September 2024 TAT Forum

a) Abiding and non-abiding awakening (i.e., knowledge of the Self/Truth vs. abiding as the Self/Truth)

I don’t know what non-abiding awakening is. I have not experienced it.

b) Are “Who (or what are you), whence (where did you come from), and whither (where are you going)?” fundamental questions for a seeker?

The questions as presented here might not sit right with someone, but if a person can find their own way to articulate what these questions are pointing towards, I think this would be helpful. For me, the question ‘what is a human being, what is this creature with all its creative drive and output, its emotional ambience, its psychological complexity’, had been the riddle of my life, so to speak.

There is no other creature like us, so what are we?

These are essentially questions about our identity, but the word identity might not be one that feels authentic to someone.

c) Bliss

The word ‘bliss’ is often seen in spiritual literature as meaning joyous, ecstatic, or what I thought of as ‘unnaturally and permanently happy’. This was a turnoff for me, but the secondary interpretation or synonym is peaceful, contentment, which made much more sense.

In fact, I have found that the total absence of anxiety has been the main legacy of the spiritual experience.

d) Doing vs. not doing

It is a very useful exercise to examine this issue of doer-ship, to learn to distinguish between responding to situations and circumstances as opposed to being the ultimate generator of the situation.

Society operates on the assumption that we are doers, that we have control of our situations, but careful examination shows that this is not necessarily the case, but one needs to verify this for themselves.

e) Enlightenment (Buddhahood, Christ-consciousness)

Every religion has a word for the fact that we humans can undergo an essential change.

While it might sound like they are referring to different things, I think Aldous Huxley had it right when he referred to this phenomenon as The Perennial Wisdom. All are trying to communicate about this same human phenomenon, using different mythologies to try to communicate it. This universal phenomenon has to be communicated in specific language, which is what leads to the confusion.

f) Hypnosis (influencing another person mind-to-mind)

I don’t know anything about this.

g) Identity

This is the core issue. To know what one is down to the source of our being deletes all existential questions.

h) Individual consciousness of awareness

There is no individual consciousness, if you mean personal private consciousness.

i) Meditation

Good practice, but it is important to understand what you are trying to achieve and how the particular practice achieves that. There are two main forms of meditation, relaxation and insight.

Practices that aim to reduce stress and calm the mind are of course beneficial. Practices that aim for insight show you how you function; uncover hidden beliefs, emotional triggers, assumptions and motivations you are unaware of in yourself. We are blind to our own ego functioning. Insight-meditation practices aim to expose this blind spot in ourselves.

j) No-self

The human being is a response machine, with hundreds of programmes, beliefs, etc., which jump into action in the appropriate situation. There is no one overall executive boss which is managing them. This is what I think is being referred to by the phrase no-self.

k) No-thought

I do not know what this is about other than the fact that one can stop thoughts, just as one can stop breathing for a few seconds and find that you don’t die. You do not need thoughts to BE. But you do need thoughts to exist in the world.

l) Rapport (contacting another person mind-to-mind)

I think this is just getting attuned to another person, which happens naturally, especially with those who live with us. We can deliberately invite this rapport by sitting quietly with another, or group, without talking. I have never experienced what I think of a mind-to-mind contact with anyone during these sessions.

m) Reality

Reality? Huh?

n) Self-Realization (peeling away fabricated layers of one’s own personality to understand the true self and hence the true nature of reality)

There is an experience which can happen to a person, after which one has a different view of what life, creation, etc., is. You don’t understand the true self. You embody it. It’s not a mental condition, and in fact I find it very difficult to talk about it.

o) Silence

Good idea to invite situations of silence and solitariness on the path, just to be alone with yourself without distraction. Inner silence is more that absence of worldly noise.

p) Tension

Well worthwhile analysing what causes one’s tension.

q) Transmission

I do not know about it.

r) Truth

Truth, what is, what is permanent before birth, after death of body.

s) What can we know for sure: What we are? What we aren’t? Other?

We can know what we are at core.

t) What is your certainty based on?

Knowing what I am at core.

u) What prevents a seeker from knowing the truth?

Ego.

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

I don’t know about this.

w) Other comments:

I find questions like this difficult to answer because I cannot find a way to nuance my replies.

The past may be dead in respect to my place in linear time but may not be from a higher perspective outside time, such as what may happen if the soul ascends from the body, or from my higher consciousness, or from God’s perspective, who knows. Also why did God give us the faculty of “memory” and “conscience”? The past may not be available to my direct consciousness but not dead from my memory or conscience, so that is a flippant remark. The future is uncertain, but the onus is on us to make sure that we prepare ourselves and our situation so that the future may not be as bad as it could be. What we do now shapes our future to some extent so we should be obliged to be very conscious of how we are carrying ourselves into the future. The present is all we have is contestable too. Do we have the present or does the present have us? Like how much am I controlled by my environment, my unconscious, my largely ignorant body/mind with its lower somatic wants, cravings and desires? I really am not an advocate of this “living for the moment” that seems to be the mantra of modern times.

The invocation to eat, drink and live merry sounds nice but really is an ignorant, non-caring piece of advice. Interesting fact is that by taking his own advice Albert ran into chronic illness in the last 39 of his 76 years. He suffered from a multitude of digestive system disorders. Lately I came across Dr Berg on YouTube talking about the importance of the Keto diet with intermittent fasting. I am on it over a week now and would recommend it. My body feels like it is on an even keel all the time which is new and interesting. I was addicted to carbs such as bread, cereals, crackers, starchy vegetables, etc., and didn’t realise that this was contributing to regular fluctuations in my body chemistry. In the keto diet you don’t eat sugar and you limit your carbs. Here is Dr Berg, doing a great job of explaining it: Ketogenic Diet Plan for Beginners – Dr. Berg – YouTube.

Ten years later, after disillusionment with the external path and with the umpire questioning my sincerity and suitability, I left regular search for career and family. But with age came a repeated sense that search was the only game worth a damn. No real meaning otherwise; nothing else really grabbed an inner sense for me, and when that urge arises, it doesn’t feel like the umpire’s voice. Some question of what the umpire authority actually is began to rise.
Now, there’s been some backing up from the external authorities, seeing more of the belief “hooks” largely unseen that gave those power. I still distract into food, online news and politics, my family. Overall, I get anxious, irritated, if my plan for control of my surround fails, my pride in knowing the score. I try to stave off seeing that I don’t control. Trying to keep safe, to avoid extinction. It feels inwardly there’s a solidity to the I-sense when it arises. But how can it be solid and permanent when it comes and goes? But I still believe that I’m bound. Worship continues.

• Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

So maybe, maybe not. I like the quote as a joke, a word play and a koan. But if “doubt is my tool” it is a two edge sword as are words (Words <> spells Sword!). I suspect there is more to it than the negative plain negation. 

• Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.

I tend to agree, but (there is often a but). I feel ones’ action speak louder than our words. As an aside this topic (speaking truth) always reminds me of Miguel Ruiz’s First of the Four Agreements

Quote: “1. Be Impeccable with your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love.” ~ see: https://www.toltecspirit.com/

• Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth. We all know that light travels faster than sound. That’s why certain people appear bright until you hear them speak.

I agree with the first sentence, mostly but I feel my own cognitive biases and “self-ing” may also be an obstacle or enemy. 

Cognitive Bias: See https://cac.org/daily-meditations/recognizing-our-biases-2021-03-01/ & https://www.visualcapitalist.com/50-cognitive-biases-in-the-modern-world/

I disagree with the second sentence, do we ALL know that?

The third sentence appears judgmental [yes, I am being judgmental too 😉 see Hafiz “Why aren’t we all screaming drunks! [https://absentofi.org/2006/09/hafiz-why-arent-we-all-screaming-drunks/]

The ambiguity of the word “bright” in the context of the paragraph about light reminds me of a recent discovery [Also judgmental**] Cipolla’s “Five Basic Laws of Human Stupidity” and the accompanying 2×2 Matrix.

The Horizontal axis left hand end – ve represents harm to self and the right hand end represents benefit to self.

The Vertical Axis Top +ve represents benefits to others, the Bottom – ve represents harm, losses to other.

H = Helpless – Help others harm self
I = Intelligents – Help Self & Others
S = Stupid ** – Harm self & Others
B = Bandits – Harm Others Help self

[** said it was judgmental!) 

For more info see 

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_M._Cipolla
2. https://web.archive.org/web/20130216132858/http://www.cantrip.org/stupidity.html

The above all led me to be reminded of a favourite quote “Apprehend. Be humble in the face of the universe. Do Good” Eleven Words Three Rules ~ proposed by a character Stan Berg in a Terry Pratchett book The Long Utopia. 

So the universe remains a mystery, E= mc², make light of the sound of words and symbols but find time to let the light alight and brighten your day, and check every quote attributed to Einstein and others.

The very first quote in the replacement video:

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. But if there were any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs, it would be Buddhism. ~ Albert Einstein

intrigued me since I don’t remember having come across anything that Einstein might have said about Buddha or Buddhism. While I know from past mistakes that many quotes attributed to Einstein don’t have any factual evidence that he said or wrote them, I didn’t bother to check the validity of the first two quotes; I guess I thought they could stand on their own virtue, regardless. And I was disappointed but not surprised when a Google search didn’t turn up any evidence that the above quote came from Einstein.

I don’t have any experience with practicing Buddhism, but I have read some texts by and about what I think were the more esoteric products of an Indian Buddhist’s teaching in China, where the Chinese pronunciation of Sanskrit dhyana apparently produced the Chinese word chánnà. The Chinese may have dropped the “a” at the end of the words as some Indians do, and two competing schools of Chán developed. Eventually the teachings migrated to Japan, where dhyana became pronounced as Zen. I suspect that Buddhism and Zen, at their roots, were based on questioning.

The problem of pursuing absolute truth, through science, Buddhism, or any other approach, is the beliefs that color the way we look at evidence. The primary beliefs that prevent finding absolute certainty are the beliefs we have about what we are.

There are some Tibetans who are adept at making what they call a tulpa.²⁵ Are you acquainted with this? A tulpa is an entity that looks to all appearances like a human being. Now this is not superstitious talk. If you get a chance, I think Alexandra David-Neel ²⁶ describes the entities that they encountered.^{27, 28} Well, whether you want to believe that they’re real or not, they were photographable.²⁹ And the monks would create these things; they would always create a woman, not a man, because there were no women in the monasteries. So they created themselves a woman and they had intercourse with her. David-Neel witnessed this,³⁰ and was curious about it: weren’t these people fooling themselves? Wouldn’t a real woman be much better than this creation?

But if you knew how they created these, you would also know something about the human mind that we don’t know. They are supposed to be so skillful mentally—some of these fellows are; that’s how they spend their lives, back in these monasteries—that they can actually create an entity in human form from their will and imagination. And again, those two words, will and imagination—if you go back into the kabalistic dogmas, you’ll find that this is the seed of creation: all creation is the result of the will, plus the imagination, plus the fiat [“so be it”]. ³¹

This tulpa becomes their companion and often their master. One Tibetan priest commented to this author that it took him six months to create this tulpa and six years to get rid of her.³²

———-
²⁵ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa
²⁶ (1868-1969) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_David-Neel
²⁷ This appears in her book, published 1932, Magic and Mystery in Tibet, also titled With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet (an English rendition of the title in the French edition). The PDF of the latter version is searchable. Both versions are here: http://selfdefinition.org/tibetan/
²⁸ Nearly all available references to tulpas trace back to one chapter by Alexandra David-Neel. However, see the following for an experiment on tulpa conjuration by the Toronto Society for Psychical Research in September, 1972: http://www.strangerdimensions.com/2012/03/20/the-philip-experiment/
²⁹ A web search turned up no information on the photography of tulpas. However, the following article describes attempts at spirit photography. Fortean Times: “Psychic Photography, Capturing Spirits” http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/2455/random_dictionary_of_the_damned.html [that article is no longer available; but I think Rose was referring to John Harvey’s photos – Ed.]
³⁰ In With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet, there is no reference to monks creating a female tulpa for sex. Web searches about this practice were futile. Inquiries to staff at various tulpa message boards also turned up no historical references (although there are some contemporary deviants at 4chan who are attempting the practice). David-Neel actually tried the procedure herself, but not for sex. She produced a tulpa, a short, fat, jolly monk, which she says took her 6 months to dissolve. She covers tulpas on pages 278-285 (pages 218-224 of the pdf file). http://selfdefinition.org/tibetan/
³¹ An exact quote with this trinity of words was not found, but the process is discussed extensively in Eliphas Levi’s Transcendental Magic (Doctrine and Ritual, books 1 and 2). http://selfdefinition.org/magic/ and in his Paradoxes of the Highest Science, Paradox VI, “The Imagination Realizes What It Invents”, http://selfdefinition.org/magic/eliphas-levi/paradoxes/levi-paradoxes-6.htm
³² In the book Psychology of the Observer a different time period is given: “six years [not months] to create his tulpa, and six years to get rid of her”. This is in the University Lectures section.

So after a certain length of time, even with this wonderful manipulation, he realized that he wasn’t ahead of the game; that he had been fooling himself. This is what I’m getting at: Who lived with the tulpa and who got rid of the tulpa? It wasn’t the same person, the same analytical personality.

We get into habits which seem to be acceptable and later find that our peace of mind has been permanently impaired. We may have acquired habits such as drinking because we thought that the habit was harmless: it was a nice social thing to do, everybody was doing it, and the first thing you know we’re hooked.

Then of course we say, “Who is hooked? Geez.” You may even rationalize it. I had a fellow tell me one time that you weren’t a man if you couldn’t hold your booze. I ran into him two or three years later and he was a derelict on the street corner. And he was still quite proud of his situation. He said, “You’ve never been a man, Rose, unless you’ve had the heebie-jeebies.³³ That makes a man out of you.”

So there are things that people think are necessary, just to get along—because you can talk more easily with drunks when you’re drinking and it’s a great social leveler. But every one of these people, when you meet them down in Alcoholics Anonymous, recognize that they have fooled themselves. That’s the first admission they have to make in order to be cured. And a person who is irrevocably lost on dope has to make that admission. He can’t say, “Ho! I’ve got control of this thing.” He has to admit he’s lost before he can find his true self, and then go back to that true self and fight his way out again.

Self-Study

Let us get down to the business then of studying the inside of ourself. It is not as easy as it sounds. Most people think that they know themselves.

One time at a lecture in Pittsburgh I made the remark that people didn’t know themselves. And a fellow said, “Oh, that’s foolish, I know myself.” And I said, “Well, who are you?” And he said, “I’m the guy who’s sitting in front of you.” Now of course, I didn’t even bother to answer him, because he was referring to his physical self, and he knew very well it was just a pert reply.

But nevertheless, a lot of people think they are familiar with themselves. You are not familiar with yourself. You’re familiar with a projection. His physical presence was part of the outside world. It is objective. We can say that things observed are objective. The observer is the only subjective thing we can study.

Descartes said, “I think therefore I am.” But if a man thinks, he should immediately ask himself who’s doing the thinking.

You can’t define yourself by the fact that you’re thinking. The thinking occurs, let’s put it that way. We accept that the man thinks, that thought is occurring. But where is this thinking coming from? Is it just reactions? (Now I don’t doubt that these reactions come from different levels.)

———-
³³ Delirium tremens. In 1977-0915-Zen-and-Death-Washington-DC the quotes is “the hoodles”.

Is it the mouth and the body talking? Or is there something behind the body that is trying to communicate? If a Tibetan priest talks to his tulpa, is he the one who’s talking, or is the desire for the tulpa talking?

Say you meet a man down at the corner. I used to know a guy who’d panhandle for a drink, and he’d say, “Give me a quarter.” (Of course that was years ago when you could get something for a quarter.) But the answer was always, “That’s not you talking, Joe, that’s your booze talking. Here, let me get you a bowl of soup. You don’t want a quarter, you want a bowl of soup.” But the booze talks. And we proudly own it. The dope talks and we proudly say, “I tripped.” You don’t trip; you are tripped over.

In the case of the tulpa you say, “How does a man get bound so tightly to something like this?” And the answer is, he’s into an operation he doesn’t quite understand.

The tulpa is a creation in the mind of the priest, but a tulpa is also the materialized embodiment of the desires of the priest. So the desires may be talking to the tulpa, which in turn is the desires of the priest.

He’s talking to himself. He can’t get away from himself. He’s closed into a tight circle. And really, he’s objectifying, dichotomizing himself, so he can have intercourse with himself so to speak.

We can see that a man can quickly lose track of himself if he were such a priest. But there may not be too much difference between the tulpa of Tibet and the Galatea of Pygmalion,³⁴ or between the sexual voyeur and the objects of his desires.

The theme of Pygmalion is pretty much the same as the tulpa.

If desires are observable then desires are objective and outside. When the subjective considerations are viewed, they immediately become knowable and objective. Whether the desires are recognized by us as gestalts³⁵ or entities, they are external afflictions or assets. They are not us.

Desires may try to involve us, try to identify themselves as being us. But if we go to jail or the hospital because of our desires, we will quickly become identified with another set of desires—which will save us—which are the desires for health and survival, or the desire for peace of mind. When this happens, we divorce ourselves from our desires nominally, by identifying the dangerous ones as “not us.”

Love

But we continue to deify ourselves; we assert that we desire to love and be loved.

This is the big thing that goes on continuously today. When somebody’s lost everything but the last gasp of consciousness, he’s still a lover. He’s trying to create a tremendous interplanetary field of love, like the steam off a manure pile.

———-
³⁴ The sculpture that came to life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_(mythology)
³⁵ Thinking patterns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology

We use this as a bond with the cosmos and with God, by announcing that God is love. Many of us identify ourselves very closely with the desire for love. We are little, harmless, fluffy balls of love. But it becomes apparent to us that we are really not as loving and lovable as we project ourselves to be.

In other words, the original smile was meant as a warning: “Stay away, I’m going to bite.” But now we say, “See, my teeth are harmless.”

It is then that we view our fluffiness and lovableness as being external ideas, more compatible with our fellowman than the desires for lust and blood. (We don’t want to show him that.) And we eventually recognize that our love is a projection, born out of a desire for love

Everybody wants it, nobody gives it. Everybody’s saying, “I love.” Hell, the one’s I’ve seen who say this, the ones who are preaching this so violently, are so helpless and weak that they couldn’t perform the most rudimentary type of love.

Umpire

We are better able to recognize our desires and fears as being external when they conflict with one another.

That’s the only way you see them. You don’t see them when you’re just in one state. You have to see the opposite.

The desire to get drunk will be countered by the desire to be delivered from the consequences. The fear of death will temper our desire for body pleasures, and join with the desire for prolongation of life. We watch this contest for human energy, and then we notice that we are acting: we are taking steps to conserve our energy. And this step-taking is witnessed by us as a process.

I would like to give a name to this anterior self and call it the umpire. The umpire has a motive, and the motive is the preservation of the body or the self.

I want to give you a picture of what we’re approaching with this talk. What we’re talking about is influences that are evidently acting upon a group of things that we identify as ourself. For example, we begin by identifying our “love”: maternal love, fraternal love, connubial love or whatever. A person says, “I like to eat,” another says, “I like to drink.” Or, “I want power.” Now these things manifestly are always getting us into trouble, endangering possibly what we really want to do—which is to live forever. We soon realize that these things are going to keep us from living forever, or even living as long as the father and the grandfather.

So there goes on inside of every human being a sort of automatic procedure—until it’s recognized as being automatic, and then there’s a chance you can reinforce it.

Now this is the first step that you have in activating and controlling yourself, or doing something for yourself. I don’t mean control yet, but at least you can throw a little weight. And that is when you realize that there’s an ego, something inside you that’s an umpire, that says, “Hey, if you’re going to dope, don’t take that booze, you’ll kill yourself. And you can’t have any fun if you’re dead.” Or, “Be careful if you have such and such a sexual relationship, because they might hang you for it. You might catch something you can’t get rid of and it will shorten your life, or play hob with your sanity.” So these voices are all going on, which we have various names for down through the ages: one of them is conscience. Conscience may well be one of the names for the umpire.

Upon the first witnessing of this, we see clearly that there is something behind the senses, behind the appetites, behind the fears even. It’s not just egotistic or hungry voices; sometimes fears have to be dealt with and umpired. But there is an umpire, mainly interested in the continuation of the body, the survival. Because up to this point that’s all the intelligence knows. All we know is a body. There’s no proof. If you want to be factual, there are very few people who ever have any proof that there is something besides the body. That’s the reason it’s so easy to put the idea across that that’s all you have, because it’s very difficult to ascertain anything else.

I’m hoping to get to the point where that can be seen, that there is something behind the umpire. The reason there is something behind the umpire is the simple fact that it can be observed. And then it immediately becomes objective and vanishes as the “self”. Because once something is objective it is no longer subjective. So we watch the umpire processes.

Process Observer

The umpire may be extremely intricate, and in the contests between desires, it is necessary to study the thought processes—so we can identify and forestall any destructive trends before they get too strong. We now find another anterior observer, one behind,³⁶ one that observes the umpire. The umpire seems to be very real, meaning very objective. This new anterior observer is still hypothetical until we can see it. And when we see it, it will be something observed and will not be us.³⁷

Of course we do not see the umpire with the physical eyes, nor does it have an image that might be visualized. We witness a process . And this witnessing is scientific, because we define science as an orderly thinking process that carries with it an ability to predict.

Once you are aware of the umpire you can predict future conduct for yourself. You’ll say, “I will see these forces coming. I’ll know when I get the urge to smoke a cigarette. Or I’ll know when I get the urge to take a drink, and if I inhibit it, then I’ll be able to think more clearly, I’ll be able to go to work and earn a living. If not, then I’m going down the toboggan ride.” So with this type of prediction we have a pretty good hold upon our umpire as a part of our self, and know it as a part of our self.

We observe our reactions in regard to the senses and our fears and desires. We observe these things not directly but as forces and factors that impinge upon the body.

———-
³⁶ Again, Rose uses the word anterior to represent something that is “behind”.
³⁷ Rose says below that these are only perspectives. We are only clarifying the observer, and there is really only one observer, even though the point of observation changes. See the section “Observing the observer”.

(When they impinge upon the body, the effects are observable with the senses.) I am not saying that all reactions are perfect or bring ideal results, nor that the umpire knows how to preserve the body in all cases.

The umpire is not God and it’s not a perfect mind, because it’s evident that it gets out of hand. Until the body gets a certain amount of training, or will, or a desire on our part for an umpire to become more perfect, it isn’t perfect. It makes mistakes. And as a result of the mistakes, it starts to set up a better and better system. But it never gets to the point where it can immortalize the body. It might build us an innocent desire to study biochemistry or something, but it doesn’t have any more knowledge than what we can put into it.

But we can witness adjustment in the body as the result of this umpire. If we had been in jail for getting drunk, with promptings of the umpire an appeal to the survival ego may create conditions for the body—in which the body may be free from jail and legal complications.

Everyone who goes through these changes is aware of the processes of thinking mentioned. They will never deny that these thinking processes are logical and valid for the new self. But the individual rarely watches the complexity of the inner struggles, nor does he see all the factors involved, nor does he name these factors the same as others name them in similar experiences.

And this is one of the confusions about psychological observation: unfortunately we’ve got whole systems of vocabulary that confuse us. And I maintain that unless we get back to simplicity, the field of psychology will become so vast, with so much terminology in it, that it will be hopeless. So hopeless that, as Chilton Pearce says,^{38, 39} we’ll have to throw the language out and start all over, to try to get something said simply.

Some are delivered from alcohol and say God was the agent. Others will say they just made up their mind. Others receive help from a clinic or a special group of people like AA. However, they had to make a decision to search out their God, their inner strength, or human assistance. And the umpire was behind that decision. A lot of thinking and reasoning went into it that was never talked about.

What I’m saying is that if you want to just consider the umpire as being the determining factor in your thinking, that’s alright with me. I’m just pointing out what it does, and the fact that this is a department of thinking.

We get a picture now of an umpire being observed by a newly-discovered, more anterior observer. This second observer is distinct or unique in that it is totally a process observer.⁴⁰

———-
³⁸ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Chilton_Pearce
³⁹ Crack in the Cosmic Egg. Pdf here: http://selfdefinition.org/psychology/
⁴⁰ Rose has named this process observer or self by its function, or one of its functions, but he indicates below that it also partakes of a higher sort of mind, capable of ESP, direct-mind activity, etc. See the heading “Mind dimension” below. Alternatively, there is a higher mind that has various capabilities, one of which is observing processes such as the umpire, and hence its name.

Now if you want to go into meditation sometime, think this over for yourself. And think what happens when you see the umpire, when you’re watching the umpire work. You’re not watching something physical now, like a table or an automobile, you’re watching processes going on inside your head.

The umpire watches over the body or the self, the small “s” self, and while getting interested in preserving the body-life, it cannot help but get into planning for ultimate survival or immortality.

I want to distinguish between these, that there are two selves: a mundane, physical, tangible, thinkable self, and one that is always remote and never quite tangible. But here the umpire is talking. The umpire would like for immortality, because that’s taking care of the body.

Consequently, the search for immortality is not a screwball idea—that a lot of psychologists would have us believe ⁴¹—it is basically a fundamental, animal direction. All life desires to live forever.

Every animal fights death—for example, when they know you’re trying to kill them.

The aim of all survival has to be a hope and a plan for eternal survival. But because the umpire has somatic values at stake, it cannot get to the problems of ultimate survival as much as it would like—since it identifies with the physical survival first. And of course, the ultimate survival is a big project.

Now we get to what I really call the mind, that is not just an umpire adjustment:

The process observer, the mind, retreats from material observations and contemplates patterns in thinking. This may well be called higher meditation. And it is this observer that watches the mind, and comes up with results that are like mathematical functional curves instead of exact, demonstrable answers.

In other words, when you get into the logic of the science of the mind, you don’t get points in space; you get like trigonometric functional curves.

Points of Reference

For instance, it is the process observer that sees that the physical universe may well exist, and at the same time may not exist.

He’s contemplating theories, contemplating possibilities. He doesn’t know the truth about the physical universe. He has to take in what may be sound theory: One theory is that it’s there; another theory is that it’s not there, or that it’s an illusion.

At the same time it will see that the physical universe may exist as an illusion only to people able to reach certain abilities for observation. Likewise, it takes an abstraction such as “good” and again realizes that the definition depends upon the position of the observer who takes the value of “good” into consideration. He may see that good is God and everything’s final destiny. Or he may at the same time see good as a polar point of evil.

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⁴¹ See comments on William James and “medical materialism”: http://selfdefinition.org/psychology/james-medical-materialism.htm

You live in a relative world and you’ve got a relative brain and sensory apparatus.

And he may, by observing the previous two conclusions, come to the further conclusion that “good” is defined from the position of the observer and has no real meaning as a thing in itself.

Now, so what do we get? We get something between X and Y.

We get the possibility that the answer lies in the fact that the universe may be physical, it may be an illusion, it may be whatever we see from our point of viewing.

Now there’s a reason for saying this. Things are definitely different from different points of viewing. It’s like looking at the clouds from the bottom and then getting into an airplane and looking from above; you see an entirely different cloud.

The amazing thing is, that all of the different conclusions are valid in relation to the accepted validity-standard of each position of the observer. According to material standards, material exists. We measure it and it exists. If we identify ourselves as being strictly material bodies in a physical universe, we are valid and we are being consistent—but it is like saying that material defines material.

Now this is something people don’t think about, that material defines material. We’re not stepping away from this; we’re not stepping into another position to view it.