September 2026 TAT Forum

In later years, when I visited him at his Chesapeake homestead, his generosity was beyond belief.  During several visits, he shared his food—and even made me breakfast!  He never asked me for anything. 

My fondest memories of Bart:

• Watching his presentation as I sat in the balcony of the TAT Community Building on the Rose farm. Bart was fresh out of his Self-realization, just a few months previous. He lit up the room—and lit a fire in me after years of despondency. Tears welled up as he gave me hope.

• Sipping a fine Scotch together on his porch, looking out on the Chesapeake waters and listening to the nighttime cacophony of crickets. We exchanged many stories about Rose. At one point, Bart turned to me and said, “We’re incredibly lucky to have met Rose. I’m just so grateful for that man.” And he began weeping out of a genuine wellspring of gratitude….

Bart wrote the most moving account of his final hours with Rose, who was approaching death in the nursing home.  It shows the depth of his gratitude and reverence, and it’s my favorite: The Last Hours of Richard Rose [https://tatfoundation.org/tat-forum-archives/LastHours.pdf]. 

Farewell, my dear friend.  I’ll miss you.  Thank you for all you did for many spiritual seekers.  May you eternally rest in peace.

Years ago Bart had a domain, onzen.com, which had that book on the internet to read, for free (it’s still on the Wayback machine if you look). I was captivated and felt it was stranger than fiction. But the stories of Richard Rose and everyone on the old TAT farm interspersed with golden lines of Truth pulled me in. It caused me to go looking — searching google for Rose’s book The Albigen Papers, contacting Cecy Rose and ordering it, thus changing my life’s course to that of an active seeker of truth.

Bart lived in surrender to the divine and the divine took all that was not from him, leaving only what is real. I did feel he Knew. I don’t doubt he was a Finder. That rang true within me and he was just one of the many Finders at TAT. He said something at one TAT meeting that stuck with me about the family dog who isn’t that important but the family still loves him. Basically a check to my ego or putting specialness in its rightful place. You’re special, so what? Literally everyone Is.

Bart’s talks on Ultimate Betweenness — taking Rose’s teachings on Betweenness to their highest level — held my attention for the longest time. How do I align my will with Thy will? What is Thy will and how it is different from my own? What is surrender and how does that resolve with Rose’s advice to fight and struggle against inertia rather than simply accept?

I believe there are multiple veils hiding truth on all levels. Those that find Self-definition may still be veiled over lesser but no less important relative truths such as how the world operates and our place in it. Bart saw through more than just realization of Self, he saw through the illusion and unreality (and backwards, upside down-ness) of this world as well. Few spiritual teachers have done so but they have my highest respect for going further and putting Truth before everything. Before every belief, before every “fact” that is taken as true without questioning. Question Everything! Bart gave all of it over and lives on as countless tiny sparks in everyone he inspired.

I took notes. The following month the Forum published his notes for this lecture (October 2005). I made these strategies the ‘laws’ that I followed daily for the next year or so.

I had the list of them, handwritten, attached to my fridge door. I looked at it daily. I chose one to concentrate on each day. I wrestled with what it meant, with how to absorb it into my life and with what I needed to give up, or to take up. In the evening I checked on which ones I had ‘broken’ or which ones I was really adapting in my life. I took the ‘Absorb Teachings’ very seriously.

These strategies were a central part of my daily spiritual practice for about a year. With hindsight I can say that that year was crucial stage in my journey.

Bart also gave a talk where he selected the core teachings from Richard Rose’s writings and talks. These were really useful to me, a newcomer to RR teachings. ‘One liners’ were something I could carry with throughout the day and mull over. I trusted Bart’s selection.

Bart came to visit me in Ireland about ten years ago. I am grateful for that visit because it allowed me to get to know him socially. Until that time, I had known him only professionally. I think of that visit with fondness and sadness.

Standout moments from that talk: 18-year-old Bart looking out the plane window enroute to Vietnam: “I could be killed at any moment”. Once in the barracks in country, for no reason, pulling the pin out of a live grenade. Holding the grenade rock steady while fellow soldiers dove for cover, and calmly putting the pin back in. Wounded in combat, Bart is taken to a field hospital in a truck, when suddenly there is a screeching of tires and a thud. Moments later the medics threw the elderly Vietnamese man into the back of the truck with Bart. Their eyes meet, and Bart understands that the man is going to give Bart the gift of watching him die.

In working with Mr. Rose, Bart knew that one’s commitment to Truth had to be total, with no holdouts. I remember hearing in the early 90’s that Bart had stated “if it means something happens to my kids, all bets are off.” I admired that Bart – not a fearful person – knew where he stood, and spoke it. Years later after his awakening, Bart was asked about the value of celibacy: “I’m not an ascetic”, in the spirit of “this is how it played out for this character.”

Bart was to me, always accessible, just to have a talk. Bart seemed to always come from a place of equality, even if I felt at the time a seeker-person “with a lot of work to do yet”. On prayer, a formulation from Bart which occurs to me still today: “Higher Power, I don’t know who or what you are, but this is what I feel.”

I’m so grateful to have met Bart, been enriched by his articulation of the Dharma, honesty, and sense of humor. I’m also grateful to the Forum for this opportunity to reflect on the gifts Bart transmitted over the nearly 36 years I’ve known him.

Farewell my friend!

His work will stand, I’m sure, for a very long time as a beacon for those who seek to find truth in both the outer and inner world of experience. No doubt, the lives of many have been influenced for good by his presence, his mentorship, his kindness, and his love of truth – and there remains a comforting knowledge that “the end” is not as it appears. 

Bart, may you find fair winds and following seas into the great ocean beyond.

Bart was the eloquent sage.  Bart was a pearl in a long and still expanding chain of awakened beings.  He has become what he was all along.  Stillness.  Depths upon depths of shimmering blackness.  Still beckoning us to join.

But a recent article arguing the shortcomings of artificial intelligence triggered an insight by stating that technology has yet to determine how a thinking machine could also include in symmetry, that feeling counterpart of our brains.

I realized that if a certain statement that I read triggers a momentary “wow experience,” I usually re-read it in disbelief, as if something unknown boldly made an appearance, which I try to rearrange conceptually in order to understand.

I think the word “symmetry” triggered a thought that my left-brain thinking was seeking symmetry but inadequately by claiming to have those feelings which originated in the right brain! That way, all feelings could be seen in terms of thoughts that could be easily manipulated and understood, and left-brain thinking was taking credit for having feelings but as concepts.

Actually, the left could never understand the role of the right! So it occurred to me that I may have always had feelings, but they were instantly transformed into thoughts. Like a two-dimensional world of which only one was perceived with even a mere shadow of the second—I had lived in a half-world!

In recent years, through no effort of mine, I have become more interested in other people and have been fascinated with the possibilities of service to others, of friendship, empathy, and love. It made sense that there had been a barricade placed around feelings, to be contained so as to be without threat to my ambitious self and its self-esteem.

Being involved with others whom I perceived to be “feeling individuals,” I realized there has always been a sense of hypocrisy in stating my own feelings about things, as if I “knew” or was correct about how I felt, not what I felt. It now seems apparent that feelings were always there, but held hostage, because if they weren’t present and expressed, my feeling abilities would have atrophied long ago with nothing left to be recognized at this time.

In one sense, it would appear everything I have ever experienced must be revisited if now I can admit to a bicameral mind, with a totally new view with an added feeling-reality through which to perceive each experience.

But in another sense, all experiences to date have been limited almost entirely to thought forms originating in left brain, and could be forgotten or diminished in appreciation of a far more exciting, challenging and unexpected reality that could now be experienced—but now in two dimensions.

I can’t be certain what “a law unto herself” means as it relates to Emily Bronté.  She was brilliant—author of a landmark novel, poet, and visual artist.  She may well have been on the autistic spectrum.  She preferred to be alone, often remained totally silent in the presence of other people, largely lived in a fantasy world of her own.  She was kind and gentle, but she did not brook the opinions of others.  I suppose this indeed makes her a heroine of her own law.  How did that “law” arise in her?  Possibly a matter of DNA plus the conditions of her childhood, which were psychologically and emotionally challenging.  When I was in high school, I became a born-again Christian.  All other ways of seeing the world faded.  I wore the shield of salvation.  It repelled some people and attracted others.  I was a law unto myself, and people felt it.  So I want to look into what it means to become a “law” unto oneself.

Most of us, when we’re young, adopt a particular position inwardly in relationship to the world: jock, nerd, artist, performer, wallflower, outcast, or some combination.  In a sense, these positions make up the laws unto ourselves.  They can harden and manifest as fixed personalities in adulthood.  Powerful political leaders are often a law unto themselves.  When they walk into a crowded room, some people move toward them hoping to gain favor.  Others are intimidated and move away.  Attaining power, wealth, fame—or rejecting those—can be the symptoms of such a law unto oneself.  Some people gravitate toward the principle of kindness.  All other reasons for being tend to withdraw.  They become kind almost to a fault.  But that’s a fault we can live with.  Some adopt the inner law of  “I am not worthy.”  I was one of those.  For a while, the shield of salvation held that unworthiness at bay.  When salvation finally failed for me, I became a rogue spiritual seeker.  Seeking the unknown truth pushed all other principles away.  Not finding, but seeking.  The shield of seeking with all its practices and prescriptions became my inner law that repelled some friends but attracted new ones.

 Do you see this pattern?  I could go on describing this leap-frogging from one authoritarian principle to another that protects but also withers in time.  There are many ways this process may take shape in a person.  But it seems to me that it’s a search for psychological and emotional invulnerability and the end of suffering.  For me at least, these laws always lead ultimately to hollowness.  They work for a while, and then they don’t.  Then we feel lost again and become desperate to find a new law.  What we’re calling a “law” is a product of the illusory self-generated by thought and conditioning.  At some point a person sees through the whole operation to manufacture and maintain a law unto oneself.  It can shut down completely.  There is nothing left to try.  In the openness that follows, a new possibility emerges: perhaps there is something moving in us that just is, something that is literally being us and everything else, something that is always already here, a subtle but pervasive presence.  Not a law or a principle or a concept.  Not something that can be held onto, labeled or controlled.  Because it is being us even as we are in this moment, there is nothing we have to be or do, nothing to define us. The law unto ourselves is an illusion of the needy ego.  There is no such law, though many of us live as if there is.  Could this realization be the freedom that we seek?

I used to think of myself as a disciplined person. My habits—both personal and spiritual—felt under my control. I felt I was making spiritual progress, and felt I was getting enough confirmation to keep going in that direction. Then I really began to question myself on a fundamental level, because I felt I had to, due to a number of life circumstances. As a result, I lost a lot of my sense of being able to “follow my own laws.” I started questioning the meaning of my thoughts and feelings, my ability to interpret them properly, and what their purpose was (what they are trying to get me to do, and why).  As a result, I have more of a sense that “I don’t know what I need,” and so don’t know what to do. I’ve seen my spiritual “productivity” go down, and I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing for my self honestly. I also can’t tell how much of this change is simply a function of becoming middle-aged, and how it affects my state of mind. I also see that I have much less control than I had thought about what types of thoughts, feelings, and inspirations “visit” me, and that my decisions are a product or at least heavily influenced by things I don’t choose. So what laws can I set for myself? And what assumptions can I rely on in making those laws?

1) 3 Parts all related: (part A) remember mySelf always and everywhere (a Gurdjieffian aspect of Between-ness)  —-  (part B) shift to a place in-between thoughts (or as i like to call it “stopping thought”)  —-  (part C) being Aware that Everything Is Being Itself, Perfectly (actually, more of an outcome of A&B than a law)

2) retreat, shift, turn from that which criticizes, condemns, complains, judges, labels, argues, angers, thinks, knows & reacts

3) Tension – i have found that tension is the “skeleton”… energy producer of these “laws”… i follow the Gurdjieffian “Conscious Labors & Intentional Suffering concept”.

4) lock into my mind, via an absolute conviction, not to be one who does to others what i do not like what is done to me.  (this is one of the most powerful)

5) balance sexuality with the need for energy transmutation

6) absolutely no alcohol ever (100%).

7) absolutely no chewing gum (100%) – when one of my daughters was very young (she loved gum) but she had a jaw problem and dentist said she must stop chewing gum and she was very despondent so i also quit forever with her.

8) maintain an honest true Open Heart wide enough that my Love for others (all&everything as well) is never blocked. (fyi- i have Real Love for all, not wishing/trying… I AM THAT)

9) make charitable gifts to others intuitively as needed (this is a 2 edged sword… it can be enabling (maybe always so!… and as Mother Teresa says “when you help people they will quite often try to hurt you.. help them anyway”))

10) never ever forget the miraculousness of CREATION, but maintain a between-ness between The Miracle (creation-manifestation) and the Fact that all is Projection (the mechanism of manifestation… dream-consciousness… God’s Will)… a Projection of The Real.

11) always remember the magic of the Maybe farmer!

The second law I followed resulted from a new view that came out of nowhere during my first solitary retreat. It came with the words that my only chance for finding clarity was through an extended period of celibacy. Celibacy actually descended on me and continued without any struggle for nearly 5 years. Then it took nearly 6 years for it to come back for more than months at a time.

The third law I followed was Rose’s idea of ladder work—i.e., working with fellow-seekers who were on nearby rungs of the spiritual ladder. I moved around the country a good bit, and in any place where I lived I tried to find other seekers to help and be helped by … often establishing groups which met regularly for self-inquiry discussions. That even continued during a 6- or 7-year period where I was convinced that self-knowing was hopeless for me: I continued my efforts to help other seekers because becoming the Truth was still my highest ideal.

The “loophole” to this law I use a lot allows me to procrastinate resolving my intolerable ignorance. Maybe the “law” of procrastination is that it might be easier later; but it might be easier now.

A second law: to remember I may be deceiving myself; I may be asleep. People live their whole lives lying to themselves, me included. For example, when I can’t turn from my death, I see how all-encompassing denial of death is in my thinking. But the deceptive haze returns.

On one hand, this is programming—I couldn’t function in a state of honesty that everything is temporary and going to be dirt soon—so the urge to function takes over. On the other hand, I can transmute the tension of facing it. I will have to eventually. This might be a law of the mind’s unreliability. That could be related to the law of the paradoxical immanence of all things relative.

Thirdly, I also have a sense that the sangha is sacred—that people’s threads of connection to something higher leading their search are special and shouldn’t be abused. That it takes courage to say, I’m going to listen to the beat of my most honest drummer and march to it. That courage is worth honoring. I follow this to the point I think I do no harm, but I don’t go so far as to intentionally seek opportunities to honor it. 

Finally, there’s the formula for a Eureka: focus on something, put attention on it, then put attention on something else, and sometimes the solution appears. I still think this applies to my search. It might be an application of the law of the vector. I could probably work this mechanism more by trying to look inward more often and building tension around, e.g., how is it I see nothing, yet know I am? I could also use another isolation.