 people. The retreat was held in person at the Heart of Art Studio in Hamilton NJ. The retreat began with an introduction and answer to “why did I come?” by each participant. Next was a group reading and discussion of Why Bad Things Happen by Joan Tollifson. A member presented the topic “The Buildings that block out the Penny that blots out the Sun”—core wounds, attachment styles and possible methods to heal the wounds, in order to facilitate a deeper inquiry into Being. One member commented “this topic is gold.” A member led a stretching/movement exercise after lunch. The group was given two prompts for a 10-minute walking meditation: True or False: “I’m trying to be something I’m not.” And “What is my dream life? What parts of my life would I like to change or get rid of?” The final exercise of the day, was the reading of a short passage by Bob C., followed by an inquiry writing exercise “I cannot see—what I cannot accept.” ~ For meeting info: facebook.com/groups/429437321740752. Questions?for more details.
Update from the Central Ohio Non-Duality Group: The Central Ohio Non-Duality Group has continued to meet virtually during the pandemic with a group of core members. As a result, the participants now dial in beyond Central Ohio from CA, TX, MD, NC and OH. We will continue to meet virtually on Tuesday evenings at 6:30 to 8:30 PM and welcome new participants. The meetings feature confrontation sessions that are a serious effort to engage in self-inquiry with the help of friends on the path. New participants can begin by first observing the process, if they wish, to understand the purpose and nature of such efforts by like-minded seekers. The Central Ohio Non-Duality Group recently posted the meeting link to its local Meet-Up site inviting new participants. If interest is shown for in-person meetings by participants in the Central Ohio area, in-person meetings will be re-started on a second evening. ~ For further information, contactor.
Update from the Dublin, Ireland self-inquiry group: We meet every second Wednesday on Zoom. We are working using two different approaches. The first is the standard confrontation approach of people giving an update on what was coming for them in the previous period, in terms of their path. The second is the distribution of a piece in advance for reflection. We will continue in this vein for the time being, using either a general update or a piece for reflection shared in advance. ~ Contact for information.
Update from the email self-inquiry groups: The Women’s Online Confrontation (WOC) group consists of weekly reports where participants can include: > What is on your mind? > Any projects that you want to be held accountable for? > Responses to a selected excerpt (in the previous report). > Comments/responses/questions for other participants. A philosophical/spiritual excerpt with two or three questions is included in each report. Based on what we share, participants ask questions to help get clarity about our thinking. The intention is to help each other see our underlying beliefs about who we are. One rule we try to adhere to is not to give advice or solve problems. The number of participants, to make it work efficiently, is between 4 and 7 including the leader. We continue to have two men’s email groups active. Since the beginning of the year, four participants have left and one other participant has returned. The weekly reports function like slow-motion self-inquiry confrontation meetings, which has its pros and cons. We alternate by asking each other questions one week then answering them the following week. Participants provide brief updates of highlights from the previous week and optional updates on progress toward objectives that they use the reports for accountability on. Both the women’s and the men’s email groups welcome serious participants. ~ Contact or for more information.
Update from the Gainesville, FL self-inquiry group: We continue to meet at the Alachua County main library on Saturdays from 2 to 4 PM. We typically schedule meetings for alternate Saturdays with an occasional extra week between meetings due to holidays or the TAT meeting schedule and our group’s associated retreats. We talk with newcomers about the objective of the group as a forum to stimulate the progress of self-inquirers, we ask them what their most heartfelt life-objective is, and then we usually listen to each volunteer who wants to talk and then be questioned about what they’ve said. ~ Email or for more information.
Update from the GMT Support Group for Seekers: We meet every Sunday gmt 18.30, live on Google Meet. Rapport and confrontation, talk and exchange. Someone mostly brings a theme, like a text, poem or whatever to set the mood. Then 10 minutes of silent rapport after which everyone gets their turn on the “hot seat” for 10-15 minutes—the group listens to what the person has to say about the theme then asks friendly questions—depending on how many participants we are. The questioning is aimed at providing material for self-inquiry. There have been sessions in which we just chatted, but that is more the exception. ~ Contact.
Update from the Greensburg, PA self-inquiry group: My Greensburg SIG group is currently in hiatus. I would like to have meetings in person again sometime in the future. But in the meantime, if you have any inquiries, or have an interest in helping me set up local meetings to meet again in person, you can email me at.
An update from the self-inquiry group in Houston, TX: We have merged our Zoom meetings with the Monday Night Confrontation group, which meets at 7:30 pm EST / 6:30 pm CST. ~ Contact for more information.
“Ignoramuses Anonymous” blog Ignoramuses Anonymous is for seekers to explore questions together…a fellowship of seekers for whom ignorance of the absolute truth had become a major problem. It started as a blog for Pittsburgh PSI meeting members back in 2009. Welcoming discussion on the path.
Ig Anon looks inactive again. The idea is to have a kind of seeker’s blog to process our thinking out loud and hopefully also help seekers new to group work see what we’re thinking about and if it resonates. My feeling is shorter posts in a range of 100-300 words are easier to put together and probably to read than recent 1000-word posts; however, there are no rules about it. WordPress.com free tier is starting to look like Times Square with all its ads. I think the blog needs to be hosted somewhere to really restart it, and will try first at Firstknowthyself.org. Once it’s moved, then it would be great to see if it can be useful again! See this post from a Four-day isolation retreat at TAT Center, with photos and YouTube clips.
Update from the Lynchburg, VA self-inquiry group: We have been meeting on Thursday evenings from 7pm—8:30pm, online, via zoom. Norio Kushi, Paul Rezendes, and Bob Harwood are consistent guests. We’ve also had some other interesting characters show up from time to time. Topics come from readings or questions brought up by our members. These are sent out, along with the zoom invitation each week. Recently we posted some “considerations” for joining our group: ** Try to frame your comments as questions to Norio, Paul, or Bob. Draw these questions from you own experience rather than generalities. Maintain attention and discussion on the question rather than philosophical musings. ** Question other participants, in the spirit of group-assisted self inquiry, but without attempting to lead them to any particular conclusion or bring attention to yourself. **Allow for and attend to the silence and the space that is always present. When you aren’t speaking, see that as your role—to hold that space. **Question, in yourself, the use of personal story-telling and quoting others—though sometimes both are helpful and appropriate. **Consider the way in which you are listening. Does it have a quality of acquisitiveness or openness? **Continue to question your own intention for coming to this meeting and let that guide any comments/questions/discussion. ~ Please contact if you’re interested in being on the email list.
Update from the Monday Night Confrontation Group: The Monday Night Confrontation (MNC) online meeting is going strong with a core group of participants and room for a few more. Meetings are at 7:30 pm EST / 6:30 pm CST and use the Zoom video conference platform. The group practices confrontation/self-inquiry in a spirit of helpfulness with the goal of finding answers from within. If you are interested in joining or would like more information, email.
Update from the New York City self-inquiry group: The NYC Self Inquiry Group is on indefinite hiatus. For questions about self-inquiry in New York City, contact.
Update for the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area self-inquiry: We meet at the Chapel Hill Public Library on alternate Saturdays from 1:00 to 2:30 PM, in meeting room D. ~ Email with any questions.
Update from the Raleigh, NC Triangle Inquiry Group: We continue to meet on the first and third Tuesday of the month via Zoom. We usually have four to eight participants and new members are welcome. Except for a brief hiatus, we’ve been meeting regularly since the late 1990’s. Our main focus is on looking at beliefs that can get us stuck in habitual ways of thinking which can limit the possibility of seeing the true nature of things. Although I act as a sort of MC in our meetings, there’s no teacher or group leader and we all try to help each other in the search for the Real. ~ Email for more details.
DC Area Self-Knowledge and Nonduality: Every week, we introduce a different philosophical or spiritual topic and split the time among all participants using question based self-inquiry. We meet at 6pm on Mondays @ the Connie Morella Library in Bethesda, a few minutes walk from the Bethesda Metro on the Red Line. For more info or to contact us, visit our Meetup page.
Members-Only Area
A password-protected section of the website is available for TAT members. (Note that there’s an occasional glitch that, when you try to link to the members-only area or a sections within it, you’ll get a page-not-found error. If you try the link a second time, it should work.) Contents include:
How you can help TAT and fellow seekers,
11 NEW audio recordings of selected sessions from 2008-2023 in-person meetings and virtual gatherings,
Resources and ideas for those planning a group spiritual retreats,
Photographs of TAT meeting facilities, the Richard Rose grave site, a rare 1979 photo, and aerial photos of the Rose farm,
Presenters’ talk notes from April TAT meetings in 2005–2007, and
TAT News Letters from 1996–2013 and Annual Retrospectives from 1973 thru 2011. The Retrospectives from 1973–1985 were written by Richard Rose and are replete with ideas on the workings of a spiritual group—rich historical content.
TAT policies, TAT business meeting notes, and other information.
Latest recordings:
June 2023 TAT Meeting: The Search for Self-Definition: What’s Taking So Long?
September 2023 TAT Virtual Event: Pretty Lies or Ugly Truths.
October 2023 TAT Talk: Anima Pundeer.
November 2023 TAT Meeting: Knowing by Identity.
Please us if you have questions. (Look here for info on TAT membership.)
As an Amazon Associate, TAT earns from qualifying purchases made through the above link or other links on our website. Click on the link and bookmark it in your browser for ease of use.
TAT has registered with the eBay Giving Works program. You can list an item there and select TAT to receive a portion of your sale. Or if you use the link and donate 100% of the proceeds to TAT, you won’t pay any seller fees when an item sells and eBay will transfer all the funds to TAT for you. Check out our Giving Works page on eBay. Click on the “For sellers” link on the left side of that page for details.
Downloadable/rental versions of the Mister Rose video and of April 2012 TAT sessions on Remembering Your True Desire:
“You don’t know anything until you know Everything….”
Mister Rose is an intimate look at a West Virginia native many people called a Zen Master because of the depth of his wisdom and the spiritual system he conveyed to his students. Profound and profane, Richard Rose was not the kind of man most people picture when they think of mystics or spiritual teachers. Yet, he was the truest of teachers, one who had “been there,” one who had the cataclysmic experience of spiritual enlightenment.
Filmed in the spring of 1991, the extraordinary documentary follows Mr. Rose from a radio interview, to a university lecture and back to his farm, as he talks about his experience, his philosophy and the details of his life.
Whether you find him charming or offensive, fatherly or fearsome, you will not forget him, and never again will you think about yourself, reality, or life after death in quite the same way.
2012 April TAT Meeting – Remembering Your True Desire
Includes all the speakers from the April 2012 TAT meeting: Art Ticknor, Bob Fergeson, Shawn Nevins and Heather Saunders.
1) Remembering Your True Desire … and Acting on It, by Art Ticknor Spiritual action is like diving for the Pearl beyond Price. What do you do when you don’t know what to do or how to do it? An informal discussion centered around the question: “What prevents effective spiritual action?”
2) Swimming in the Inner Ocean: Trips to the Beach, by Bob Fergeson A discussion of the varied ways we can use in order to hear the voice of our inner ocean, the heart of our true desires.
3) A Wider and Wilder Vision, by Shawn Nevins Notes on assumptions, beliefs, and perspectives that bind and free us.
4) Make Your Whole Life a Prayer, by Heather Saunders An intriguing look into a feeling-oriented approach to life.
TAT founder Richard Rose believed that working with others accelerates our retreat from untruth. He also felt that such efforts were most effective when applied with discernment, meaning working with others on the rungs of the ladder closest to our own. The TAT News section is for TAT members to communicate about work they’ve been doing with or for other members and friends. Please your “ladder work” news.
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
That’s Me?
“My Therapist Gave Me This and Said, ‘That’s You.'”
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~ Thanks to BH, who spotted it reposted on reddit without attribution.
Definitions?
(Definition: “the degree of distinctness in outline of an object, image, or sound, especially of an image in a photograph or on a screen.”)
EGOTIST – Someone who is usually me-deep in conversation.
INFLATION – Cutting money in half without damaging the paper.
Irritation moves us; inspiration provides a direction
Comfort vs. Truth?
~ Thanks to Michael R. From”How to Become a Philosopher” (1942), in The Art of Philosophizing, and Other Essays.
Leave the Light On Song by Chris Smither
If I were young again, I’d pay attention To that little known dimension, a taste of endless time It’s just like water, it runs right through our fingers But the flavor of it lingers like a rich, red wine In those days we were single, we lived them one by one Now we hardly see ’em, they don’t walk, they run But I’ve got plenty left, I’ve set my sight on Don’t wait up, leave the light on, I’ll be home soon I’d never seen my life in such a hurry But if I stop to worry, I get left behind It’s like a party, but you don’t get invitations And there’s just one destination, you better be on time For years, we rhymed in couplets and we sang ’em two by two Now we hardly rhyme at all, but here’s a few And if they hurt, there’s bullets left to bite on Don’t wait up, leave the light on, I’ll be home soon
~ Thanks to Shawn Nevins, who wrote: “I like the performance of this song as much as the words: https://youtu.be/THQO-JLjMnA?si=rNZEUUzBfiP5ELQx. The guy is living the song as he’s playing it. Nostalgic, wistful, terminal. A reminder that, oddly, we have to fight to be where we already are, and that somewhere between life and death is an alternative.” Photo of Chris Smither by Anthony Pepitone, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Thanks to Tina S, who found the story. Image is an AI-generated rose from freepik.com.
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 October TAT Forum, thanks to Colm H., is:
Does your life have a definite direction? If so, what is it?
Responses follow:
From Andrew S:
I think the easy answer for this question is death. I suppose the only thing I know without a doubt I’m heading towards is death. It will happen, one way or another no matter what, and I can only move in the direction towards it.
Another direction, possibly related to the first but possibly not, is being more selective with my time and energy. It has been on my mind a lot of at least half a year and it might just be a natural process as someone gets older. Around 6 months ago I really noticed (not for the first time in my life) how much energy I spend on things that can’t possibly matter and have shown no evidence of giving me any real or lasting happiness. This seems to happen every couple of years or so and there is usually some “stuff” that gets left behind.
Reevaluating my habits and what I spend my time on came from the frustration of not having a direction, and that frustration got very loud. What I suspect it would like me to do is really narrow down the things I want out of life and conserve all possible energy for those things.
From Michael R:
At this point in my life, the answer to this would have to be “no,” though I wish very much that it was “yes.” This lack in definite direction shows itself in various ways, but most noticeable recently has been an avoidance of practice, meditation, etc. It took me some time to realize the pattern, often chalking it up to being busy, but even when I have a free day there’s an obvious prioritizing of other things. Seeing this more clearly now, and with the prodding of a few friends on the path, I’ve been asking myself why this has been the case. The best answers I’ve come up with so far is a lack of clarity in what I want most, which immediately translates to a lack of definite direction, motivation, etc.
It’s easy to say “Truth” as the answer to what I most want; it’s an answer that has felt true for a long time. Recently, though, I’ve been wondering if there is a more truthful way to answer that question, and this uncertainty has left me wavering a bit. If the “Truth,” for example, was something terrible and awful with no hope for a higher perspective that would ease my suffering . . . would I actually want that Truth? That’s not really what I’ve meant all these years when I’ve said I wanted Truth.
What I want is to know the Absolute, Non-relative, Essence of everything (myself included). I want to feel/be the invulnerable wholeness that I imagine comes with knowing you are That which is beyond relativity. So in one breath I could say that is my life’s direction, a yearning to know That. In another breath, however, there is hesitation because I don’t really know what’s on the other side of this door I’ve been knocking on, and suddenly that feels a bit precarious.
Do I really want the Truth for its own sake? No matter what it is? Can I honestly say that? Or do I just say that because I intuit that Truth is the same as Satisfaction, and Satisfaction is what I want? This is my “natural koan” at the moment, and until it’s settled I don’t feel very clear on how to best orient towards life, on what definite direction to have. I think wrestling with this is better than a superficial answer, though. My (thus far) complete inability to solve this conundrum had me praying recently for the first time in a while. Maybe that’s a good thing.
From Soanna P:
I am such a poor writer and have great difficulty in expressing my ideas and thoughts; on top of that I am very comfortable in letting myself flow on the water, relaxing, enjoying life as I could while knowing for sure that there is only one direction to go, the end of this body. Sometimes I feel so useless and heartless for my fellow people but have no courage nor energy to stand up and help others. The only thing I do is avoiding to annoy and trouble others.
I also believe that life drives, and as a living creature one can only accept for the sake of peacefulness.
From Patrick K:
Brett posed the question of what songs touch you and what interpretation to take from the songs you listen to in last month’s TAT Forum. So I took up the challenge. After exhausting a list of songs, one song stuck out, “To Win Just Once” by the Saw Doctors. Every up and down and victory in this life as far as I have experienced is to do with survival or is selfish, having some level of vanity; there is nothing of a higher transcendental spiritual nature about anything. Everything within my paradigm is survival/vanity based. I can of course try to claim that “observation” goes beyond survival but as far as I can tell, observation/awareness is just a facet of the body/mind put there to aid in the proficiency of survival. My “to win just once” would be to Self-realise / have the Beatific vision / find the Truth that passeth all understanding / attract the lightning bolt of enlightenment Richard Rose had. Even though I know nothing about all that, it is what I want, to uncover the veil of maya and get that Truth/Experience.
So regarding a direction toward “Absolute Truth,” I can’t help but be reminded of what Art Ticknor said about how he felt as a seeker up to his Realisation, that he felt like he was in a dark room going around in circles with one foot nailed to the floor (may not have this verbatim but I think you will get the gist). If I felt like I was moving in the right direction, I pretty much feel that I would in fact be deluding myself again.
Some practices I work with currently:
Trying to observe the graces of others, the levels of being of others, where I feel I fall short. I do this to try to detect what it is that is “blocking my openness” to higher levels of being, of becoming that. Rose talked about the importance of ladder work and the benefits of doing ladder work. God bestowed unto me, I feel, quite a low place on the spiritual ladder. He did this so I could come to appreciate the graces that others possess. I am acutely aware of others with higher levels of being than me. I am also acutely aware that those others higher up the ladder are also “not aware” as I am of the graces that they possess. So working with others higher up the ladder means I will feel those pangs of longing to ascend to those spiritual rungs higher up the ladder. It’s an important part of ladder work. And the best aspect of that is that it is “felt” which surpasses any kind of intellectual gymnastics to find Truth.
Trying to work with those lower on the ladder than me. I have noticed that, when it comes to concepts and rudimentary knowledge about spiritual matters, I may have something to share with others. My interest and enthusiasm for this work can be of a higher level than others, especially those new to self-inquiry philosophy. And so working with others who are trying to find their feet spiritually is essential in solidifying my “vector” toward finding out what it is I want out of my spiritual path. I don’t know if one of the laws Rose mentioned touches upon this, but when you freely give in the spiritual context, you also receive, there is a definite “felt” trade-off. Anybody doing genuine self-inquiry group work must be able to attest to this.
So in summation, doing the ladder work as recommended by Richard Rose will by itself create a direction. Not one I have chosen, but more of a direction that is revealed as I journey along. In group work I always get the sense that there is something greater moving things “behind the scenes.” “My will” doesn’t touch that, can’t ever align with that, because my will is all about survival of my existence alone. Richard Rose talked about “nostalgia,” the common language of mankind, the language of the soul, that gets closer to this “background sense.” I can’t direct myself toward this, I can only make myself accident prone to try to be “in the right place, at the right time,” spiritually, mentally, physically, etc. Sorry if this is a bit lengthy, thanks as always to the TAT Forum for the question.
From Mark W:
I have to look at the big picture to determine that my life does have a definite direction, and the one thing I was sure I wanted ever since adolescence was to be given an objective opinion as to who I was, if I needed to be fixed, and how to do it. The operative word is “objective” and the only way I thought I could find out was by reading and, if I was lucky enough, ask somebody who might know. Well, I’m not quite so naïve anymore but I’m still looking for what I really want. I can see, with the benefit of hindsight, for example that over the past 60 years, my life, despite many stops, starts, and detours, does have a definite direction. And though I now use different words, what I really want points in the same direction, which is to become my True Self with the benefit of help from my friends on the path. Moreover, regardless of the outcome, I intend to continue working with other seekers as long as I am able.
From William R:
When I first attended a lecture by Richard Rose, when I was only 21 years old (a lifetime ago), it is most accurate to say I was searching for the way to make sense of a world that appeared to me to be insane, a world of humans obsessed with creating painful drama, in which everyone denied his or her own viciousness and malice. During that lecture, Mr. Rose asserted that, in the quest for Enlightenment, one must strive to become Truth. But, since none of us knew the Truth, the only way to move toward Truth was through a journey of exploration that would be defined by seeking, testing, and retreating from untruth. The “definite direction” could only be seen in retrospect, looking back at the winding and twisting path that led from the commitment to become, to the present moment. My definite direction continues to be what it has been, to find the life that feels “correct,” that feels like my personal aspirations are in harmony with the greater intelligence and dynamic of life.
I find most of the intrigues and entertainments of society to be boring, banal, and tedious. And, being reasonably healthy, I experience the continued desire to act, to “do something” with my life. But recently, the question that had been present for months had been, “What am I to do?” And it has become clear to me that the calling I have felt since youth has been to be a musician of the highest order, to achieve a level of virtuosity that transcends the need for ego acknowledgement, that is about embodying an identity. And so, I have set myself to the task of doing what must be done to achieve such a realization, testing my ability and resolve even as I feel the correctness and enthusiasm of this aspiration.
I am a projection of the Infinite Self into a bounded, finite corpuscle in the vastness of creation, programmed to seek a permanent state of well-being. My “definite direction” can be summed up by a thought communicated to me many years ago: “I pray to God to reveal my purpose. I pray for the strength to do it. Then I do my best.”
From Art Ticknor:
When I was 18 and my 18-year-old girlfriend told me that she was pregnant, I was delighted: I felt I now had a direction or purpose in life. By a dozen years later, I had graduated from college, was on a fast-track career path, was still with that girlfriend/wife and by then three kids, all of whom I adored. But I felt something was missing in my life, and I couldn’t get a clue about what it was. Then at age 33 I met Richard Rose, who said something that “rang my bell” and provided a refined sense of direction: the answers lie within. Within a short time I saw clearly what I wanted most from life, and saw that the words that best described it for me were also from Rose: to become the Truth at any cost.
A year or so later, I was moving from Ohio (about 3 hours from where Rose lived in WV) to California. I visited Rose to thank him for all the benefits I felt I’d received from him, and I told him I wished there was some way I could repay him. He said: “That’s not the way it works. Pass it on.” That became part of my life-direction that’s still at work.
From Lena S:
Stepping back, or maybe, backing out of identity, a tiny step but perhaps the best direction I could ever pursue. When I begin to get pulled into an emotionally charged or identity entangled interaction, or any really enticing experience, I have been teaching myself to “back out of it,” to pull back from both identifying and getting entangled. There is much talk of sword and surrender as a path to freedom. I interpret that as to cut myself free from identifying and entanglement as I ask myself “To whom is this occurring?” and “Who or what is reacting to this?” This results in becoming a little less identified and more observing of the situation, which results in an observer (?) becoming free to be surrendered—but not by choice. It is an act of seemingly contradictory cutting and surrendering. And this movement “backing away from” is repeated endlessly, a never-ending cycle unless there might be one final tug in which backing away steps back far enough to engage either a cliff, or some Higher Intention than mine. Prayer too, can define this direction, as offering-up my intentions like smoke signals demonstrating my commitment to whatever may be aware. Also, I believe recording and analyzing dreams is an effort in going back into where dreams come out of.
From Shane R:
I’m becoming more responsive to my intuitive wisdom, less subject to the whims of the ego/self. I’ve been journaling for about a year. What I see in my life is that my thoughts are trending, almost desperately, towards being more honest with myself. I recognize the false promises of obsessions, habits, compulsions and strong preferences and that they are consciousness-limiting factors. Moving my life in the opposite direction requires faith in my ability to not only survive without various cherished obsessions…but also to trust that by actively opposing selfish, obsessive behaviors in my life, I am salvaging and reclaiming parts of my consciousness that kept those obsessions “running in place.” From my experience, it is really only through turning away from self that we become or “attain” higher consciousness.
From JP:
There’s a noticing of the usual dull, pressured veil on my experiencing, sometimes a noticing of how all these false beliefs—that I’m running this body, these thoughts, controlling this happenstance—add up to nothing. Part of me wants to see this.
There is a taste of freedom and truth in seeing, a burden lifted. There’s a sense that there is some force that aids. I pray to the Friend that this veil is seen through. There just isn’t anything really attractive or interesting than this intention.
Brett S’s “Spiritual Songs – Desperado” was quite an eye-opening article for me -it was very instructive in pursuing how a song “means” to me. Not only how a song or poem moves me, but how as a deeper rarely realized feeling-belief might be realized by being played like a note resulting from hitting an ivory on the keyboard. In real life, such emotions and feelings may be triggered by events that need to be immediately dealt with, whereas if triggered by music, the observer of the feeling has the luxury to abide in it without distraction to investigate its dimensions. A suggestion for the Forum: people could submit their most inspiring poem, song or music and describe why they are so.
From Don A. regarding Tyler Matthew’s responses for “What I Found” in the July TAT Forum:
“The straddling of teaching streams is a psychological ploy of avoidance—and it is very seductive.” This is very true, that I find myself always looking for something new for insight or new perspective as if something new will “crack the egg” for me like nothing else has been able to.
“To me, the path is a lot like walking backwards in a pitch-black room. We have a flashlight, but we can only illuminate and see where we have come from.” A meaningful re-phrasing for me of “backing away from untruth”—where am I going?
“If anything is fundamental, I would say it is being honest with what you are actually interested in and then moving that way.” I think he is referring to “follow your heart” as he’s stated elsewhere, as opposed to following any other authority because they represent authority.
Transmission: “Possibly the greatest gift in all of human experience.” Makes me wonder how finding a Final Answer might have something to do with interaction with another human.
Next Month
The Reader Commentary question for the November TAT Forum, thanks to Dan G., is:
What are your thoughts/feelings about the difference between commitment and intention?
Please your response by the 25th of October, 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?
Thanks to Brett S., who sent his photo and wrote:
This mural in Crown Heights, Brooklyn reminded me of Richard Rose’s “the law of the ladder.” I can see in it a matrix of cooperation, people working together and to help each other, in order to nurture and share something that represents wisdom, life, and source.
We like hearing from you! Please email your comments, suggestions, inquiries, and submissions.
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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.
Psychology of Zen: Science of Knowing Transcript of a public talk at Ohio State University in 1977 (part 3 of 5) Continued from September 2024; indented paragraphs indicate where Rose was reading from notes.
Definition
Definition requires comparison. Knowing may be direct and absolute, in understanding the nature of things, and we know that we are not absolute creatures. Or in the event that we know we are absolute creatures, we have not found a means to communicate that finding except with words.
It is possible to know things directly. But once you know them, it’s not always possible to communicate what you find. So in the business of communicating with other people we get back to definitions. And definition requires that we talk about something in relation to something else we’re familiar with. It’s like creating a small planetarium out of marbles and showing the relationships of the planets: we can get a better idea by talking about marbles than we can by talking about infinite planets out in space.
Words relate to bodies, and that includes our own body, body-mind or mundane consciousness. So that we come back to definition, unless we have found a state of being that satisfies us, and which we do not care to promote among our fellow man.
Now if we find this state of being and don’t care to promote it, that’s alright. You don’t have to talk. But if you do want to talk, then you have to find words, definitions.
When the man who has become says that the universe does not exist, he means that it does not exist as permanently as does another dimension.
Now of course, I’m hinting at the things you hear in Zen. The Hindu philosophy also mentions the word maya and says that all is maya.42 In Zen they talk of nonexistence, non-being, no-mind and that sort of thing. And yet when that fellow gets through talking, he goes and drinks a beer. So he doesn’t deny that the beer exists.
He looks from this other dimension, and uses words on us that have been used to explain the validity of the material universe. And from this practice results an endless explaining of limitations of language, and of the limitations in the listener’s mind, that is explained best by the use of the word paradox.
Everything is paradoxical until we can have better rapport, where you can just go directly to a person’s mind and they know what you’re thinking.43
We take a stand on good and evil: we might say that life is good and death is evil.
I’m going to try to show you how these definitions occur from different points of view.
For the pig about to be butchered, death is bad. But for the man about to eat the pork, the pig’s death is good, as it extends the life of the man. However, for the man who has become afflicted with trichinosis from eating the pork, the situation may change, and death as evil for the pig once more becomes evil for the man.
However, there is still another point of observation: the man may sometime later view the scene from another dimension and decide that neither pig nor man held the same values as before, and that death, good and evil were simply the results of man’s position of observation at the time.
Most of us don’t like to accept the possibility that we might view the physical universe from a dimension of any other type of validity. We cannot accept this possibility until we realize that we are demanding that a non-material dimension render itself material so that we can measure it with material standards.
Whenever a person says that he has had an experience, there’s a challenge immediately to define it—so that they can weigh it, put it in a test tube, compare it with certain scales or so on. And if this doesn’t happen, or if it can’t be defined suitably in language, then it’s discounted. Of course, the reason it’s generally discounted is that the listener is unable to receive the communication. This is what it amounts to.
Of course this business of communication cannot be done except in ineffective word imagery if that dimension is more real than the physical universe.
This is what we get into then: Which of these dimensions is real?
But regardless, what I’m trying to get to is our evident attempts to define. We see something, where everybody says, “Oh, it’s out there, that’s the universe,” but even that isn’t very easily definable. Because as long as there’s another valid explanation that involves some sort of orderly thinking, we’ve got to pay attention to it.
Up until now I’ve only hinted that these new dimensions are possibilities that might be surmised by pattern observation, by taking note of pattern thinking that results from inadequate physical senses.
What happens to the process observer is that this consideration of the possibility of alternate natures for things apparent brings the observer to a point of high confusion—that puts all physical evidence in jeopardy, and then puts all mental process observation in jeopardy.
The process observer is the mind in its deepest potential. This becomes with relentless meditation on pattern possibilities, and observing-the-observer processes, a dynamic study of the mind with the mind. And the results are an explosive quandary.
There’s only one way to study the mind, and that’s with the mind (not with ink blots and normal curves). And when you do this you practically go nuts. But yet this is the procedure. Let me add that when you go nuts—you get the answer.
This is the first time we realize that we have been studying the mind itself. When we talk of an observer anterior to another objective observer, it looks like we are either chasing our own tail, or that man has an infinite number of observers: that we are continually something that is observing the observer.
Now this isn’t true. What happens is that we’re clarifying what is the observer. Because we don’t have an infinite number of observers; we only have one. But as long as we’re able to watch the processes, the process is not the observer.
It was before. The umpire at one time seemed to be the real, true self. But as soon as we discovered that it’s just a process, it immediately becomes objective. It disappears as a self and we see the self behind it. Now this one is only an illusion yet; it’s only something we built, and we see it as being a construction. But when we see that self [the process observer], then whatever is behind that is the true Self, the capital ”s” Self.
So the real self keeps retreating. The region or the domain of the small “s” self enlarges, it becomes vaster. And the small “s” self involves an objective type of mind, in contrast with an essential mind, perhaps, that manifestly doesn’t think in terms of the mind that we’re used to.
So the pattern-thinking or possibility-thinking creates a possibility, but eventually you reach the point where you know that it’s no longer just a possibility, that it’s really there:
We take this process observer, alias mind consciousness, as being “us” once more, never dreaming in the beginnings that it too will become an observation. And when it truly becomes an observation, not just a possibility of being an externality or observation, this happens by reaching a deeper or more anterior position of observing.
You can’t just say, “Well, there’s something back there then, because there has to be something behind something else.” No. You can’t realize this until you go there. You have to get behind the umpire to see it, and you have to get behind the process observer to see it.
Correlation
We are now approaching a real self by divorcing all of our pattern thinking—even from let’s say the genetically-imposed patterns of thinking. And we come across an awareness of correlation at this point.
As I said, you get into a real state of confusion, and you say, “Hey, I can’t keep track of this. I don’t know whether I’m thinking or not thinking, and, maybe I’d better let go of this because I might get lost somewhere.”
In the initial stages of observing we deliberately look for patterns.
We do this in mathematics. I call them common denominators.
One method of looking for patterns is to examine the field of data for common denominators. This does not always bring us mathematical revelations unless we can throw into the computer all the factors that cause these common denominators. To give an example, one justifying argument for the God theory in theology would be the common-denominator type of evidence of the God theory existing in nearly all religions.
Every religious system seems to have the God theory.
Many are eager to seize this type of evidence, as they are hungry to believe and too tired to do further thinking. The factor that is missed is that things are not proven by belief. A belief is only a postulation. Another factor that affects the conclusion is that the beliefs may have sprung from a desire to believe—a certain dogma—rather than to try to find things out for whatever they really are.
Still, correlation can be of use. In esoteric writings we come across the correlation, “As above, so below.” This is no more absurd than Einstein’s theory of relativity. Checking patterns of thinking with patterns of thinking—for example, looking for common denominators—may be the only tool we have for this mental observation. We just have to keep an eye on slipping into projection of our desires.
You’re always keeping a check on your thoughts, to see if you’re creating some concept structure you want to create.
We hit a snag in our studies of the material world by using material to check material. The material world is consistent within itself, and the material sciences are the evidence of that. But we cannot use the material world to check anything beyond that.
That was the point in bringing up the idea of definition needing comparison.
Outside view
So we need to define the material world properly. And to know that, for the interior observation of the material world to be valid, it has to be defined from outside.44 Definition requires comparison. The thing under scrutiny must be viewed in terms of something else—something outside the self—in order to determine its uniqueness.
If you go back into the definition of words, you’ll know what I’m talking about. You don’t say a rose is a rose. You say a rose is a plant—something else—that it’s a unique type of plant, and the rest of the definition is its difference from all other plants. Not the fact that it is like something, but that it is different from them. It is similar in some respects but it is unique, and for this it has to be viewed from somewhere else. The rose cannot define the rose, so to speak.
So a man is defined as an animal but a unique type of animal, and the difference becomes his definition. However, when we lump the entire material picture together, and attempt to define the visible, physical universe—this whole material universe—we can only do this adequately from another dimension. We cannot do it properly even from another universe, if that universe is of the same material as we are.
It’s not just looking from some other galaxy that operates under the same pattern. The only way to really evaluate it is to look at it from outside of itself.
Yet many of our relative minds reject the idea than man can, from some anterior mental dimension, really perceive the material universe in a valid, if not really real, appreciation of this world.45
In other words, that he can see it and have a just appreciation from it. The first impression is that if a man looks at things with his [interior] mind, he’s liable to become hallucinated or something else.
In trying to be reasonable, we might say that we will accept these findings if we could be sure that the exponent of the new theory, the describer of the new dimension, is not creating the new dimension out of whole cloth..”
We have a lot of people who do this, who tell you what heaven’s all about, or the different levels some cults or religions go into, such as seven different layers of heaven. As I mentioned, the Spiritualists believe in a causal world, a world where things are created, a mind dimension. And I don’t doubt that some of this may well be true. But I don’t think it’s right to postulate. The worst thing you can do is postulate ahead of time that a certain spiritualistic concept is valid. But we have to look at it from someplace else. You have get outside, view it, and then come back and identify it the best you can.
And we should all doubt. Along the road we should not accept any cosmology or concept. We should doubt everything we hear and make the trip ourselves. In other words, we’re faced generally with listening to experts talk about what they have experienced. And this is alright – it’s entertainment perhaps—but it won’t take you there. If you want the information you have to make the trip.
———- 44 Another paradoxical verbal construction by Rose: that the “interior observation” is from “outside.” 45 The phrase “valid if not really real” implies relative rather than absolute knowledge.
Now, of course I’m not talking about making an external trip, and I’m not even talking about making a trip all the way into universal definition. I’m saying it’s just a matter of going back inside yourself. And it’s a very simple thing to do. I think that once you get beyond the umpire and realize that the same rules are effective on the mental world as exist in the material world—that you have to define yourself from an external position—then you have to find that external position. You have to get behind yourself, so to speak.
Now you can’t do that deliberately. There’s no blueprint or path that says, “Here’s how you get behind yourself.” But strangely enough, the records say that people who do this type of introspection do get behind themselves. They do get behind, until a point where their whole perspective of their physical body and a physical universe takes on a new and valid meaning.
Well, whether it does or not, this is the thing that we have to do: we have to find out who is thinking, what is thinking, and what thought is.
Method
Now of course, a lot can be said about method. This is an outline of basic meditation:46 Meditation should never be carried out for the purpose of quiescence—unless that’s what you want: if you want to sing a lullaby to yourself, you can chant a mantra and it will quiet you. But if you’re looking for value, if you’re looking for mental understanding, for understanding of your own mind, then you have to look inside your actions, to challenge and question why you acted in a certain way. And as you do this you’ll start to see that there is a controlling force of some sort, or at least an umpire. And then you simply challenge: “What sees the umpire?”
There’s a whole system of Zen in Japan that does nothing but ask a question. There’s hardly any ritual—some of them throw in a bit of religion. But basically there is one koan,47 and that is: “Who am I?” Or, “Who’s doing this? Who’s thinking?” And by continually attacking that, it provokes a person to look inside. Now this to me is the true psychology.
And from this it evolves. Once you know who “you” are, then you’re able to judge what’s good for you. And nine chances out of ten you’ll be able to see inside of other people a tremendous lot more clearly. I was downstairs at the Student Union before coming up here, drinking coffee, watching the people go by and talking to one of the boys. And I said that you can sit here and point out these people’s hang-up, their chief feature as Gurdjieff called it.48
You can see what it is. Generally it’s expressed in their hairdo, the type of clothes they wear, the nervousness of their laughing and this sort of thing. And they’re all frantically trying to adjust to the student body, or trying to fool the whole student body. They’re trying to put something across. There’s the struggle for individuality, the struggle to remain themselves, the struggle to expand themselves, while all at the same time pretending that they’re an inconspicuous little homogenous entity—that is so wonderful in his inconspicuousness that he’s famous. But all of them have their own little egotistic bent. And they’re different, they’re highly different. And possibly the greatest virtue would be the ones with the sharp teeth showing their sharp teeth, you know, instead of trying artfully to cover up.
But this is what goes on. And the reason you can see it in your fellowman is that you can see it in yourself. Because generally what we do is we collaborate. We don’t understand people, we collaborate. For the ones who think like we think, we say, “Hey, you and I had better team up against the rest of this rat pack.” We don’t try to understand the rest of the people.
And once you’re able to get inside, there follows from this an ability to actually see this umpire at work. You see these people juggling their energies. How much do they have? Five pounds for school and ninety-five pounds for fun? Or ten pounds for school and fifty pounds for power and forty pounds for fun or whatever. But you see all these things as they manifest in their attitude, the way they walk, whether they’re shy or determined or sneaky. They’re different. But that’s all visible—because it’s all visible in yourself. We are all these things.
I’d like to make some comments on the method of searching for an anterior observer. I don’t have much time to get into it but I’ll make a few comments. Here are some general principles:
There is no sense in looking for anything but the observer, for he who is looking.
We should not try to define something and then try to find it.
The anterior observer must be discovered and not just substantiated by evidence.
We can’t just say there’s evidence; we’ve got to find it.
We begin the adventure of inside investigation from the basis of no conviction.
No conviction. Not saying, “I believe this or that,” or even believing what I’m saying.
The average psychologist does not take this stand. He accepts with conviction testimony of predecessors in the field of psychology; he accepts the definition of mental attributes as laid out by fellow psychologists. Very few scientists go back to the roots of their field and prove to themselves step by step the postulations that are the backbone of their own work or experimentation.
When I was studying chemistry, somebody says, “Hydrogen has a valence of so-and-so.” And I say, “How do you know? Where do you get this from? Who discovered the valence for all these things?” And they say, “Don’t pay attention to that. C’mon, you’ll go on and you’ll be working these equations. You just accept this. Hydrogen has a valence of so-and-so.” And that’s the way I went through chemistry. I never found out. I would like to go back and see who discovered valences and the relation of valences, to really understand it.
In psychology, somebody says, “He’s a manic depressive.” A manic depressive is what you are if you don’t agree with whoever is in the White House. A paranoid schizophrenic also. And they throw these out: I hear psychologists on television say, “He’s a manic-depressive, paranoid schizophrenic.” And people say, “Boy, that guy knows everything. He’s really got it. Who’s going to argue with him?” But go back to where these definitions come from—and how did they know in the beginning? You know what I think about schizophrenia: that possibly 75% of all the cases that medically are listed as schizophrenia are possession, not curable with drugs but with exorcism. Possibly 50% of all the hopeless dope cases we have in this country are possessions.
In other words, much of scientific work is the acceptance of previous ground work, even though the ground work is admittedly only conceptual.
As I said, science is an agreement, conceptual.
What do we know for sure?
When we are looking at ourselves, we have to take into consideration just what we know for sure. We mentioned previously that there are three major explanations for the existence of the physical universe: One is that the material is the real substance of our possible experiential field. Another is that it’s all an illusion. Another is that any definition of the physical universe must be and will be qualified by our position and our ability to understand.
To the ant, the universe might be an acre of ground. To an insane person the universe might be something inside the core of an apple. So we must get a clear idea of he who is looking. We do not know who is looking, and we are not too sure of that which we see, especially after we have been hallucinated, or have seen a hologram or a mirage.
So we start with nothing, deciding to look inside. We know nothing for sure. Descartes had an urgency for self-definition not based upon simple internal observation. Much of our thinking is forced upon us.
We don’t think; we are forced to think. I’ve said this repeatedly. Try to stop it, if you think you are thinking. Try to start it, if you think you can. When you get up in the morning do you start thinking? Try to wake up some morning with a blank mind and start thinking. And then try to stop the trend. You say, “I’m going to stop the trend,” but that’s part of the trend. The thought of stopping the trend is part of the trend. So where do you stop it? But yet that’s what we’re faced with. If we want to do something, we have to get into a position where we can stop the trend. Find some method of the zombie reaching back there and twisting the transistors, and getting the thing working the way he wants it to work.
We have little choice in picking a thought or claiming it as our property if it is caused by previous thought, previous determinations, previous situations forced on us, and by present environment influences that afflict us before we can prevent them.49 Many of these environmental influences exist in the body, or they affect bodily reactions that we do not completely understand or endorse.
We cannot start by negating our presence. This would be absurd.
I say, “Start from nothing.” But you can’t say, “I’m not here.” You’ve got to accept your presence.
And in this reverse searching we must always retreat from the absurd, in favor of things or ideas that are manifestly less absurd.
There’s nothing really wise. It’s just that there’s garbage and there is stuff that smells worse. Some are more orderly, and if something’s more orderly we say it’s more reasonable. But be careful when you say it’s more reasonable: it might be something you want to believe.
When we ask ourselves, “Who am I?” we take an initial step. We do not begin by saying, “I am this or that.”
Modern psychology says, “We are a body,” and I say this is a mistake. Find out who you are before you say who you are.
We explore the fields of possibility: We may be only a body. We may be a soul or spirit housed in a body. We may be a body with a mind separate from the body and still separate from the spirit. Or we may decide that we are something that we really cannot identify properly. We may conclude that we are an awareness that witnesses a mind and body functioning in some relation to our individual point of awareness.
Now we go back again to the curve, an answer that is not a consistent, definite pointed answer. But all these things are very possibly true. This material dimension is very real. And this dimension is very unreal. We have inadequate methods of looking at it. We have a limited number of rods in our eyeballs; we have a limited hearing capacity; we pick up only certain vibrations. Our perception of certain things can easily be fooled. You can touch a certain point of the tongue and regardless of what you touch it with, they’ll feel acid or sour. They’ll say it’s sour, but it isn’t; it’s just where you touched him on the tongue. I used to do some work with hypnosis and there are little things you can do to show this.
And that’s what happens with everything you see; the universe may well be entirely different. J.J. van der Leeuw50 brings this out better than I ever could. I was really amazed when I ran into his book. And as a result of that, we’ve been dragging van der Leeuw’s books around with us, making them available to the public. Because he has this ability to expound pretty much the same thing I’m talking about, except for the procedure for going inside and looking at yourself. We have a couple of books on the table back there that relate to this type of thinking, like Bucke’s51Cosmic Consciousness.52,53
Now I want to leave you with a formula that will be explained extensively in a later lecture. I’m just going to give it to you briefly tonight. And that is, in this business of observing yourself, it isn’t just a matter of sitting and looking. I used to say that the human being is like a camera that takes in pictures, and with a certain mysterious energy which we call light, projects them upon the void.54
Basically, the whole of human existence can be discovered by using what I call the camera analogy: knowing that these things come from outside, are reinterpreted by the mind, a sort of mental refraction, and are then projected back outside. And strangely enough, we all agree upon this projection—except for a few who are color blind or a few who can’t hear. But there’s a prenatal agreement: people seem to agree upon colors and that sort of thing before they’re born. You don’t have to train a child to believe that a thing has a certain color; he accepts it automatically.
But the field of vision—just explore this and spend yourself a few hours looking at some of the things the mind does, meditating on them until you get the answers. I have six categories of the things that a person sees or apprehends. And in my estimation, when something is visualized it is the same as being seen.
[The six categories of visions were later revised.55]
First of all we see physical objects: this is physical seeing: Now as we know, the lens of the eyeball turns things upside-down; the image in the eyeball is inverted and then it’s readjusted by the mind. This is not fiction I’m talking about, this is all scientifically demonstrable. Somewhere inside of the mind that image is readjusted—so we don’t reach up here for our toes; we look into a mirror and we see our feet down there. The eyeball being curved or the lens being what it is, the vision would go to the brain inverted and the world would be upside- down. But because of the ability to “umpire” and adjust, we see it as it’s handy for us to see. Otherwise we’d be reaching in the wrong place for things. This is the type of physical vision we have, and if you want to start from there it will give you something good for examining yourself.
The second type is visualization: You can close your eyes and see a tremendous lot of things. Now you might say you’re just remembering, and sure, all this stuff comes from memory, in visualization—but this type of visualization is different from the others. These six different types of visions don’t seem to harmonize, but there’s an explanation for all of them. Visualization is memory either in new arrangement or in old arrangement. For instance we can visualize an apple: What are you looking at, a green apple? Okay, how about visualizing a set of stars all around that apple. You can see them, but there’s no apple with stars all around it, or polka-dots. But we can visualize that. And that is memory: we saw stars before and we put the stars on the apple, in our pattern thinking. So this is drawn somehow from memory.
Capabilities of the mind:
Now as a side note, let me say that there are three basic capabilities of the human mind, plus the possibility of a fourth, which is an action of extendability or projectability. The mind can 1) receive or perceive, 2) retain, and 3) react. All of your psychological terminology, you can throw it out the window and take these three words. All human mental activity comes under them: perception, retention and reaction—and then extension, whether you call this ESP or psi.56 Where you’re inhibiting the dice from rolling,57 that’s an extension of mental power. Or you’re creating a tulpa or something that appears in front of you, that’s an extension of power. The mind can extend itself.58 Now, taking those four powers of the human mind and applying them to this, you’ll begin to see how they cause the different types of visions.59
The third type of vision is visitation: The eye sees nothing, but the mind projects a vision into seemingly physical but not tangible dimensions or atmosphere. You can’t get to them. A visitation is like a ghost or a spirit. It projects us into a physical space of some sort, but when you go to check it out, it doesn’t answer to our material checking systems. And this differs from the hallucination.
The fourth category is the hallucination, in which we know the vision is not real. The ghost or visitation we don’t know: it seems to be there, it may even talk to us and tell us something rather valid. But this fourth category, hallucination, is imagination. Imagination and hallucination come in the same category. This is direct affectation of the mind by non-physical sources. The eye seems to see, but other people around us don’t see the same thing. So the vision is our own. Whereas a ghost may be seen by a whole room full of people. I saw a materialization one time and everyone in the room saw it.60 But that was what you call a visitation [the third type].
The fifth class is revelation:61 true visions projected upon us but not projected by us, like the vision of Attila.62 When Attila moved into Rome, some celestial army appeared against him in the sky, and he turned around and left.63 But he didn’t project it; he wouldn’t project something to destroy his own army. There’s a record of these. If they weren’t in history we would say they were concocted. But there’s evidence of visions of marching armies yet to this day in certain areas, at certain times, especially in old battlefields. People will see armies marching.64,65 And sometimes it’s just an individual seeing them. This is what we call revelation.
This revelation involves not only entities projected, or scenes projected, it involves dynamic messages projected. It involves say something projected upon us that changes us, like Saul, or Paul, when he was knocked off the horse.66 He was blinded, so he didn’t see too much with his eyes. But he saw something interiorly that changed his life. So this is another category: it was projected upon him but it was not his projection; he didn’t blind himself. Of course, someone might argue that he did by his prior bad habits. But the interior revelation is what counted. He got a new look at the universe, which corrected his old perspective.
———- 54 In this analogy, a camera combined with a movie projector. 55 When published two years later, Rose’s book Psychology of the Observer listed six types of visions as follows: 1. Normal Sensory Perception; 2. Abnormal Sensory Perception; 3. Mental Visions; 4. Visions Without Projection by the Perceiver; 5. Visions of Mental Processes without sensory percepts; 6. Deliberate Mental Projections. 56 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology. 57 Reference to J.B. Rhine’s experiments at Duke. 58 Franz Hartmann’s Magic White and Black chapter 7: “Perception is passive imagination, because if we perceive an object, the relation which it bears to us comes to our consciousness without any active exertion on our part. But there is an active imagination by which we may enter into relation with a distant object in space by a transfer of consciousness but this requires that spiritual power which resides in the heart.” Full text. 59 Types of reaction from Psychology of the Observer: “Reaction is of various kinds. There is the automatic or programmed type of reaction which is somatic and largely reflexive. Then there is the mental reaction, which is unconscious, which is an Umpire function, which is the projection or perception to suit the universal-mind-paradigm. This is an Umpire-adjustment….“ 60 Details below. 61 In the sense of the revelations of St. John, not an inferential, “eureka” type of revelation. 62 Rose erroneously says “vision of Fatima.” These were visions seen in France by children and later by crowds estimated at between 30,000 and 100,000. 63Depicted in a fresco by Raphael, it was not an army but St. Peter and St. Paul in the sky bearing swords. Attila was meeting with Pope Leo, and only Attila saw the vision, not his entire army. After the vision Attila left the battlefield. 64 Numerous examples are given by Charles Fort in New Lands, chapter 18, pp 420-422. 65 Paul Wood described being able to tune into scenes such as the battle of Gettysburg. 66 More under the heading “Mind dimension” below.
The sixth is introspection, which we talked about a little while ago. This is a unique quality: The human mind can watch itself. We’re still talking about vision, but this is the mind’s ability to watch itself. And there’s no way to really describe this when it goes on, because you can’t really picture a process. And each one is different. You see the process working and you can name it, you can call it a gestalt or something. But you can only say, “I’ve got a certain syndrome,” or, “I watched this syndrome,” and then you name the syndrome, and recognize that you’re watching that syndrome, and that’s the process.
These six different types of visions are all distinct and different from each other. They are all capacities, things that the human mind is capable of seeing, of apprehending. There is little or no explanation for them [in contemporary science]. But there is an explanation for every one of them from the point of returning, of going behind the umpire, and taking into consideration the part of the person that sees, the part that retains or reacts, and the part that extends.
… A spot on earth where people can do retreats and hold meetings; where the emphasis is on friendship and the search.
January 2024:
As we start the new year, December donations brought us to just over 20% of our 2023 fundraising goal of $15,750. The bulk of that total came from monthly, recurring donations. A big thank you goes to those core supporters who are there for TAT month in and month out, as well as all of you who choose monthly supporting memberships in TAT. These steady commitments are greatly appreciated and very helpful for TAT’s long-term planning.
An additional $152 came from Amazon purchases in 2024. This is a simple, no-cost way to support TAT but does require remembering to visit the TAT website first and use the Amazon link on this page before you put items in your cart: https://tatfoundation.org/support-tat/. Almost any product is eligible. For example, someone purchased toothpaste on Amazon, and TAT received $0.25 on that purchase.
In 2024, expect to see less frequent, but more effective, reminders of fundraising goals. I think these monthly reminders are a bit like that inspiring quote you put on the refrigerator—it works for a few days and then you don’t notice it anymore.
Thanks to all of you for making TAT the extraordinary organization it is, and best wishes for the new year.
Sincerely, Shawn Nevins
PS: Monthly contributions are a great way to support the TAT Center if making a larger one-time donation seems too much. If you’re so inspired, click the Donate button below, then check the box for “Make this a monthly donation” as in the example below:
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Update for the Online Self-Inquiry Book Club:
TAT Press publishes Mike’s 
