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June 2017

TAT Purchases Retreat Center Land and Offers Special Fundraising Bonus ... A spot on earth where people can do retreats and hold meetings; where the emphasis is on friendship and the search. There are only about three weeks left to reach our fundraising goal and begin construction of TAT's retreat center. As a special incentive for this month, anyone who contributes $50 will receive a free digital download of two spiritual documentaries: Traveling Lighter with Paul Hedderman and Mountain High:Touching the Void with Bob Fergeson. If each TAT Forum reader contributed at least $50, our fundraising would be over. If you've already contributed to the 60-day challenge and would like the free films, just send an email to shawn@poetryinmotionfilms.com. The land for the retreat center is now officially TAT's! Located an hour north of Raleigh, NC, near the town Roxboro, TAT's property is a wooded, 11 acre parcel that will become a locus for meetings and retreats, as well as a place to continue the tradition of affordable solitary retreats for individuals. Your contributions are key to success of this project and greatly appreciated. With over 1,000 subscribers to the TAT Forum, if each reader contributes just $50 we will reach our goal. One reader put a few items that were laying in his closet on eBay and raised $180 in two weeks. Think of the value you've received from the TAT Forum, from TAT meetings, books, and recordings. Isn't that worth at least $50? A $50 donation that will help TAT bring even greater value to seekers for years to come. Use the PayPal button above to donate now. TAT is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit educational organization and qualifies to receive tax-deductible contributions. Alternatively, you can mail a check made out to the TAT Foundation (for instructions on mailing a check, please the TAT treasurer). If you want to try eBay, use this eBay link: http://charity.ebay.com/charity-auctions/charity/tat-foundation/73911/. 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 the funds to TAT for you. For additional background, see the Homing Ground page. In friendship, Shawn Nevins on behalf of the TAT Trustees

 

 

Convictions & Concerns

TAT members share their personal convictions and/or concerns

Child of God

I used this expression in a talk recently, as a way of pointing to an attitude which I found to be essential on my spiritual path.

Here I want to look at the implications of this phrase and how it affects attitude.

Let's take the word child and see what we associate with being a child.

A child is like its parents, comes pre-programmed with the same qualities.

A child is dependent on its parents for survival and love.

A child is trusting. It trusts its parents implicitly. It accepts their guidance.

A child is in the process of growing and evolving. It is changing and open to change.

A child communicates with its parents. It asks questions and listens to the responses. It likes to participate in the activities the parents are into.

The child has no thought about how it will develop or where it is going.

The child trusts its parents to provide it with opportunities for growth.

A child is curious. It plays and explores and is open to adventures.

A child is spontaneous and curious and enjoys what it is doing without planning for the future.

A child does not have much sense of time. It lives in the moment.

A child expresses its feelings without trying to hide them. It cries and laughs spontaneously.

A child is vulnerable. It knows it has no control over its circumstances.

A child likes to play with other children.

You can add your own characteristics to this list.

Now, let's look at the word God.

There are many synonyms for this word, and all of them fall short of what they are pointing to.

This is because the nature of the thing being pointed to is beyond words. Words that are commonly used tend to pick up the baggage of the culture or religion in which they originated. None of these problems in any way diminish the Reality of what is being referred to.

Here is a list of words I have come across in various spiritual books which are synonymous with "God": Source, Self, Absolute, Divinity, Truth, Goddess, Substance, Emptiness, No-thingness, True Nature, Clarity, Allah, Transcendence, Love, Being, Great Spirit, The Universe, Universal Mother, Aliveness, I Amness, Buddha nature.

I'm sure there are many more. The thing is to pick one that you are comfortable with, or at least the one to which you have least resistance, or even make one up for your own personal use.

I say this because for a long time I resisted the word "God" because of the associations with patriarchal culture. If a word is generating resistance to the feelings of Love and Trust and Intimacy in you, then it will not work for you.

When you find the word that you can use in a way that is comfortable and comforting for you, then go back and insert it into the list of statements above about the characteristics of a child.

Perhaps this exercise will help in breaking down some of your resistance to finding True Nature within you.

The attitude I am writing about here is a feeling attitude.

Thanks to Tess Hughes for the above thoughts on attitude. See Tess's website TessHughes.com for more of her writings, photos, and other resources.

You can find videos from Tess's talks and interviews on YouTube.com, including her presentation at the April 2017 TAT Foundation gathering, "Finding the compass reading for Home".

Her book This Above All: A Journey of Self-Discovery, published by TAT Press, is available in paperback and Kindle versions on Amazon.

Please comments or questions to the Forum.

 

TAT Foundation News

It's all about "ladder work" – helping and being helped

Downloadable/rental versions of the Mister Rose video and of April TAT talks Remembering Your True Desire (details).

Local Group News

Update from the Central Ohio Nonduality group:
We continue to meet on Monday evenings at Panera across from The Ohio State University. ~ For further information, contact or . We're also on Facebook.

Update from the weekly email self-inquiry groups:
Both the women's and the men's email groups are active, and we welcome serious participants. ~ Contact or .

Update from the Gainesville, FL self-inquiry group:
We meet at the Alachua County library on alternate Mondays and Sundays. We are having a five-day retreat at Claymont (Charles Town, WV) on the Monday–Friday leading into the TAT meeting on June 23–25. ~ Email or for more information.

Update from the Galway, Ireland self-inquiry group:
In addition to meetings in Galway city, satellite groups are now meeting in Cork and in Dublin. Tess Hughes, along with guest Art Ticknor, will be leading a retreat in Tallaght, Co. Dublin, on May 26-29. And in October (27th-29th), Tess and Bob Fergeson will be leading Awakening Together's fall retreat in Colorado Springs, CO. ~ See the Events page on Tess's website for details.

Update from the Greensburg, PA self-inquiry group:
We continue to meet every other week at our usual location with our several regulars. ~ Contact .

Update from the Lynchburg, VA self-inquiry group:
We meet on Wednesday evenings and welcome inquiries. E-mail or for information on the meetings.

Update from the New York City area:
We've recently started a group in NYC and are looking for consistent, serious but lighthearted ;) members. So far, we have started each group meeting with a short meditation followed by a self-inquiry session with questions and responses. We plan to vary the format and also go on local retreats and spiritually-minded events, as time allows. We are meeting in downtown Manhattan (the financial district) in a really great public space that we are fortunate to have. Please contact me with any interest or questions. Tell a friend :) ~ Email .

Update from the Pittsburgh, PA self-inquiry group:
We hold public meetings at 7:00 PM on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month at the Pittsburgh Friends Meeting House in Oakland. Our topic for both the May 3 and 17 meetings was "Getting Serious about your Commitments". We also have separate meetings by invitation twice each month. ~ For further information, contact or or visit the Meetup page.

Update from the Portland, OR self-inquiry group:
We meet most Sundays and have been meeting at different local libraries around town due to limited room availability at any one library, but this has made it easier for people in those neighborhoods to attend the meetings. ~ Email or for more information.

Update from the Raleigh, NC Triangle Inquiry Group:
The Triangle Inquiry Group (TIG) meets on Wednesday evenings near NCSU. ~ Email or for information on local meetings.

Update from the San Francisco Bay area self-inquiry group:
Email for information about upcoming meetings and events.

Update from the Tallahassee, FL self-inquiry group:
We continue to meet every other Tuesday at the downtown public library. ~ Contact , or find the group on Meetup.com.

Members-Only Area

A password-protected section of the website is available for TAT members. The area contains information on product discounts for members as well as a substantial amount of helpful and historical information, including audio recordings, Newsletter archives, Retrospect archives, policies, conference proceedings, business meeting notes, photographs, and suggestions for ways to help.

The following audio recordings from 2016 TAT meetings are now available in the members-only website area:

• Presentations at the April Intensive by Bob Cergol, Paul Constant, Bart Marshall, Shawn Nevins, and Saima Yousuf,
• Bob Harwood's presentation at the June Gathering, and
• November Gathering presentations by Bob Cergol, Paul Constant, Anima Pundeer, Shawn Nevins, and Art Ticknor.

The following video recordings of presentations from the April 2017 TAT meeting are now available on YouTube:

• Tess Hughes
• Paul Rezendes
• Shawn Pethel

Please us if you have questions. (Look here for info on TAT membership.)

Amazon and eBay

Your Contributions to TAT News

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

"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

We're hoping to present more humor created by TAT members and friends here. Please your written or graphic creations. Exact sources are necessary for other submissions, since we need to make sure they're either in the public domain or that we have permission to use them.

 

Inspiration & Irritation

Irritation moves us; inspiration provides a direction

 

Please your thoughts on the above items.

 

Reader Commentary

Encouraging interactive readership among TAT members and friends

The composite question we asked readers for this month's Commentary was: Are you a feeler or a thinker or a doer? Which of these aspects is strongest in your personality, and which is weakest? What are the implications of this for you as one who desires to know yourself beyond personality? Responses follow:

From Liam F:
I am a thinker. I 'figure out' how to navigate my way through life. I dissect experiences and give them a value and meaning to suit or fit my narrative. The dissection and analysis is a stale smelly security blanket smothering and dampening my life experiences. Thinking is the interference which changes my experience from being in the world to being of the world – an impediment to immediacy of being. When I think, 'I think' I am in control, that I control my body, my environment, my life, the outcome – I think I can figure out and manage life, and the result of all that thinking is over regulated, measured, calculated, 'safe' existence, a pale imitation of real living.

I am not a doer. My thinking processes are seemingly designed to limit the fullness of my experience and the ultimate expression of such control is to interfere with the doing of life. Yes, I do in the way that I am very busy with the functioning of life but I mean a doer here in the sense that I 'do not' live my life fully. I have the appearance of having a busy full life yet this busy doing of life is only a reflection of living a fully engaged life.

I am a feeler too. I felt too much suffering so I became a thinker to survive. The undoing of the dominance of thinking is by returning to feeling – slowly edging myself towards feeling the fullness of presence without the interference of thought.

From Drew C:
Thinker, Feeler, Doer – That's the way I'm programmed and where the separate self feels (real) and safest…. Being a thinker, it is most important to realize (based on the futility of the desperate and exhausting search) that the "answer" to knowing Self is not to be found in the conditioned mind. Letting go of the "safety" of the rational mental prison of understanding doesn't feel safe … but there appears to be no choice … living a safe lie is not sustainable.

From Deep J:
I'm probably closer to a thinker or feeler than a doer. In fact the word that I would use to describe myself best at this stage is an "experiencer". In that I experience all of these things (thoughts, feelings, being a volitional agent) yet I have no idea why they come about or where they are taking place (apart from the obvious answer of "right in front of me").

I've become more disidentified with being a doer recently although some "doing" tendencies still are prevalent. I guess the desire to control or shape events is a doer-type attribute. Even the word thinker implies some "doing" characteristics – it implies one is in control of the thinking, which I definitely don't see as being correct.

The implications are both bleak and encouraging – if I see myself as any of these things, is there any hope of going beyond descriptions of relative terms of what they point to?

And hopeful as I see there is a definite progression, of becoming less of a thinker, feeler and doer.

From Andreas H:
I always saw myself as a thinker – I think others did too. For the lion's part of my life, thinking was something that usually kept me from actually acting. It seems like doing becomes more second nature when I'm not constantly engaged in figuring things out, or trying to think my way into action or decision.

Doing seemed most often to have been my weakest point. I used to get very frustrated whenever I failed to convert thinking into a veritable action. I do however begin to notice a change. It seems like there is some faith, or trust, that allows me to do things more naturally – without having to think ahead or through every step. I notice how an action, a doing, leads to results and that the very act of responding actively to a situation, brings forth a certain direction – what you might call momentum.

I guess this is faith in action.

Other Reader Feedback

From B.E.:
I had a slightly better than garden variety insight while on my last job. Every day we would pass this pond on our way into the base. The first couple days it was calm and the pond was like a mirror and the shore would reflect perfectly. But soon after it became windy and for days on end the pond had various levels of ripples and disturbances on it destroying any nice reflections. Then suddenly, one of the last days there, the wind was calm again and the pond was flat as glass. But this time, instead of seeing the reflections from the shore, I caught an angle that let me see all the way to the bottom. 

That moment caused a reawakening of the desire to see beyond the "ripples" and day-to-day content of the mind. 

Shortly thereafter, I happened to read Abbie's letter in the [May 2017] TAT Forum. It was a refreshing read and I wrote her a thank you note by email for sharing it. Something about it struck a perfect chord with that pond experience. 

So, I just got I Am That in the mail from Amazon and I've been doling out the chapters one or two a day. It's bizarre how we can become receptive to something that previously never clicked. I had cracked open the book years ago and found it dreadfully incomprehensible. Now, I can't wait to read another chapter. 

God willing, this spell lasts a little. Nisargadatta said "you must not go back, undo, uproot and abandon the conquered ground." I'm not sure how much ground I ever conquered but things do seem to build on each other. 

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?

Passage entrance at Newgrange in County Meath,
Ireland—older than the Egyptian pyramids or
Stonehenge. An inner chamber illuminates on
the winter solstice. See impressive aerial views.

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

Sign up for notices of TAT's four annual events and free monthly Forums by email on our contact page.

 

Founder's Wisdom

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

Miami Theosophical Society Talk – 1985

The first public talk that Richard Rose gave was by invitation of the Pittsburgh Theosophical Society, in 1973. It was at that talk where two college students got inspired by what they heard and became instrumental in setting up self-inquiry groups at colleges primarily in the northeastern U.S. In 1985, one of Rose's students had moved to Miami, Florida, and Rose traveled there to help in starting a local group. Several members of the Miami Theosophical Society had heard about Rose and were enthusiastic about inviting him to give a talk there. Part 1 of the transcript follows.

Years ago I talked to a student of Zen¹—I was interested in contacting a Zen master—and I asked him who the most important man was that he ever met in his life. He told me about this follow in Connecticut, Alfred Pulyan.² And Pulyan was the most able Zen teacher I ever encountered.

I asked this same fellow what the most important book was that he had read in his life. (He talked very plain. In fact, he used quite a few four-letter words for adjectives in order to be emphatic.) And he named this book by JJ Van der Leeuw, The Conquest of Illusion.³ In the beginning of this book the author wrote a dedication to Krishnamurti, and I was a little surprised. I heard quite a bit about Krishnamurti before that, but I had never read him. It's not a book of Theosophical principles or anything of that sort, but it was published by Quest Books.⁴

But the reason I was fascinated by the book was his use of the term absolute.⁵ I had a little experience out in Seattle, Washington—a big experience, actually—and I wanted to understand it. I had come away from that with the realization, not of having met a personal God, but of having met an absolute condition. And I used that word in my description of it. On my return from Seattle I wrote a little thing called "Three Books of the Absolute";⁶ it's in the back of The Albigen Papers. And I used the word absolute because I felt, and I still feel, that the word God is misused. It's used by name-droppers. It's used by charlatans and phonies the world over to draw people in, taking a rake-off from their sense of importance.

And then there are people who are very dedicated and sincere; and they also use the word, and they are right in their dedication and their sincerity—but it doesn't match the sincerity and the definitions of people who are diametrically opposed to their convictions. So when you utter the word, you're liable to be offending. Or you're liable to have people think, "Oh, I know what he's talking about. He's talking about what I read in chapter and verse so-and-so." So I avoid the use, because at no time did I ever encounter anybody with a long beard and a very human personal appearance.

There's a difficulty in this type of talk because I don't intend to waste time, and at the same time I don't wish to offend. But if I'm too careful about offending, I will waste a lot of people's time. So I intend to be very direct; I'll answer your questions very honestly, even if it may hurt ten people sitting all around you.

The complete Part 1 of the Miami Theosophical Society Talk - 1985

Footnotes:

 

 

 

Did you enjoy the Forum? Then buy the book!
Beyond Mind, Beyond Death is available at Amazon.com.