TAT Forum - Spiritual Magazine | featuring Edward Traversa, Santanelli

The TAT Forum: a spiritual magazine of essays, poems and humor.

December 2009

Editor's Note
by Shawn Nevins

spiritual magazine

An opportunity to perform a hypnosis demonstration at the November TAT Foundation meeting reminded me why it is an area rich in metaphor for the spiritual search. When a hypnotized subject is awakened yet they are unable to move their still asleep arm, you might scoff and argue the subject is merely being agreeable. You are exactly right!

All we are ever doing is being agreeable to the thoughts that pass through our mind. The illusion is that we decide which thoughts to agree to. Why would a subject agree to having their arm become immovable? Because the set of suggestions received by their senses from the "operator" leads them to that conclusion.

We are surrounded by operators: from the obvious, such as commercials, to the sublime, such as the color of the morning sky. Picture a web of hypnosis, with every creation caught in a node, acting and being acted upon by surrounding nodes.

Our hope is to become conscious of our suggestibility. Use that awareness to pay attention to that which brings more awareness of our hypnotized state. We slowly turn from that which produces deep sleep to that which is seemingly more awake. We slowly turn from the unreal to the real.

Choose your hypnosis.

A Poem
by Sunil K. Vidyarthi

"WAKE UP (The scream I can not hear)"

From time immemorial, I am trying to wake you up but you don't.

Not complaining, for such is not my nature; mine is to wake you up.
Not frustrated for I can't be, just know that I have to wake you up.

I put melody in bird's chirping, coolness in the summer breeze,
Burning heat in midday sun and deafening noise in monsoon thunder
To just do one thing, wake you up.

Spark in your first kiss, comfort in mother's embrace,
Rush in your home run and the musky flavor in lobster bisque,
I did it all to do just one thing, wake you up.

Desire to own, taste, destroy, love and hate,
I placed so you'd WANT to wake up.
Also put the fear in you
So you'd keep on desiring all and to wake up.

I made life beautiful,
So you can love the beauty and wake up.
I made it miserable
So you will hate the misery and wake up.

Now I think it is time you woke up.
Don't argue about genetics, Darwin, evolution and creation.
I made them so, don't ask me how and when,
All I know is why, and that is to wake you up.

You say, you can't or you don't know how?
For millions of years, in thousands of ways
As guru's, gods, priests, friends and lovers,
I have been telling you how.

As Krishna, I told you to see me, see you
Not yours who you kill, to rid the world of evil.
As Buddha, I told you to pay attention
Be mindful of sufferings (good, great and bad).
As Shiva, the Tantric, I asked you to find me
In all ecstasies, from sex to breath of fresh air.
As Nisargdatta Maharaj, I told you,
You are That whom you look for.

Do ask me why I want to wake you up?
That is simple; you are asleep.

Do ask me, who am I?
That too is simple; I am you, asleep.

Negating Patterns
by Edward Traversa

One of the ways you begin to negate is to understand your circular patterns. Here is a technique that you can try:

Try and understand your own circle first. It might be something along the following lines.

Discomfort > Movement > Relaxing > Boredom > Discomfort > Movement > Relaxing > Boredom etc.

So then break it up. Pull it apart. When you are in a state of discomfort which could be anywhere between very mild frustration, to full blown rage, what do you do next?

Do you meditate harder? Do you ask a question? Do you distract yourself, e.g. listen to music or read a spiritual text to try and find the 'answer' etc? What ever you are doing, try and define it as best as you can, really try and narrow it down. Make a journal for a few days and just note exactly what you do when discomfort appears in your life.

Assuming you have the pattern down conceptually, then at least you have something to work with.

Start getting a feel for discomfort. What I mean by that is really become familiar with your discomfort. Write about it, just let the words flow without thought or editing, what does discomfort feel like in actuality? Keep going back to the experiential state of discomfort and keep noting what occurs, until you start being able to hold the discomfort longer and longer.

Now the circle is getting smaller so that you're spiralling inwards

Discomfort > Movement > Discomfort > Movement > Discomfort > Movement and so on.

What is happening here psychologically and spiritually is the circle is collapsing on itself, much like a Black Hole. You are using the energy of discomfort to destroy discomfort rather than looking for something external to alleviate the discomfort.

You can do a lot of preliminary work before doing this, eg read up on the malleability of pain, or go the quantum physics route etc that helps to break up concepts, but eventually there has to come a time, where the works needs to be performed at an intrapersonal level.

~ Visit Eddie's blog at Truth Realization.

Words of Wisdom

"We all are lions, but lions on a banner: because of the wind they are rushing onward from moment to moment."
~ Rumi

Two Excerpts
from The Law of Suggestion by Santanelli

If you will follow through the ensuing pages, unsophisticated as I am, I will try to teach you something about man—a mere machine; his every thought and action forced, possessing no will power, and in no way responsible for his actions. For twelve years I have studied nightly from ten to twenty-five hypnotized subjects and have found that they are ruled by the same general law as the non-hypnotized man. In other words, a hypnotized subject is a slowed-down machine which one knowing how, can watch each and every movement of, and thereby comprehend cause and effect. Through a hypnotized subject we can learn how "normal" man is forced to act.

Man does not "think," he realizes. Thinking is the transforming of energy (suggestion). I pinch you; it has happened and is registered irrespective of your "will power," and when registered, you realize it. You see my hand move towards you; you see on my face an expression which arouses the thought (associated ideas) of being pinched, the alleged pain and the avoidance of it through the action of withdrawing your limb, which is but the transforming of the energy (suggestion) taken in through the eye and voiced in your action, all being done before you realize it, the transforming being instantaneous and must be registered before you are conscious of (realize) it. The "mind" is the realizing intelligence, and the actual mind is like the transformer of electricity in the main power station that receives one kind of electric current and sends out another. Into what action the received current will be transformed, depends on the ideas (currents) previously associated. The degree of action and its rapidity depends on the number of senses affected and the degree of force. Therefore, your thoughts are forced on you by your environment, and are the transformation of the suggestion; hence, man is a creature of his environment.