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TAT Forum

August 2015

 

Convictions & Concerns

TAT members share their personal convictions and/or concerns

Meditation Thoughts

Meditation is like diving into a pool of muddy water. You have to stay in a while before the mud settles and you can see what is going on. You might see that your mind is… mud.

Meditation is observation. Observation requires concentration. Concentration requires energy.

What we observe is not us. If this does not make logical sense to you, then ponder it some more. If it still does not make sense, then take it as a matter of faith because that simple statement is the foundation of [Richard] Rose's assertion that the way to an unknown truth is to back away from untruth.

It is good to begin with a habitual practice of meditation. Find a time, place, and form that works for you and keep at it regularly. Remember observation needs concentration and energy, so build a lifestyle that allows you success. If you want more, make time for more. If you don't want more, then you should reexamine what you are really after.

I imagine everyone in this group is beyond such things as visualizing apples with diamonds in their center, and reviewing the day's events to discover why they felt offended by their boss's comments. You want to "go within" and that will take concentration until it becomes a habit. It will take exploration until you remember the feel of being deep in the water of that muddy pool. You can help the mud settle by learning to turn your observing from thoughts. Rather than examining each as it passes by, you mentally look away into emptiness, not giving even the energy of passive attention to the thoughts.

Embrace the idea that what you see is not what you are. Dwell in the utter unknowing and hold your mental breath for as long as you can under the still, clear and deep water.

Meditation could also be called feeling or listening ... which requires concentration; which requires energy. This is difficult to describe. It is not feeling a back pain or feeling an emotion, but like feeling for the sun to break the horizon. Or feeling for an old, but unknown friend to step around a corner. Feeling, listening, waiting for something just out of reach; just beyond the limit of our physical hearing and feeling. This is not implemented in quite the same way as backing away from untruth, yet is like a corollary. At the same time we back away from untruth, there is a tiny feeling guiding us as well. Our backing away allows that feeling to grow. It requires focus and ease.

*

Q: There have been several people – long-time meditators – who have told me that they typically sink down to a spot during their meditation where there's no mind movement, only blackness … it's very peaceful and refreshing, but they don't get any further. Since I didn't experience that … there was always mind movement, but at the end it moved over to my peripheral vision and didn't interfere with observation … I couldn't relate to where they were. I imagine my responses were something along the lines of: If it's peaceful, and if you don't feel it's going to take you further, it may just be a nice resting spot … it may take some irritation to remind the mind of the scorpion sting, etc. Is that an experience you're familiar with? Is it basically the spot where you advise to keep looking/listening/feeling/waiting for something just out of reach?

Shawn: I think it's a solid platform to begin looking at some subtle aspects of mind. Mind is not only movement. What is looking? What is aware of the blackness? If you see it/feel it, then what does that imply about it? Can they see when a thought emerges from the blackness. Can they look towards that emergence point? Can they retraverse the projected ray of their self?

I haven't figured out a methodological placement for the looking/feeling/waiting. It's Rose's dotted line on Jacob's Ladder. It's Bob [Fergeson]'s Listening Attention. Yet where does that fit in meditation? Maybe it's right-brain meditation rather than left-brain meditation. Yet, I also see meditation as pushing (backing away from untruth) while there is a pull (if we live a life that allows us to be aware of it). No tidy package of explanation for that one....

Back to the sinking down: those people have peeled away some of the onion layers, but there are more… unless they are unconscious.

~ Shawn Nevins has been a TAT member since the early 1990s. He's active in TAT, including spearheading the Homing Ground project, and leads a spiritual inquiry group in the San Francisco Bay Area. Shawn wrote this essay for the participants in a 6-week meditation practice discussion project. Check out his Poetry in Motion Films and Spiritual Teachers websites.

 

TAT Foundation News

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

TAT Meeting News

Local Group News

Tess Hughes held a weekend intensive/retreat in Galway Ireland from July 3rd to 7th. There were 22 participants, coming from as far away as Austria and California. More than half the participants were from Ireland.

From Peter O'Doherty:
Tess ran an intensive from Friday evening to Tuesday morning. As usual it was magical to get to spend some time with the people I would consider to be my closest friends. The feelings of intimacy created by brutal self honesty and trust seemed to intensify as the weekend developed. We spent all day Monday doing an ego hunt. Each person took a turn in the "hot seat" as the twenty two people who were in attendance gave feedback to that person about how they had perceived the person over the course of the few days.

It struck me as the day unfolded that what I was observing was a beautiful portrayal of what true friendship actually is and the real value of it. For me it was the recognition that the people in the room were sharing in a brave, honest, kind, open and loving way not just what someone wanted to hear but also what they felt someone needed to hear. I have never experienced such an outpouring of love and respect amongst a group of people.

The reason I have emailed you this is because I know TAT encourages and facilitates this sort of work and I wanted to express my deep gratitude to Tess and TAT for the work you all do and for the help and guidance that I have personally received over the past few years. Last weekend was yet another example of just how incredibly lucky I am that I have been given the gift of Tess, TAT and all the truly wonderful and amazing friends that have been brought into my life. It really is such a beautiful blessing.

From Gillian Treacy:
THE MAP IS THE TREASURE: A description of a recent four-day intensive with Tess Hughes and friends at Parvani Hall, Co. Galway, Ireland.

I chose the above title for a description of the work undertaken, not only at the intensive but at meetings, retreats, online group work, and life itself, for seekers of Truth. What became crystal clear during the intensive is the level of guidance always available from the SatGuru, or inner teacher, spiritual friends and teachers, and specifically the TAT method of methodically working to clear away obstacles to Truth. As I overheard one friend say during the weekend, to peel the onion you have to know where to begin to peel. I think this is the treasure the TAT work offers to sincere seekers who have been working away for years, but who need the generous guidance of one who has successfully peeled away the layers and who knows where each one needs to be picking away at right now. This map is a great gift.

From Colm Heaney:
I'm a few weeks back from the Retreat now. It was an intense but good weekend. As always, it was great to see some old friends and get to meet some new folks too.

The retreat was jam packed throughout. Starting with the question box [i.e., 50 or so questions, which participants picked at random] was a great way to kick things off. As usual, the questions seemed to be almost perfect for each individual. A lot of questions and so on followed from Tess and the group. As always, it was a very powerful process.

The last day was a feedback session which went from the morning till 2am as it was a big group. It was very productive and I took a lot from it. I was at the retreat for about 3 and a half days but it felt like I had been away for a couple of weeks. I felt replenished in many ways but I also felt the intensity of the weekend had maxed me out a bit too. Tess had said this can be quite normal after an intense weekend like that and it is fine to take a break as stuff works away internally. I was glad to hear that as I really felt a break from all things spiritual for a week or two would be a good idea just to give it all time to settle.

I have given it plenty of space since and still am. Interestingly, I have noticed a strong longing for peace, quiet and just doing simple things since the retreat. I always enjoy those simple things but I can often be very busy in my head always moving to the next thing, planning and so on. However, something inside of me wants space just to take a walk and not have my week and free time scheduled too much, just do what needs doing. Although not always easy to do with the demands of work, life, etc. I am giving it that space as much as possible and it feels very simple and peaceful. Thanks again to Tess and everyone for a great retreat.

From Jeroen van Rookhuizen:
The intensive was a nice mix of Tess giving introductions to a theme, exercises, and presentations or workshops from other participants. All the while we stayed at a quiet, rural center so there was ample opportunity to connect with other seekers or go for a walk in silence.

Tess introduced a few themes in the weekend that stuck with me. One is the importance of observing: what is it and how can we do it in daily life? During the intensive this was a recurrent theme and Tess built up the exercises where we had to keep observing. The most difficult was to watch a very emotional movie while at the same time observing what was going on inside (emotions, thoughts etc) and jotting that down.

Another theme that stuck with me was transmutation. Tess went into this and clarified things that I didn't understand from Mr. Rose's book about the matter. This also tied in with the definition of ego as SMAARP (Self-Maintaining Accidental Associative Reaction Pattern), something Bob Fergeson wrote about. An example from Tess: when you stand at the ATM and someone in front of you is very slow, there often arises irritation. Instead of giving in to the irritation and getting lost in it, it is a perfect opportunity to observe yourself and not give in to the various impulses. If instead you "hold the tension" the inner transformation starts to happen.

It is quite special that the teacher is so accessible (this is true for all of TAT and is one of the things that makes TAT stand out, in my opinion) and there was a crowd of dedicated seekers who explicitly aim at Self-Realisation which is also quite rare. The interactions in between the sessions are often just as helpful as the official program and I felt nourished when coming home after the intensive with a renewed focus and direction.

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 and Retrospective archives, policies, conference proceedings, business meeting notes, photographs, and suggestions for ways to help.

The audio recordings of the presenters at the April TAT Intensive are now available for downloading.

us if you have questions about the members-only area, or refer to your most recent TAT newsletter for log-in information.

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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 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

Overcoming Ego-Based Resistance
From correspondence with Bob Cergol

Dear Bob,

I watched a video of you speaking at a [Raleigh, NC] SIG retreat and it seemed to me that certain aspects of my life were similar to yours. This is the first time I've reached out to someone "in the know," so I'm hoping you have the time to correspond.

I'm usually able to sit, think, and come up with some answer on most questions I have but tonight I'm kind of stumped. I've been reading The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth, and earlier I watched an interesting "Ancient Aliens" show, and so I've been in this mood questioning what I can really know.

Nisargadatta said that one should hold onto the "I am" thought, but this doesn't have a whole lot of meaning for me. I'm more comfortable saying "I'm on," like a machine is on, not as a verbal thought, but more as a feeling. I can play mental games with that and say, question: "who knows it is on?", answer: "I do..", but I cannot get past the logic that I need to be on to feel being on (off being unconscious in sleep).

How can I make a leap beyond this? Of course this all disappears at times when I'm sleeping, but I cannot understand how to jump back closer to the source. In a way I feel like I've exhausted the limits of my brain. Would you advise meditating on the "I'm on" feeling, praying, or something else? I'm not really sure where to go from here.

Thanks,
James L

Hello James,

What you are does not disappear during sleep – or during the countless equivalent time during the day where you disappear for some duration and there is a false sense of continuity of being "you."

I agree that following the "I am" thought is fundamental. But fundamentally I do not think it can be done directly. It can best be done by looking obliquely – by looking at what challenges your sense of self. (You live to define yourself and build your identity!)

Every experience is instantaneously measured and interpreted by the body-mind as either affirming and magnifying the body-mind identity, or diminishing, threatening and questioning its existence.

The spiritual path is a path of going within. The process of going within is experienced as a loss of self. (The false, small "s" self.)

I would advise meditating on experiences of "self-diminishment," i.e. any experience that evokes a so-called negative emotion: anger, fear, etc. The idea is not to relive the experience or re-litigate an argument. The idea is to simply recall and look at the past experience – and see it clearly. There is something else going on when you do that which is more important than the thoughts and reactions the exercise will generate. Every time something challenges one's identity and one's existence it focuses the attention on the "I am" in a way that you cannot do "willfully." There is the possibility of direct seeing to the source of it. But the mind immediately spins it into an affirmative experience that affirms and magnifies your identity. Be wary of thoughts! Allow time in the meditation to just relax and stop trying – but not before trying!

Eventually, through practice, a vector of the attention is established, and one day, when you step on the right proverbial Zen "brick in the pavement" direct seeing into your source will occur – and by virtue of the momentum of the vector of your attention – you will not be able to stop it in order to save yourself, and spin it away from the truth, or look away from that which is, in order to look at what will preserve and affirm what the lesser part of you wants to see and believe and identify with.

You cannot simply make the leap beyond – because you will and must be left behind – and until this can be accepted (it cannot!) – it cannot happen. So the only way is for a momentum to exist that you cannot stop. The way to create that momentum is to consistently look within – self-inquiry – and that means looking at what challenges your sense of self – not that which affirms and magnifies it. Do not discount the effect that life-style has on your attention (capacity and direction). Get your house in order so your attention is not pulled in too many and conflicting directions. Self-inquiry and your spiritual path must be the priority.

Lullabies are for those who want to sleep. The preponderance of New-Age thinking and teaching today on the internet is basically lullabies for crying babes!

Consternation and doubt are for those who want to wake up. My teacher (Richard Rose) wrote: "If the words of the teacher are kind to the ear, then the ear hears that which it wishes to hear. How shall the ear hear of that which IS?" and "To believe is to weave. To know is to know that which IS."

Stop making assumptions about what you know or even what the goal is – and most certainly stop making assumptions about the answer and results! The knowledge you assume you have just creates a "blind spot" that cuts you off possible avenues of seeing more clearly.

Start by admitting your ignorance – and recognizing that you don't see clearly. Pray that you are blessed with clear seeing. Pray that you are given the grace to understand what you see. Pray that you are given the strength to live your understanding.

You can't even assume too much about the starting point – your sense of existing as you the individual – but you at least have to suspend disbelief that it is possible to find an absolute answer and define just what is that being that is experienced as an identity in a body.

Be honest and don't kid yourself. Be earnest and work out your salvation with diligence!

Sincere regards,
Bob

Bob,

I've been using the meditation on "self-diminishment" you suggested. When I focus on event x and just "watch" without turning away, it seems like after a while the emotions start to soften. If I go back to the same event x, after a few days, it doesn't seem to be self-diminishing anymore. Is this part of the process? What happens when I run out of past experiences that have "wounded" me in some way? I'm sure I have a wealth of experiences to choose from at this point, but I started with something I viewed as quite traumatic and it doesn't seem to have much meaning anymore.

Thanks,
James

Hello James,

As I recall from my own experience with this process long ago, it was as you describe. I never had an "a-ha!" moment where I analytically figured it all out. It just seemed to drop away. My perspective now is that the important part of the process is not figuring anything out, not resolving anything – rather it is simply that such a "charged" past experience is a portal into a very direct looking, and asking of the "Who Am I?" question – or more accurately, "What am I?" and "Where am I?" – from whence does this sense of "I am" originate? It is what I mean when I say you cannot ask that question directly, but must look at it obliquely. The focus of your attention during that process is outside yourself, transcendent of the personality – even though the thought stream may make it seem like a reinforcement – in fact the attention is moving backward – as Richard Rose described: "Retraversing the projected ray." There is no self to be diminished in the final analysis – only the mind's belief in the definition of that self, which is in the final analysis nothing but an experience, that occupies the focus of attention. Looking at it in this fashion looks through it, and is the process of going within – to one's source.

Having said all that, it is probably not beneficial to speak about it – but you asked…. The important thing is to establish a vector of the attention with this sort of looking. With earnestness and consistency, and sincere desire to know yourself, you invite Grace to manifest in your life and work its magic – and when the moment is right, the momentum will overcome the ego-based resistance that would allow you to look away from that which is!

Namaste!
Bob

~ Bob asked James for permission to include his side of the correspondence, and James readily agreed.

 

In a Hungarian castle
Photo by Istvan Takacs (Wikimedia Commons)

 

 

Reader Commentary

Encouraging interactive readership among TAT members and friends

The Forum staff solicited feedback on TAT Press's sixth book, At Home with the Inner Self published in 2011.

From Leesa W:
When you're ready, on your path, to follow your own inner guidance, Jim's book can be a great inspiration. Using what he called "free association," intense questioning, and dream interpretation, he navigated a life that included physical disabilities and mental problems to find his way to Reality. Rather than trying to fix these things in a traditional manner, he used them to take him deeper into his inner life – he carved his own path. But be prepared – the book is full of provocative statements that will have you stopping in the well-worn tracks of your mind. A good read!

Amazon.com review from "Mr. Rational":
This slim volume is packed with insights into human psychology. To be able to clearly see into one's own "situation" is the beginning of wisdom and Jim Burns knows all about it. This is not an ordinary book. It is organized into broad themes and each paragraph is like a gold nugget and each nugget is a different insight. In learning about Mr. Burns you learn about yourself. I feel fortunate to have found this book and while I have read it only once thus far, there is no doubt that I will be led repeatedly to these pages. Anyone interested in the journey of the unknown will find this book invaluable. I am grateful to TAT for having made this work available.

From Catherine M:
At Home With the Inner Self by James J. Burns III is an immediately appealing work, perhaps especially appealing to a psychotherapist, like myself, whose path has been entwined with those of seekers along the entire diagnostic continuum from madness to mental health, augmented by a study of Christian mystics, and by a seeker's attraction to the wisdom of sages, from India to West Virginia.

From Jason S:
Jim Burns' book, At Home with the Inner Self, has been and continues to be a reference guide for me. I am incredibly grateful for his honesty, clarity and his willingness to share it.

While in the midst of a personal Dark Night of the Soul and on the verge of what felt like total collapse, I'd pull out Burns' book and find relief. Initially, I read it from cover to cover. And then afterwards, I would pick it up and begin to read at any point in the book and feel the comfort of a close, understanding friend who offered his insight into Truth.

Burns has the courage to speak frankly and plainly and in doing so, offers tremendous help to his fellows. He states, in the simplest terms that I've come across, that which I intuitively felt though couldn't put into words. I quote the following directly from the book: "People talk about meditation, TM, tantra, prayer, books on philosophy and psychology, discussion groups, this and that and the other thing – but no one makes a clear statement of what they are trying to do. A person is bound to get confused. If you've gotten to the point where you realize that the thing you would like most to find in this world is a steady source of guidance, to help you become your own source of guidance – then that's what you are after. You never find that stated anywhere in simple language."

From Jeroen van R:
I read At Home with the Inner Self some years ago. I really liked his profound insights in the working of the psyche. One point still sticks with me: his statement that the only job of a child is to play. I resonate with his argument, and it could be the basis of a profound critique of contemporary societal developments (in The Netherlands 5-year old children already get important tests to measure their capabilities. Totally nuts....)

From Mike G:
At Home with the Inner Self is a distillation of insights gleaned from conversations with Jim Burns. In conversation, Jim is known to talk in a combination of outbursts of insight and epithets about psychology and society, but when read in this well-organized series of topics his words bear the feeling of an old Irish uncle giving his most straightforward and serious advice to a dear friend – you, the reader. Whether in spoken or written word, Jim Burns intends to convey what he has found.

Jim's deep insights into psychology arise from his tortured path through mental illness to mental clarity and illumination. The careful reader will find himself prompted to meditation on the subtle aspects of human psychology at work he sees at work in each one of us, and be inspired by the direction within to which he points as the path to sanity and illumination. Thank you Jim.

[Personal note from Mike:] It's funny, but Jim always scared me a bit, and I was never sure how to take his comments. I understand him much better as a result of reading the book carefully with the idea of commenting on it. I never realized how much he truly hungered to just come to the TAT meetings and "knock around" with the guys, as he says. I always thought he was just being polite when he mentioned how much he enjoyed being there. He now really does feel like an old friend.

From Mark S:
At Home with the Inner Self is not your usual book on spirituality. It's filled with unique insights drawn from Jim Burn's solitary search for Truth. I was fascinated by his discussion of free association and going to sleep slowly as ways to get in touch with the inner self; I had never run across these practices in the way he describes them. But to me the book's greatest value lies in the inspiration it provides, through his example, for finding your own way.

Other Reader Feedback:

Dear All,

I disagree with Descartes [in response to the Descartes quote in the "How Do You Know You Exist?" video clip in the July TAT Forum]. My existence does not depend on thinking. However, it is true that I need to be able to think to be able to think "I am."

Descartes could have said "I see therefore I am" which is just as true but it would not have led him anywhere. And he wanted more. Saying "I think therefore I am" has the subtle extra meaning that it is necessary for me to think for me to exist. But this is not true all of the time.

Descartes ignores the many experiences that we have that do not involve any conscious thought. These experiences tend to be most intense and, on occasion, the most profound and deeply life changing.

My life was profoundly changed by someone simply pointing out what I could actually see.

With love,
Steve Holloway

*

[Also in response to the James Zucker video clip in last month's Forum:]
I know I exist because the feeling "I AM" is constantly present. But my body is absent during sleep and I take up various bodies during dreams. My mind is absent during deep sleep but present during waking and dream. So there are times when I do not experience mind or body. During deep sleep I experience "nothing" but there is "I AM" experiencing "nothing." The world simply disappears during deep sleep but I still experience sleep. Just like there are so many dreams possible in a single night, I feel that my waking state is broken up in to so many dreams. Many dreams have ended. As a child I wanted toys and as a young person I wanted to get married but I no longer wanted toys and so on. So many dreams that started and ended. No wonder we all say when we recall a past experience "It all appears like a dream now." Just like we recognize a dream as a dream and remember things that happened in the dream, it may be possible to reach another state when we can see the waking state as a dream. It may be just that the waking state is a well-made movie with high production quality while dream states are poorly made movies; particularly I hardly hear sounds like in silent movies and I hardly feel the body I took up inside the dream. If we leave the physical body which is called death, we can make an assumption that we may just be born again in another body. But, just like dreams are absent when the mind is absent in deep sleep, birth and death have no meaning if there is no mind. ~ Shankar Venkataraman

*

This talk by Dr. Bruce Greyson, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia, covers four categories of experience which bring into question the popular belief that the brain creates consciousness. What are your thoughts on this? Please your feedback. ~ Thanks to Catherine Morrison for this.

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 Forum issue?

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.

I Believe You ... You Are Lying

I Believe You

1. Where do you go after death?
2. An old person looks dead before they die.
3. A person who dies in old age is for all eternity,–a dying person.
4. An old person has a smell, which shall stay with him for all eternity.
5. An old person forgets or loses his mind, etc.
6. An old person has mental lusts.
7. An old person is forgotten if not hated by their children and friends before they die.
8. Eternity is filled with babies whose diapers are full.
9. Eternity is filled with stench and ugliness.
10. Eternity is filled with rotting memories that rot for all eternity.

You Are Lying

1. After death you become perfection.
2. An old person loses the ugly ego of vanity.
3. An old person who, by dying, loses that vanity is for all Eternity,–a more perfect Being.
4. The body and all its characteristics remain discarded; the soul is free.
5. Death brings the mind to an unqualified state.
6. When the body goes, emotion and lust go.
7. Those who were ever loved are never forgotten,–they become eternal symbols of love in our minds.
8. In eternity all adults are babies, and all babies are mature.
9. Unpleasant experiences in this life give way before an eternal awareness of Isness.
10. In eternity there is no need for memories because all is at all times.

I Believe You

1. Eternity if it possesses forms, is filled with forms, hideous and hungry.
2. Eternity has a rotten heaven, filled with forms that are facts,–gruesome facts.
3. If, in eternity you lost corruption and regained perfection of form,–would you recognize yourself?
4. The brain will rot and with it your thoughts.
5. A corpse leaves weeping children behind who know that they are waiting to become rotting corpses.
6. A baby brings a moment of joy and years of recrimination.
7. He who dies in a sewer is reluctantly buried by even those who loved him.
8. When your skin is gone beauty and love are gone.
9. Mucous membrane is most unstable, being quick to decay,–so is the love that lived for the mucous membrane.
10. Beautiful are eyes,–but only while living.

You Are Lying

1. Beauty is formlessness because form involves change and time, and these involve suffering.
2. Heaven created by man is ugly and rotten, heaven as it is, is our Self.
3. You will recognize every love in heaven because you will find your Self.
4. The brain and body will disappear,–like dreams to be forgotten for a brighter day.
5. A corpse weeps for its dead children.
6. A baby is an angel descending, an old man dying is an angel released.
7. No one dies anywhere.
8. When you no longer see beauty in your skin you may awaken to other beauty, i.e., reality.
9. When you die,–the world disappears, and those things which we believed in the most are the first to go.
10. The beauty of your eyes is eternal.

"Some things react or result from the contemplation of two things at one time. Not just examining them for qualities, but holding them in your head, both variables at once."

"Thought, no-thought, results in Absolute realization. What it is must be found by trying it. You do it, you live it. You reach an Absolute realization by looking between thoughts."

~ Over an eight-year period, Paul Constant recorded nearly 350 pages of personal notes in four notebook binders and subsequently extracted Rose's most remarkable wisdom from the notebooks. Readers can find a four-part series of "Richard Rose Notes and Quotes – 1986 to 1993" in the download center of searchwithin.org.

Do you have a favorite quote from Richard Rose? Please it along with how you'd prefer to be identified.

 

A New Home for TAT

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

Current Status

As of the end of July, we are 70.5% of the way to our fund-raising goal. Please keep your small donations coming; they truly add up. We need $11,200 to reach 75% of our goal, at which point we begin the search for a new property.

Other News

So far this year, we've raised $330 via Amazon. Each time you want to make a purchase on Amazon, follow this link (Amazon Purchases), or any other Amazon link on TAT's site. Add whatever you want to your cart, and a percentage of your purchase price is credited to TAT. It's easy and costs you nothing.

We've registered TAT with the eBay Giving Works program. Check out our Giving Works page. You can list an item there and can select TAT to receive a portion of your sale. Click on the "For sellers" link on the left side of that page for details.

To invest directly in the "Homing Ground" project, mail a check made out to the TAT Foundation (for instructions on mailing a check, please ). Or you can use PayPal (though we lose 2.2% of your gift to PayPal fees) by choosing the "Make a Donation" button below. TAT is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit educational organization and qualifies to receive tax-deductible contributions.

What's This All About?

For over 35 years, the TAT Foundation met on Richard Rose's farm, where he and the members created "a spot on earth upon which to meet. A homing ground...." TAT meetings, group retreats, and solitary retreats were a regular part of life at the ashram. Rose's desire to help others and to bring people together in a meditative surrounding, influenced two generations of spiritual seekers. Rose's farm was a sanctuary for many years, and a crucible. He once said it was like the desert—where you go to meet God.

In 2011, Rose's heir decided to use the property for another purpose, and TAT's lease was not renewed. We have since rented facilities for our four quarterly meetings. Yet, the desire to provide a greater service has been a frequent topic. Our dream is to create once again a space that encourages honesty, provides a crucible for spiritual development, and produces the next generation of spiritual seekers and finders.

To that end, TAT is raising $250,000 to find a new home. We envision a semi-rural facility, close to a university town, with a meeting hall seating up to 70 participants, kitchen and bath facilities, and a room for a live-in caretaker. Additionally, the facility would have one cabin for solitary retreats. Ideally, the property would border public lands to provide a buffer of quiet and solitude, and have enough acreage to allow for additional cabins, sleeping quarters, and facilities over time. A resident teacher, week-long retreats and intensives, public events and other activities are planned.

 

 

 

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