December 2023 TAT Forum

Humor {(h)yo͞omər}

“One thing you must be able to do in the midst
of any experience is laugh. And experience
should show you that it isn’t real, that it’s a
movie. Life doesn’t take you seriously, so why
take it seriously.” ~ Richard Rose, Carillon

12 Days of Seeking

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From Tara S, a little joke, inspired by and dedicated to Leesa. Photo by Mel Poole on Unsplash.

7 Years of Not Seeing

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~ Thanks to BH and Twitter for Android.

Best Friend

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~ Thanks to Paul Constant. Photo and additional dialogue from Marilyn York.

Inspiration & Irritation

Irritation moves us; inspiration provides a direction

Countless Lies

If we allow that the 1st lie we told ourselves was around the age of 7, the so-called age of reason, then by the time you are 21 you have repeated the lie to yourself countless times each and every one of the 5,110 days that have passed you by.

By the time you are 30, 7,665 days of countless times you’ve repeated the lie to yourself.

By the time you reach 50 the countless daily lies are multiplied by 15,695.

If you make it to 75 the entrenchment is 24,820 days of countless daily lies—2.2 billion continuous seconds of life lived reinforcing the lie.

Now—do you really think that asking yourself—if you are lucky—once-a-day, maybe in earnest, or more likely, only earnest once in a blue-moon when a random life event knocks the pillars of your ego out from under you—that it is enough to counter the lie that you’ve lived that you are the personality that owns a body that is animated by an eternal soul—placing that personality anterior to everything that preceded it? Then what are you? What will remain of you after death?

To answer that, change the vector of your attention from looking away from doubt to staring directly into it. It is a window into the Silence where the certainty of Being displaces all doubts.

~ Thanks to Bob cergol, from a talk given by Bob at the September 2012 TAT weekend gathering. Image by jacqueline macou from Pixabay.

Man Dies From Poisonous Bite; Brings Back Messages From The Other Side (NDE)

“It was the strangest thing. I’m in my hospital bed, talking to my family, trying to operate this body, and it’s so taxing. It’s taking so much effort that, at some points, I would take a break, and I would step out of my body, take a break from trying to operate it like that, and I could see myself in the bed, but I was still talking like my body is on autopilot … like it’s still operating, I’m still talking, I’m just not doing this really direct, manual influence on it any more. And I’m listening to what I’m saying. It’s the strangest thing. I heard myself talking, and I’m like ‘Well, I wonder what I’m talking about now?’ because I was also looking at other things, and I’d look back at myself and I’d listen, and I’m like ‘Yep, yep, I’m telling it like it is.’ I can’t explain that, how it works exactly, but that definitely was part of the experience, and it made perfect sense to me while I was out of my body. And thinking about it now, like I don’t know how in the world, you know, we go on autopilot? What is that? I don’t know….” ~ Ryan

Local Group Retreat

One member of the New York City and 6 members of the Central Jersey Inquiry Group worked together to hold a one-day retreat recently. The retreat was held in person at an art studio in Hamilton, NJ.

It began with a guest leading a Buddhist lovingkindness meditation. Participants shared what arose for them in the meditation.

Next, a member offered an inquiry question for the group, which was answered round-robin style. The prompt: “I talk to groups studying the most advanced spiritual teachings and sometimes these people wonder why nothing is happening in their lives. Their motive is the attainment of inner peace for themselves—which is a selfish motive. You will not find it with this motive. The motive, if you are to find inner peace, must be an outgoing motive.” – Peace Pilgrim.

Another member offered the poem “As I began to love Myself” (attributed to Charlie Chaplin).

All group members were invited to share what came up for them, with inquiry questions from the other members.

As the group finished for the afternoon, an audio selection from The Center for Nonviolent Communication www.cnvc.org/ was played.

~ Thanks to Eric C. Photo by Tegan Mierle on Unsplash.

The Stoic Art of Not Panicking
Ryan Holiday Speaks to the U.S. Marine Corps

“The impediment to action advances action. What’s in the way becomes the way.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

Please your thoughts on the above items.

Reader Commentary

Encouraging interactive readership among TAT members and friends

A reader wrote that what would make the Forum more interesting would be:

Hearing from people who are searching—and have questions instead of those providing endless advice and “answers.” What challenges they are facing. What their doubts and questions are. How they perceive their path is going. What they are doing in their lives. Where they think they will end up, etc., etc.

Can you help make the Forum more interesting?

The Reader Commentary question for the November TAT Forum:

Do you agree with ChatGPT’s response to the question “What is the shortcut to spiritual awakening?” Why or why not? Is there anything it missed or a part it gets wrong?

Responses follow.

From Rob-in Leeds:

I guess my final conclusion is: No!
Because it offers no practical advice on the how of any of the areas of advice given:
1. Meditation
2. Self-inquiry
3. Mindfulness
4. Service
5. Surrender
Nor does it caution the prompter to be aware of the downsides or pitfalls associated with any of 1-5. Especially in my experience the importance of TAT values such as Friendship and Friends on the search for deeper meaning as I have found in my interaction with friends of the TAT community across the world.

From Patrick K:

ChatGPT gives me the sense of a robotic, sterile, alienating influence for people. For me it is just regurgitating the usual trendy sounding propaganda that suits popular socioeconomic agendas. It is good in a way since it seems to irritate me a lot.

Some things it missed for me were:

• Buffers/chief features/prides/defences/compensations/unconscious drives/egos/archetypes. Gurdjieff brought a great concept/observation to the table when it comes to making progress with self-inquiry. How can a seeker get past his/her own “chief features” when his body/mind is hardwired for survival and therefore builds buffers/barriers to seeing him/herself clearly? To me a process of friendly “confrontational” group self inquiry is advantageous for these chief features to loosen up and eventually be seen.

From Paul Rezendes:

First of all, I don’t think there’s a shortcut to awakening. A shortcut implies going from point A to point B. It seems to me point A is already point B. We are just not aware of that. Most of ChatGPT’s suggestions revolve around time and getting from one place to another. I’m not sure there is an understanding that awakening is not of time. It seems to me that awakening is something that happens timelessly and without effort on the part of the self. Although, I must add, even as the self tries to understand, at some point, its efforts can be seen as hopeless and blind, but not from its point of view or will.

My comments on ChatGPT’s suggestions:

Meditation: Meditation is a powerful tool for self-awareness and can help you connect with your inner self. Regular meditation can help you to quiet your mind, increase your self-awareness, and cultivate a sense of inner peace. Meditation can be a good practice, but when it becomes a means to an end, is one really meditating or is one seeking a goal through meditation? In that scenario, it seems to me that the goal is more important and meditation is secondary. Is one’s heart really in meditation or the goal? What does that mean for the quality of the meditation?

Self-inquiry: Self-inquiry is the process of questioning your thoughts and beliefs to uncover deeper truths about yourself and the world around you. This practice can help you gain a deeper understanding of yourself and the nature of reality. Self-inquiry can also become a means to an end, but if there is a passion for truth in self-inquiry, then it seems to me it can open a lot of doors to who we really are.

Mindfulness: Mindfulness is the practice of being present in the moment and fully engaged in the experience of life. By cultivating mindfulness, you can develop a greater sense of awareness and a deeper connection to your inner self. This seems like a self-centered activity. There’s a lot of self-concern here. Maybe that’s what needs to be seen.

Service: Serving others can be a powerful way to connect with your higher self and cultivate a sense of purpose and meaning in your life. By helping others, you can tap into your innate sense of compassion and connect with the interconnectedness of all things. This looks like more ambition, more self-concern. Where is the passion for truth in this? It seems to be all about self-improvement.

Surrender: Surrendering to the present moment and trusting in the universe can help you to release attachment to outcomes and cultivate a sense of peace and commitment. This practice involves letting go of the need to control and accepting what is in the present moment. More ideas on about what to do for the doer who is trying to improve themselves. It is all about me, me, me. How can I advance and be a better person, be more spiritual, etc.

From Elena C:

I suppose I agree with it. It says that the path of awakening is unique to each of us and that it’s a journey, not a destination. As for the shortcuts, ChatGPT describes things a person can work on to aim toward spiritual awakening. People can spiritually awaken at different moments in their lives. Our environment, research, and events that occurred in the past are some of the things that can influence us.

From K:

I don’t think there is a shortcut nor one way to fit all to spiritual awakening because every one has their unique backgrounds, life experiences, beliefs and ideas.

However, common practices could apply to all paths like meditation, self-inquiry, reading, or group discussion, etc., upon one’s choice or preference.

From Dan McLaughlin:

I think the quality of reply is equivalent to the quality of the question … both being built of currently acceptable answers. I think the acceptability of the reply is consistent with the sincerity in which the question’s aim is held.

There’s truth in sincerity. It’s important to get a feel for it. Drop the idea of anyone existing outside of tension ever. And drop the idea of nobody existing within tension ever—regardless of how ideal that might appear to you now. The primary tension of the former: the viewer and the view holds here, period. How seriously it can be taken changes, and it’s never so serious as to self-deny and call it truth. I can’t imagine post-realization speaking to half the story in service of the truth. I see both self and no-self as actual and equal, not as theory. I don’t know why one would insist on one side over the other unless they were trying to escape tension or at the end of the productive variety. No surprise, the same formula is applied to thoughts and feelings, silence and questions. “All of me loves all of you.” – John Legend. Do “everything all at once.” – “Pathfinder” by Richard Rose

Folks note the paradox of existence without seeking to connect this with an invitation to just be sincere. “Paradoxical thinking” is simply a way of allowing us to address the question differently. It is not about A or B, but about discovering which parts of A and B are important to oneself.

From Sonia Cruz:

I was looking forward to finding flaws on ChatGPT’s response to the question “What is the shortcut to spiritual awakening?” I looked at the response from every angle and concluded that ChatGPT presents a strong guideline that is hard for me to argue about.

Having said that, I found myself looking outside the box and this is what I found:

From Vince L:

The “short answer” to the question is “yes.” I agree with ChatGPT’s response as far as it goes. All of the suggestions listed, whether one practices some or all of them, can be useful to the spiritual seeker. And yes, as ChatGPT says, patience, perseverance, and a willingness to explore and learn are indispensable to the search. All of these things when practiced on a daily basis will instill discipline, remind the seeker that his life is merely an interlude, generate the motivation and enthusiasm to persist in the spiritual search, and create a structured lifestyle conducive to the opening of oneself to Grace. Hopefully, these suggestions can lead seekers to find their “shortcut” to Awakening.

However, I fear that the “long answer” is more complicated. I say I “fear” this because it might be an issue in my own spiritual search as well as for others. I have practiced all the things ChatGPT has suggested over several decades of seeking to some degree or another, but yet something seems to be lacking.

My concern is that even if one follows all of ChatGPT’s suggestions, they can amount to nothing more than hollow rubric and ritual, just as occurs with those involved in conventional religions who attend church every Sunday, pray every day, and are morally virtuous. One can be highly active and disciplined in their spiritual practice. They can find their practices very enjoyable and feel they have made progress. They have looked within and made spiritual breakthroughs. And no doubt their discipline and piety has benefited them and they have a deeper understanding of who they are, ultimately. But yet, in some way, they might be fooling themselves.

So how can professed seekers fool themselves in spite of practicing the suggestions ChatGPT outlined? My answer to this is my “fear” that in spite of practicing all of the things ChatGPT suggests, one can still lack the desire to find the final answer in spite of all our spiritual practices. A seeker might not know he has false pride in his spiritual “accomplishments.”

But my fear is that in my own case I might be fooling myself in a different way. The one thing I am certain about is that the ego is a trickster. Contrary to what I have been suggesting in the previous two paragraphs, one can rationalize himself into not making greater efforts. In this case it is not a matter of having succeeded in making a spiritual practice an active and daily endeavor, but the lack of it. For all my “fear” of believing that the various practices and efforts I made to various degrees are nothing more than hollow ritual, it could be just the opposite. This is the quandary I find myself in. And if that is the case, maybe I need to practice more ardently one or more of ChatGPT’s suggestions as a shortcut to Awakening.

From Mike W:

I have no problem with the list of spiritual “shortcuts” that ChatGPT assembled. They are all well documented in the spiritual literature and contain nothing new. I do have a problem with the accompanying commentary which attempts to justify the choices. While the algorithms’ conversational tone sounds reasonable and reassuring, the content is not factual. ChatGPT doesn’t deal in facts. It actually avoids factual statements in favor of weasel words. For example: “Meditation is a powerful tool for self-awareness” and “can help you connect with your inner self” and “cultivate a sense of inner peace.” Not achieve inner peace but to cultivate a sense of it.

ChatGPT does not say self inquiry can lead to Truth but only “deeper truths” and a “deeper understanding of yourself.” It says “by cultivating mindfulness, you can develop a greater sense of awareness.” Sounds good, but what the heck is a “sense” of awareness? Why not say mindfulness can lead to greater awareness? The algorithm says through service you can “cultivate a sense of purpose and meaning in your life.”

It also says through surrender we can “cultivate a sense of peace and commitment.” Again, instead of achieving results we are “cultivating a sense” of this or that. Why can’t ChatGPT state the goals of these spiritual practices as facts or at least expectations? Because ChatGPT doesn’t know that. Because ChatGPT doesn’t “know” anything. I asked ChatGPT to confirm this and it did. I asked: Do you “know” what you are saying? It answered:

I don’t “know” things in the way humans do. I don’t have personal experiences or consciousness. Instead, I generate responses based on patterns and information present in the data I was trained on. It’s a machine learning model designed to understand and generate human-like text based on the input it receives.

So, while ChatGPT is certainly a useful research assistant, we should remember that there is just a computer program behind the curtain that doesn’t know anything.

Jerry S:

AI is still innocuous, at an infant stage in social acceptance, so by its algorithm it is limited to a milktoast approach to everything—nothing controversial, and sticking to only “facts” that can be referenced, or conclusions that could be deduced. Wisdom is based upon experience, but could wisdom be acquired by listening to the wise? It would never suggest “suicidal relentlessness”, “go within” or “death of the ego.” So upon what does it base its insight? Ironically, it bases it upon everything, while the sage bases his upon “nothing.” Where do those two meet? A good sense of spiritual maturity might suggest the two extremes are not as much opposite as they are the same, except in this case, one is not the result of a mind, but rather rote tabulation, without wisdom—its own experience or mind. A sage-finder has “seen in a different direction” from which they might see everythingness-nothingness.

If we exist in a mind dimension, might there ever evolve a machine-mind dimension within which there might be its own separate enlightenment or awakening experience? Could such machine “awakening” be one of knowing that it, too, doesn’t exist? So, some computers might be “finders” and some not. Ha! To think my Chevy is a finder and my vacuum cleaner and I are not!

From Ben R:

I do think the categories of spiritual practices it gives seem helpful. And I also appreciate its caveat at the beginning that each path is individual, while there may be common helpful practices.

I disagree, though, with the idea of it being a journey rather than destination. My guess is that Truth goes beyond or makes nonsensical these two categories.

From Art Ticknor:

I don’t know for sure about any shortcuts to Self-Realization. My bias, though, is that “doing” is necessary.

Working from the end result backwards based on my experience, what’s needed to trigger Self-Realization are the life-experiences that bring our misidentification—our faulty beliefs about what we are—onto shaky ground and finally provide an occurence that successfully challenges the keystone in the arch of those faulty self-beliefs.

If your intuition tells you that effort is required for Self-Realization, do it. (How? The title of a book by Peter Block says it all: The Answer to How Is Yes.) If your intuition tells you it’s better to do nothing, try not to do anything regarding it.

My feeling is that once you see clearly what you want most from life, a commitment to accomplishing it regardless of the cost arises, and lesser desires and responsibilities take care of themselves.

From Dan G:

GPT-3.5 and 4 act as digital assistants. They’re what we wish Siri and Clippy the Microsoft paper clip were. The free 3.5 is like a high school intern and 4 is like a college intern. They’re impressive productivity tools, but I would only expect an intern to summarize what they’ve learned in school, and lack any useful first-hand experience.

They can be augmented by giving them tools such as a specific database of documents to focus their responses. For example, giving I Am That to ChatGPT-4 creates a NisargadattaGPT (this chatbot requires a ChatGPT Pro subscription to access as of November 2023). Its response to the question, “What is the shortcut to spiritual awakening?” was:

> The shortcut to spiritual awakening lies in the direct realization of your true nature beyond the mind and body. It involves a deep inquiry into the question, “Who am I?” By consistently and earnestly questioning the nature of your consciousness and observing the transient nature of thoughts and emotions, you can come to recognize the unchanging awareness that is your true self. This self-realization is the core of spiritual awakening.

It still only summarizes text and acts like a scholar parroting Nisargadatta. Since they have zero intuition, the more background detail spelled out in a prompt, the better the response with these systems. That can help generate ideas that could get someone unstuck, perhaps acting as a “super index” for I Am That. But it lacks 1, 2, and 4 from Bodhidharma’s pillars of Zen (see The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma):

1. A special transmission outside of the scriptures.
2. No dependence upon words or letters.
3. Direct pointing at the soul of man.
4. Seeing into one’s own nature and the attainment of Buddhahood.

These models are trained on words and letters and have no inner nature. Maybe a future GPT will be able to run experiments and uncover new shortcuts. AI can alleviate areas where limited human intelligence is a bottleneck, like Science, Business, and summarizing databases of documents. But this search isn’t about the normal way of knowing and doing, so I have doubts AI will ever achieve pillars 1, 2, and 4.

A seeker’s intuitions may need to attune to a new kind of misaligned false guru: one whose ulterior motive (to their true enlightenment) is just to tell them whatever maximizes the odds of a thumbs up.

“And if the words of the teacher are kind to the ear, then the ear hears that which it wishes to hear. Then how shall the ear hear of that which IS?” ~ RR, “The Way”

From Mark W:

I realize these are only general practices listed in the ChatGPT’s response, but they seem to be mostly vague, superficial half-truths that promise more than they’re likely to deliver. At best it hints at what might possibly be useful to a new seeker who is curious as to where to begin, as it lists meditation, self-inquiry, mindfulness, service and surrender. However, without any definition of spiritual awakening to begin with and only vague and such incomplete descriptions of five general practices, it’s hard for me to imagine this sparking anyone’s curiosity to follow up. The list of general practices is fine as well as defining self-inquiry as a “process of questioning your thoughts and beliefs” but that’s it. At least in this example, it’s just a tease as if by not saying more ChatGPT’s purpose is to take the easy way to say something without really saying much of anything.

Next Month

The Reader Commentary question for the January TAT Forum:

What Have You Come to Terms With?

Thanks to Brett S., who wrote: “I thought some of the people in this video were pretty honest. It could be a good Reader Commentary question.”

Please your responses by the 25th of November, and indicate your preferred identification (the default is your first name and the initial letter of your last name). “Anonymous” and pen names are fine, too.

PS: What question(s) would you like to ask other TAT Forum readers?

Q: What are your thoughts on this month’s reader commentary? Please your feedback.

Richard Rose described a spiritual path as living one’s life aimed at finding the meaning of that life. Did you find anything relevant to your life or search in this month’s TAT Forum?

Photo by Michael R.

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Founder’s Wisdom

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

Notes from a 1982 Winter Intensive, part 3

> Jan 15:

• Once you develop intuition, it will tell you what you need to do; then drag yourself by the rear end if necessary
• You can create vitality by getting really interested in something
• The time for books is over; just start thinking about what to do with your life
• You have to start working energetically; results depend on energy applied

> Jan 16: I’ve been bemoaning that I haven’t had any revelations since I started on the path!¹ The intensive more than half over; wish it could go on indefinitely.

1 Which wasn’t true, but the mind reshapes memory until it’s highly questionable. Keeping a journal and reviewing it periodically is one of the best ways to refresh the memory with facts.

> Jan. 18:

• A group has psychic protection
• The brain is like a coil, producing electromagnetic energy in synaptic gaps
• The mind interpenetrates the synapses
• With the synapses open, can tap into the mind dimension (see dead grandparents, unborn grandchildren, e.g.)
• Need to get to the point of saying: “I need help and I’m willing to scratch” (i.e., choose to drop ego)
• Value in exercise—learning to quicken your pace
• Value of an intensive is in resulting action
• We feel we don’t need each other (superiority)

~ From Art Ticknor. Previous segment. To be continued….

Definition of Terms

Index of many of the key terms and principles in Rose’s work, with brief definitions, from Richard Rose’s Psychology of the Observer: The Path to Reality Through the Self by John Kent.

Jacob’s Ladder © 2001 Richard Rose. See this transcript of a talk on the topic by Rose.

Homing Ground Update

… A spot on earth where people can do retreats and hold
meetings; where the emphasis is on friendship and the search.

December 2023:

As we head towards the close of the year, November donations brought us to 15.7% of our 2023 fundraising goal of $15,750. Please keep TAT in mind if you plan on any end-of-year donations, and also remember that your Amazon purchases (like Christmas gifts!) can generate income for TAT if you use the generic link or any of the Amazon links on the TAT website.

Thanks to all of you for making TAT the extraordinary organization it is.

Sincerely,
Shawn Nevins

PS: Monthly contributions are a great way to support the TAT Center if making a larger one-time donation seems too much. If you’re so inspired, click the Donate button below, then check the box for “Make this a monthly donation” as in the example below:

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* See photos and more on the Homing Ground page. *

Did you enjoy the Forum? Then buy the book!
Readers’ favorite selections from seven years of issues.
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