October 2022 / More
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Convictions & Concerns
TAT members share their personal convictions and/or concerns
Where Are You Headed?
"Past performance dictates future performance." ~ Anon.
Do you think you will automatically go to a spiritual place after death? Will you have the drive and capacity to determine your fate and direction when the body/mind dissolves? Do you know yourself that well? What will you have for guidance? Or will the unconscious desires and fears of today, which you may not be aware of or admit to, control your fate?
After our death, we may not find ourselves in Happy Heaven, as we might wish, but instead in a place formed by our true motivations, whether we were conscious of them or not. Instead of getting an eternity at The Warm-Fuzzies Fun Park, the more accurate scenario may be akin to when we fall asleep at night, letting go of our so-called conscious control and helplessly entering the world of dreams. This could be likened to the Tibetan concept of the bardo, with the experience of lucid dreaming (knowing we are dreaming while in a dream) thrown in to boot. In other words, if you can't wake up to Reality now, what makes you think you ever will? This dream world or bardo you may find yourself in would become the current dream or 'reality' in which you again act out your previously formed nature. Whether any of this is fact or fiction isn't the point. What is being asked is, do you know and trust yourself well enough to face death and what it might bring?
There is a lot of talk of lucid dreaming nowadays, but I have yet to hear of any of it reaching a valid point in terms of true self-definition. Anything we learn or experience in a dream, lucid or not, must be validated in waking life. We might be advised to wake up first from this present dream of life before playing about with states of ego-identification in our dreams. Acting out our fantasies in dream land in a so-called lucid state is not a true awakening, but simply extending into the dream realm our identification with the personality. Even though much of the talk about lucid dreaming is astute and intellectual, providing much theory and heady adventure, rarely does it touch on the big questions of our personal life and death, and even rarer does it take on the question of 'who' is dreaming.
Years ago I learned how to practice lucid dreaming, thinking I would become a hero shaman, weaving magic while discovering deep secrets in the freedom of the dream world, wide awake. When I actually found myself in the dream world, wide awake, the first thought that came to me was "I can do anything I want, I'm awake in a dream!". I must explain that at this time I still believed I was in control of my thinking, that I had thoughts. It was only much later that I came to realize they had me, that all thought is projected upon us. The next thought I identified with was,"Let's do all the things we can't do in regulated society, let the party begin!" I quickly created a fantasy sex partner and off we went, for a brief moment. The fun was rudely interrupted by the realization of how divided my consciousness had become. I was shocked that my true motivations, though unconscious, were not only carnal, but degraded. I was not the hero dream warrior I had imagined but a depraved animal. I thankfully fell back 'asleep' in the ensuing turmoil of emotion. I dropped the experiments, for I realized I lacked the true self-knowledge and control that I had assumed I possessed. This was also accompanied by the intuition I was entering dangerous ground without adequate protection. This example may seem extreme, but it illustrates the point.
In the time that followed, I began instead a simple practice of dream interpretation, designed to help bring the unconscious world within up into the light of day. Thankfully, things were not really as bad in there as I had feared, but many unflattering facts and negative traits were uncovered and eventually faced in waking life. Much help was found in this endeavor, and I'm still grateful for being led back into truth from foolishness. Blindly following our animal nature and its promptings, whether in the dream world or out, only leads us through endless cycles of struggle and misery, desire and fear, with no true reckoning or resolution, forever and ever, amen. Real knowledge of the self is more valuable than any dream adventure, no matter whether we are 'awake' as our daytime ego in the dream or not. Sooner or later we will tire of the fantasy, and perhaps become curious of 'who' is experiencing these endless never-never lands.
True adventure is not in outward grandiose imaginings, whether in waking sleep or whatever, but rather in a steady inward movement, an uncovering of all that is hidden and false in ourselves. It is the greatest expedition we can make, for it leads to real peace and true awakening. This precipitous moment of turning our attention around and looking within is worth more than any bardo of lucid fantasies, for it can lead to real Self-knowledge, to Who we really are. As G.I Gurdjieff said, "Life is real only then, when I am."
~ Thanks to Bob Fergeson. This essay is still vibrant 20 years after its initial publication in the September 2009 TAT Forum.
See more of Bob's essays in The Listening Attention (A Gateway to Within).
His other sites are The Mystic Missal (A Door to Ways and Means on the Spiritual Path) and Nostalgia West spiritual photography.
Image from Wikimedia Commons.
Comments or questions?
Please email reader commentary to the
.
Return to the main page of the October 2022 TAT Forum.
TAT Foundation News
It's all about "ladder work" – helping and being helped
(This is a complete listing of local groups. See the main page section for just the groups with recently updated information.)
New listing for Aiken, SC:
Looking to start a self-inquiry group ... finding like-minded people to talk about Richard Rose and his teachings either online or in-person in a home setting ... to question what it means to find our true selves.
~ Email
.
Update for the Amsterdam, NL Self-Inquiry Group:
The group is not holding meetings currently, but email
for information.
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Update from the Central Ohio Non-Duality Group:
The Columbus, Ohio self-inquiry group, now known as the Central Ohio Non-Duality Group, has continued to meet virtually on Tuesday evenings at 6:30PM during the Coronavirus pandemic. Please email one of the people's names below if you wish to get a link to the meeting. Meeting format involves discussion of topics of interest to seekers and often bridges from the concerns, questions and interests of the core members in attendance into the topic which we intend to discuss. We look forward to the easing of restrictions to the point where we feel comfortable meeting again in person.
~ For further information, contact
,
, or
.
We're also on Facebook.
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 more 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.
TAT Press publishes Anima's and Art's book: Always Right Behind You: Parables & Poems of Love & Completion.
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Update from Galway, Ireland:
Tess Hughes is starting a women's group on Wednesday evenings, 7pm Dublin time, using Zoom.It will begin mid September. Sessions last 90-120 minutes usually. Anyone who's interested in joining can contact
.
TAT Press publishes Tess's easy to read, profound This Above All, the story of her journey of Self-Discovery.
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
*
The GMT support group group held a
weekend intensive retreat in West Sussex, UK on Friday-Sunday, Nov. 12–13.
On the weekend of 12-14th November a small number of people gathered for an in-person spiritual retreat in West Sussex
U.K. The aim was to foster a spirit of friendship and provide a face to face retreat for TAT interested European folks with the
theme of ‘Make Your Whole Life a Prayer’.
Tess Hughes joined us via Zoom and Peter O. made a moving talk about his life and spiritual path. Freddie L. offered a very
powerful guided meditation, we conducted Harding experiments, rapport, and it was a great opportunity for discussion and a
deepening of friendship. We hope to run another similar retreat sometime next year.
See "A Seeker-Organized Weekend Intensive Retreat" for feedback from participants including a poem by one of them.
~ E-mail
for more details.
Update from the Greensburg, PA self-inquiry group:
I am meeting every Saturday morning with three of my former Greensburg SIG group participants who are into non-dualist paths, such as Adyashanti and Mooji. There is also another participant, a professional psychologist who is interested in eastern philosphy and who wasn't in my SIG group but makes a great addition to our proceedings. These fellows are sincere seekers. We spend our time discussing our respective paths and comparing notes. Our new venue is a place called the White Rabbit Cafe in Greensburg. I'm hoping that the lull here has ended and that we're ready to be more dynamic again.
~ Contact
if interested in local self-inquiry meetings.
An update from the self-inquiry group in Houston, TX:
The backyard patio meetings are now moved to Zoom meetings, which take place at 4 pm on Saturdays. There are 3 active and inspired participants right now. Topics vary from Mr. Rose's writings to "What is on your mind?"
~ 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.
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
or
if you're interested in being on the email list.
The New York City and the Central New Jersey self-inquiry groups held a day-long intensive retreat in NYC on Saturday, November 9th.
> Feedback: I liked the process of everyone getting to know each other, and seeing people that might have started off as suspicious of each other(!) at the beginning become more like friends at the end(!). We did activities related to Byron Katie's The Work, "the I and the You," and how identity is formed in childhood. Looking forward to the next one…!
> Feedback: I enjoyed seeing how the participants came up with exercises for the group. Another item which was well done, was the development of "rules for engagement" at the beginning of the day—which helped set the proper tone for a productive day together. Enjoyed making new friends.
Update from the New York City self-inquiry group:
The New York City Self-Inquiry group meets by Zoom every Monday from 6-8 PM EST. The link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3098361863?pwd=anY5OFlMT0pNMld6VXJDb0Z2SjY0UT09. For those joining by phone, the number is +1 929 205 6099 US (New York), with Meeting ID: 309 836 1863, and Passcode: 895478. More details, as well as our weekly discussion topics, are available on our MeetUp page (link above) and via email at
.
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Update from the recently listed Online Video Confrontation Group:
The Monday Night Online Confrontation Group is going strong with a core group of participants and room for a few more. Now meeting at 7:30 pm EST (previously at 7 pm), using the online video conference platform from Zoom. The goal of the group is to practice confrontation/group self-inquiry.
~ If you're interested, email
or
.
Isaac and AJ interviewed Art Ticknor on their Plant Cunning Podcast series, where they "invite herbalists, ethnobotanists, farmers, mages, fungi experts, community organizers and all kinds of other interesting people to the microphone to share their wisdom and experiences with us": Self Realization with Art Ticknor.
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Email selfinquirer (link below) to receive invitation to monthly in-person meetings in Pittsburgh. - Wed, Oct 5: Guest host TBA. - Wed, Oct 12: Benjy H. will host. - Sun, Oct 16, 3:15 PM ET: Dan Garmat hosts John Kent's dissertation on Rose and the "Psychology of the Observer," Ch 14: "The Psychology of Observation and Perception" (can be downloaded here: https://www.searchwithin.org/johnkent/Chapter_14.html). Link to join meeting. - Wed, Oct 19: Shawn Nevins is host: Topic TBA. - Wed, Oct 26: Bob Harwood will host. |
Update from the Raleigh, NC Triangle Inquiry Group:
We're continuing with Zoom online meetings for now--first and third Tuesdays of each month.
Interested?
~ Email
for more details.
Update for the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area TAT Center:
Bob Fergeson spent a year as resident teacher before returning to Colorado in March.
Mark Wintgens continues as our chief-seeker in residence and invaluable caretaker. He is looking forward to hosting retreats and meetings for local group members as well as all TAT seekers. And TAT is looking forward to the possibility of hosting the August 2021 TAT meeting at the Center.
~ Email
for information about the TAT Center.
Update from the Richmond Self Inquiry Group:
There isn't a Richmond self inquiry group at the moment…it never really got off the ground. I'm considering a few different approaches for round three, but it'll be at least a few months away before that takes form.
~ Email
for information about future meetings and events.
Update from the San Francisco Bay area self-inquiry group:
See the Shawn Nevins interview by Iain McNay of Conscious.tv, kicking off the publication of Shawn's book Subtraction: The Simple Math of Enlightenment.
~ Email
for information about upcoming meetings and events.
TAT Press publishes Shawn's Images of Essence: The Standing Now, which features his poems with photos by Bob Fergeson, The Celibate Seeker: An Exploration of Celibacy as a Modern Spiritual Practice, Subtraction: The Simple Math of Enlightenment, and Hydroglyphics: Reflections on the Sacred, which features his poems with photos by Phaedra Greenwood.
Update from the Washington DC Area Self-Inquiry Discussion Group:
[This group was previously listed as the Rockville, MD self-inquiry group.] We've been meeting monthly at Rockville, MD Memorial Library. While the library is closed for public health reasons, we're participating more in a weekly online book club. Forum readers are welcome to participate.
~ For more information, please email
or see the website http://firstknowthyself.org/virtual/.
Downloadable/rental versions of the Mister Rose video and of April TAT talks 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.
3+ hours total. Rent or buy at tatfoundation.vhx.tv/.
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.
5+ hours total. Rent or buy at tatfoundation.vhx.tv/.
Return to the main page of the October 2022 TAT Forum.
~ Thanks to . Image from the
Return to the main page of the October 2022 TAT Forum.
Reader Commentary
Encouraging interactive readership among TAT members and friends
Thanks to Michael R. for the set of Reader Commentary questions for the September TAT Forum:
Where are you? Where do you feel yourself to be? Are you inside the body or is the body inside you? Are you inside the mind or is the mind inside you?
The complete response from Sarah J:
Funny question because I used to feel my mind to be inside my head, looking out through my eyes, but I don't now.
I experience my mind inside my pain, experiencing the world, my life, through pain. There is a lot of physical pain - nerve damage from a spinal injury and with it a very odd and displaced feeling of the centre of my body; there is a medical term, but I don't remember it. There is pain in my legs but it is from the central displacement I experience and feel my mind is located. I hadn't noticed the change. This only now feels a little uncanny.
I feel guilty about TAT and about answering this question. I have become completely disillusioned with 'enlightenment'. This attitude started to burn during covid. There was a dearth of awareness of the whole narrative not hanging together. I felt cynical about 'awakened awareness' in relation to the covid narrative and manipulated fear. I expected awareness to be aware, mature, not subject to fake contagions of the ego. This may be Maya but there is bullshit within Maya: manipulation, fear mongering, lies.
During a break within a TAT retreat my computer was on. I had a coffee and something to eat. I was across the room and a few of the retreat leaders were chatting together, talking of covid. I wasn't paying much attention but I felt uneasy. I pricked up my ears the way you do when something you identify with, (in this case New Zealand) is mentioned. They complimented our 'success' as if we were a kind of lucky exemplar. They had no inkling anything was wrong with what they were hearing. I don't mean with NZ's false 'success', but the whole palaver.
We had come out of the earliest, strictest lockdown - to 'normal life'. Apparently we were a success, a kind of model. But it wasn't normal at all. It was eerie. We had changed. Information was still restricted, on every subject. The government told us just what it considered we needed to know. People weren't talking freely. We had begun the process of not being allowed to know anything about anything. The media still asked no questions and behaved like Pravda, approving, adoring, the government script. And they continued parroting the same international covid lines. Simplistic and inane. Normality, such as it was, never recommenced. The population was infantalized and acted as if in a trance.
The media still fuels division as actual information shows we had merely delayed the covid deaths, we are fast catching up with the world death toll. And implementing this delay wrought many more unnecessary deaths of the young, not instead of, but in addition to covid claiming the vulnerable.
We are divided and more alienated than ever and seemingly too arrogant to admit we were wrong.
The trance of the faux 'team of five million' continues in a slightly reduced form. We still can't really talk anymore. I don't know if we can come together again. The pointless, manufactured scapegoating of sceptics and those who chose not to be vaccinated continues. Few suggest the vaccine makes any real difference now, it is just a moral marker. There is some imagining of a high ground about the cruelty that was unleashed. The divides, the disconnection, the faux left\right hostility, enthusiasm for nuclear war.....
My point is that we look to spiritual leadership when we get lost but it seems there isn't any. The enlightened were just as influenced by a few well placed ego shocks, became just as entranced, just as self-deluded. We needed enlightenment and guidance and we got egotism.
This time isn't just another thing, and it isn't over. I won't even be surprised if I wake up tomorrow to news that the West is officially at war with Russia and China. And I'd expect continued eagerness - a flurry of insane excitment. I don't know what is going on, but the world seems to be in the ironic position of waiting for the enlightened to wake up.
I was voting on the entries for the new book but I couldn't carry on because I don't believe in it anymore. I feel guilty, but what does it mean now? Just the hope of attaining a safe feel-good drug? That's understandable and I could certainly use a hit, but it doesn't feel like a quest for ultimate truth, or ultimate anything.
I don't believe that this is what Richard Rose found and aspired to pass on. As I understand it, his life was service, and evidenced a deep responsibility to this crazy world, to integrity. Maya or not.
I don't even know why I'm writing this. It is just my truth and I certainly don't expect you to publish it.
Return to the main page of the June 2022 TAT Forum.
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