3791 lines
202 KiB
Plaintext
3791 lines
202 KiB
Plaintext
~ The Psychedelic Experience ~
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A manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead
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By Timothy Leary, Ph.D., Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., &
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Richard Alpert, Ph.D.
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The authors were engaged in a program of experiments with LSD and other
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psychedelic drugs at Harvard University, until sensational national
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publicity, unfairly concentrating on student interest in the drugs, led to the
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suspension of the experiments. Since then, the authors have continued their
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work without academic auspices.
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This version of THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD
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is dedicated,
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to
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ALDOUS HUXLEY
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July 26, 1894 - November 22, 1963
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with profound admiration and gratitude.
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"If you started in the wrong way," I said in answer to the investigator's
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questions, "everything that happened would be a proof of the conspiracy
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against you. It would all be self-validating. You couldn't draw a breath
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without knowing it was part of the plot."
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"So you think you know where madness lies?"
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My answer was a convinced and heartfelt, "Yes."
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"And you couldn't control it?"
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"No I couldn't control it. If one began with fear and hate as the major
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premise, one would have to go on the conclusion."
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"Would you be able," my wife asked, " to fix your attention on what The
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Tibetan Book of the Dead calls the Clear Light?"
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I was doubtful.
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"Would it keep the evil away, if you could hold it? Or would you not be able
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to hold it?"
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I considered the question for some time. "Perhaps," I answered at last,
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"perhaps I could - but only if there were somebody there to tell me about
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the Clear Light. One couldn't do it by oneself. That's the point, I suppose, of
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the Tibetan ritual - somebody sitting there all the time and telling you
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what's what."
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(DOORS OF PERCEPTION, 57-58)
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I.
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GENERAL INTRODUCTION
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A psychedelic experience is a journey to new realms of consciousness. The
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scope and content of the experience is limitless, but its characteristic
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features are the transcendence of verbal concepts, of space-time
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dimensions, and of the ego or identity. Such experiences of enlarged
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consciousness can occur in a variety of ways: sensory deprivation, yoga
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exercises, disciplined meditation, religious or aesthetic ecstasies, or
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spontaneously. Most recently they have become available to anyone through
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the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT,
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etc. [This is the statement of an ideal, not an actual situation, in 1964. The
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psychedelic drugs are in the United States classified as "experimental"
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drugs. That is, they are not available on a prescription basis, but only to
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"qualified investigators." The Federal Food and Drug Administration has
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defined "qualified investigators" to mean psychiatrists working in a mental
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hospital setting, whose research is sponsored by either state or federal
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agencies.]
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Of course, the drug dose does not produce the transcendent experience. It
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merely acts as a chemical key - it opens the mind, frees the nervous system
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of its ordinary patterns and structures. The nature of the experience depends
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almost entirely on set and setting. Set denotes the preparation of the
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individual, including his personality structure and his mood at the time.
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Setting is physical - the weather, the room's atmosphere; social - feelings
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of persons present towards one another; and cultural - prevailing views as
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to what is real. It is for this reason that manuals or guide-books are
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necessary. Their purpose is to enable a person to understand the new
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realities of the expanded consciousness, to serve as road maps for new
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interior territories which modern science has made accessible.
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Different explorers draw different maps. Other manuals are to be written
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based on different models - scientific, aesthetic, therapeutic. The Tibetan
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model, on which this manual is based, is designed to teach the person to
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direct and control awareness in such a way as to reach that level of
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understanding variously called liberation, illumination, or enlightenment. If
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the manual is read several times before a session is attempted, and if a
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trusted person is there to remind and refresh the memory of the voyager
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during the experience, the consciousness will be freed from the games
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which comprise "personality" and from positive-negative hallucinations
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which often accompany states of expanded awareness. The Tibetan Book of
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the Dead was called in its own language the Bardo Thodol, which means
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"Liberation by Hearing on the After-Death Plane." The book stresses over and
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over that the free consciousness has only to hear and remember the
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teachings in order to be liberated.
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The Tibetan Book of the Dead is ostensibly a book describing the experiences
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to be expected at the moment of death, during an intermediate phase lasting
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forty-nine (seven times seven) days, and during rebirth into another bodily
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frame. This however is merely the exoteric framework which the Tibetan
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Buddhists used to cloak their mystical teachings. The language and
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symbolism of death rituals of Bonism, the traditional pre-Buddhist Tibetan
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religion, were skillfully blended with Buddhist conceptions. The esoteric
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meaning, as it has been interpreted in this manual, is that it is death and
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rebirth that is described, not of the body. Lama Govinda indicates this
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clearly in his introduction when he writes: "It is a book for the living as
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well as the dying." The book's esoteric meaning is often concealed beneath
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many layers of symbolism. It was not intended for general reading. It was
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designed to be understood only by one who was to be initiated personally by
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a guru into the Buddhist mystical doctrines, into the pre-mortem-death-
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rebirth experience. These doctrines have been kept a closely guarded secret
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for many centuries, for fear that naive or careless application would do
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harm. In translating such an esoteric text, therefore, there are two steps:
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one, the rendering of the original text into English; and two, the practical
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interpretation of the text for its uses. In publishing this practical
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interpretation for use in the psychedelic drug session, we are in a sense
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breaking with the tradition of secrecy and thus contravening the teachings
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of the lama-gurus.
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However, this step is justified on the grounds that the manual will not be
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understood by anyone who has not had a consciousness-expanding
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experience and that there are signs that the lamas themselves, after their
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recent diaspora, wish to make their teachings available to a wider public.
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Following the Tibetan model then, we distinguish three phases of the
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psychedelic experience. The first period (Chikhai Bardo) is that of complete
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transcendence - beyond words, beyond space-time, beyond self. There are
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no visions, no sense of self, no thoughts. There are only pure awareness and
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ecstatic freedom from all game (and biological) involvements. ["Games" are
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behavioral sequences defined by roles, rules, rituals, goals, strategies,
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values, language, characteristic space-time locations and characteristic
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patterns of movement. Any behavior not having these nine features is non-
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game: this includes physiological reflexes, spontaneous play, and
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transcendent awareness.] The second lengthy period involves self, or
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external game reality (Chonyid Bardo) - in sharp exquisite clarity or in the
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form of hallucinations (karmic apparitions). The final period (Sidpa Bardo)
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involves the return to routine game reality and the self. For most persons
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the second (aesthetic or hallucinatory) stage is the longest. For the initiated
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the first stage of illumination lasts longer. For the unprepared, the heavy
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game players, those who anxiously cling to their egos, and for those who
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take the drug in a non-supportive setting, the struggle to regain reality
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begins early and usually lasts to the end of their session.
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Words like these are static, whereas the psychedelic experience is fluid and
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ever-changing. Typically the subject's consciousness flicks in and out of
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these three levels with rapid oscillations. One purpose of this manual is to
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enable the person to regain the transcendence of the First Bardo and to avoid
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prolonged entrapments in hallucinatory or ego-dominated game patterns.
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The Basic Trusts and Beliefs. You must be ready to accept the possibility
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that there is a limitless range of awareness for which we now have no
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words; that awareness can expand beyond range of your ego, your self, your
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familiar identity, beyond everything you have learned, beyond your notions
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of space and time, beyond the differences which usually separate people
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from each other and from the world around them.
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You must remember that throughout human history, millions have made this
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voyage. A few (whom we call mystics, saints or buddhas) have made this
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experience endure and have communicated it to their fellow men. You must
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remember, too, that the experience is safe (at the very worst, you will end
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up the same person who entered the experience), and that all of the dangers
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which you have feared are unnecessary productions of your mind. Whether
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you experience heaven or hell, remember that it is your mind which creates
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them. Avoid grasping the one or fleeing the other. Avoid imposing the ego
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game on the experience.
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You must try to maintain faith and trust in the potentiality of your own
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brain and the billion-year-old life process. With you ego left behind you, the
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brain can't go wrong.
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Try to keep the memory of a trusted friend or a respected person whose
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name can serve as a guide and protection.
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Trust your divinity, trust your brain, trust your companions.
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Whenever in doubt, turn off your mind, relax, float downstream.
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After reading this guide, the prepared person should be able, at the very
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beginning of his experience, to move directly to a state of non-game ecstasy
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and deep revelation. But if you are not well prepared, or if there is game
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distraction around you, you will find yourself dropping back. If this happens,
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then the instructions in Part IV should help you regain and maintain
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liberation.
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"Liberation in this context does not necessarily imply (especially in the case
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of the average person) the Liberation of Nirvana, but chiefly a liberation of
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the 'life-flux' from the ego, in such a manner as will afford the greatest
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possible consciousness and consequent happy rebirth. Yet for the very
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experienced and very highly efficient person, the [same] esoteric process of
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Transference [Readers interested in a more detailed discussion of the
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process of "Transference" are referred to Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines,
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edited by W. Y. Evans-Wentz, Oxford University Press, 1958.] can be,
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according to the lama-gurus, so employed as to prevent any break in the
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flow of the stream of consciousness, from the moment of the ego-loss to
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the moment of a conscious rebirth (eight hours later). Judging from the
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translation made by the late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup, of an old Tibetan
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manuscript containing practical directions for ego-loss states, the ability
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to maintain a non-game ecstasy throughout the entire experience is
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possessed only by persons trained in mental concentration, or one-
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pointedness of mind, to such a high degree of proficiency as to be able to
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control all the mental functions and to shut out the distractions of the
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outside world." (Evans-Wentz, p. 86, note 2)
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This manual is divided into four parts. The first part is introductory. The
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second is a step-by-step description of a psychedelic experience based
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directly on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The third part contains practical
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suggestions on how to prepare for and conduct a psychedelic session. The
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fourth part contains instructive passages adapted from the Bardo Thodol,
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which may be read to the voyager during this session, to facilitate the
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movement of consciousness.
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In the remainder of this introductory section, we review three
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commentaries on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, published with the Evans-
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Wentz edition. These are the introduction by Evans-Wentz himself, the
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distinguished translator-editor of four treatises on Tibetan mysticism; the
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commentary by Carl Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst; and by Lama Govinda,
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and initiate of one of the principle Buddhist orders of Tibet.
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A TRIBUTE TO W. Y. EVANS-WENTZ
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"Dr. Evans-Wentz, who literally sat at the feet of a Tibetan lama for years,
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in order to acquire his wisdom . . . not only displays a deeply sympathetic
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interest in those esoteric doctrines so characteristic of the genius of the
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East, but likewise possesses the rare faculty of making them more or less
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intelligible to the layman." [Quoted from a book review in Anthropology on
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the back of the Oxford University Press edition of The Tibetan Book of the
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Dead.]
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W. Y. Evans-Wentz is a great scholar who devoted his mature years to the
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role of bridge and shuttle between Tibet and the west: like an RNA molecule
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activating the latter with the coded message of the former. No greater
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tribute could be paid to the work of this academic liberator than to base our
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psychedelic manual upon his insights and to quote directly his comments on
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"the message of this book."
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The message is, that the Art of Dying is quite as important as the Art of
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Living (or of Coming into Birth), of which it is the complement and
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summation; that the future of being is dependent, perhaps entirely, upon a
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rightly controlled death, as the second part of this volume, setting forth the
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Art of Reincarnating, emphasizes.
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The Art of Dying, as indicated by the death-rite associated with initiation
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into the Mysteries of Antiquity, and referred to by Apuleius, the Platonic
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philosopher, himself an initiate, and by many other illustrious initiates, and
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as The Egyptian Book of the Dead suggests, appears to have been far better
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known to the ancient peoples inhabiting the Mediterranean countries than it
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is now by their descendants in Europe and the Americas.
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To those who had passed through the secret experiencing of pre-mortem
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death, right dying is initiation, conferring, as does the initiatory death-rite,
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the power to control consciously the process of death and regeneration.
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(Evans-Wentz, p. xiii-xiv)
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The Oxford scholar, like his great predecessor of the eleventh century, Marpa
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("The Translator"), who rendered Indian Buddhist texts into Tibetan, thereby
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preserving them from extinction, saw the vital importance of these
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doctrines and made them accessible to many. The "secret" is no longer
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hidden: "the art of dying is quite as important as the art of living."
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A TRIBUTE TO CARL G. JUNG
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Psychology is the systematic attempt to describe and explain man's
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behavior, both conscious and non-conscious. The scope of study is broad -
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covering the infinite variety of human activity and experience; and it is long
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- tracing back through the history of the individual, through the history of
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his ancestors, back through the evolutionary vicissitudes and triumphs
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which have determined the current status of the species. Most difficult of
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all, the scope of psychology is complex, dealing as it does with processes
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which are ever-changing.
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Little wonder that psychologists, in the face of such complexity, escape into
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specialization and parochial narrowness.
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A psychology is based on the available data and the psychologists' ability
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and willingness to utilize them. The behaviorism and experimentalism of
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twentieth-century western psychology is so narrow as to be mostly trivial.
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Consciousness is eliminated from the field of inquiry. Social application and
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social meaning are largely neglected. A curious ritualism is enacted by a
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priesthood rapidly growing in power and numbers.
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Eastern psychology, by contrast, offers us a long history of detailed
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observation and systematization of the range of human consciousness along
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with an enormous literature of practical methods for controlling and
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changing consciousness. Western intellectuals tend to dismiss Oriental
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psychology. The theories of consciousness are seen as occult and mystical.
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The methods of investigating consciousness change, such as meditation,
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yoga, monastic retreat, and sensory deprivation, and are seen as alien to
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scientific investigation. And most damning of all in the eyes of the European
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scholar, is the alleged disregard of eastern psychologies for the practical,
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behavioral and social aspects of life. Such criticism betrays limited
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concepts and the inability to deal with the available historical data on a
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meaningful level. The psychologies of the east have always found practical
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application in the running of the state, in the running of daily life and
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family. A wealth of guides and handbooks exists: the Book of Tao, the
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Analects of Confucius, the Gita, the I Ching, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, to
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mention only the best-known.
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Eastern psychology can be judged in terms of the use of available evidence.
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The scholars and observers of China, Tibet, and India went as far as their
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data allowed them. They lacked the findings of modern science and so their
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metaphors seem vague and poetic. Yet this does not negate their value.
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Indeed, eastern philosophic theories dating back four thousand years adapt
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readily to the most recent discoveries of nuclear physics, biochemistry,
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genetics, and astronomy.
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A major task of any present day psychology - eastern or western - is to
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construct a frame of reference large enough to incorporate the recent
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findings of the energy sciences into a revised picture of man.
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Judged against the criterion of the use of available fact, the greatest
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psychologists of our century are William James and Carl Jung. [To properly
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compare Jung with Sigmund Freud we must look at the available data which
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each man appropriated for his explorations. For Freud it was Darwin,
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classical thermodynamics, the Old Testament, Renaissance cultural history,
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and most important, the close overheated atmosphere of the Jewish family.
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The broader scope of Jung's reference materials assures that his theories
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will find a greater congeniality with recent developments in the energy
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sciences and the evolutionary sciences.] Both of these men avoided the
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narrow paths of behaviorism and experimentalism. Both fought to preserve
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experience and consciousness as an area of scientific research. Both kept
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open to the advance of scientific theory and both refused to shut off eastern
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scholarship from consideration.
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Jung used for his source of data that most fertile source - the internal. He
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recognized the rich meaning of the eastern message; he reacted to that great
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Rorshach inkblot, the Tao Te Ching. He wrote perceptive brilliant forewords
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to the I Ching, to the Secret of the Golden Flower, and struggled with the
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meaning of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. "For years, ever since it was first
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published, the Bardo Thodol has been my constant companion, and to it I owe
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not only many stimulating ideas and discoveries, but also many
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fundamental insights. . . Its philosophy contains the quintessence of
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Buddhist psychological criticism; and, as such, one can truly say that it is of
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an unexampled superiority."
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The Bardo Thodol is in the highest degree psychological in its outlook; but,
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with us, philosophy and theology are still in the mediaeval, pre-
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psychological stage where only the assertions are listened to, explained,
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defended, criticized and disputed, while the authority that makes them has,
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by general consent, been deposed as outside the scope of discussion.
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Metaphysical assertions, however, are statements of the psyche, and are
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therefore psychological. To the Western mind, which compensates its well-
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known feelings of resentment by a slavish regard for "rational"
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explanations, this obvious truth seems all too obvious, or else it is seen as
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an inadmissible negation of metaphysical "truth." Whenever the Westerner
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hears the word "psychological," it always sounds to him like "only
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psychological."
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Jung draws upon Oriental conceptions of consciousness to broaden the
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concept of "projection":
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Not only the "wrathful" but also the "peaceful" deities are conceived as
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sangsaric projections of the human psyche, an idea that seems all too
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obvious to the enlightened European, because it reminds him of his own
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banal simplifications. But though the European can easily explain away these
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deities as projections, he would be quite incapable of positing them at the
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same time as real. The Bardo Thodol can do that, because, in certain of its
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most essential metaphysical premises, it has the enlightened as well as the
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unenlightened European at a disadvantage. The ever-present, unspoken
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assumption of the Bardo Thodol is the anti-nominal character of all
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metaphysical assertions, and also the idea of the qualitative difference of
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the various levels of consciousness and of the metaphysical realities
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conditioned by them. The background of this unusual book is not the
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niggardly European "either-or," but a magnificently affirmative "both-and."
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This statement may appear objectionable to the Western philosopher, for the
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West loves clarity and unambiguity; consequently, one philosopher clings to
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the position, "God is," while another clings equally fervently to the negation,
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"God is not."
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Jung clearly sees the power and breadth of the Tibetan model but
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occasionally he fails to grasp its meaning and application. Jung, too, was
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limited (as we all are) to the social models of his tribe. He was a
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psychoanalyst, the father of a school. Psychotherapy and psychiatric
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diagnosis were the two applications which came most naturally to him.
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Jung misses the central concept of the Tibetan book. This is not (as Lama
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Govinda reminds us) a book of the dead. It is a book of the dying; which is to
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say a book of the living; it is a book of life and how to live. The concept of
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actual physical death was an exoteric facade adopted to fit the prejudices
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of the Bonist tradition in Tibet. Far from being an embalmers' guide, the
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manual is a detailed account of how to lose the ego; how to break out of
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personality into new realms of consciousness; and how to avoid the
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involuntary limiting processes of the ego; how to make the consciousness-
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expansion experience endure in subsequent daily life.
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Jung struggles with this point. He comes close but never quite clinches it.
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He had nothing in his conceptual framework which could make practical
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sense out of the ego-loss experience.
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The Tibetan Book of the Dead, or the Bardo Thodol, is a book of instructions
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for the dead and dying. Like The Egyptian Book of the Dead it is meant to be
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a guide for the dead man during the period of his Bardo existence. . . .
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In this quote Jung settles for the exoteric and misses the esoteric. In a later
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quote he seems to come closer:
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. . . the instruction given in the Bardo Thodol serves to recall to the dead man
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the experience of his initiation and the teachings of his guru, for the
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instruction is, at bottom, nothing less than an initiation of the dead into the
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Bardo life, just as the initiation of the living was a preparation for the
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Beyond. Such was the case, at least, with all the mystery cults in ancient
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civilizations from the time of the Egyptian and Eleusinian mysteries. In the
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initiation of the living, however, this "Beyond" is not a world beyond death,
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but a reversal of the mind's intentions and outlook, a psychological "Beyond"
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or, in Christian terms, a "redemption" from the trammels of the world and of
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sin. Redemption is a separation and deliverance from an earlier condition of
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darkness and unconsciousness, and leads to a condition of illumination and
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releasedness, to victory and transcendence over everything "given."
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|
Thus far the Bardo Thodol is, as Dr. Evans-Wentz also feels, an initiation
|
|
process whose purpose it is to restore to the soul the divinity it lost at
|
|
birth.
|
|
|
|
In still another passage Jung continues the struggle but misses again:
|
|
|
|
Nor is the psychological use we make of it (the Tibetan Book) anything but a
|
|
secondary intention, though one that is possibly sanctioned by lamaist
|
|
custom. The real purpose of this singular book is the attempt, which must
|
|
seem very strange to the educated European of the twentieth century, to
|
|
enlighten the dead on their journey through the regions of the Bardo. The
|
|
Catholic Church is the only place in the world of the white man where any
|
|
provision is made for the souls of the departed.
|
|
|
|
In the summary of Lama Govinda's comments which follow we shall see that
|
|
the Tibetan commentator, freed from the European concepts of Jung, moves
|
|
directly to the esoteric and practical meaning of the Tibetan book.
|
|
|
|
In his autobiography (written in 1960) Jung commits himself wholly to the
|
|
inner vision and to the wisdom and superior reality of internal perceptions.
|
|
In 1938 (when his Tibetan commentary was written) he was moving in this
|
|
direction but cautiously and with the ambivalent reservations of the
|
|
psychiatrist cum mystic.
|
|
|
|
The dead man must desperately resist the dictates of reason, as we
|
|
understand it, and give up the supremacy of egohood, regarded by reason as
|
|
sacrosanct. What this means in practice is complete capitulation to the
|
|
objective powers of the psyche, with all that this entails; a kind of
|
|
symbological death, corresponding to the Judgement of the Dead in the Sidpa
|
|
Bardo. It means the end of all conscious, rational, morally responsible
|
|
conduct of life, and a voluntary surrender to what the Bardo Thodol calls
|
|
"karmic illusion." Karmic illusion springs from belief in a visionary world of
|
|
an extremely irrational nature, which neither accords with nor derives from
|
|
our rational judgments but is the exclusive product of uninhibited
|
|
imagination. It is sheer dream or "fantasy," and every well-meaning person
|
|
will instantly caution us against it; nor indeed can one see at first sight
|
|
what is the difference between fantasies of this kind and the
|
|
phantasmagoria of a lunatic. Very often only a slight abaissement du niveau
|
|
mental is needed to unleash this world of illusion. The terror and darkness
|
|
of this moment has its equivalent in the experiences described in the
|
|
opening sections of the Sidpa Bardo. But the contents of this Bardo also
|
|
reveal the archetypes, the karmic images which appear first in their
|
|
terrifying form. The Chonyid state is equivalent to a deliberately induced
|
|
psychosis. . . .
|
|
|
|
The transition, then, from the Sidpa state to the Chonyid state is a
|
|
dangerous reversal of the aims and intentions of the conscious mind. It is a
|
|
sacrifice of the ego's stability and a surrender to the extreme uncertainty of
|
|
what must seem like a chaotic riot of phantasmal forms. When Freud coined
|
|
the phrase that the ego was "the true seat of anxiety," he was giving voice
|
|
to a very true and profound intuition. Fear of self-sacrifice lurks deep in
|
|
every ego, and this fear is often only the precariously controlled demand of
|
|
the unconscious forces to burst out in full strength. No one who strives for
|
|
selfhood (individuation) is spared this dangerous passage, for that which is
|
|
feared also belongs to the wholeness of the self - the sub-human, or supra-
|
|
human, world of psychic "dominants" from which the ego originally
|
|
emancipated itself with enormous effort, and then only partially, for the
|
|
sake of a more or less illusory freedom. This liberation is certainly a very
|
|
necessary and very heroic undertaking, but it represents nothing final: it is
|
|
merely the creation of a subject, who, in order to find fulfillment, has still
|
|
to be confronted by an object. This, at first sight, would appear to be the
|
|
world, which is swelled out with projections for that very purpose. Here we
|
|
seek and find our difficulties, here we seek and find our enemy, here we
|
|
seek and find what is dear and precious to us; and it is comforting to know
|
|
that all evil and all good is to be found out there, in the visible object,
|
|
where it can be conquered, punished, destroyed or enjoyed. But nature
|
|
herself does not allow this paradisal state of innocence to continue for ever.
|
|
There are, and always have been, those who cannot help but see that the
|
|
world and its experiences are in the nature of a symbol, and that it really
|
|
reflects something that lies hidden in the subject himself, in his own
|
|
transubjective reality. It is from this profound intuition, according to
|
|
lamaist doctrine, that the Chonyid state derives its true meaning, which is
|
|
why the Chonyid Bardo is entitled "The Bardo of the Experiencing of Reality."
|
|
|
|
The reality experienced in the Chonyid state is, as the last section of the
|
|
corresponding Bardo teaches, the reality of thought. The "thought-forms"
|
|
appear as realities, fantasy takes on real form, and the terrifying dream
|
|
evoked by karma and played out by the unconscious "dominants" begins.
|
|
|
|
Jung would not have been surprised by professional and institutional
|
|
antagonism to psychedelics. He closes his Tibetan commentary with a
|
|
poignant political aside:
|
|
|
|
The Bardo Thodol began by being a "closed" book, and so it has remained, no
|
|
matter what kind of commentaries may be written upon it. For it is a book
|
|
that will only open itself to spiritual understanding and this is a capacity
|
|
which no man is born with, but which he can only acquire through special
|
|
training and special experience. It is good that such to all intents and
|
|
purposes "useless" books exist. They are meant for those "queer folk" who no
|
|
longer set much store by the uses, aims, and meaning of present-day
|
|
"civilization."
|
|
|
|
To provide "special training" for the "special experience" provided by
|
|
psychedelic materials is the purpose of this version of The Tibetan Book of
|
|
the Dead.
|
|
|
|
|
|
A TRIBUTE TO LAMA ANAGARIKA GOVINDA
|
|
|
|
In the preceding section the point was made that eastern philosophy and
|
|
psychology - poetic, indeterministic, experiential, inward-looking, vaguely
|
|
evolutionary, open-ended - is more easily adapted to the findings of modern
|
|
science than the syllogistic, certain, experimental, externalizing logic of
|
|
western psychology. The latter imitates the irrelevant rituals of the energy
|
|
sciences but ignores the data of physics and genetics, the meanings and
|
|
implications.
|
|
|
|
Even Carl Jung, the most penetrating of the western psychologists, failed to
|
|
understand the basic philosophy of the Bardo Thodol.
|
|
|
|
Quite in contrast are the comments on the Tibetan manual by Lama
|
|
Anagarika Govinda.
|
|
|
|
His opening statement at first glance would cause a Judaeo-Christian
|
|
psychologist to snort in impatience. But a close look at these phrases
|
|
reveals that they are the poetic statement of the genetic situation as
|
|
currently described by biochemists and DNA researchers.
|
|
|
|
It may be argued that nobody can talk about death with authority who has
|
|
not died; and since nobody, apparently, has ever returned from death, how
|
|
can anybody know what death is, or what happens after it?
|
|
|
|
The Tibetan will answer: "There is not one person, indeed, not one living
|
|
being, that has not returned from death. In fact, we all have died many
|
|
deaths, before we came into this incarnation. And what we call birth is
|
|
merely the reverse side of death, like one of the two sides of a coin, or like
|
|
a door which we call "entrance" from outside and "exit" from inside a room."
|
|
|
|
The lama then goes on to make a second poetic comment about the
|
|
potentialities of the nervous system, the complexity of the human cortical
|
|
computer.
|
|
|
|
It is much more astonishing that not everybody remembers his or her
|
|
previous death; and, because of this lack of remembering, most persons do
|
|
not believe there was a previous death. But, likewise, they do not remember
|
|
their recent birth - and yet they do not doubt that they were recently born.
|
|
They forget that active memory is only a small part of our normal
|
|
consciousness, and that our subconscious memory registers and preserves
|
|
every past impression and experience which our waking mind fails to recall.
|
|
|
|
The lama then proceeds to slice directly to the esoteric meaning of the
|
|
Bardo Thodol - that core meaning which Jung and indeed most European
|
|
Orientalists have failed to grasp.
|
|
|
|
For this reason, the Bardo Thodol, the Tibetan book vouchsafing liberation
|
|
from the intermediate state between life and re-birth,- which state men
|
|
call death,- has been couched in symbolical language. It is a book which is
|
|
sealed with the seven seals of silence,- not because its knowledge would be
|
|
misunderstood, and, therefore, would tend to mislead and harm those who
|
|
are unfitted to receive it. But the time has come to break the seals of
|
|
silence; for the human race has come to the juncture where it must decide
|
|
whether to be content with the subjugation of the material world, or to
|
|
strive after the conquest of the spiritual world, by subjugating selfish
|
|
desires and transcending self-imposed limitations.
|
|
|
|
The lama next describes the effects of consciousness-expansion techniques.
|
|
He is talking here about the method he knows-the Yogic-but his words are
|
|
equally applicable to psychedelic experience.
|
|
|
|
There are those who, in virtue of concentration and other yogic practices,
|
|
are able to bring the subconscious into the realm of discriminative
|
|
consciousness and, thereby, to draw upon the unrestricted treasury of
|
|
subconscious memory, wherein are stored the records not only of our past
|
|
lives but the records of the past of our race, the past of humanity, and of all
|
|
pre-human forms of life, if not of the very consciousness that makes life
|
|
possible in this universe.
|
|
|
|
If, through some trick of nature, the gates of an individual's
|
|
subconsciousness were suddenly to spring open, the unprepared mind would
|
|
be overwhelmed and crushed. Therefore, the gates of the subconscious are
|
|
guarded, by all initiates, and hidden behind the veil of mysteries and
|
|
symbols.
|
|
|
|
In a later section of his foreword the lama presents a more detailed
|
|
elaboration of the inner meaning of the Thodol.
|
|
|
|
If the Bardo Thodol were to be regarded as being based merely upon
|
|
folklore, or as consisting of religious speculation about death and a
|
|
hypothetical after-death state, it would be of interest only to
|
|
anthropologists and students of religion. But the Bardo Thodol is far more. It
|
|
is a key to the innermost recesses of the human mind, and a guide for
|
|
initiates, and for those who are seeking the spiritual path of liberation.
|
|
|
|
Although the Bardo Thodol is at present time widely used in Tibet as a
|
|
breviary, and read or recited on the occasion of death,- for which reason it
|
|
has been aptly called "The Tibetan Book of the Dead"- one should not forget
|
|
that it was originally conceived to serve as a guide not only for the dying
|
|
and the dead, but for the living as well. And herein lies the justification for
|
|
having made The Tibetan Book of the Dead accessible to a wider public.
|
|
|
|
Notwithstanding the popular customs and beliefs which, under the influence
|
|
of age-old traditions of pre-Buddhist origin, have grown around the
|
|
profound revelations of the Bardo Thodol, it has value only for those who
|
|
practise and realize its teaching during their life-time.
|
|
|
|
There are two things which have caused misunderstanding. One is that the
|
|
teachings seem to be addressed to the dead or the dying; the other that the
|
|
title contains the expression "Liberation through Hearing" (in Tibetan, Thos-
|
|
grol). As a result, there has arisen the belief that it is sufficient to read or
|
|
recite the Bardo Thodol in the presence of a dying person, or even of a
|
|
person who has just died, in order to effect his or her liberation.
|
|
|
|
Such misunderstanding could only have arisen among those who do not
|
|
know that it is one of the oldest and most universal practices for the
|
|
initiate to go through the experience of death before he can be spiritually
|
|
reborn. Symbolically he must die to his past, and to his old ego, before he
|
|
can take his place in the new spiritual life into which he has been initiated.
|
|
|
|
The dead or the dying person is addressed in the Bardo Thodol mainly for
|
|
three reasons: (1) the earnest practitioner of these teachings should regard
|
|
every moment of his or her life as if it were the last; (2) when a follower of
|
|
these teachings is actually dying, he or she should be reminded of the
|
|
experiences at the time of initiation, or of the words (or mantra) of the
|
|
guru, especially if the dying one's mind lacks alertness during the critical
|
|
moments; and (3) one who is still incarnate should try to surround the
|
|
person dying, or just dead, with loving and helpful thoughts during the first
|
|
stages of the new, or afterdeath, state of existence, without allowing
|
|
emotional attachment to interfere or to give rise to a state of morbid
|
|
mental depression. Accordingly, one function of the Bardo Thodol appears to
|
|
be more to help those who have been left behind to adopt the right attitude
|
|
towards the dead and towards the fact of death than to assist the dead, who,
|
|
according to Buddhist belief, will not deviate from their own karmic path. . .
|
|
.
|
|
|
|
This proves that we have to do here with life itself and not merely with a
|
|
mass for the dead, to which the Bardo Thodol was reduced in later times. . . .
|
|
|
|
Under the guise of a science of death, the Bardo Thodol reveals the secret of
|
|
life; and therein lies its spiritual value and its universal appeal.
|
|
|
|
Here then is the key to a mystery which has been passed down for over
|
|
2,500 years - the consciousness-expansion experience - the pre-mortem
|
|
death and rebirth rite. The Vedic sages knew the secret; the Eleusinian
|
|
initiates knew it; the Tantrics knew it. In all their esoteric writings they
|
|
whisper the message: it is possible to cut beyond ego-consciousness, to tune
|
|
in on neurological processes which flash by at the speed of light, and to
|
|
become aware of the enormous treasury of ancient racial knowledge welded
|
|
into the nucleus of every cell in your body.
|
|
|
|
Modern psychedelic chemicals provide a key to this forgotten realm of
|
|
awareness. But just as this manual without the psychedelic awareness is
|
|
nothing but an exercise in academic Tibetology, so, too, the potent chemical
|
|
key is of little value without the guidance and the teachings.
|
|
|
|
Westerners do not accept the existence of conscious processes for which
|
|
they have no operational term. The attitude which is prevalent is: - if you
|
|
can't label it, and if it is beyond current notions of space-time and
|
|
personality, then it is not open for investigation. Thus we see the ego-loss
|
|
experience confused with schizophrenia. Thus we see present-day
|
|
psychiatrists solemnly pronouncing the psychedelic keys as psychosis-
|
|
producing and dangerous.
|
|
|
|
The new visionary chemicals and the pre-mortem-death-rebirth experience
|
|
may be pushed once again into the shadows of history. Looking back, we
|
|
remember that every middle-eastern and European administrator (with the
|
|
exception of certain periods in Greece and Persia) has, during the last three
|
|
thousand years, rushed to pass laws against any emerging transcendental
|
|
process, the pre-mortem-death-rebirth session, its adepts, and any new
|
|
method of consciousness-expansion.
|
|
|
|
The present moment in human history (as Lama Govinda points out) is
|
|
critical. Now, for the first time, we possess the means of providing the
|
|
enlightenment to any prepared volunteer. (The enlightenment always comes,
|
|
we remember, in the form of a new energy process, a physical, neurological
|
|
event.) For these reasons we have prepared this psychedelic version of The
|
|
Tibetan Book of the Dead. The secret is released once again, in a new dialect,
|
|
and we sit back quietly to observe whether man is ready to move ahead and
|
|
to make use of the new tools provided by modern science.
|
|
|
|
|
|
II.
|
|
THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD
|
|
|
|
FIRST BARDO:
|
|
|
|
THE PERIOD OF EGO-LOSS OR
|
|
NON-GAME ECSTASY
|
|
(Chikhai Bardo)
|
|
|
|
Part I: The Primary Clear Light Seen At the Moment of Ego-Loss.
|
|
|
|
All individuals who have received the practical teachings of this manual
|
|
will, if the text be remembered, be set face to face with the ecstatic
|
|
radiance and will win illumination instantaneously, without entering upon
|
|
hallucinatory struggles and without further suffering on the age-long
|
|
pathway of normal evolution which traverses the various worlds of game
|
|
existence.
|
|
|
|
This doctrine underlies the whole of the Tibetan model. Faith is the first
|
|
step on the "Secret Pathway." Then comes illumination and with it certainty;
|
|
and when the goal is won, emancipation. Success implies very unusual
|
|
preparation in consciousness expansion, as well as much calm,
|
|
compassionate game playing (good karma) on the part of the participant. If
|
|
the participant can be made to see and to grasp the idea of the empty mind
|
|
as soon as the guide reveals it - that is to say, if he has the power to die
|
|
consciously - and, at the supreme moment of quitting the ego, can recognize
|
|
the ecstasy which will dawn upon him then, and become one with it, all
|
|
game bonds of illusion are broken asunder immediately: the dreamer is
|
|
awakened into reality simultaneously with the mighty achievement of
|
|
recognition.
|
|
|
|
It is best if the guru (spiritual teacher), from whom the participant received
|
|
guiding instructions, is present, but if the guru cannot be present, then
|
|
another experienced person; or it the latter is also unavailable, then a
|
|
person whom the participant trusts should be available to read this manual
|
|
without imposing any of his own games. Thereby the participant will be put
|
|
in mind of what he had previously heard of the experience and will at once
|
|
come to recognize the fundamental Light and undoubtedly obtain liberation.
|
|
|
|
Liberation is the nervous system devoid of mental-conceptual activity.
|
|
[Realization of the Voidness, the Unbecome, the Unborn, the Unmade, the
|
|
Unformed, implies Buddhahood, Perfect Enlightenment - the state of the
|
|
divine mind of the Buddha. It may be helpful to remember that this ancient
|
|
doctrine is not in conflict with modern physics. The theoretical physicist
|
|
and cosmologist, George Gamow, presented in 1950 a viewpoint which is
|
|
close to the phenomenological experience described by the Tibetan lamas.
|
|
|
|
If we imagine history running back in time, we inevitably come to the epoch
|
|
of the "big squeeze" with all the galaxies, stars, atoms and atomic nuclei
|
|
squeezed, so to speak, to a pulp. During that early stage of evolution, matter
|
|
must have been dissociated into its elementary components. . . . We call this
|
|
primordial mixture ylem.
|
|
|
|
At this first point in the evolution of the present cycle, according to this
|
|
first-rank physicist, there existed only the Unbecome, the Unborn, the
|
|
Unformed. And this, according to astrophysicists, is the way it will end; the
|
|
silent unity of the Unformed. The Tibetan Buddhists suggest that the
|
|
uncluttered intellect can experience what astrophysics confirms. The
|
|
Buddha Vairochana, the Dhyani Buddha of the Center, Manifester of
|
|
Phenomena, is the highest path to enlightenment. As the source of all
|
|
organic life, in him all things visible and invisible have their consummation
|
|
and absorption. He is associated with the Central Realm of the Densely-
|
|
Packed, i.e., the seed of all universal forces and things are densely packed
|
|
together. This remarkable convergence of modern astrophysics and ancient
|
|
lamaism demands no complicated explanation. The cosmological awareness-
|
|
and awareness of every other natural process- is there in the cortex. You can
|
|
confirm this preconceptual mystical knowledge by empirical observation and
|
|
measurement, but it's all there inside your skull. Your neurons "know"
|
|
because they are linked directly to the process, are part of it.] The mind in
|
|
its conditioned state, that is to say, when limited to words and ego games,
|
|
is continuously in thought-formation activity. The nervous system in a state
|
|
of quiescence, alert, awake but not active is comparable to what Buddhists
|
|
call the highest state of dhyana (deep meditation) when still united to a
|
|
human body. The conscious recognition of the Clear Light induces an ecstatic
|
|
condition of consciousness such as saints and mystics of the West have
|
|
called illumination.
|
|
|
|
The first sign is the glimpsing of the "Clear Light of Reality," "the infallible
|
|
mind of the pure mystic state." This is the awareness of energy
|
|
transformations with no imposition of mental categories.
|
|
|
|
The duration of this state varies with the individual. It depends upon
|
|
experience, security, trust, preparation and the surroundings. In those who
|
|
have had even a little practical experience of the tranquil state of non-game
|
|
awareness, and in those who have happy games, this state can last from
|
|
thirty minutes to several hours.
|
|
|
|
In this state, realization of what mystics call the "Ultimate Truth" is
|
|
possible, provided that sufficient preparation has been made by the person
|
|
beforehand. Otherwise he cannot benefit now, and must wander on into
|
|
lower and lower conditions of hallucinations, as determined by his past
|
|
games, until he drops back to routine reality.
|
|
|
|
It is important to remember that the conscious-expansion process is the
|
|
reverse of the birth process, birth being the beginning of game life and the
|
|
ego-loss experience being a temporary ending of game life. But in both there
|
|
is a passing from one state of consciousness into another. And just as an
|
|
infant must wake up and learn from experience the nature of this world, so
|
|
likewise a person at the moment of consciousness expansion must wake up
|
|
in this new brilliant world and become familiar with its own peculiar
|
|
conditions.
|
|
|
|
In those who are heavily dependent on their ego games, and who dread
|
|
giving up their control, the illuminated state endures only so long as it
|
|
would take to snap a finger. In some, it lasts as long as the time taken for
|
|
eating a meal.
|
|
|
|
If the subject is prepared to diagnose the symptoms of ego loss, he needs no
|
|
outside help at this point. Not only should the person about to give up his
|
|
ego be able to diagnose the symptoms as they come, one by one, but he
|
|
should also be able to recognize the Clear Light without being set face to
|
|
face with it by another person. If the person fails to recognize and accept
|
|
the onset of ego loss, he may complain of strange bodily symptoms. This
|
|
shows that he has not reached a liberated state. Then the guide or friend
|
|
should explain the symptoms as indicating the onset of ego loss.
|
|
|
|
Here is a list of commonly reported physical sensations:
|
|
|
|
1. Bodily pressure, which the Tibetans call earth-sinking-into-water;
|
|
2. Clammy coldness, followed by feverish heat, which the Tibetans call
|
|
water-sinking-into-fire;
|
|
3. Body disintegrating or blown to atoms, called fire-sinking-into-air;
|
|
4. Pressure on head and ears, which Americans call rocket-launching-into-
|
|
space;
|
|
5. Tingling in extremities;
|
|
6. Feelings of body melting or flowing as if wax;
|
|
7. Nausea;
|
|
8. Trembling or shaking, beginning in pelvic regions and spreading up torso.
|
|
|
|
These physical reactions should be recognized as signs heralding
|
|
transcendence. Avoid treating them as symptoms of illness, accept them,
|
|
merge with them, enjoy them.
|
|
|
|
Mild nausea occurs often with the ingestion of morning-glory seeds or
|
|
peyote, rarely with mescaline and infrequently with LSD or psilocybin. If the
|
|
subject experiences stomach messages, they should be hailed as a sign that
|
|
consciousness is moving around in the body. The symptoms are mental; the
|
|
mind controls the sensation, and the subject should merge with the
|
|
sensation, experience it fully, enjoy it and, having enjoyed it, let
|
|
consciousness flow on to the next phase. It is usually more natural to let
|
|
consciousness stay in the body - the subject's attention can move from the
|
|
stomach and concentrate on breathing, heart beat. If this does not free him
|
|
from nausea, the guide should move the consciousness to external events -
|
|
music, walking in the garden, etc.
|
|
|
|
The appearance of physical symptoms of ego-loss, recognized and
|
|
understood, should result in peaceful attainment of illumination. If ecstatic
|
|
acceptance does not occur (or when the period of peaceful silence seems to
|
|
be ending), the relevant sections of the instructions can be spoken in a low
|
|
tone of voice in the ear. It is often useful to repeat them distinctly, clearly
|
|
impressing them upon the person so as to prevent his mind from wandering.
|
|
Another method of guiding the experience with a minimum of activity is to
|
|
have the instructions previously recorded in the subject's own voice and to
|
|
flip the tape on at the appropriate moment. The reading will recall to the
|
|
mind of the voyager the former preparation; it will cause the naked
|
|
consciousness to be recognized as the "Clear Light of the Beginning;" it will
|
|
remind the subject of his unity with this state of perfect enlightenment and
|
|
help him to maintain it.
|
|
|
|
If, when undergoing ego-loss, one is familiar with this state, by virtue of
|
|
previous experience and preparation, the Wheel of Rebirth (i.e., all game
|
|
playing) is stopped, and liberation instantaneously is achieved. But such
|
|
spiritual efficiency is so very rare, that the normal mental condition of the
|
|
person is unequal to the supreme feat of holding on to the state in which the
|
|
Clear Light shines; and there follows a progressive descent into lower and
|
|
lower states of the Bardo existence, and then rebirth. The simile of a needle
|
|
balanced and set rolling on a thread is used by the lamas to elucidate this
|
|
condition. So long as the needle retains its balance, it remains on the thread.
|
|
Eventually, however, the law of gravitation (the pull of the ego or external
|
|
stimulation) affects it, and it falls. In the realm of the Clear Light,
|
|
similarly, the mentality of a person in the ego-transcendent state
|
|
momentarily enjoys a condition of balance, of perfect equilibrium, and of
|
|
oneness. Unfamiliar with such a state, which is an ecstate state of non-ego,
|
|
the consciousness of the average human being lacks the power to function in
|
|
it. Karmic (i.e., game) propensities becloud the consciousness-principle with
|
|
thoughts of personality, of individualized being, of dualism. Thus, losing
|
|
equilibrium, consciousness falls away from the Clear Light. It is thought
|
|
processes which prevent the realization of Nirvana (which is the "blowing
|
|
out of the flame" of selfish game desire); and so the Wheel of Life continues
|
|
to turn.
|
|
|
|
All or some of the appropriate passages in the instructions may be read to
|
|
the voyager during the period of waiting for the drug to take effect, and
|
|
when the first symptoms of ego-loss appear. When the voyager is clearly in
|
|
a profound ego-transcendent ecstasy, the wise guide will remain silent.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Part II: The Secondary Clear Light Seen Immediately After Ego-Loss.
|
|
|
|
The preceding section describes how the Clear Light may be recognized and
|
|
liberation maintained. But if it becomes apparent that the Primary Clear
|
|
Light has not been recognized, then it can certainly be assumed there is
|
|
dawning what is called the phase of the Secondary Clear Light. The first
|
|
flash of experience usually produces a state of ecstasy of the greatest
|
|
intensity. Every cell in the body is sensed as involved in orgastic creativity.
|
|
|
|
It may be helpful to describe in more detail some of the phenomena which
|
|
often accompany the moment of ego-loss. One of these might be called "wave
|
|
energy flow." The individual becomes aware that he is part of and
|
|
surrounded by a charged field of energy, which seems almost electrical. In
|
|
order to maintain the ego-loss state as long as possible, the prepared person
|
|
will relax and allow the forces to flow through him. There are two dangers
|
|
to avoid: the attempt to control or to rationalize this energy flow. Either of
|
|
these reactions is indicative of ego-activity and the First Bardo
|
|
transcendence is lost.
|
|
|
|
The second phenomenon might be called "biological life-flow." Here the
|
|
person becomes aware of physiological and biochemical processes; rhythmic
|
|
pulsing activity within the body. Often this may be sensed as powerful
|
|
motors or generators continously throbbing and radiating energy. An endless
|
|
flow of cellular forms and colors flashes by. Internal biological processes
|
|
may also be heard with characteristic swooshing, crackling, and pounding
|
|
noises. Again the person must resist the temptation to label or control these
|
|
processes. At this point you are tuned in to areas of the nervous system
|
|
which are inaccessible to routine perception. You cannot drag your ego into
|
|
the molecular processes of life. These processes are a billion years older
|
|
than the learned conceptual mind.
|
|
|
|
Another typical and most rewarding phase of the First Bardo involves
|
|
ecstatic energy movement felt in the spine. The base of the backbone seems
|
|
to be melting or seems on fire. If the person can maintain quiet
|
|
concentration the energy will be sensed as flowing upwards. Tantric adepts
|
|
devote decades of concentrated meditation to the release of these ecstatic
|
|
energies which they call Kundalini, the Serpent Power. One allows the
|
|
energies to travel upwards through several ganglionic centers (chakras) to
|
|
the brain, where they are sensed as a burning sensation in the top of the
|
|
cranium. These sensations are not unpleasant to the prepared person, but, on
|
|
the contrary, are accompanied by the most intense feelings of joy and
|
|
illumination. Ill-prepared subjects may interpret the experience in
|
|
pathological terms and attempt to control it, usually with unpleasant
|
|
results. [Professor R. C. Zaehner, who as an Oriental scholar and "expert" on
|
|
mysticism should have know better, has published an account of how this
|
|
prized experience can be lost and distorted into hypochondriacal complaint
|
|
in the ill-educated.
|
|
|
|
. . . I had a curious sensation in my body which reminded me of what Mr.
|
|
Custance describes as a "tingling at the base of the spine," which according
|
|
to him, usually precedes a bout of mania. It was rather like that. In the
|
|
Broad Walk this sensation occurred again and again until the climax of the
|
|
experiment was reached . . . I did not like it at all.
|
|
|
|
(R. C. Zaehner: Mysticism, Sacred and Profane. Oxford Univ. Press, 1957, p.
|
|
214)
|
|
|
|
If the subjects fails to recognize the rushing flow of First Bardo phnomena,
|
|
liberation from the ego is lost. The person finds himself slipping back into
|
|
mental activities. At this point he should try to recall the instructions or be
|
|
reminded of them, and a second contact with these processes can be made.
|
|
|
|
The second stage is less intense. A ball set bouncing reaches its greatest
|
|
height at the first bounce; the second bounce is lower, and each succeeding
|
|
bounce is still lower until the ball comes to rest. The consciousness at the
|
|
loss of the ego is similar to this. Its first spiritual bound, directly upon
|
|
leaving the body-ego, is the highest; the next is lower. Then the force of
|
|
karma, (i.e., past game-playing), takes over and different forms of external
|
|
reality are experienced. Finally, the force of karma having spent itself,
|
|
consciousness returns to "normal." Routines are taken up again and thus
|
|
rebirth occurs.
|
|
|
|
The first ecstasy usually ends with a momentary flashback to the ego
|
|
condition. This return can be happy or sad, loving or suspicious, fearful or
|
|
courageous, depending on the personality, the preparation, and the setting.
|
|
|
|
This flashback to the ego-game is accompanied by a concern with identity.
|
|
"Who am I now? Am I dead or not dead? What is happening?" You cannot
|
|
determine. You see the surroundings and your companions as you had been
|
|
used to seeing them before. There is a penetrating sensitivity. But you are on
|
|
a different level. Your ego grasp is not quite as sure as it was.
|
|
|
|
The karmic hallucinations and visions have not yet started. Neither the
|
|
frightening apparitions nor the heavenly visions have begun. This is a most
|
|
sensitive and pregnant period. The remainder of the experience can be
|
|
pushed one way or another depending upon preparation and emotional
|
|
climate.
|
|
|
|
If you are experienced in consciousness alteration, or if you are a naturally
|
|
introverted person, remember the situation and the schedule. Stay calm and
|
|
let the experience take you where it will. You will probably re-experience
|
|
the ecstasy of illumination once again; or you may drift into aesthetic or
|
|
philosophic or interpersonal enlightenments. Don't hold on: let the stream
|
|
carry you along.
|
|
|
|
The experienced person is usually beyond dependence on setting. He can
|
|
turn off external pressure and return to illumination. An extroverted person,
|
|
dependent upon social games and outside situations may, however, become
|
|
pleasantly distracted (colors, sounds, people). If you anticipate extroverted
|
|
distraction and if you want to maintain a non-game state of ecstasy, then
|
|
remember the following suggestions: do not be distracted; try to
|
|
concentrate on an ideal contemplative personage, e.g., Buddha, Christ,
|
|
Socrates, Ramakrishna, Einstein, Herman Hesse or Lao Tse: follow his model
|
|
as if he were a being with a physical body waiting for you. Join him.
|
|
|
|
If this is not successful, don't fret or think about it. Perhaps you don't have
|
|
a mystical or transcendental ideal. That means your conceptual limits are
|
|
within external games. Now that you know what the mystic experience is,
|
|
you can prepare for it next time. You have lost the content-free flow and
|
|
should now be ready to slip into exciting confrontation with external
|
|
reality. In the Second Bardo you can reash and deeply experience game
|
|
revelations.
|
|
|
|
We have just anticipated the reactions of the naturally mystical introvert,
|
|
the experienced person, and the extrovert. Now let's turn to the novitiate
|
|
who shows confusion at this early stage of the sequence. The best procedure
|
|
is to make a reassuring sign and do nothing. He will have read this manual
|
|
and will have some guidepost. Leave him alone and he will probably dive
|
|
into his panic and master it. If he indicates that he wishes guidance, repeat
|
|
the instructions. Tell him what is happening. Remind him of his phase in the
|
|
process. Urge him quietly to release his ego struggle and drift back into
|
|
contact with the Clear Light.
|
|
|
|
Preparation and guidance of this sort will allow many to reach the
|
|
illuminated state who would not be expected to recognize it.
|
|
|
|
At this point, it is necessary to inject a word of benign warning. Reading
|
|
this manual is extremely useful, but no words can communicate experience.
|
|
You are going to be surprised, startled and delighted. A person may have
|
|
heard a detailed description of the art of swimming and yet never had the
|
|
chance to swim. Suddenly diving into the water, he finds himself unable to
|
|
swim. So with those who have tried to learn the theory of how to experience
|
|
ego-loss, and have never applied it. They cannot maintain unbroken
|
|
continuity of consciousness, they grow bewildered at the changed condition;
|
|
they fail to maintain the mystical ecstasy; they fail to take advantage of
|
|
the opportunity unless upheld and directed by a guide. Even with all that a
|
|
guide can do, they ordinarily, because of bad karma (heavy ego games) fail to
|
|
recognize the liberation. But this is no cause for worry. At the worst, they
|
|
just slip back to shore. No one has drowned, and most of those who have
|
|
taken the voyage have been eager to try again.
|
|
|
|
Even those who have familiarized themselves with the road maps and who
|
|
previously have had illumination, may find themselves in settings where
|
|
heavy game behavior on the part of others forces them into contact with
|
|
external reality. If this happens, recall the instructions. The person who
|
|
masters this principle can block out the external. The one who has mastered
|
|
control of consciousness is independent of setting.
|
|
|
|
Again there are those, who although previously successful, may have
|
|
brought ego games into the session with them. They may want to provide
|
|
someone else with a particular type of experience. They may be promoting
|
|
some self goal. They may be nurturing negative or competitive or seductive
|
|
feelings towards someone in the session. If this happens, recall the
|
|
instructions. Remember the unity of all beings. One to me is shame and fame.
|
|
One to me is loss or gain. Jettison your ego program and float back to the
|
|
radiant bliss of at-one-ness.
|
|
|
|
If you reach the Clear Light immediately and maintain it, that is best. But if
|
|
not, if you have slipped down to reality concerns, by remembering these
|
|
instructions you should be able to regain what the Tibetans call the
|
|
Secondary Clear Light.
|
|
|
|
While on this secondary level, an interesting dialogue occurs between pure
|
|
transcendence and the awareness that this ecstatic vision is happening to
|
|
oneself. The first radiance knows no self, no concepts. The secondary
|
|
experience involves a certain state of conceptual lucidity. The knowing self
|
|
hovers within that transcendent terrain from which it is usually barred. If
|
|
the instructions are remembered, external reality will not intrude. But the
|
|
flashing in and out between pure ego-less unity, and lucid, non-game
|
|
selfhood, produces an intellectual ecstasy and understanding that defies
|
|
description. Previous philosophic reading will suddenly take on living
|
|
meaning.
|
|
|
|
Thus in this secondary stage of the First Bardo, there is possible both the
|
|
mystic non-self and the mystic self experience.
|
|
|
|
After you have experienced these two states, you may wish to pursue this
|
|
distinction intellectually. We are confronted here with one of the oldest
|
|
debates in Eastern philosophy. Is it better to be part of the sugar or to taste
|
|
the sugar? Theological controversies and their dualities are far removed
|
|
from experience. Thanks to the experimental mysticism made possible by
|
|
consciousness-expanding drugs, you may have been lucky enough to have
|
|
experienced the flashing back and forth between the two states. You may be
|
|
lucky enough to know what the academic monks could only think about.
|
|
|
|
Here ends the First Bardo,
|
|
The Period of Ego-loss or Non-Game Ecstasy
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECOND BARDO:
|
|
|
|
THE PERIOD OF HALLUCINATIONS
|
|
(Chonyid Bardo)
|
|
|
|
Introduction
|
|
|
|
If the Primary Clear Light is not recognized, there remains the possibility of
|
|
maintaining the Secondary Clear Light. If that is lost, then comes the
|
|
Chonyid Bardo, the period of karmic illusions or intense hallucinatory
|
|
mixtures of game reality. It is very important that the instructions be
|
|
remembered - they can have great influence and effect.
|
|
|
|
During this period, the flow of consciousness, microscopically clear and
|
|
intense, is interrupted by fleeting attempts to rationalize and interpret. But
|
|
the normal game-playing ego is not functioning effectively. There exist,
|
|
therefore, unlimited possibilities for, on the one hand, delightful sensuous,
|
|
intellectual and emotional novelties if one floats with the current; and, on
|
|
the other hand, fearful ambuscades of confusion and terror if one tries to
|
|
impose his will on the experience.
|
|
|
|
The purpose of this part of the manual is to prepare the person for the
|
|
choice points which arise during this stage. Strange sounds, weird sights
|
|
and disturbed visions may occur. These can awe, frighten and terrify unless
|
|
one is prepared.
|
|
|
|
The experienced person will be able to maintain the recognition that all
|
|
perceptions come from within and will be able to sit quietly, controlling his
|
|
expanded awareness like a phantasmagoric multi-dimensional television set:
|
|
the most acute and sensitive hallucinations - visual, auditory, touch, smell,
|
|
physical and bodily; the most exquisite reactions, compassionate insight
|
|
into the self, the world. The key is inaction: passive integration with all
|
|
that occurs around you. If you try to impose your will, use your mind,
|
|
rationalize, seek explanations, you will get caught in hallucinatory
|
|
whirlpools. The motto: peace, acceptance. It is all an ever-changing
|
|
panorama. You are temporarily removed from the world of game. Enjoy it.
|
|
|
|
The inexperienced and those to who ego control is important may find this
|
|
passivity impossible. If you cannot remain inactive and subdue your will,
|
|
then the one certain activity which can reduce panic and pull you out of
|
|
hallucinatory mind-games is physical contact with another person. Go to the
|
|
guide or to another participant and put your head on his lap or chest; put
|
|
your face next to his and concentrate on the movement and sound of his
|
|
inspiration. Breathe deeply and feel the air rush in and the sighing release.
|
|
This is the oldest form of living communication; the brotherhood of breath.
|
|
The guide's hand on your forehead may add to the relaxation.
|
|
|
|
Contact with another participant may be misunderstood and provoke sexual
|
|
hallucinations. For this reason, helping contact should be made explicit by
|
|
prearrangement. Unprepared participants may impose sexual fears or
|
|
fantasies on the contact. Turn them off; they are karmic illusory
|
|
productions.
|
|
|
|
The tender, gentle, supportive huddling together of participants is a natural
|
|
development during the second phase. Do not try to rationalize this contact.
|
|
Human beings and, for that matter, most all mobile terrestrial creatures
|
|
have been huddling together during long, dark confused nights for several
|
|
hundred thousand years.
|
|
|
|
Breathe in and breathe out with you companions. We are all one! That's what
|
|
your breath is telling you.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Explanation of the Second Bardo
|
|
|
|
The underlying problem of the Second Bardo is that any and every shape -
|
|
human, divine, diabolical, heroic, evil, animal, thing - which the human brain
|
|
conjures up or the past life recalls, can present itself to consciousness:
|
|
shapes and forms and sounds whirling by endlessly.
|
|
|
|
The underlying solution - repeated again and again - is to recognize that
|
|
your brain is producing the visions. They do not exist. Nothing exists except
|
|
as your consciousness gives it life.
|
|
|
|
You are standing on the threshold of recognizing the truth: there is no reality
|
|
behind any of the phenomena of the ego-loss state, save the illusions stored
|
|
up in your own mind either as accretions from game (Sangsaric) experience
|
|
or as gifts from organic physical nature and its billion-year old past
|
|
history. Recognition of this truth gives liberation.
|
|
|
|
There is, of course, no way of classifying the infinite permutations and
|
|
combinations of visionary elements. The cortex contains file-cards for
|
|
billions of images from the history of the person, of the race, and of living
|
|
forms. Any of these, at the rate of a hundred million per second (according
|
|
to neuro-physiologists), can flood into awareness. Bobbing around in this
|
|
brilliant, symphonic sea of imagery is the remnant of the conceptual mind.
|
|
On the endless watery turbulence of the Pacific Ocean bobs a tiny open
|
|
mouth shouting (between saline mouthfuls), "Order! System! Explain all this!"
|
|
|
|
One cannot predict what visions will occur, nor their sequence. One can only
|
|
urge the participants to shut the mouth, breathe through the nose, and turn
|
|
off the fidgety, rationalizing mind. But only the experienced person of
|
|
mystical bent can do this (and thus remain in serene enlightenment). The
|
|
unprepared person will be confused or, worse, panicky: the intellectual
|
|
struggle to control the ocean.
|
|
|
|
In order to guide the person, to help him organize his visions into explicable
|
|
units, the Chonyid Bardo was written. There are two sections:
|
|
(1) Seven Peaceful Deities with their symmetrically opposed ego traps.
|
|
(2) Eight Wrathful Deities who can be joyfully accepted as visionary
|
|
productions, or fled from in terror.
|
|
|
|
Each of the Seven Peaceful Deities (bisexual Father-Mother figures) are
|
|
accompanied by consorts, attendants, lesser deities, saints, angels, heroes.
|
|
Each of the Wrathful Deities is similarly accompanied. Lights, symbolic
|
|
objects, beautiful, horrid, threatening, seething, are likewise seen.
|
|
|
|
If read literally, The Tibetan Book of the Dead would have you expect the
|
|
"Master of All Visible Shapes" (or his opposite, the fondness for stupidity)
|
|
on the first day; the "Immovable Deity of Happiness" and his consort,
|
|
attendants and opposite on the second, etc. The manual should, of course, not
|
|
be used rigidly, exoterically, but should be taken in its esoteric, allegorical
|
|
form.
|
|
|
|
Read from this perspective, we see that the lamas have listed or named a
|
|
thousand images which can boil up in the ever-changing jeweled mosaic of
|
|
the retina (that multi-layered swamp of billions of rods and cones,
|
|
infiltrated, like a Persian rug or a Mayan carving, with countless multi-
|
|
colored capillaries). By preparatory reading of the manual and by its
|
|
repetition during the experience, the novice is led via suggestion to
|
|
recognize this fantastic retinal kaleidoscope.
|
|
|
|
Most important, he is told that they come from within. All deities and
|
|
demons, all heavens and hells are internal.
|
|
|
|
The student with a particular interest in Tibetan or Tantric Buddhism should
|
|
steep himself in the text of the Chonyid Bardo. He should obtain colored
|
|
plates of the fourteen dramas of the Bardo, and he should arrange to have
|
|
the guide lead him through the prescribed sequence during the drug session.
|
|
This will provide an unforgettable series of liberations and will permit the
|
|
devotee to emerge from the experience "reincarnated" in the lamaist
|
|
tradition.
|
|
|
|
The aim of this manual is to make available the general outline of the
|
|
Tibetan Book and to translate it into psychedelic English. For this reason we
|
|
shall not present the detailed sequence of lamaist hallucinations but,
|
|
rather, list some apparitions commonly reported by Westerners.
|
|
|
|
Following the Tibetan Thodo, we have classified Second Bardo visions into
|
|
seven types:
|
|
|
|
1. The Source or Creator Vision
|
|
2. The Internal Flow of Archetypal Processes
|
|
3. The Fire-Flow of Internal Unity
|
|
4. The Wave-Vibration Structure of External Forms
|
|
5. The Vibratory Waves of External Unity
|
|
6. "The Retinal Circus"
|
|
7. "The Magic Theatre" [We owe the phrase "retinal circus" to Henri Michaux
|
|
(Miserable Miracle), and the term "magic theatre" to Hermann Hesse
|
|
(Steppenwolf).
|
|
|
|
Visions 2 and 3 involve closed eyes and no contact with external stimuli. In
|
|
Vision 2 the internal imagery is primarily conceptual. The experience can
|
|
range from revelation and insight to confusion and chaos, but the cognitive,
|
|
intellectual meaning is paramount. In Vision 3 the internal imagery is
|
|
primarily emotional. The experience can range from love and ecstatic unity
|
|
to fear, distrust and isolation.
|
|
|
|
Visions 4 and 5 involve open eyes and rapt attention to external stimuli,
|
|
such as sounds, lights, touch, etc. In Vision 4 the external imagery is
|
|
primarily conceptual and in Vision 5 emotional factors predominate.
|
|
|
|
The sevenfold table just defined bears some similarity to the mandalic
|
|
schema of the Peaceful Deities listed for the Second Bardo in The Tibetan
|
|
Book of the Dead.
|
|
|
|
|
|
THE PEACEFUL VISIONS
|
|
|
|
Vision 1: The Source [The first Peaceful Deity
|
|
listed by the Bardo Thodol is the Bhagavan Vairochana who occupies the
|
|
center of the mandala of the five Dhyani-Buddhas. His attributes of source-
|
|
power have been translated into those of the monotheistic creator of
|
|
Western religions.]
|
|
(Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored)
|
|
|
|
The White Light, or First Bardo energy, may be interpreted as God the
|
|
Creator. The Spreader of the Seed. The Power which makes all shapes
|
|
visible. Seed of all that is. Sovereign Power. The All-Powerful. The Central
|
|
Sun. The One Truth. The Source of all Organic Life. The Divine Mother. The
|
|
Female Creative Principle. Mother of the Space of Heaven. Radiant Father-
|
|
Mother. Magnificent revelations, both spiritual and philosophic, can occur at
|
|
this point making the highest union of experience and intellect. But, because
|
|
of bad karma (usually religious beliefs of a monotheistic or punitive nature),
|
|
the glorious light of the seed wisdom it can produce awe and terror. The
|
|
person will wish to flee and will beget a fondness for the dull white light
|
|
symbolizing stupidity.
|
|
|
|
Persons from a Judaeo-Christian background conceive of an enormous gulf
|
|
between divinity (which is "up there") and the self ("down here"). Christian
|
|
mystics' claims to unity with divine radiance has always posed problems for
|
|
theologians who are committed to the cosmological subject-object
|
|
distinction. Most Westerners, therefore, find it difficult to attain unity with
|
|
the source-light.
|
|
|
|
If the guide ascertains that the voyager is struggling with thoughts or
|
|
feelings about the creative source energy, he can read the appropriate
|
|
instructions. ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 1: THE SOURCE
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vision 2: The Internal Flow of Archetypal Processes
|
|
(Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored; intellectual aspects)
|
|
|
|
If the undifferentiated light of the First Bardo or of the Source Energy is
|
|
lost, luminous waves of differentiated forms can flood through the
|
|
consciousness. The person's mind begins to identify these figures, that is, to
|
|
label them and experience revelations about the life process. [Lama Govinda
|
|
tells us that Amoghasiddhi represents ". . . the mysterious activity of
|
|
spiritual forces, which work removed from the senses, invisible and
|
|
imperceptible, with the aim of guiding the individual (or, more properly: all
|
|
living beings) towards the maturity of knowledge and liberation. The yellow
|
|
light of an (inner) sun invisible to human eyes . . . (in which the
|
|
unfathomable space of the universe seems to open itself) for the serene
|
|
mystic green of Amoghasiddhi. . . . On the elementary plane this all-
|
|
pervading power corresponds to the element of air - the principle of
|
|
movement and extension, of life and breath (prana)." Lama Govinda:
|
|
Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism. Lodon: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1959, p.120.
|
|
|
|
The fifth day of the Baro Thodol confronts the deceased with the Bhagavan
|
|
Buddha Amoghasiddhi, Almighty Conqueror, from the green Norther realm
|
|
of Successful Performance of Best Actions, attended by a Divine Mother, and
|
|
two Bodhisattvas representing the mental functions of "equilibrium,
|
|
immutability, and almighty power" and "clearer of obscurations."]
|
|
|
|
Specifically, the subject is caught up in an endless flow of colored forms,
|
|
microbiological shapes, cellular acrobatics, capillary whirling. The cortex is
|
|
turned in on molecular processes which are completely new and strange: a
|
|
Niagara of abstract designs; the life-stream flowing, flowing.
|
|
|
|
These visions might perhaps be described as pure sensations of cellular and
|
|
sub-cellular processes. It is uncertain whether they involve the retina
|
|
and/or the visual cortex, or whether they are flashes of direct, molecular
|
|
sensation in other areas of the central nervous system. They are
|
|
subjectively described as internal visions.
|
|
|
|
Another class of internal process images involves sound. Again we do not
|
|
know whether these sensations originate in the auditory apparatus and/or in
|
|
the auditory cortex, or whether they are flashes of direct, molecular
|
|
sensations in other areas. They are subjectively described as internal
|
|
sounds: clicking, thudding, clashing, soughing, ringing, tapping, moaning,
|
|
shrill whistles. [ The Tibetan Book includes a brilliant discussion of internal
|
|
process noises. ". . . innumerable (other) kinds of musical instruments,
|
|
filling (with music) the whole world-systems and causing them to vibrate,
|
|
to quake and tremble with sounds so mighty as to daze one's brain. . . ."
|
|
|
|
"Tibetan lamas, in chanting their rituals, employ seven (or eight) sorts of
|
|
musical instruments: big drums, cymbals (commonly brass), conch shells,
|
|
bells (like the handbells used in the Christian Mass Service), timbrels, small
|
|
clarionets (sounding like Highland bagpipes), big trumpets, and human
|
|
thighbone trumpets. Although the combined sounds of these instruments are
|
|
far from being melodious, the lamas maintain that they psychically produce
|
|
in the devotee an attitude of deep veneration and faith, because they are the
|
|
counterparts of the natural sounds which one's own body is heard producing
|
|
when the fingers are put in the ears to shut out external sounds. Stopping
|
|
the ears thus, there are heard a thudding sound, like that of a big drum
|
|
being beaten; a clashing sound, as of cymbals; a soughing sound, as of a wind
|
|
moving through a forest - as when a conch-shell is bone; a ringing as of
|
|
bells; a sharp tapping sound, as when a timbrel is used; a moaning sound,
|
|
like that of a clarionet; a bass moaning sound, as if made with a big
|
|
trumpet; and a shriller sound, as of a thigh-bone trumpet."
|
|
|
|
"Not only is this interesting as a theory of Tibetan sacred music, but it
|
|
gives the clue to the esoteric interpretation of the symbolical natural
|
|
sounds of Truth (referred to in the second paragraph following, and
|
|
elsewhere in our text), which are said to be, or to proceed from, the
|
|
intellectual faculties within the human mentality." - (Evans-Wentz, p. 128)]
|
|
These noises, like the visions, are direct sensations unencumbered by
|
|
mental concepts. Raw, molecular, dancing units of energy.
|
|
|
|
The minds sweeps in and out of this evolutionary stream, creating
|
|
cosmological revelations. Dozens of mythical and Darwinian insights flash
|
|
into awareness. The person is allowed to glance back down the flow of time
|
|
and to perceive how the life energy continually manifests itself in forms,
|
|
transient, alwasy changing, reforming. Microscopic forms merge with primal
|
|
creative myths. The mirror of consciousness is held up to the life stream.
|
|
|
|
As long as the person floats with the current, he is exposed to a billion-year
|
|
lesson in cosmology. But the drag of the mind is always present. The
|
|
tendency to impose arbitrary, isolating order on the organic process.
|
|
|
|
Sometimes the voyager feels he should report back his vision. He converts
|
|
the life flow into a cosmic ink-blot test - attempts to label each form. "Now
|
|
I see a peacock's tail. Now Muslim knights in colored armor. Oh, now a
|
|
waterfall of jewels. Now, Chinese music. Now, gem-like serpents, etc."
|
|
Verbalizations of this sort dull the light, stop the flow and should not be
|
|
encouraged.
|
|
|
|
Another trap is that of imposing a sexual interpretation. The dancing,
|
|
playful flow of life is, in the most reverant sense, sexual. Forms merging,
|
|
spinning together, reproducing. Eros in its countless manifestations. The
|
|
Tibetans refer to the female Bodhisattvas Pushpema, personification of
|
|
blossoms, and Lasema, the "Belle", depicted holding a mirror in a coquettish
|
|
attitude. Keep the pure, spontaneous awareness of the Mirror-like Wisdom.
|
|
Laugh joyously at the tricks of the life process, forever decking out forms in
|
|
seductive, enticing patterns to keep the dance going. If the voyager
|
|
interprets the visions of Eros in terms of his personal sexual game model,
|
|
and attempts to think or plan - "what should I do? what role should I play?"
|
|
- he is likely to slip down into the Thrid Bardo. Sexual plots dominate his
|
|
awareness, the flow fades, the mirror tarnishes, and he is rudely reborn as a
|
|
confused, thinking being.
|
|
|
|
Still another impasse is the imposition of physical symptom games upon the
|
|
biological flow. The new somatic sensations may be interpreted as
|
|
symptoms. If it is new, it must be bad. Any organ of the body may be
|
|
selected as the focus of the "illness." People whose primary expectation
|
|
when taking a psychedelic substance is medical, are particularly likely to
|
|
fall into this trap. Medical doctors are, in fact, extremely prone and can
|
|
imagine colorful diseases and fatal attacks.
|
|
|
|
In the case of the most widely-used psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, etc.), it
|
|
is safe to say that such bodily effects are virtually never the direct effect
|
|
of the drug. The drug acts only on the brain and activates central neural
|
|
patterns. All physical symptoms are created by the mind. Bodily sickness is
|
|
a sign that the ego is fighting to maintain or regain its hold over an
|
|
outpouring of feeling, over a dissolution of emotional boundaries.
|
|
|
|
If the person complains of physical symptoms such as nausea or pain, the
|
|
guide should read him the ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS.
|
|
|
|
The negative, wrathful counterpart to this vision occurs if the voyager
|
|
reacts with fear to the powerful flow of life forms. Such a reaction is
|
|
attributable to the cumulated result of game playing (karma) dominated by
|
|
anger or stupidity. A nightmarish hell-world may ensue. The visual forms
|
|
appear like a confusing chaos of cheap, ugly dime-store objects, brassy,
|
|
vulgar and useless. The person may become terrified at the prospect of being
|
|
engulfed by them. The awesome sounds may be heard as hideous, clashing,
|
|
oppressive, grating noises. The person will attempt to escape from these
|
|
perceptions into restless external activity (talking, moving around, etc.) or
|
|
into conceptual, analytic, mental activity.
|
|
|
|
The experience is the same, the intellectual interpretation is different.
|
|
Instead of revelation, there is confusion; instead of calm joy, there is fear.
|
|
The guide, recognizing the voyager to be in such a state, can help him get
|
|
free, by reading the ==|==>> Instructions for Vision 2.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vision 3: The Fire-Flow of Internal Unity
|
|
(Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored, emotional aspects)
|
|
|
|
The First Bardo instructions should keep you face-to-face with the void-
|
|
ecstasy. Yet there are classes of men who, having carried over karmic
|
|
conflict about feeling-inhibition, prove unable to hold the pure experience
|
|
beyond all feelings, and slip into emotionally toned visions. The
|
|
undifferentiated energy of the First Bardo is woven into visionary games in
|
|
the form of intense feelings. Exquisite, intense, pulsating sensations of
|
|
unity and love will be felt; the negative counterpart is feelings of
|
|
attachment, greed, isolation and bodily concerns.
|
|
|
|
It comes about this way: the pure flow of energy loses its white void quality
|
|
and becomes sensed as intense feelings. An emotional game is imposed.
|
|
Incredible new physical sensations pulse through the body. The glow of life
|
|
is felt flooding along veins. One merges into a unitive ocean of orgastic,
|
|
fluid electricity, [The Peaceful Deity of the Bardo Thodol personifying this
|
|
vision is the Buddha Amitabbha, the all-discriminating wisdom and feeling,
|
|
boundless light, representing life eternal. Lama Govinda writes that "The
|
|
deep red light of discriminating inner vision shines forth from his heart . . .
|
|
fire corresponds to him and thus, according to the ancient traditional
|
|
symbolism, the eye and the function of seeing." (Govinda, op. cit., p. 120.)
|
|
With the Bhagavan Amitabbha comes the Bodhisattva Chenrazee, embodiment
|
|
of mercy or compassion, the great pitier ever on the lookout to discover
|
|
distress and to succour the troubled. He is joined by the Bodhisattva
|
|
"Glorious Gentle-voiced One," and the femal incarnates "song" and "light."]
|
|
the endless flow of shared-life, of love.
|
|
|
|
Visions related to the circulatory system are common. The subject tumbles
|
|
down through his own arterial network. The motor of the heart reverberates
|
|
as one with the pulsing of all life. The heart then breaks, and red fire bleeds
|
|
out to merge with all living beings. All living organisms are throbbing
|
|
together. One is joyfully aware of the two-billion-year-old electric sexual
|
|
dance; one is at last divested of robot clothes and limbs and undulates in the
|
|
endless chain of living forms.
|
|
|
|
Dominating this ecstatic state is the feeling of intense love. You are a
|
|
joyful part of all life. The memory of former delusions of self-hood and
|
|
differentiation invokes exultant laughter.
|
|
|
|
All the harsh, dry, brittle angularity of game life is melted. You drift off -
|
|
soft, rounded, moist, warm. Merged with all life. You may feel yourself
|
|
floating out and down into a warm sea. Your individuality and autonomy of
|
|
movement are moistly disappearing. Your control is surrendered to the total
|
|
organism. Blissful passivity. Ecstatic, orgiastic, undulating unity. All
|
|
worries and concerns wash away. All is gained as everything is given up.
|
|
There is organic revelation. Every cell in your body is singing its song of
|
|
freedom - the entire biological universe is in harmony, liberated from the
|
|
censorship and control of you and your restricted ambitions.
|
|
|
|
But wait! You, You, are disappearing into the unity. You are being swallowed
|
|
up by the ecstatic undulation. Your ego, that one tiny remaining strand of
|
|
self, screams STOP! You are terrified by the pull of the glorious, dazzling,
|
|
transparent, radiant red light. You wrench yourself out of the life-flow,
|
|
drawn by your intense attachment to your old desires. There is a terrible
|
|
rending as your roots tear out of the life matrix - a ripping of your fibres
|
|
and veins away from the greater body to which you were attached. And
|
|
when you have cut yourself off from the fire-flow of life the throbbing
|
|
stops, the ecstasy ceases, your limbs harden and stiffen into angular forms,
|
|
your plastic doll body has regained its orientation. There you sit, isolated
|
|
from the stream of life, impotent master of your desires and appetites,
|
|
miserable.
|
|
|
|
While you are floating down the evolutionary river, there comes a sense of
|
|
limitless self-less power. The delight of flowing cosmic belongingness. The
|
|
astounding discovery that consciousness can tune in to an infinite number of
|
|
organic levels. There are billions of cellular processes in your body, each
|
|
with its universe of experience - an endless variety of ecstasies. The simple
|
|
joys and pains and burdens of your ego represent one set of experiences - a
|
|
repetitious, dusty set. As you slip into the fire-flow of biological energy,
|
|
series after series of experiential sets flash by. You are no longer
|
|
encapsulated in the structure of ego and tribe.
|
|
|
|
But through panic and a desire to latch on to the familiar, you shut off the
|
|
flow, open your eyes; then the flowingness is lost. The potentiality to move
|
|
from one level of consciousness to another is gone. Your fear and desire to
|
|
control have driven you to settle for one static site of consciousness. To use
|
|
the Eastern or genetic metaphor, you have frozen the dance of energy and
|
|
committed yourself to one incarnation, and you have done it out of fear.
|
|
|
|
When this happens, there are several steps which can take you back to the
|
|
biological flow (and from there to the First Bardo). First, close your eyes.
|
|
Lie on you stomach and let you body sink through the floor, merge with the
|
|
surroundings. Feel the hard, square edges of your body soften and start to
|
|
move in the bloodstream. Let the rhythm of breathing become tide flow.
|
|
Bodily contact is probably the most effective method of softening hardened
|
|
surfaces. No movement. No body games. Close physical contact with another
|
|
invariably brings about the unity of fire-flow. Your blood begins to flow into
|
|
the other's body. His breathing pours into your lungs. You both drift down
|
|
the capillary river.
|
|
|
|
Another form of life process images is the flow of auditory sensations. The
|
|
endless series of abstract sounds (described in the preceding vision) bounce
|
|
through awareness. The emotional reaction to these can be neutral or can
|
|
involve intense feelings of unity, or of annoyed fear.
|
|
|
|
The positive reaction occurs when the subject merges with the sound flow.
|
|
The thudding drum of the heart is sensed as the basic anthem of humanity.
|
|
The whooshing sough of the breath as the rushing river of all life.
|
|
Overwhelming feelings of love, gratitude and oneness funnel into the
|
|
moment of sound, into each note of the biological concerto.
|
|
|
|
But, as always, the voyager may intrude his personality with its wants and
|
|
opinions. He may not "like" the noise. His judgmental ego may be
|
|
aesthetically offended by the sounds of life. The heart thud is, after all,
|
|
monotonous; the natural music of the inner ear, with its clicks and hums and
|
|
whistles, lacks the romantic symmetries of Beethoven. The terrible
|
|
separation of "me" from my body occurs. Horrible. Out of my control. Turn it
|
|
off.
|
|
|
|
The trained guide can usually sense when ego-attachment threatens to pull
|
|
the person out of the unitive flow. At this time he can guide the voyager by
|
|
reading the ==|==>> Instructions for Vision 3.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vision 4: The Wave-Vibration Structure of External Forms
|
|
(Eyes open or rapt involvement with external stimuli; intellectual aspects)
|
|
|
|
The pure, content-free light of the First Bardo probably involves basic
|
|
electrical wave energy. This is nameless, indescribable, because it is far
|
|
beyond any concepts which we now possess. Some future atomic physicist
|
|
may be able to classify this energy. Perhaps it will always be ineffable for a
|
|
nervous system such as that of homo sapiens. Can an organic system
|
|
"comprehend" the vastly more efficient inorganic? At any event, most
|
|
persons, even the most illuminated, find it impossible to maintain
|
|
experiential contact with this void-light and slip back to imposing mental
|
|
structures, hallucinatory and revelatory, upon the flow.
|
|
|
|
Thus we are brought to another frequent vision which involves intense, rapt,
|
|
unitive awareness of external stimuli. If the eyes are open, this super-
|
|
reality effect can be visual. The penetrating impact of other stimuli can
|
|
also set off revelatory imagery.
|
|
|
|
It comes about this way. The subject's awareness is suddenly invaded by an
|
|
outside stimulus. His attention is captured, but his old conceptual mind is
|
|
not functioning. But other sensitivities are engaged. He experiences direct
|
|
sensation. The raw "is-ness." He sees, not objects, but patterns of light
|
|
waves. He hears, not "music" or "meaningful" sound, but acoustic waves. He
|
|
is struck with the sudden revelation that all sensation and perception are
|
|
based on wave vibrations. That the world around him which heretofore had
|
|
an illusory solidity, is nothing more than a play of physical waves. That he
|
|
is involved in a cosmic television show which has no more substantiality
|
|
than the images on his TV picture tube. [The Peaceful Deity of the Thodol
|
|
personifying this vision is Akshobhya. According to Lama Govinda, "In the
|
|
light of the Mirror-like Wisdom . . . things are freed from their "thingness,"
|
|
their isolation, without being deprived of their form; they are divested of
|
|
their materiality, without being dissolved, because the creative principle of
|
|
the mind, which is at the bottom of all form and materiality, is recognized
|
|
as the active side of the universal Store Consciousness (alaya-vijnana), on
|
|
the surface of which forms arise and pass away, like the waves on the
|
|
surface of the ocean. . . ." (Govinda, op. cit., p. 119.)
|
|
|
|
The atomic structure of matter is, of course, known to us intellectually, but
|
|
never experienced by the adult except in states of intense altered
|
|
consciousness. Learning from a physics textbook about the wave structure of
|
|
matter is one thing. Experiencing it - being in it - with the old, familiar,
|
|
gross, hallucinatory comfort of "solid" things gone and unavailable, is quite
|
|
another matter.
|
|
|
|
If these super-real visions involve wave phenomena, then the external
|
|
world takes on a radiance and a revelation that is staggeringly clear. The
|
|
experienced insight that the world of phenomena exists in the form of
|
|
waves, electronic images, can produce a sense of illuminated power.
|
|
Everything is experienced as consciousness.
|
|
|
|
These exultant radiations should be recognized as productions of your own
|
|
internal processes. You should not attempt to control or conceptualize. This
|
|
can come later. There is the danger of hallucinatory freezing. The subject
|
|
rushes back (sometimes literally) to the three-dimensional reality,
|
|
convinced of the fixed "truth" of one experienced revelation. Many misguided
|
|
mystics and many persons called insane have fallen into this ambuscade.
|
|
This is like making a still photograph of a television pattern and shouting
|
|
that one has finally seized the truth. All is ecstatic electric Maya, the two-
|
|
billion-year dance of waves. No one part of it is more real than another.
|
|
Everything at all moments is shimmering with all the meaning.
|
|
|
|
So far we have considered the positive radiance of clarity; but there are
|
|
fearful negative aspects of the fourth vision. When the subject senses that
|
|
his "world" is fragmenting into waves, he may become terrified. "He," "me,"
|
|
"I" are dissolving! The world around me is supposed to sit, static and dead,
|
|
quietly awaiting my manipulation. But these passive things have changed
|
|
into a shimmering dance of living energy! The Maya nature of phenomena
|
|
creates panic. Where is the solid base? Every thing, every concept, every
|
|
form upon which one rests one's mind collapses into electrical vibrations
|
|
lacking solidity.
|
|
|
|
The face of the guide or of one's beloved friend becomes a dancing mosaic of
|
|
impulses on one's cortex. "My consciousness" has created everything of
|
|
which I am conscious. I have kinescoped my world, my loved ones, myself.
|
|
All are just shimmering energy patterns. Instead of clarity and exultant
|
|
power, there is confusion. The subject staggers around, grasping at
|
|
electron-patterns, striving to freeze them back into the familiar robot
|
|
forms.
|
|
|
|
All solidity is gone. All phenomena are paper images pasted on the glass
|
|
screen of consciousness. For the unprepared, or for the person whose karmic
|
|
residue stresses control, the discovery of the wave-nature of all structure,
|
|
the Maya revelation, is a disastrous web of uncertainty.
|
|
|
|
We have discussed only the visual aspects of the fourth vision. Auditory
|
|
phenomena are of equal importance. Here the solid, labelled nature of
|
|
auditory patterns is lost, and the mechanical impact of sound hitting the
|
|
eardrum is registered. In some cases, sound becomes converted into pure
|
|
sensation, and synesthesia (mixture of sense modalities) occurs. Sounds are
|
|
experienced as colors. External sensations hitting the cortex are recorded as
|
|
molecular events, ineffable.
|
|
|
|
The most dramatic auditory visions occur with music. Just as any object
|
|
radiates a pattern of electrons and can become the essense of all energy, so
|
|
can any note of music be sensed as naked energy trembling in space,
|
|
timeless. The movement of notes, like the shuttling of oscillograph beams.
|
|
Each capturing all energy, the electric core of the universe. Nothing existing
|
|
except the needle-clear resonance on the tympanic membrane. Unforgettable
|
|
revelations about the nature of reality occur at these moments.
|
|
|
|
But the hellish interpretation is also possible. As the learned structure of
|
|
sound collapses, the direct impact of waves can be sensed as noise. For one
|
|
who is compelled to institute order, his order, on the world around him, it is
|
|
at least annoying and often disturbing to have the raw tattoo of sound
|
|
resonating in consciousness.
|
|
|
|
Noise! What an irreverent concept. Is not everything noise; all sensation the
|
|
divine pattern of wave energy, meaningless only to those who insist on
|
|
imposing their own meaning?
|
|
|
|
Preparation is the key to a serene passage through this visionary territory.
|
|
The subject who has studied this manual will be able, when face to face
|
|
with the phenomenon, to recognize and flow with it.
|
|
|
|
The sensitive guide will be ready to pick up, on any cue, that the subject is
|
|
wandering in the fourth vision. If the voyager's eyes are open (indicating
|
|
visual reactions), he can read the ==|==>> Instructions for Vision 4.
|
|
|
|
If the guide senses that the voyager is experiencing the fragmentation of
|
|
external sound into wave vibrations, he can amend the instructions
|
|
appropriately (changing the visuaol references to auditory).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vision 5: The Vibratory Waves of External Unity
|
|
(Eyes open, or rapt involvement with external stimuli; emotional aspects)
|
|
|
|
As the learned perceptions disappear and the structure of the external world
|
|
disintegrates into direct wave phenomena, the aim is to amintain a pure,
|
|
conten-free awareness (First Bardo). Despite the preparations, one is likely
|
|
to be led backwards by one's own mental inclinations into two hallucinatory
|
|
or revelatory interpretations of reality. One reaction leads to the
|
|
intellectual clarity or frightened confusion of the fourth vision (just
|
|
described). Another interpretation is the emotional reaction to the
|
|
fragmentation of differentiated forms. One can be engulfed in ecstatic unity,
|
|
or one can slip into isolated egotism. The Bardol Thodol calls the former the
|
|
"Wisdom of Equality" and the latter the "quagmire of worldly existence
|
|
accruing from violent egotism." [The Peaceful Deity of the fifth vision
|
|
comes in the form of the Bhagavan Ratnasambhava, born of a jewel. He is
|
|
embraced by the Divine Mother, She of the Buddha Eyes, and accompanied by
|
|
the Bodhisattvas, womb of the sky, All-good, and those holding incense and
|
|
rosary. "On the elementary plane Ratnasambhava corresponds to the earth,
|
|
which carries and nourishes all beings with the equanimity and patience of a
|
|
mother, in whose eyes all beings, borne by her, are equal." (Govinda, op. cit.,
|
|
p. 119.)] In the state of radiant unity, one senses that there is only one
|
|
network of energy in the universe and that all things and all sentient beings
|
|
are momentary manifestations of the single pattern. When egotistic
|
|
interpretations are imposed on the fifth vision, the "plastic doll" phenomena
|
|
are experienced. Differentiated forms are seen as inorganic, dull, mass-
|
|
produced, shabby, plastic, and all persons (including self) are seen as
|
|
lifeless mannequins isolated from the vibrant dance of energy, which has
|
|
been lost.
|
|
|
|
The experiential data of this vision are similar to that of the fourth vision.
|
|
All artifactual learned structure collapses back to energy vibrations. The
|
|
awareness is dominated not by revelatory clarity but by shimmering unity.
|
|
The subject is entranced by the silent, whirling play of forces. Exquisite
|
|
forms dance by him, all surrounding objects radiate energy, brilliant
|
|
emanations. His own body is seen as a play of forces. If he looks in a mirror,
|
|
he sees a shining mosaic of particles. The sense of his own wave structure
|
|
becomes stronger. A feeling of melting, floating off. The body is no longer a
|
|
separate unit but a cluster of vibrations sending and receiving energy - a
|
|
phase of the dance of energy which has been going on for millennia.
|
|
|
|
A sense of profound one-ness, a feeling of the unity of all energy.
|
|
Superficial differences of role, cast, status, sex, species, form, power, size,
|
|
beauty, even the distinctions between inorganic and living energy, disappear
|
|
before the ecstatic union of all in one. All gestures, words, acts and events
|
|
are equivalent in value - all are manifestations of the one consciousness
|
|
which pervades everything. "You," "I" and "he" are gone, "my" thoughts are
|
|
"ours," "your" feelings are "mine." Communication is unnecessary, since
|
|
complete communion exists. A person can sense another's feeling and mood
|
|
directly, as if they were his own. By a glance, whole lifetimes and words
|
|
can be transmitted. If all are at peace, the vibrations are "in phase." If there
|
|
is discord, "out of phase" vibrations will be set up which will be felt like
|
|
discordant music. Bodies melt into waves. Objects in the environment -
|
|
lights, tree, plants, flowers - seem to open and welcome you: they are part
|
|
of you. You are both simply different pulses of the same vibrations. A pure
|
|
feeling of ecstatic harmony with all beings is the keynote of this vision.
|
|
|
|
But as before, terrors can occur. Unity requires ecstatic self-sacrifice. Loss
|
|
of ego brings fright to the unprepared. The fragmentation of form into waves
|
|
can bring the most terrible fear known to man: the ultimate epistemological
|
|
revelation.
|
|
|
|
The fact of the matter is that all apparent forms of matter and body are
|
|
momentary clusters of energy. We are little more than flickers on a
|
|
multidimensional television screen. This realization directly experienced
|
|
can be delightful. You suddenly wake up from the delusion of separate form
|
|
and hook up to the cosmic dance. Consciousness slides along the wave
|
|
matrices, silently at the speed of light.
|
|
|
|
The terror comes with the discovery of transience. Nothing is fixed, no form
|
|
solid. Everything you can experience is "nothing but" electrical waves. You
|
|
feel ultimately tricked. A victim of the great television producer. Distrust.
|
|
The people around you are lifeless television robots. The world around you is
|
|
a facade, a stage set. You are a helpless marionette, a plastic doll in a
|
|
plastic world.
|
|
|
|
If others attempt to help, they are seen as wooden, waxen, feelingless, cold,
|
|
grotesque, maniacal, space-fiction monsters. You are unable to feel. "I am
|
|
dead. I will never live and feel again." In wild panic you may attempt to
|
|
force feeling back - by action, by shouting. You will then enter the Third
|
|
Bardo stage and be reborn in an unpleasant way.
|
|
|
|
The best method to escape from fifth vision terrors is to remember this
|
|
manual, relax, and swing with the wave dance. Or to communicate to the
|
|
guide that you are in a plastic doll phase, and he will guide you back.
|
|
|
|
Another solution is to move to the internal biological flow. Follow the
|
|
instructions given in the third vision: close your eyes, lie prone, seek bodily
|
|
contact, float down into your bodily stream. In so doing, you are
|
|
recapitulating the evolutionary sequence. For billions of years, inorganic
|
|
energy danced the cosmic round before the biological rhythm began. Don't
|
|
rush it.
|
|
|
|
If the guide senses that the person is experiencing plastic doll visions or is
|
|
afraid of the uncontrollability of his own feeling, he should read to him the
|
|
==|==>> Instructions for Vision 5.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vision 6: "The Retinal Circus"
|
|
|
|
Each of the Second Bardo visions thus far described was one aspect of the
|
|
"experiencing of reality." The inner fire or outer waves, apprehended
|
|
intellectually or emotionally - each vision with its correspondent traps.
|
|
Each of the "Peaceful Deities" appears with its attendant "Wrathful Deities."
|
|
To maintain any of these visions for any length of time requires a certain
|
|
degree of concentration or "one-pointedness" of mind, as well as the ability
|
|
to recognize them and not to be afraid. Thus, for most persons, the
|
|
experience may pass through one or more of these phases without the
|
|
voyager being able to hold them or stay with them. He may open and close
|
|
his eyes, he may become alternately absorbed in internal sensations and
|
|
external forms. The experience may be chaotic, beautiful, thrilling,
|
|
incomprehensible, magical, ever-changing. [In the Bardo Thodol, on the sixth
|
|
day appear the radiant lights of the combined Five Wisdoms of the Dhyani-
|
|
Buddhas, the protective deities (gatekeepers of the mandala) and the
|
|
Buddhas of the Six Realms of game-existence. According to Lama Govinda:
|
|
"The Inner Way of Vajra-Sattva, consists in the combination of the rays of
|
|
the Wisdoms of the four Dhyani-Buddhas and their absorption within one's
|
|
own heart - in other words, in the recognition that all these radiances are
|
|
the emanations of one's own mind in a state of perfect tranquility and
|
|
serenity, a state in which the mind reveals its true universal nature."
|
|
(Govinda, op., cit., p. 262.)]
|
|
|
|
He will travel freely through many worlds or experience - from direct
|
|
contact with life-process forms and images, he may pass to visions of
|
|
human game-forms. He may see and understand with unimagined clarity and
|
|
brilliance various social and self-games that he and others play. His own
|
|
struggles in karmic (game) existence will appear pitiful and laughable.
|
|
Ecstatic freedom of consciousness is the keynote of this vision. Exploration
|
|
of unimagined realms. Theatrical adventures. Plays within plays within
|
|
plays. Symbols change into things symbolized and vice versa. Words become
|
|
things, thoughts are music, music is smelled, sounds are touched, complete
|
|
interchangeability of the senses.
|
|
|
|
All things are possible. All feelings are possible. A person may "try on"
|
|
various moods like so many pieces of clothing. Subjects and objects whirl,
|
|
transform, change into each other, merge, fuse, disperse again. External
|
|
objects dance and sing. The mind plays upon them as upon a musical
|
|
instrument. They assume any form, significance or quality upon command.
|
|
They are admired, adored, analyzed, examined, changed, made beautiful or
|
|
ugly, large or small, important or trivial, useful, dangerous, magical or
|
|
incomprehensible. They may be reacted to with wonder, amazement, humor,
|
|
veneration, love, disgust, fascination, horror, delight, fear, ecstasy.
|
|
|
|
Like a computer with unlimited access to any programs, the mind roams
|
|
freely. Personal and racial memories bubble up to the surface of
|
|
consciousness, inter-play with fantasies, wishes, dreams and external
|
|
objects. A present event becomes charged with profound emotional
|
|
significance, a cosmic phenomenon becomes identical with some personal
|
|
quirk. Metaphysical problems are juggled and bounced around. Pure "primary
|
|
process," spontaneous outopouring of association, opposites merging, images
|
|
fusing, condensing, shifting, collapsing, expanding, merging, connecting.
|
|
|
|
This kaleidoscopic vision of game-reality may be frightening and confusing
|
|
to an ill-prepared subject. Instead of exquisite clarity of many-levelled
|
|
perception, he will experience a confused chaos of uncontrollable,
|
|
meaningless forms. Instead of delight at the playful acrobatics of the free
|
|
intellect, there will be anxious clinging to an elusive order. Morbid and
|
|
scatological hallucinations may occur, evoking disgust and shame.
|
|
|
|
As before, this negative vision occurs only if the person attempts to control
|
|
or rationalize the magic panorama. Relax and accept whatever comes.
|
|
Remember that all visions are created by your mind, the happy and the
|
|
unhappy, the beautiful and the ugly, the delightful and the horrifying. Your
|
|
consciousness is creator, performer and spectator of the "retinal circus."
|
|
|
|
If the guide senses that the voyager is in or seems to be in the "retinal
|
|
circus" vision, he may read to him the appropriate instructions ==|==>>
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 6: "THE RETINAL CIRCUS".
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vision 7: "The Magic Theatre"
|
|
|
|
If the voyager was unable to maintain the passive serenity necessary for the
|
|
contemplation of the previous visions (the peaceful deities), he moves now
|
|
into a more dramatic and active phase. The play of forms and things
|
|
becomes the play of heroic figures, superhuman spirits and demigods. [In the
|
|
Tibetan Handbook, this is described as the vision of the five "Knowledge-
|
|
Holding Deities," arranged in a mandala form, each embraced by Dakinis, in
|
|
an ecstatic dance. The Knowledge-holding Deities symbolize "the highest
|
|
level of individual or humanly conceivable knowledge, as attained in the
|
|
consciousness of great Yogis, inspired thinkers or similar heroes of the
|
|
spirit. They represent the last step before the "breaking-through" towards
|
|
the universal consciousness - or the first on the return from there to the
|
|
plane of human knowledge." (Govinda, op. cit., p. 202.) The Dakinis are female
|
|
embodiments of knowledge, representing the inspirational impluses of
|
|
consciousness leading to break-through. The other four Knowledge-Holders,
|
|
besides the central Lord of Dance, are: the Knowledge-holder abiding in the
|
|
earth, the Knowledge-holder who has power over the duration of life, the
|
|
Knowledge-holder of the Great Symbol, and the Knowledge-holder of
|
|
Spontaneous Realization.] You may see radiating figures in human forms. The
|
|
"Lotus Lord of Dance": the supreme image of a demi-god who perceives the
|
|
effects of all actions. The prince of movement, dancing in an ecstatic
|
|
embrace with his female counterpart. Heroes, heroines, celestial warriors,
|
|
male and female demi-gods, angels, fairies - the exact form of these figures
|
|
will depend on the person's background and tradition. Archetypal figures in
|
|
the forms of characters from Greek, Egyptian, Nordic, Celtic, Aztec, Persian,
|
|
Indian, Chinese mythology. The shapes differ, the source is the same: they
|
|
are the concrete embodiments of aspects of the person's own psyche.
|
|
Archetypal forces below verbal awareness and expressible only in symbolic
|
|
form. The figures are often extremely colorful and accompanied by a variety
|
|
of awe-inspiring sounds. If the voyager is prepared and in a relaxed,
|
|
detached frame of mind, he is exposed to a fascinating and dazzling display
|
|
of dramatic creativity. The Cosmic Theatre. The Divine Comedy. If his eyes
|
|
are open, he may visualize the other voyagers as representing these figures.
|
|
The face of a friend may turn into that of a young boy, a baby, the child-god;
|
|
into a heroic stature, a wise old man; a woman, animal, goddess, sea-
|
|
mother, young girl, nymph, elf, goblin, leprechaun. Images of the great
|
|
painters arise as the familiar representations of these spirits. The images
|
|
are inexhaustible and manifold. An illuminating voyage into the areas where
|
|
the personal consciousness merges with the supr-individual.
|
|
|
|
The danger is that the voyager becomes frightened by or unduly attracted to
|
|
these powerful figures. The forces represented by them may be more
|
|
intense than he was prepared for. Inability or unwillingness to recognize
|
|
them as products of one's mind, leads to escape into animalistic pursuits.
|
|
The person may become involved in the pursuit of power, lust, wealth and
|
|
descend into Third Bardo rebirth struggles.
|
|
|
|
If the guide senses that the voyager is caught in this trap, the appropriate
|
|
instructions may be used ==|==>> INTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 7: "THE MAGIC
|
|
THEATRE".
|
|
|
|
|
|
THE WRATHFUL VISIONS
|
|
(Second Bardo Nightmares)
|
|
|
|
Seven Second Bardo visions have been described. At each one of them, the
|
|
voyager could recognize what he saw and be liberated. Multitudes will be
|
|
liberated by that recognition; and although multitudes obtain liberation in
|
|
that manner, the number of sentient beings being great, evil karma
|
|
powerful, obscurations dense, propensities of too long standing, the Wheel
|
|
of Ignorance and Illusion becomes neither exhausted nor accelerated. Despite
|
|
the confrontations, there is a vast preponderance of those who wander
|
|
downwards unliberated.
|
|
|
|
Thus, in the Tibetan Thodo, after the seven peaceful deities, there come
|
|
seven visions of wrathful deities, fifty-eight in number, male and female,
|
|
"flame-enhaloed, wrathful, blood-drinking." These Herukas as they are
|
|
called, will not be described in detail, especially since Westerners are
|
|
liable to experience the wrathful deities in different forms. Instead of
|
|
many-headed fierce mythological demons, they are more likely to be
|
|
engulfed and ground by impersonal machinery, manipulated by scientific,
|
|
torturing control-devices and other space-fiction horrors. [Some general
|
|
remarks about the Tibetan interpretation of these visions. The Wrathful
|
|
Deities are regarded as "only the former Peaceful Deities in changed aspect."
|
|
Lama Govinda writes: "The peaceful forms of Dhyani-Buddhas represent the
|
|
highest ideal of Buddhahood in its completed, final, static condition of
|
|
ultimate attainment or perfection, seen retrospectively as it were, as a
|
|
state of complete rest and harmony. The Herukas, on the other hand, which
|
|
are described as "blood-drinking," angry or "terrifying" deities - are merely
|
|
the dynamic aspect of enlightenment, the process of becoming a Buddha, of
|
|
attaining illumination, as symbolized by the Buddha's struggle with the
|
|
Hosts of Mara. . . . The ecstatic figures, heroic and terrifying, express the
|
|
act of breaking through towards the unthinkable, the intellectually
|
|
"Unattainable." They represent the leap over the chasm, which yawns
|
|
between an intellectual surface consciousness and the intuitive supra-
|
|
personal depth-consciousness." (Govinda, op. cit., pp. 198, 202.)]
|
|
|
|
The Tibetans regard the nightmare visions as primarily intellectual
|
|
products. They assign them to the Brain chakra, whereas the peaceful deities
|
|
are assigned to the Heart chakra and the Knowledge-Holding deities to the
|
|
intermediate Throat chakra. They are the reactions of the mind to the
|
|
process of consciousness-expansion. They represent the attempts of the
|
|
intellect to maintain its threatened boundaries. They symbolize the struggle
|
|
of breaking through to ego-loss understanding and awareness.
|
|
|
|
Because of the terror and awe they produce, recognition is difficult. Yet in a
|
|
way it is also easier in that, since these negative hallucinations command
|
|
all attention, the mind is alert and therefore through trying to escape from
|
|
fear and terror, people get involved in psychotic states and suffer. But with
|
|
the aid of this manual and the presence of a guide, the voyager will
|
|
recognize these hell visions as soon as he sees them, and welcome them like
|
|
old friends.
|
|
|
|
Again, when psychologists, philosophers, and psychiatrists, who do not know
|
|
these teachings, experience ego-loss - however assiduously they may have
|
|
devoted themselves to academic study and however clever they may have
|
|
been in expounding intellectual theories - none of the higher phenomena will
|
|
appear. This is because they are unable to recognize the visions occurring in
|
|
these psychedelic experiences. Suddenly seeing something they had never
|
|
seen before and possessing no intellectual concepts, they view it as
|
|
inimical; and, antagonistic feelings arising, they pass into miserable states.
|
|
Thus, if one has not had practical experience with these teachings, the
|
|
radiances and lights will not appear.
|
|
|
|
Those who believe in these doctrines even though they may seem to be
|
|
unrefined, irregular in performance of duties, inelegant in habits, and
|
|
perhaps even unable to practice the doctrine successfully - let no one doubt
|
|
them or be disrespectful towards them, but pay reverence to their mystic
|
|
faith. That alone will enable them to attain liberation. Elegance and
|
|
efficiency of devotional practice are not necessary - just acquaintance with
|
|
and trust in these teachings.
|
|
|
|
Well-prepared persons need not experience Second Bardo hell visions at all.
|
|
Right from the beginning they can pass into paradisiacal states led by
|
|
heroes, heroines, angels and super-spirits. "They will merge into rainbow
|
|
radiance; there will be sun-showers, sweet scent of incense in the air,
|
|
music in the skies, radiances."
|
|
|
|
This manual is indispensable to those students who are unprepared. Those
|
|
proficient in meditation will recognize the Clear Light at the moment of
|
|
ego-loss and will enter the Blissful Void (Dharma-Kaya). They will also
|
|
recognize the positive and negative visions of the Second Bardo and obtain
|
|
illumination (Sambhogha-Kaya); and being reborn on a higher level will
|
|
become inspired saints or teachers (Nirmana-Kaya). The study and pursuit of
|
|
enlightenment can always be taken up again at the point where it was broken
|
|
by the last ego-loss, thus ensuring continuity of karma.
|
|
|
|
by the use of this manual, enlightenment can be obtained without
|
|
meditation, through hearing alone. It can liberate even very heavy ego-game
|
|
players. The distinction between those who know it and those who do not
|
|
becomes very clear. Enlightenment follows instantly. Those who have been
|
|
reached by it cannot have prolonged negative experiences.
|
|
|
|
The teaching concerning the hell-visions is the same as before; recognize
|
|
them to be your own thought-forms, relax, float downstream. The ==|==>>
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE WRATHFUL VISIONS may be read. If, after this,
|
|
recognition is still impossible and liberation is not obtained, then the
|
|
voyager will descend into the Third Bardo, the Period of Re-Entry.
|
|
|
|
|
|
CONCLUSION OF SECOND BARDO
|
|
|
|
However much experience one may have had, there is always the possibility
|
|
of delusions occurring in these psychedelic states. Those with practice in
|
|
meditation recognize the truth as soon as the experience begins. Reading
|
|
this manual beforehand is important. Having some degree of self-knowledge
|
|
is helpful at the moment of ego-death.
|
|
|
|
Meditation on the various positive and negative archetypal forms is very
|
|
important for Second Bardo phases. Therefore, read this manual, keep it,
|
|
remember it, bear it in mind, read it regularly; let the words and meanings
|
|
be very clear; they should not be forgotten, even under extreme duress. It is
|
|
called "The Great Liberation by Hearing" because even those with selfish
|
|
deeds on their conscience can be liberated if they hear it. If heard only once,
|
|
it can be efficacious because even though not understood, it will be
|
|
remembered during the psychedelic state, since the mind is more lucid then.
|
|
It should be proclaimed to all living persons; it should be read over the
|
|
pillows of ill persons; it should be read to dying persons; it should be
|
|
broadcast.
|
|
|
|
Those who meet this doctrine are fortunate. It is not easy to encounter. Even
|
|
when read, it is difficult to comprehend. Liberation will be won simply
|
|
through not disbelieving it upon hearing it.
|
|
|
|
Here ends the Second Bardo
|
|
the Period of Hallucinations
|
|
|
|
|
|
THIRD BARDO:
|
|
|
|
THE PERIOD OF RE-ENTRY
|
|
(Sidpa Bardo)
|
|
|
|
Introduction
|
|
|
|
If, in the second Bardo, the voyager is incapable of holding on to the
|
|
knowledge that the peaceful and wrathful visions were projections of his
|
|
own mind, but became attracted to or frightened by one or more of them, he
|
|
will enter the Third Bardo. In this period he struggles to regain routine
|
|
reality and his ego; the Tibetans call it the Bardo of "seeking rebirth." It is
|
|
the period in which the consciousness makes the transition from
|
|
transcendent reality to the reality of ordinary waking life. The teachings of
|
|
this manual are of the utmost importance if one wishes to make a peaceful
|
|
and enlightened re-entry and avoid a violent or unpleasant one.
|
|
|
|
In the original Bardo Thodol the aim of the teachings is "liberation," i.e.,
|
|
release from the cycle of birth and death. Interpreted esoterically, this
|
|
means that the aim is to remain at the stage of perfect illumination and not
|
|
to return to social game reality.
|
|
|
|
Only persons of extremely advanced spiritual development are able to
|
|
accomplish this, by exercising the Transference Principle at the moment of
|
|
ego-death. For average persons who undertake a psychedelic voyage, the
|
|
return to game reality is inevitable. Such persons can and should use this
|
|
part of the manual for the following purposes:
|
|
|
|
(1) to free themselves from Third Bardo traps;
|
|
(2) to prolong the session, thus assuring a maximum degree of illumination;
|
|
(3) to select a favorable re-entry, i.e., to return to a wiser and more
|
|
peaceful
|
|
post-session personality.
|
|
|
|
Although no definite time estimates can be given, the Tibetans estimate
|
|
that about 50% of the entire psychedelic experience is spent in the Third
|
|
Bardo by most normal people. At times, as indicated in the Introduction,
|
|
someone may move straight to the re-entry period if he is unprepared for or
|
|
frightened by the ego-loss experiences of the first two Bardos.
|
|
|
|
The types of re-entry made can profoundly color the person's subsequent
|
|
attitudes and feelings about himself and the world, for weeks or even
|
|
months afterwards. A session which has been predominantly negative and
|
|
fearful can still be turned to great advantage and much can be learned from
|
|
it, provided the re-entry is positive and highly conscious. Conversely, a
|
|
happy and revelatory experience can be made valueless by a fearful or
|
|
negative re-entry.
|
|
|
|
The key instructions of the Third Bardo are: (1) do nothing, stay calm,
|
|
passive and relaxed, no matter what happens; and (2) recognize where you
|
|
are. If you do not recognize you will be driven by fear to make a premature
|
|
and unfavorable re-entry. Only by recognizing can you maintain that state of
|
|
calm, passive concentration necessary for a favorable re-entry. That is why
|
|
so many recognition-points are given. If you fail on one, it is always
|
|
possible, up to the very end, to succeed on another. Hence these teachings
|
|
should be read carefully and remembered well.
|
|
|
|
In the following sections some of the characteristic Third Bardo
|
|
experiences are described. In Part IV instructions are given appropriate to
|
|
each section. At this stage in a psychedelic session the voyager is usually
|
|
capable of telling the guide verbally what he is experiencing, so that the
|
|
appropriate sections can be read. A wise guide can often sense the precise
|
|
nature of the ego's struggle without words. The voyager will usually not
|
|
experience all of these states, but only one or some of them; or sometimes
|
|
the return to reality can take completely new and unusual turns. In such a
|
|
case the general instructions for the Third Bardo should be emphasized
|
|
==|==>> THIRD BARDO: PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS.
|
|
|
|
|
|
I. General Description of the Third Bardo
|
|
|
|
Normally, the person descends, step by step, into lower (more constricted)
|
|
states of consciousness. Each step downwards may be preceded by a
|
|
swooning into unconsciousness. Occasionally the descent may be sudden, and
|
|
the person will find himself jolted back to a vision of reality which by
|
|
contrast with the preceding phases seems dull, static, hard, angular, ugly
|
|
and puppet-like. Such changes can induce fear and horror and he may struggle
|
|
desperately to regain familiar reality. He may get trapped into irrational or
|
|
even bestial perspectives which then dominate his entire consciousness.
|
|
These narrow primitive elements stem from aspects of his personal history
|
|
which are usually repressed. The more enlightened consciousness of the
|
|
first two Bardos and the civilized elements of ordinary waking life are
|
|
shelved in favor of powerful, obsessive primitive impulses, which in fact
|
|
are merely faded and incoherent instinctual parts of the voyager's total
|
|
personality. The suggestibility of Bardo consciousness makes them seem
|
|
all-powerful and overwhelming.
|
|
|
|
On the other hand, the voyager may also feel that he possesses supernormal
|
|
powers of perception and movement, that he can perform miracles,
|
|
extraordinary feats of bodily control etc. The Tibetan book definitely
|
|
attributes paranormal faculties to the consciousness of the Bardo voyager
|
|
and explains it as due to the fact that the Bardo-consciousness encompasses
|
|
future elements as well as past. Hence clairvoyance, telepathy, ESP, etc. are
|
|
said to be possible. Objective evidence does not indicate whether this sense
|
|
of increased perceptiveness is real or illusory. We therefore leave this as an
|
|
open question, to be decided by empirical evidence.
|
|
|
|
This then is the first recognition point of the Third Bardo. The feeling of
|
|
supernormal perception and performance. Assuming that it is valid, the
|
|
manual warns the voyager not to be fascinated by his heightened powers,
|
|
and not to exercise them. In yogic practice, the most advanced of the lamas
|
|
teach the disciple not to strive after psychic powers of this nature for their
|
|
own sake; for until the disciple is morally fit to use them wisely, they
|
|
become a serious impediment to his higher spiritual development. Not until
|
|
the selfish, game-involved nature of man is completely mastered is he safe
|
|
in using them.
|
|
|
|
A second sign of Third Bardo existence are experiences of panic, torture and
|
|
persecution. They are distinguished from the wrathful visions fo the Second
|
|
Bardo in that they definitely seem to involve the person's own "skin-
|
|
encapsulated ego." Mind-controlling manipulative figures and demons of
|
|
hideous aspects may be hallucinated. The form that these torturing demons
|
|
take will depend on the person's cultural background. Where Tibetans saw
|
|
demons and beasts of prey, a Westerner may see impersonal machinery
|
|
grinding, or depersonalizing and controlling devices of different futuristic
|
|
varieties. Visions of world destruction, dying in space-fiction modes, and
|
|
hallucinations of being engulfed by destructive powers will likewise come;
|
|
and sounds of the mind-controlling apparatus, of the "combine's fog
|
|
machinery," of the gears which move the scenery of the puppet show, of
|
|
angry overflowing seas, and of the roaring fire and of fierce winds springing
|
|
up, and of mocking laughter.
|
|
|
|
When these sounds and visions come, the first impulse will be to flee from
|
|
them in panic and terror, not caring where one goes, so long as one goes out.
|
|
In psychedelic drug experiences, the person may at this time plead or
|
|
demand to be brought "out of it" through antidotes and tranquillizers. The
|
|
person may see himself as about to fall down deep, terrifying precipices.
|
|
These symbolize the so-called evil passions which, like narcotic drugs,
|
|
enslave and bind mankind to existence in game-networks (sangsara): anger,
|
|
lust, stupidity, pride or egoism, jealousy, and control-power. Such
|
|
experiences, just as the previous one of enhanced power, should be regarded
|
|
as recognizing features of the Third Bardo. One should neither flee the pain
|
|
nor pursue the pleasure. Recognition is all that is necessary - and
|
|
recognition depends upon preparation.
|
|
|
|
A third sign is a kind of restless, unhappy wandering which may be purely
|
|
mental or may involve actual physical movement. The person feels as if
|
|
driven by winds (winds of karma) or shunted around mechanically. There
|
|
may be brief respites at certain places or scenes in the "ordinary" human
|
|
world. Like a person travelling alone at night along a highway, having his
|
|
attention arrested by prominent landmarks, great isolated trees, houses,
|
|
bridgeheads, temples, hot-dog stands, etc., the person in the re-entry period
|
|
has similar experiences. He may demand to return to familiar haunts in the
|
|
human world. But any such external placation is temporary and soon the
|
|
restless wandering will recommence. There may come a desperate desire to
|
|
phone or otherwise contact your family, your doctor, your friends and appeal
|
|
to them to pull you out of the state. This desire should be resisted. The guide
|
|
and the fellow voyagers can be of best assistance. One should not try to
|
|
involve others in one's hallucinatory world. The attempt will fail anyway
|
|
since outsiders are usually unable to understand what is happening. Again,
|
|
merely to recognize these desires as Third Bardo manifestations is already
|
|
the first step toward liberation.
|
|
|
|
A fourth, rather common experience is the following: the person may feel
|
|
stupid and full of incoherent thoughts, whereas everyone else seems to be
|
|
perfectly knowing and wise. This leads to feelings of guilt and inadequacy
|
|
and in extreme from to the Judgment Vision, to be described below. This
|
|
feeling of stupidity is merely the natural result of the limited perspective
|
|
under which the consciousness is operating in this Bardo. Calm, relaxed
|
|
acceptance and trust will enable the voyager to win liberation at this point
|
|
|
|
Another experience, the fifth recognizing feature, which is especially
|
|
impressive when it occurs suddenly, is the feeling of being dead, cut off
|
|
from surrounding life, and full of misery. The person may with a jolt awake
|
|
from some trance-like swoon and experience himself and the others as
|
|
lifeless robots, performing wooden meaningless gestures. He may feel that
|
|
he will never come back and will lament his miserable state.
|
|
|
|
Again, such fantasies are to be recognized as the attempts of the ego to
|
|
regain control. In the true state of ego-death, as it occurs in the First or
|
|
Second Bardos, such complaints are never uttered.
|
|
|
|
Sixth, one may have the feeling of being oppressed or crushed or squeezed
|
|
into cracks and crevices amidst rocks and boulders. Or the person may feel
|
|
that a kind of metallic net or cage may encompass him. This symbolizes the
|
|
attempt prematurely to enter an ego-robot which is unfitting or unequipped
|
|
to deal with the expanded consciousness. Therefore one should relax the
|
|
panicky desire to regain an ego.
|
|
|
|
A Seventh aspect is a kind of grey twilight-like light suffusing everything,
|
|
which is in marked contrast to the brilliantly radiating lights and colors of
|
|
the earlier stages of the voyage. Objects, instead of shining, glowing and
|
|
vibrating, are now dully colored, shabby and angular.
|
|
|
|
The passages ==|==>> THIRD BARDO: PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS contain
|
|
general instructions for the Third Bardo state and its recognizable features.
|
|
Any or all of the passages may be read when the guide senses that the
|
|
voyager is beginning to return to the ego.
|
|
|
|
|
|
II. Re-entry Visions
|
|
|
|
In the preceding section the symptoms of re-entry were described, the signs
|
|
that the voyager is tryihng to regain his ego. In this section are described
|
|
visions of the types of re-entry one can make.
|
|
|
|
The Tibetan manual conceives of the voyager as returning eventually to one
|
|
of six worlds of game existence (sangsara). That is, the re-entry to the ego
|
|
can take place on one of six levels, or as one of six personality types. Two of
|
|
these are higher than the normal human, three are lower. The highest, most
|
|
illuminated, level is that of the devas, who are what Westerners would call
|
|
saints, sages or divine teachers. They are the most enlightened people
|
|
walking the earth. Gautama Buddha, Lao Tse, Christ. The second level is that
|
|
of the asuras, who may be called titans or heroes, people with a more than
|
|
human degree of power and vision. The third level is that of most normal
|
|
human beings, struggling through game-networks, occasionally breaking
|
|
free. The fourth level is that of primitive and animalistic incarnations. In
|
|
this category we have the dog and the cock, symbolic of hyper-sexuality
|
|
concomitant with jealousy; the pig, symbolizing lustful stupidity and
|
|
uncleanliness; the industrious, hoarding ant; the insect or worm signifying
|
|
an earthy or grovelling disposition; the snake, flashing in anger; the ape, full
|
|
of rampaging primitive power; the snarling "wolf of the steppes;" the bird,
|
|
soaring freely. Many more could be enumerated. In all cultures of the world
|
|
people have adopted identities in the image of animals. In childhood and in
|
|
dreams it is a process familiar to all. The fifth level is that of neurotics,
|
|
frustrated lifeless spirits forever pursuing unsatisfied desires; the sixth
|
|
and lowest level is hell or psychosis. Less than one percent of ego-
|
|
transcendent experiences end in sainthood or psychosis. Most persons return
|
|
to the normal human level.
|
|
|
|
According to The Tibetan Book of the Dead, each of the six game worlds or
|
|
levels of existence is associated with a characteristic sort of thraldom,
|
|
from which non-game experiences give temporary freedom: (1) existence as
|
|
a deva, or saint, although more desirable than the others, is concomitant
|
|
with an ever-recurring round of pleasure, free game ecstasy; (2) existence
|
|
as an asura, or titan, is concomitant with incessant heroic warfare; (3)
|
|
helplessness and slavery are characteristic of animal existence; (4)
|
|
torments of unsatisfied needs and wants are characteristic of the existence
|
|
of pretas, or unhappy spirits; (5) the characteristic impediments of human
|
|
existence are inertia, smug ignorance, physical or psychological handicaps
|
|
or various sorts.
|
|
|
|
According to the Bardo Thodol, the level one is detined for is determined by
|
|
one's karma. During the period of the Third Bardo premonitory signs and
|
|
visions of the different levels appear, that for which one is heading
|
|
appearing most clearly. For example, the voyager may feel full of godlike
|
|
power (asuras), or he may feel himself stirred by primitive or bestial
|
|
impulses, or he may experience that all-pervasive frustration of the
|
|
unhappy neurotics, or shudder at the tortures of a self-created hell.
|
|
|
|
The chances of making a favorable re-entry are increased if the process is
|
|
allowed to take its own natural course, without effort or struggle. One
|
|
should avoid pursuing or fleeing any of the visions, but meditate calmly on
|
|
the knowledge that all levels exist in the Buddha also.
|
|
|
|
One can recognize and examine the signs as they appear and learn a great
|
|
deal about oneself in a very short time. Although it is unwise to struggle
|
|
against or flee the visions that come in this period, the ==|==>>
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR RE-ENTRY VISIONS are designed to help the voyager
|
|
regain First Bardo transcendence. In this way, if the person finds himself
|
|
about to return to a personality or ego which he finds inappropriate to his
|
|
new knowledge about himself, he can, by following the instructions, prevent
|
|
this and make a fresh re-entry.
|
|
|
|
|
|
III. The All-Determining Influence of Thought
|
|
|
|
Liberation may be obtained, by such confrontation, even though previously
|
|
it was not. If, however, liberation is not obtained even after these
|
|
confrontations, further earnest and continued application is essential.
|
|
|
|
Should you feel attachment to material possessions, to old games and
|
|
activities, or if you get any because other people are still involved in
|
|
pursuits that you have renounced, this will affect the psychological balance
|
|
in such a way that even if destined to return at a higher level, you will
|
|
actually re-enter on a lower level in the world of unsatisfied spirits
|
|
(neurosis). On the other hand, even if you do feel attached to worldly games
|
|
that you have renounced, you will not be able to play them, and they will be
|
|
of no use to you. Therefore abandon weakness and attachment to them; cast
|
|
them away wholly; renounce them from your heart. No matter who may be
|
|
enjoying your possessions, or taking your role, have no feelings of
|
|
miserliness or jealousy, but be prepared to renounce them willingly. Think
|
|
that you are offering them to your internal freedom and to your expaned
|
|
consciousness. Abide in the feeling of non-attachment, devoid of weakness
|
|
and craving.
|
|
|
|
Again, when the activities of the other members of the session are wrong,
|
|
careless, inattentive or distracting, when the agreement or contract is
|
|
broken, and when purity of intention is lost by any participant, and frivolity
|
|
and laxness take over (all of which can clearly be seen by the Bardo
|
|
voyager) you may feel lack of faith and begin to doubt your beliefs. You will
|
|
be able to perceive any anxiety or fear, any selfish actions, ego-centric
|
|
conduct and manipulative behavior. You may think: "Alas! they are playing
|
|
me false, they have cheated and deceived." If you think thus, you will
|
|
become extremely depressed, and through great resentment you will acquire
|
|
disbelief and loss of faith, instead of affection and humble trust. Since this
|
|
affects the psychological balance, re-entry will certainly be made on an
|
|
unpleasant level.
|
|
|
|
Such thinking will not only be of no use, but it will do great harm. However
|
|
improper the behavior of other, think thus: "What? How can the words of a
|
|
Buddha be inappropriate? It is like the reflection of blemishes on my own
|
|
face which I see in a mirror; my own thoughts must be impure. As for these
|
|
others, they are noble in body, holy in speech, and the Buddha is within
|
|
them: their actions are lessons for me."
|
|
|
|
Thus thinking, put your trust in your companions and exercise sincere love
|
|
towards them. Then whatever they do will be to your benefit. The exercise
|
|
of that love is very important; do not forget this!
|
|
|
|
Again, even if you were destined to return to a lower level and are already
|
|
going into that existence, yet through the good deeds of friends, relatives,
|
|
participants, learned teachers who devote themselves wholeheartedly to the
|
|
correct performance of beneficent rituals, the delight from your feeling
|
|
greatly cheered at seeing them will, by its own virtue, so affect the
|
|
psychological balance that even though heading downwards, you may yet
|
|
rise to a higher and happier level. Therefore you should not create selfish
|
|
thoughts, but exercise pure affection and humble faith towards all,
|
|
impartially. This is highly important. Hence be extremely careful.
|
|
|
|
The ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE ALL-DETERMING INFLUENCE OF
|
|
THOUGHT are useful in any phase of the Third Bardo, but particularly if the
|
|
voyager is reacting with suspicion or resentment to other members of the
|
|
group, or to his own friends and relatives.
|
|
|
|
|
|
IV. Judgment Visions
|
|
|
|
The judgment vision may come: the Third Bardo blame game. "Your good
|
|
genius will count up your good deeds with white pebbles, the evil genius the
|
|
evil deeds with black pebbles." A judgment scene is a central part of many
|
|
religious systems, and the vision can assume various forms. Westerners are
|
|
most likely to see it in the well-known Christian version. The Tibetans give
|
|
a psychological interpretation to thisas to all the other visions. The Judge,
|
|
or Lord of Death, symbolizes conscience itself in its stern aspect of
|
|
impartiality and love of righteousness. The "Mirror of Karma" (the Christian
|
|
Judgment Book), consulted by the Judge, is memory. Different parts of the
|
|
ego will come forward, some offering lame excuses to meet accusations,
|
|
others ascribing baser motives to various deeds, counting apparently neutral
|
|
deeds among the black ones; still others offering justifications or requests
|
|
for pardon. The mirror of memory reflects clearly; lying and subterfuge will
|
|
be of no avail. Be not frightened, tell no lies, face truch fearlessly.
|
|
|
|
No you may imagine yourself surrounded by figures who wish to torment,
|
|
torture or ridicule you (the "Executive Furies of the Robot Lord of Death").
|
|
These merciless figures may be internal or they may involve the people
|
|
around you, seen as pitiless, mocking, superior. Remember that fear and
|
|
guilt and persecuting, mocking figures are your own hallucinations. Your own
|
|
guilt machine. Your personality is a collection of thought-patterns and void.
|
|
It cannot be harmed or injured. "Swords cannot pierce it, fire cannot burn it."
|
|
Free yourself from your own hallucinations. In reality there is no such thing
|
|
as the Lord of Death, or a justice-dispensing god or demon or spirit. Act so
|
|
as to recognize this.
|
|
|
|
Recognize that you are in the Third Bardo. Meditate upon your ideal symbol.
|
|
If you do not know how to meditate, then merely analyze with great care the
|
|
real nature of that which is frightening you: "Reality" is nothing but a
|
|
voidness (Dharma-Kaya). That voidness is not of the voidness of nothingness,
|
|
but a voidness at the true nature of which you feel awed, and before which
|
|
your consciousness shines more clearly and lucidly. [That is the state of
|
|
mind known as "Sambhoga-Kaya." In that state, you experience, with
|
|
unbearable intensity, Voidness and Brightness inseparable - the Voidness
|
|
bright by nature and the Brightness inseparable from the Voidness - a state
|
|
of the primordial or unmodified consciousness, which is the Adi-Kaya. And
|
|
the power of this, shining unobstructedly, will radiate everywhere; it is the
|
|
Nirmana-Kaya.
|
|
|
|
These refer to the fundamental Wisdom Teachings of the Bardo Thodol. In all
|
|
Tibetan systems of yoga, realization of the Voidness is the one great aim. To
|
|
realize it is to attain the unconditioned Dharma-Kaya, or "Divine Body of
|
|
Truth," the primordial state of uncreatedness, of the supra-mundane All-
|
|
Consciousness. The Dharma-Kaya is the highest of the three bodies of the
|
|
Buddha and of all Buddhas and beings who have perfect enlightenment. The
|
|
other two bodies are the Sambhoga-Kaya or "Divine Body of Perfect
|
|
Endowment" and the Nirmana-Kaya or "Divine Body of Incarnation." Adi-
|
|
Kaya is synonymous with Dharma-Kaya. The Dharma-Kaya is primordial,
|
|
formless Essential Wisdom; it is true experience freed from all error or
|
|
inherent or accidental obscuration. It includes both Nirvana and Sangsara,
|
|
which are polar states of consciousness, but in the realm of pure
|
|
consciousness identical. The Sambhoga-Kaya embodies, as in the five Dhyani
|
|
Buddhas, Reflected or Modified Wisdom; and the Nirmana-Kaya embodies, as
|
|
in the Human Buddhas, Practical or Incarnate Widom. All enlightened beings
|
|
who are reborn in this or any other world with full consciousness, as
|
|
workers for the betterment of their fellow creatures, are said to be
|
|
Nirmana-Kaya incarnates. Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup, the translator of the
|
|
Bardo Thodol, held that the Adi-Buddha, and all deities associated with the
|
|
Dharma-Kaya, are not to be regarded as personal deities, but as
|
|
personifications of primordial and universal forces, laws or spiritual
|
|
influences. "In the boundless panorama of the existing and visible universe,
|
|
whatever shapes appear, whatever sounds vibrate, whatever radiances
|
|
illuminate, or whatever consciousnesses cognize, all are the play of
|
|
manifestation in the Tri-Kaya, the Three-fold Principle of the Cause of All
|
|
Causes, the Primordial Trinity. Impenetrating all, is the All-Pervading
|
|
Essence of Spirit, which is Mind. It is uncreated, impersonal, self-existing,
|
|
immaterial and indestructible." The Tri-Kaya is the esoteric trinity and
|
|
corresponds to the exoteric trinity of Buddha, the Scriptures and the
|
|
Priesthood (or your own divinity, this manual and your companions).
|
|
|
|
If the voyager is struggling with guilt and penance hallucinations, the
|
|
==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR JUDGMENT VISIONS may be read.
|
|
|
|
|
|
V. Sexual Visions
|
|
|
|
Sexual visions are extremely frequent during the Third Bardo. You may see
|
|
or imagine males and females copulating. [According to Jung. ("Psychological
|
|
Commentary" to The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Evans-Wentz edition, p. xiii),
|
|
"Freud's theory is the first attempt made in the West to investigate, as if
|
|
from below, from the animal sphere of instinct the psychic territory that
|
|
corresponds in Tantric Lamaism to the Sidpa Bardo." The vision described
|
|
here, in which the person sees mother and father in sexual intercourse,
|
|
corresponds to the "primal scene" in psychoanalysis. At this level, then, we
|
|
begin to see a remarkable convergence of Eastern and Western psychology.
|
|
Note also the exact correspondence to the psychoanalytic theory of the
|
|
Oedipus Complex.] This vision may be internal or it may involve the people
|
|
around you. You may hallucinate multi-person orgies and experience both
|
|
desire and shame, attraction and disgust. You may wonder what sexual
|
|
performance is expected of you and have doubts about your ability to
|
|
perform at this time.
|
|
|
|
When these visons occur, remember to withhod yourself from action or
|
|
attachment. Have faith and float gently with the stream. Trust in the unity
|
|
of life and in your companions.
|
|
|
|
If you attempt to enter into your old ego because you are attracted or
|
|
repulsed, if you try to join or excape from the orgy you are hallucinating,
|
|
you will re-enter on an animal or neurotic level. If you become conscious of
|
|
"malness," hatred of the father together with jealousy and attraction
|
|
towards the mother will be experienced; if you become conscious of
|
|
"femaleness," hatred of the mother together with attraction and fondness
|
|
for the father is experienced.
|
|
|
|
It is perhaps needless to say that this kind of self-centered sexuality has
|
|
little in common with the sexuality of transpersonal experiences. Physical
|
|
union can be one expression or manifestation of cosmic union.
|
|
|
|
Visions of sexual union may sometimes be followed by visions of conception
|
|
- you may actually visualize the sperm uniting with the ovum - , of intra-
|
|
uterine life and birth through the womb. Some people claim to have re-lived
|
|
their own physical birth in psychedelic sessions and occasionally confirming
|
|
evidence for such claims has been put forward. Whether this is so or not may
|
|
be left as a question to be decided by empirical evidence. Sometimes the
|
|
birth visions will be clearly symbolic - e.g., emergence from a cocoon,
|
|
breaking out of a shell, etc.
|
|
|
|
Whether the birth vision is constructed from memory or fantasy, the
|
|
psychedelic voyager should try to recognize the signs indicating the type of
|
|
personality that is being reborn.
|
|
|
|
The ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR SEXUAL VISIONS may be read to the voyager
|
|
who is struggling with sexual hallucinations.
|
|
|
|
|
|
VI. Methods for Preventing the Re-Entry
|
|
|
|
Although many confrontations and recognition points have been given, the
|
|
person may be ill-prepared and still be wandering back to game reality. It is
|
|
of advantage to postpone the return for as long as possible, thus maximizing
|
|
the degree of enlightenment in the subsequent personality. For this reason
|
|
four meditative methods are given for prolonging the ego-loss state. They
|
|
are (1) meditation on the Buddha or guide; (2) concentration on good games;
|
|
(3) meditation on illusion; and (4) meditation on the void. See the ==|==>>
|
|
FOUR METHODS OF PREVENTING RE-ENTRY. Each one attempts to lead the
|
|
voyager back to the First Bardo central stream of energy from which he has
|
|
been separated by game involvements. One may ask how these meditative
|
|
methods, which seem difficult for the ordinary person, can be effective. The
|
|
answer given in the Tibetan Bardo Thodol is that due to the increased
|
|
suggestibility and openness of the mind in the psychedelic state these
|
|
methods can be used by anyone, regardless of intellectual capacity, or
|
|
proficiency in meditation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
VII. Methods of Choosing the Post-Session Personality
|
|
|
|
Choosing the post-session ego is an extremely profound art and should not
|
|
be undertaken carelessly or hastily. One should not return fleeing from
|
|
hallucinated tormentors. Such re-entry will tend to bring the person to one
|
|
of the three lower levels. One should first banish the fear by visualizing
|
|
one's protective figure or the Buddha; then choose calmly and impartially.
|
|
|
|
The limited foreknowledge available to the voyager should be used to make
|
|
a wise choice. In the Tibetan tradition each of the levels of game-existence
|
|
is associated with a particular color and also certain geographical symbols.
|
|
These may be different for twentieth-century Westerners. Each person has
|
|
to learn to decode his own internal road map. The Tibetan indicators may be
|
|
used as a starting point. The purpose is clear: one should follow the signs of
|
|
the three higher types and shun those of the three lower. One should follow
|
|
light and pleasant visions and shun dark and dreary ones.
|
|
|
|
The world of saints (devas) is said to shine with a white light and to be
|
|
preceded by visions of delightful temples and jewelled mansions. The world
|
|
of heroes (asuras) has a green light and is signalled by magical forests and
|
|
fire images. The ordinary human world has a yellow light. Animal existence
|
|
is foreshadowed by a blue light and images of caves and deep holes in the
|
|
earth. The world of neurotics or unsatisfied spirits has a red light and
|
|
visions of desolate plains and forest wastes. The hell world emits a smoke-
|
|
colored light and is preceded by sounds of wailing, visions of gloomy lands,
|
|
black and white houses and black roads along which you have to travel.
|
|
|
|
Use your foresight to choose a good post-session robot. Do not be attracted
|
|
to your old ego. Whether you choose to pursue power, or status, or wisdom,
|
|
or learning, or servitude, or whatever, choose impartially, without being
|
|
attracted or repelled. Enter into game existence with good grace, voluntarily
|
|
and freely. Visualize it as a celestial mansion, i.e., as an opportunity to
|
|
exercise game-ecstasy. Have faith in the protection of the deities and
|
|
choose. The mood of complete impartiality is important since you may be in
|
|
error. A game that appears good may later turn out to be bad. Complete
|
|
impartiality, freedom from want or fear, ensure that a maximally wise
|
|
choice is made.
|
|
|
|
As you return you see spread out before you the world, your former life, a
|
|
planet full of fascinating objects and events. Each aspect of the return trip
|
|
can be a delightful discovery. Soon you will be descending to take your place
|
|
in worldly events. The key to this return voyage is simply this: take it easy,
|
|
slowly, naturally. Enjoy every second. Don't rush. Don't be attached to your
|
|
old games. Recognize that you are in the re-entry period. Do not return with
|
|
any emotional pressure. Everything you see and touch can glow with
|
|
radiance. Each moment can be a joyous discovery.
|
|
|
|
Here end the Third Bardo,
|
|
The Period of Re-Entry
|
|
|
|
|
|
GENERAL CONCLUSION
|
|
|
|
Well-prepared students with advanced spiritual understanding can use the
|
|
"Transference" principle at the moment of ego-death and need not traverse
|
|
subsequent Bardo states. They will rise to a state of illumination and
|
|
remain there throughout the entire period. Others, who are a little less
|
|
experienced in spiritual discipline, will recognize the Clear Light in the
|
|
second stage of the First Bardo and will then win liberation. Others, at a
|
|
still less advanced level, may be liberated while experiencing one of the
|
|
positive or negative visions of the Second Bardo. Since there are several
|
|
turning points, liberation can be obtained at one or the other through
|
|
recognition at moments of confrontation. Those of very weak karmic
|
|
connection, i.e., those who have been involved in heavy ego-dominated game-
|
|
playing, will have to wander downwards to the Third Bardo. Again, many
|
|
points for liberation have been charted. The weakest persons will fall under
|
|
the influence of guilt and terror. For weaker persons there are various
|
|
graded teachings for preventing the return to routine-reality, or at least for
|
|
choosing it wisely. Through applying the methods of visualization described,
|
|
they should be able to experience the benefits of the session. Even those
|
|
persons whose familiar routines are primitive and egocentric can be
|
|
prevented from entering into misery. Once they have experienced, for
|
|
however short a period, the great beauty and power of free awareness, they
|
|
may, in the next period, meet with a guide or friend who will initiate them
|
|
further into the way.
|
|
|
|
The way in which this teaching is effective, even for a voyager already in
|
|
the Sidpa Bardo, is as follows: each person has some positive and some
|
|
negative game-residues (karma). The continuity of consciousness has been
|
|
broken by an ego-death for which the person was not prepared. The teachings
|
|
are like a trough in a broken water drain, temporarily restoring the
|
|
continuity with positive karma. As stated before, the extreme suggestibility
|
|
or detached quality of consciousness in this state ensures the efficacy of
|
|
listening to the doctrine. The teaching embedded in this Manual may be
|
|
compared to a catapult which can direct the person towards the goal of
|
|
liberation. Or like the moving of a big wooden beam, which is so heavy that a
|
|
hundred men cannot carry it, but by being floated on water it can be easily
|
|
moved. Or it is like controlling a horse's bit and course by the use of a
|
|
bridle.
|
|
|
|
Therefore, these teachings should be vividly impressed on the voyager, again
|
|
and again. This Manual may also be used more generally. It should be
|
|
recited as often as possible and committed to memory as far as possible.
|
|
When ego-death or final death comes, recognize the symptoms, recite the
|
|
Manual to yourself, and reflect upon the meaning. If you cannot do it
|
|
yourself, ask a friend to read it to you. There is no doubt as to its liberative
|
|
power.
|
|
|
|
It liberates by being seen or heard, without need of ritual or complex
|
|
meditation. This Profound Teaching liberates those of great evil karma
|
|
through the Secret Pathway. One should not forget its meaning and the
|
|
words, even though pursued by seven mastiffs. By this Select Teaching, one
|
|
obtains Buddhahood at the moment of ego-loss. Were the Buddhas of past,
|
|
present and future to seek, they could not find any doctrine transcending
|
|
this.
|
|
|
|
Here ends the Bardo Thodol, known as
|
|
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
|
|
|
|
|
|
III.
|
|
|
|
SOME TECHNICAL COMMENTS
|
|
ABOUT PSYCHEDELIC SESSIONS
|
|
|
|
1. Use of This Manual
|
|
J
|
|
The most important use of this manual is for preparatory reading. Having
|
|
read the Tibetan Manual, one can immediately recognize symptoms and
|
|
experiences which might otherwise be terrifying, only because of lack of
|
|
understanding as to what was happening. Recognition is the key word.
|
|
|
|
Secondly, this guidebook may be used to avoid paranoid traps or to regain
|
|
the First Bardo transcendence if it has been lost. If the experience starts
|
|
with light, peace, mystic unity, understanding, and if it continues along this
|
|
path, then there is no need to remember this manual of have this manual re-
|
|
read to you. Like a road map, we consult it only when lost, or when we wish
|
|
to change course. Usually, however, the ego clings to its old games. There
|
|
may be momentary discomfort or confusion. If this happens, the others
|
|
present should not be sympathetic or show alarm. They should be prepared to
|
|
stay calm and restrain their "helping games." In particular, the "doctor" role
|
|
should be avoided.
|
|
|
|
If at any time you find yourself struggling to get back to routine reality, you
|
|
can (by pre-arrangement) have a more experienced person, a fellow-
|
|
voyager, or a trusted observer read parts of this manual to you.
|
|
|
|
Passages suitable for reading during the session are given in Part IV below.
|
|
Each major descriptive section of the Tibetan Book has an appropriate
|
|
instruction text. One may want to pre-record selected passages and simply
|
|
flick on the recorder when desired. The aim of these instruction texts is
|
|
always to lead the voyager back to the original First Bardo transcendence
|
|
and to help maintain that as long as possible.
|
|
|
|
A third use would be to construct a "program" for a session using passages
|
|
from the text. The aim would be to lead the voyager to one of the visions
|
|
deliberately, or through a sequence of visions. The guide or friend could read
|
|
the relevant passages, show slides or pictures or symbolic figures of
|
|
processes, play carefully selected music, etc. One can envision a high art of
|
|
programming psychedelic sessions, in which symbolic manipulations and
|
|
presentations would lead the voyager through ecstatic visionary Bead
|
|
Games.
|
|
|
|
|
|
2. Planning a Session
|
|
|
|
In planning a session, the first question to be decided is "what is the goal?"
|
|
Classic Hinduism suggest four possibilities:
|
|
|
|
(1) For increased personal power, intellectual understanding, sharpened
|
|
insight into self and culture, improvement of life situation, accelerated
|
|
learning, professional growth.
|
|
|
|
(2) For duty, help of others, providing care, rehabilitation, rebirth for fellow
|
|
men.
|
|
|
|
(3) For fun, sensuous enjoyment, aesthetic pleasure, interpersonal
|
|
closeness,
|
|
pure experience.
|
|
|
|
(4) For transcendence, liberation from ego and space-time limits;
|
|
attainment
|
|
of mystical union.
|
|
|
|
This manual aims primarily at the latter goal - that of liberation-
|
|
enlightenment. This emphasis does not preclude attainment of the other
|
|
goals - in fact, it guarantees their attainment because illumination requires
|
|
that the person be able to step out beyond game problems of personality,
|
|
role, and professional status. The initiate can decide beforehand to devote
|
|
the psychedelic experience to any of the four goals. The manual will be of
|
|
assistance in any event.
|
|
|
|
If there are several people having a session together they should either
|
|
agree collaboratively on a goal, or at least be aware of each other's goals. If
|
|
the session is to be "programmed" then the participants should either agree
|
|
on or design a program collaboratively, or they should agree to let one
|
|
member of the group do the programming. Unexpected or undesired
|
|
manipulations by one of the participants can easily "trap the other voyagers
|
|
into paranoid Third Bardo delusions.
|
|
|
|
The voyager, especially in an individual session, may also wish to have
|
|
either an extroverted or an introverted experience. In the extroverted
|
|
transcendent experience, the self is ecstatically fused with external
|
|
objects (e.g. flowers, or other people). In the introverted state, the self is
|
|
ecstatically fused with internal life processes (lights, energy-waves, bodily
|
|
events, biological forms, etc.). Of course, either the extroverted or the
|
|
introverted state may be negative rather than positive, depending on the
|
|
attitude of the voyager. Also it may be primarily conceptual or primarily
|
|
emotional. The eight types of experience thus derived (four positive and four
|
|
negative) have been described more fully in Visions 2 to 5 of the Second
|
|
Bardo.
|
|
|
|
For the extroverted mystic experience one would bring to the session
|
|
objects or symbols to guide the awareness in the desired direction. Candles,
|
|
pictures,books, incense, music or recorded passages. An introverted mystic
|
|
experience requires the elimination of all stimulation; no light, no sound, no
|
|
smell, no movement.
|
|
|
|
The mode of communication with the other participants should also be
|
|
agreed on beforehand. You may agree on certain signals, silently indicating
|
|
companionship. You may arrange for physical contact - clasping hands,
|
|
embracing. These means of communication should be pre-arranged to avoid
|
|
game-misinterpretations that may develop during the heightened sensitivity
|
|
of ego-transcendence.
|
|
|
|
|
|
3. Drugs and Dosages
|
|
|
|
A wide variety of chemicals and plants have psychedelic ("mind
|
|
manifesting") effects. The most widely used substances are listed here
|
|
together with dosages adequate for a normal adult of average size. The
|
|
dosage to be taken depends, of course, on the goal of the session. Two
|
|
figures are therefore given. The first column indicates a dosage which
|
|
should be sufficient for an inexperienced person to enter the transcendental
|
|
worlds described in this manual. The second column gives a smaller dosage
|
|
figure, which may be used by more experienced persons or by participants in
|
|
a group session.
|
|
|
|
LSD-25 (lysergic acid diethylamide) 200-500 micrograms 100-200
|
|
micrograms
|
|
Mescaline 600-800 mg 300-500 mg
|
|
Psilocybin 40-60 mg 20-30 mg
|
|
|
|
The time of onset, when the drugs are taken orally on an empty stomach, is
|
|
approximately 20-30 minutes for LSD and psilocybin, and one to two hours
|
|
for mescaline. The duration of the session is usually eight to ten hours for
|
|
LSD and mescaline, and five to six hours for psilocybin. DMT
|
|
(dimethyltryptamine), when injected intramuscularly in dosages of 50-60
|
|
mg, gives an experience approximately equivalent to 500 micrograms of LSD,
|
|
but which lasts only 30 minutes.
|
|
|
|
Some person have found it useful to take other drugs before the session. A
|
|
very anxious person, for example, may take 30 to 40 mg of Librium about on
|
|
hour earlier, to calm and relax himself. Methedrine has also been used to
|
|
induced a pleasant, euphoric mood prior to the session. Sometimes, with
|
|
excessively nervous persons, it is advisable to stagger the drug
|
|
administration: for example, 200 micrograms of LSD may be taken initially,
|
|
and a "booster" of another 200 micrograms may be taken after the person
|
|
has become familiar with some of the effects of the psychedelic state.
|
|
Nausea may sometimes occur. Usually this is a mental symptom, indicating
|
|
fear, and should be regarded as such. Sometimes, however, particularly with
|
|
the use of morning-glory seeds and peyote, the nausea can have a
|
|
physiological cause. Anti-nauseant drugs such as Marezine, Bonamine,
|
|
Dramamine or Tigan, may be taken beforehand to prevent this.
|
|
|
|
If a person becomes trapped in a repetitive game-routine during a session, it
|
|
is sometimes possible to "break the set" by administering 50 mg of DMT, or
|
|
even 25 mg of Dexedrine or Methedrine. Such additional dosages, of course,
|
|
should only be given with the person's own knowledge and consent.
|
|
|
|
Should external emergencies call for it, Thorazine (100-200 mg, i.m.) or
|
|
other phenothiazine-type tranquilizers will terminate the effects of
|
|
psychedelic drugs. Antidotes should not be used simply because the voyager
|
|
or the guide is frightened. Instead, the appropriate sections of the Third
|
|
Bardo should be read. [Further, more detailed suggestions concerning dosage
|
|
may be found in a paper by Gary M. Fisher: "Some Comments Concerning
|
|
Dosage Levels of Psychedelic Compounds for Psychotherapeutic
|
|
Experiences." Psychedelic Review, I, no.2, pp. 208-218, 1963.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
4. Preparation
|
|
|
|
Psychedelic chemicals are not drugs in the usual sense of the word. There is
|
|
no specific reaction, no expected sequence of events, somatic or
|
|
psychological.
|
|
|
|
The specific reaction has little to do with the chemical and is chiefly a
|
|
function of set and setting; preparation and environment. The better the
|
|
preparation, the more ecstatic and revelatory the session. In initial sessions
|
|
and with unprepared persons, setting - particularly the actions of others -
|
|
is most important. With persons who have prepared thoughtfully and
|
|
seriously, the setting is less important.
|
|
|
|
There are two aspects of set: long-range and immediate.
|
|
|
|
Long-range set refers to the personal history, the enduring personality. The
|
|
kind of person you are - your fears, desires, conflicts, guilts, secret
|
|
passions - determines how you interpret and manage any situation you enter,
|
|
including a psychedelic session. Perhaps more important are the reflex
|
|
mechanisms used when dealing with anxiety - the defenses, the protective
|
|
maneuvers typically employed. Flexibility, basic trust, religious faith,
|
|
human openness, courage, interpersonal warmth, creativity, are
|
|
characteristics which allow for fun and easy learning. Rigidity, desire to
|
|
control, distrust, cynicism, narrowness, cowardice, coldness, are
|
|
characteristics which make any new situation threatening. Most important
|
|
is insight. No matter how many cracks in the record, the person who has
|
|
some understanding of his own recording machinery, who can recognize when
|
|
he is not functioning as he would wish, is better able to adapt to any
|
|
challenge - even the sudden collapse of his ego.
|
|
|
|
The most careful preparation would include some discussion of the
|
|
personality characteristics and some planning with the guide as to how to
|
|
handle expected emotional reactions when they occur.
|
|
|
|
Immediate set refers to the expectations about the session itself. Session
|
|
preparation is of critical importance in determining how the experience
|
|
unfolds. People tend naturally to impose their personal and social game
|
|
perspectives on any new situation. Careful thought should precede the
|
|
session to prevent narrow sets being imposed.
|
|
|
|
Medical expectations. Some ill-prepared subjects unconsciously impose a
|
|
medical model on the experience. They look for symptoms, interpret each
|
|
new sensation in terms of sickness/health, place the guide in a doctor-role,
|
|
and, if anxiety develops, demand chemical rebirth - i.e., tranquilizers.
|
|
Occasionally one hears of casual, ill-planned, non-guided sessions which end
|
|
in the subject demanding to be hospitalized, etc. It is even more problem-
|
|
provoking if the guide employs a medical model, watches for symptoms, and
|
|
keeps hospitalization in mind to fall back on, as protection for himself.
|
|
|
|
Rebellion against convention may be the motive of some people who take the
|
|
drug. The idea of doing something "far out" or vaguely naughty is a naive set
|
|
which can color the experience.
|
|
|
|
Intellectual expectations are appropriate when subjects have had much
|
|
psychedelic experience. Indeed, LSD offers vast possibilities for accelerated
|
|
learning and scientific-scholarly research. But for initial sessions,
|
|
intellectual reactions can become traps. The Tibetan Manual never tires of
|
|
warning about the dangers of rationalization. "Turn you mind off" is the best
|
|
advice for novitiates. Control of your consciousness is like flight
|
|
instruction. After you have learned how to move your consciousness around -
|
|
into ego-loss and back, at will - then intellectual exercises can be
|
|
incorporated into the psychedelic experience. The last stage of the session
|
|
is the best time to examine concepts. The objective of this particular
|
|
manual is to free you from you verbal mind for as long as possible.
|
|
|
|
Religious expectations invite the same advice as intellectual set. Again, the
|
|
subject in early sessions is best advised to float with the stream, stay "up"
|
|
as long as possible, and postpone theological interpretations until the end of
|
|
the session, or to later sessions.
|
|
|
|
Recreational and aesthetic expectations are natural. The psychedelic
|
|
experience, without question, provides ecstatic moments which dwarf any
|
|
personal or cultural game. Pure sensation can capture awareness.
|
|
Interpersonal intimacy reaches Himalayan heights. Aesthetic delights -
|
|
musical, artistic, botanical, natural - are raised to the millionth power. But
|
|
all these reactions can be Third Bardo ego games: "I am having this ecstasy.
|
|
How lucky I am!" Such reactions can become tender traps, preventing the
|
|
subject from reaching pure ego-loss (First Bardo) or the glories of Second
|
|
Bardo creativity.
|
|
|
|
Planned expectations. This manual prepares the person for a mystical
|
|
experience according to the Tibetan model. The Sages of the Snowy Ranges
|
|
have developed a most sophisticated and precise understanding of human
|
|
psychology, and the student who studies this manual will become oriented
|
|
for a voyage which is much richer in scope and meaning than any Western
|
|
psychological theory. We remain aware, however, that the Bardo Thodol
|
|
model of consciousness is a human artifact, a Second Bardo hallucination,
|
|
however grand its scope.
|
|
|
|
Some practical recommendations. The subject should set aside at least
|
|
three days for his experience; a day before, the session day, and a follow-up
|
|
day. This scheduling guarantees a reduction in external pressure and a more
|
|
sober commitment to the voyage.
|
|
|
|
Talking to others who have taken the voyage is excellent preparation,
|
|
although the Second Bardo hallucinatory quality of all descriptions should be
|
|
recognized. Observing a session is another valuable preliminary. The
|
|
opportunity to see others during and after a session shapes expectations.
|
|
|
|
Reading books about mystical experience is a standard orientation
|
|
procedure. Reading the accounts of others' experiences is another possibility
|
|
(Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, and Gordon Wasson have written powerful
|
|
accounts).
|
|
|
|
Meditation is probably the best preparation for a psychedelic session. Those
|
|
who have spent time in the solitary attempt to manage the mind, to
|
|
eliminate thought and to reach higher stages of concentration, are the best
|
|
candidates for a psychedelic session. When the ego-loss state occurs, they
|
|
are ready. They recognize the process as an end eagerly awaited, rather than
|
|
a strange event ill-understood.
|
|
|
|
|
|
5. The Setting
|
|
|
|
The first and most important thing to remember, in the preparation for a
|
|
psychedelic session, is to provide a setting which is removed from one's
|
|
usual social and interpersonal games and which is as free as possible from
|
|
unforeseen distractions and intrusions. The voyager should make sure that
|
|
he will not be disturbed by visitors or telephone calls, since these will
|
|
often jar him into hallucinatory activity. Trust in the surroundings and
|
|
privacy are necessary.
|
|
|
|
A period of time (usually at least three days) should be set aside in which
|
|
the experience will run its natural course and there will be sufficient time
|
|
for reflections and meditation. It is important to keep schedules open for
|
|
three days and to make these arrangements beforehand. A too-hasty return
|
|
to game-involvements will blur the clarity of the vision and reduce the
|
|
potential for learning. If the experience was with a group, it is very useful
|
|
to stay together after the session in order to share and exchange
|
|
experiences.
|
|
|
|
There are differences between night sessions and day sessions. Many people
|
|
report that they are more comfortable in the evening and consequently that
|
|
their experiences are deeper and richer. The person should choose the time
|
|
of day that seems right according to his own temperament at first. Later, he
|
|
may wish to experience the difference between night and day sessions.
|
|
|
|
Similarly, there are differences between sessions out-of-doors and indoors.
|
|
Natural settings such as gardens, beaches, forests, and open country have
|
|
specific influences which one may or may not wish to incur. The essential
|
|
thing is to feel as comfortable as possible in the surroundings, whether in
|
|
one's living room or under the night sky. A familiarity with the surroundings
|
|
may help one to feel confident in hallucinatory periods. If the session is held
|
|
indoors, one must consider the arrangement of the room and the specific
|
|
objects one may wish to see and hear during the experience.
|
|
|
|
Music, lighting, the availability of food and drink, should be considered
|
|
beforehand. Most people report no desire for food during the height of the
|
|
experience, and then, later on, prefer to have simple, ancient foods like
|
|
bread, cheese, wine, and fresh fruit. Hunger is usually not the issue. The
|
|
senses are wide open, and the taste and smell of a fresh orange are
|
|
unforgettable.
|
|
|
|
In group sessions, the arrangement of the room is quite important. People
|
|
usually will not feel like walking or moving very much for a long period, and
|
|
either beds or mattresses should be provided. The arrangement of the beds
|
|
or mattresses can vary. One suggestion is to place the heads of the beds
|
|
together to form a star pattern. Perhaps one may want to place a few beds
|
|
together and keep one or two some distance apart for anyone who wishes to
|
|
remain aside for some time. Often, the availability of an extra room is
|
|
desirable for someone who wishes to be in seclusion for a period.
|
|
|
|
If it is desired to listen to music or to reflect on paintings or religious
|
|
objects, one should arrange these so that everyone in the group feels
|
|
comfortable with what they are hearing or seeing. In a group session, all
|
|
decisions about goals, setting, etc. should be made with collaboration and
|
|
openness.
|
|
|
|
6. The Psychedelic Guide
|
|
|
|
For initial sessions, the attitude and behavior of the guide are critical
|
|
factors. He possesses enormous power to shape the experience. With the
|
|
cognitive mind suspended, the subject is in a heightened state of
|
|
suggestibility. The guide can move consciousness with the slightest gesture
|
|
or reaction.
|
|
|
|
The key issue here is the guide's ability to turn off his own ego and social
|
|
games - in particular, to muffle his own power needs and his fears. To be
|
|
there relaxed, solid, accepting, secure. The Tao wisdom of creative quietism.
|
|
To sense all and do nothing except to let the subject know your wise
|
|
presence.
|
|
|
|
A psychedelic session lasts up to twelve hours and produces moments of
|
|
intense, intense, INTENSE reactivity. The guide must never be bored,
|
|
talkative, intellectualizing. He must remain calm during the long periods of
|
|
swirling mindlessness.
|
|
|
|
He is the ground control in the airport tower. Always there to receive
|
|
messages and queries from high-flying aircraft. Always ready to help
|
|
navigate their course, to help them reach their destination. An airport-
|
|
tower-operator who imposes his own personality, his own games upon the
|
|
pilot is unheard of. The pilots have their own flight plan, their own goals,
|
|
and ground control is there, ever waiting to be of service.
|
|
|
|
The pilot is reassured to know that an expert who has guided thousands of
|
|
flights is down there, available for help. But suppose the flier has reason to
|
|
suspect that ground control is harboring his own motives and might be
|
|
manipulating the plane toward selfish goals. The bond of security and
|
|
confidence would crumble.
|
|
|
|
It goes without saying, then, that the guide should have had considerable
|
|
experience in psychedelic sessions himself and in guiding others. To
|
|
administer psychedelics without personal experience is unethical and
|
|
dangerous.
|
|
|
|
The greatest problem faced by human beings in general, and the psychedelic
|
|
guide in particular, is fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of losing control. Fear
|
|
of trusting the genetic process and your companions. From our own research
|
|
studies and our investigations into sessions run by others - serious
|
|
professionals or adventurous bohemians - we have been led to the
|
|
conclusion that almost every negative LSD reaction has been caused by fear
|
|
on the part of the guide which has augmented the transient fear of the
|
|
subject. When the guide acts to protect himself, he communicates his
|
|
concern to the subject.
|
|
|
|
The guide must remain passively sensitive and intuitively relaxed for
|
|
several hours. This is a difficult assignment for most Westerners. For this
|
|
reason, we have sought ways to assist the guide in maintaining a state of
|
|
alert quietism in which he is poised with ready flexibility. The most certain
|
|
way to achieve this state is for the guide to take a low dose of the
|
|
psychedelic with the subject. Routine procedure is to have one trained
|
|
person participate in the experience and one staff member present in ground
|
|
control without psychedelic aid.
|
|
|
|
The knowledge that one experienced guide is "up" and keeping the subject
|
|
company, is of inestimable value; intimacy and communication; cosmic
|
|
companionship; the security of having a trained pilot flying at your wing tip;
|
|
the scuba diver's security in the presence of an expert comrade in the deep.
|
|
|
|
It is not recommended that guides take large doses during sessions for new
|
|
subjects. The less experienced he is, the more likely will the subject impose
|
|
Second and Third Bardo hallucinations. These intense games affect the
|
|
experienced guide, who is likely to be in a state of mindless void. The guide
|
|
is then pulled into the hallucinatory field of the subject, and may have
|
|
difficulty orienting himself. During the First Bardo there are no familiar
|
|
fixed landmarks, no place to put your foot, no solid concept upon which to
|
|
base your thinking. All is flux. Decisive Second Bardo action on the part of
|
|
the subject can structure the guide's flow if he has taken a heavy dose.
|
|
|
|
The role of the psychedelic guide is perhaps the most exciting and inspiring
|
|
role in society. He is literally a liberator, one who provides illumination,
|
|
one who frees men from their life-long internal bondage. To be present at
|
|
the moment of awakening, to share the ecstatic revelation when the voyager
|
|
discovers the wonder and awe of the divine life-process, is for many the
|
|
most gratifying part to play in the evolutionary drama. The role of the
|
|
psychedelic guide has a built-in protection against professionalism and
|
|
didactic oneupmanship. The psychedelic liberation is so powerful that it far
|
|
outstrips earthly game ambitions. Awe and gratitude - rather than pride -
|
|
are the rewards of this new profession.
|
|
|
|
|
|
7. Composition of the Group
|
|
|
|
The most effective use of this manual will be for the experience of one
|
|
person with a guide. However, the manual will be useful in a group also.
|
|
When used in a group session, the following suggestions will be most helpful
|
|
in planning.
|
|
|
|
The important thing to remember in organizing a group session is to have
|
|
knowledge of and trust in the fellow voyagers. Trust in oneself and in one's
|
|
companions is essential. If preparing for an experience with strangers, it is
|
|
very important to share as much time and space as possible with them prior
|
|
to the session. The participants should set collaborative goals and explore
|
|
mutually their expectations and feelings and past experiences.
|
|
|
|
The size of the group should depend to some extent on how much experience
|
|
the participants have had. Initially, small groups are preferable to larger
|
|
ones. In any case, group experiences exceeding six or seven people are
|
|
demonstrably less profound and generate more paranoid hallucinations. If
|
|
planning for a group session of five or six people, it is preferable to have at
|
|
least two guides present. One will take the psychedelic substance and the
|
|
other, who does not, serves as a practical guide to take care of such
|
|
concerns as changing the recordings, providing food, etc., and if necessary or
|
|
desired, reading selections from the manual. If it is possible, one of the
|
|
guides should be an experienced woman who can provide an atmosphere of
|
|
spiritual nurturing and comfort.
|
|
|
|
It is sometimes advisable that the initial session of married couples be
|
|
separate in order that the exploration of their marriage game not dominate
|
|
the session. With some experience in consciousness-expansion, the marriage
|
|
game like others may be explored for any purpose - increased intimacy,
|
|
clearer communication, exploration of the foundations of the sexual, mating
|
|
relationship, etc.
|
|
|
|
|
|
IV.
|
|
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE
|
|
DURING A PSYCHEDELIC SESSION
|
|
|
|
FIRST BARDO INSTRUCTIONS
|
|
|
|
O (name of voyager)
|
|
The time has come for you to seek new levels of reality.
|
|
Your ego and the (name) game are about to cease.
|
|
Your are about to be set face to face with the Clear Light
|
|
Your are about to experience it in its reality.
|
|
In the ego-free state, wherein all things are like the void and cloudless sky,
|
|
And the naked spotless intellect is like a transparent vacuum;
|
|
At this moment, know yourself and abide in that state.
|
|
|
|
O (name of voyager),
|
|
That which is called ego-death is coming to you.
|
|
Remember:
|
|
This is now the hour of death and rebirth;
|
|
Take advantage of this temporary death to obtain the perfect state -
|
|
Enlightenment.
|
|
Concentrate on the unity of all living beings.
|
|
Hold onto the Clear Light.
|
|
Use it to attain understanding and love.
|
|
|
|
If you cannot maintain the bliss of illumination and if you are slipping back
|
|
into contact with the external world,
|
|
Remember:
|
|
The hallucinations which you may now experience,
|
|
The visions and insights,
|
|
Will teach you much about yourself and the world.
|
|
The veil of routine perception will be torn from you eyes.
|
|
Remember the unity of all living things.
|
|
Remember the bliss of the Clear Light.
|
|
Let it guide you through the visions of this experience.
|
|
Let it guide you through your new life to come.
|
|
If you feel confused; call upon the memory of your friends and the power of
|
|
the person whom you most admire.
|
|
|
|
O (name),
|
|
Try to reach and keep the experience of the Clear Light.
|
|
Remember:
|
|
The light is the life energy.
|
|
The endless flame of life.
|
|
An ever-changing surging turmoil of color may engulf your vision.
|
|
This is the ceaseless transformation of energy.
|
|
The life process.
|
|
Do not fear it.
|
|
Surrender to it.
|
|
Join it.
|
|
It is part of you.
|
|
You are part of it.
|
|
Remember also:
|
|
Beyond the restless flowing electricity of life is the ultimate reality -
|
|
The Void.
|
|
Your own awareness, not formed into anything possessing form or color,
|
|
is naturally void.
|
|
The Final Reality.
|
|
The All Good.
|
|
The All Peaceful.
|
|
The Light.
|
|
The Radiance.
|
|
The movement is the fire of life from which we all come.
|
|
Join it.
|
|
It is part of you.
|
|
Beyond the light of life is the peaceful silence of the void.
|
|
The quiet bliss beyond all transformations.
|
|
The Buddha smile.
|
|
The Void is not nothingness.
|
|
The Void is beginning and end itself.
|
|
Unobstructed; shining, thrilling, blissful.
|
|
Diamond consciousness.
|
|
The All-Good Buddha.
|
|
Your own consciousness, not formed into anything,
|
|
No thought, no vision, no color, is void.
|
|
The intellect shining and blissful and silent -
|
|
This is the state of perfect enlightenment.
|
|
Your own consciousness, shining, void and inseparable from the great body
|
|
of radiance, has no birth, nor death.
|
|
It is the immutable light which the Tibetans call Buddha Amitabha,
|
|
The awareness of the formless beginning.
|
|
Knowing this is enough.
|
|
Recognize the voidness of your own consciousness to be Buddhahood.
|
|
Keep this recognition and you will maintain the state of the divine mind
|
|
of the Buddha.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECOND BARDO PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS
|
|
|
|
Remember:
|
|
In this session you experience three Bardos,
|
|
Three states of ego-loss.
|
|
First there is the Clear Light of Reality.
|
|
Next there are fantastically varied game hallucinations.
|
|
Later you will reach the stage of Re-Entry
|
|
Of regaining an ego.
|
|
|
|
O friend,
|
|
You may experience ego-transcendence,
|
|
Departure from your old self.
|
|
But you are not the only one.
|
|
It comes to all at some time.
|
|
You are fortunate to have this gratuitously given rebirth experience.
|
|
Do not cling in fondness and weakness to your old self.
|
|
Even though you cling to your mind, you have lost the power to keep it.
|
|
You can gain nothing by struggling in this hallucinatory world.
|
|
Be not attached.
|
|
Be not weak.
|
|
Whatever fear or terror may come to you
|
|
Forget not these words.
|
|
Take their meaning into your heart.
|
|
Go forward.
|
|
Herein lies the vital secret of recognition.
|
|
|
|
O friend, remember:
|
|
When body and mind separate, you experience a glimpse of the pure truth -
|
|
Subtle, sparkling, bright,
|
|
Dazzling, glorious, and radiantly awesome,
|
|
In appearance like a mirage moving across a landscape in springtime.
|
|
One continuous stream of vibrations.
|
|
Be not daunted thereby,
|
|
Nor terrified, nor awed.
|
|
That is the radiance of your own true nature.
|
|
Recognize it.
|
|
|
|
>From the midst of that radiance
|
|
Comes the natural sound of reality,
|
|
Reverberating like a thousand thunders simultaneously sounding.
|
|
That is the natural sound of your own life process.
|
|
Be not daunted thereby,
|
|
Nor terrified, nor awed.
|
|
It is sufficient for you to know that these apparitions are your own thought-
|
|
forms.
|
|
If you do not recognize your own thought forms,
|
|
If you forget your preparation,
|
|
The lights will daunt you,
|
|
The sounds will awe you,
|
|
The rays will terrify you,
|
|
The people around you will confuse you.
|
|
Remember the key to the teachings.
|
|
|
|
O friend,
|
|
These realms are not come from somewhere outside your self,
|
|
They come from within and shine upon you.
|
|
The revelations too are not come from somewhere else;
|
|
They exist from eternity within the faculties of your own intellect.
|
|
Know them to be of that nature.
|
|
|
|
The key to enlightenment and serenity during this period of ten thousand
|
|
visions is simply this:
|
|
Relax.
|
|
Merge yourself with them.
|
|
Blissfully accept the wonders of your own creativity.
|
|
Become neither attached nor afraid,
|
|
Neither be attracted nor repulsed.
|
|
Above all, do nothing about the visions.
|
|
They exist only within you.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 1: THE SOURCE
|
|
(Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored)
|
|
|
|
O nobly-born, listen carefully:
|
|
The Radiant Energy of the Seed
|
|
>From which come all living forms,
|
|
Shoots forth and strikes against you
|
|
With a light so brilliant that you will scarcely be able to look at it.
|
|
Do not be frightened.
|
|
This is the Source Energy which has been radiating for billions of years,
|
|
Ever manifesting itself in different forms.
|
|
Accept it.
|
|
Do not try to intellectualize it.
|
|
Do not play games with it.
|
|
Merge with it.
|
|
Let it flow through you.
|
|
Lose yourself in it.
|
|
Fuse in the Halo of Rainbow Light
|
|
Into the core of the energy dance.
|
|
Obtain Buddhahood in the Central Realm of the Densely Packed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS
|
|
|
|
O friend, listen carefully.
|
|
The bodily symptoms you are having are not drug-effects.
|
|
They indicate that you are struggling against the awareness of feelings
|
|
which surpass your normal experience.
|
|
You cannot control these universal energy-waves.
|
|
Let the feelings melt all over you.
|
|
Become part of them.
|
|
Sink into them and through them.
|
|
Allow yourself to pulsate with the vibrations surrounding you.
|
|
Relax.
|
|
Do not struggle.
|
|
Your symptoms will disappear as soon as all trace of ego-centered striving
|
|
disappears.
|
|
Accept them as the message of the body.
|
|
Welcome them. Enjoy them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 2:
|
|
|
|
THE INTERNAL FLOW OF ARCHETYPAL PROCESSES
|
|
(Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored; intellectual aspects)
|
|
|
|
O nobly born, listen carefully:
|
|
The life flow is whirling through you.
|
|
An endless parade of pure forms and sounds,
|
|
Dazzlingly brilliant,
|
|
Ever-changing.
|
|
Do not try to control it.
|
|
Flow with it.
|
|
Experience the ancient cosmic myths of creation and manifestation.
|
|
Do not try to understand;
|
|
There is plenty of time for that later.
|
|
Merge with it.
|
|
Let it flow through you.
|
|
There is no need to act or think.
|
|
You are being taught the great lessons of evolution, creation, reproduction.
|
|
If you try to stop it, you may fall into hell-worlds and endure unbearable
|
|
misery generated by your own mind.
|
|
Avoid game interpretations.
|
|
Avoid thinking, talking and doing.
|
|
Keep faith in the life flow.
|
|
Trust your companions on this watery journey.
|
|
Merge in Rainbow Light,
|
|
Into the Heart of The River of Created Forms.
|
|
Obtain Buddhahood in the Realm called Pre-Eminently Happy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 3:
|
|
|
|
THE FIRE-FLOW OF INTERNAL UNITY
|
|
(Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored, emotional aspects)
|
|
|
|
O nobly born, listen carefully:
|
|
You are flowing outward into the fluid unity of life.
|
|
The ecstasy of organic fire glows in every cell.
|
|
The hard, dry, brittle husks of your ego are washing out,
|
|
Washing out to the endless sea of creation.
|
|
Flow with it.
|
|
Feel the pulse of the sun's heart.
|
|
Let the red Buddha Amitabha sweep you along.
|
|
Do not fear the ecstasy.
|
|
Do not resist the flow.
|
|
Remember, all the exultant power comes from within.
|
|
Release your attachment.
|
|
Recognize the wisdom of your own blood.
|
|
Trust the tide-force pulling you into unity with all living forms.
|
|
Let your heart burst in love for all life.
|
|
Let your warm blood gush out into the ocean of all life.
|
|
Do not be attached to the ecstatic power;
|
|
It comes from you.
|
|
Let it flow.
|
|
Do not try to hold on to your old bodily fears.
|
|
Let your body merge with the warm flux.
|
|
Let your roots sink into the warm life body.
|
|
Merge into the Heart-Glow of the Buddha Amitabha.
|
|
Float in the Rainbow Sea.
|
|
Attain Buddhahood in the Realm named Exultant Love.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 4:
|
|
|
|
THE WAVE-VIBRATION STRUCTURE OF EXTERNAL FORMS
|
|
(Eyes open, rapt involvement with the external
|
|
visual stimuli, intellectual aspects)
|
|
|
|
O nobly born, listen carefully:
|
|
At this point you can become aware of the wave structure of the world
|
|
around you.
|
|
Everything you see dissolves into energy vibrations.
|
|
Look closely and you will tune in on the electric dance of energy.
|
|
There are no longer things and persons but only the direct flow of particles.
|
|
Consciousness will now leave your body and flow into the stream of wave
|
|
rhythm.
|
|
There is no need for talk or action.
|
|
Let your brain become a receiving set for the radiance.
|
|
All interpretations are the products of your own mind.
|
|
Dispel them. Have no fear.
|
|
Exult in the natural power of your own brain,
|
|
The wisdom of your own electricity.
|
|
Abide in the state of quietude.
|
|
As the three-dimensional world fragments, you may feel panic;
|
|
You may beget a fondness for the heavy dull world of objects you are
|
|
leaving.
|
|
At this time, fear not the transparent, radiant, dazzling wave energy.
|
|
Allow your intellect to rest.
|
|
Fear not the hook-rays of the light of life,
|
|
The basic structure of matter,
|
|
The basic form of wave communication.
|
|
Watch quietly and receive the message.
|
|
You will now experience directly the revelation of primal forms.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 5:
|
|
|
|
THE VIBRATORY WAVES OF EXTERNAL UNITY
|
|
(Eyes open; rapt involvement with external stimuli such as lights,
|
|
or movements; emotional aspects)
|
|
|
|
O nobly born, listen carefully:
|
|
You are experiencing the unity of all living forms.
|
|
If people seem to you rubbery and lifeless, like plastic puppets,
|
|
Be not afraid.
|
|
This is only the attempt of the ego to maintain its separate identity.
|
|
Allow yourself to feel the unity of all.
|
|
Merge with the world around you.
|
|
Be not afraid.
|
|
Enjoy the dance of the puppets.
|
|
They are created by your own mind.
|
|
Allow yourself to relax and feel the ecstatic energy-vibrations pulsing
|
|
through you.
|
|
Enjoy the feeling of complete one-ness with all life and all matter.
|
|
The glowing radiance is a reflection of your own consciousness.
|
|
It is one aspect of your divine nature.
|
|
Do not be attached to your old human self.
|
|
Do not be alarmed at the new and strange feelings you are having.
|
|
If you are attracted to your old self,
|
|
You will be reborn shortly for another round of game-existence.
|
|
Exercise humble trust and remain fearless.
|
|
You will merge into the heart of the Blessed Ratnasambhava,
|
|
In a Halo of Rainbow Light,
|
|
And attain liberation in the Realm Endowed with Glory.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 6: "THE RETINAL CIRCUS"
|
|
|
|
O nobly born, listen well:
|
|
You are now witnessing the magical dance of forms.
|
|
Ecstatic kaleidoscopic patterns explode around you.
|
|
All possible shapes come to life before you eyes.
|
|
The retinal circus.
|
|
The ceaseless play of elements -
|
|
Earth, water, air, fire,
|
|
In ever-changing forms and manifestations,
|
|
Dazzles you with its complexity and variety.
|
|
Relax and enjoy the rushing stream.
|
|
Do not become attached to any vision or revelation.
|
|
Let everything flow through you.
|
|
If unpleasant experiences come,
|
|
Let them flit by with the rest.
|
|
Do not struggle against them.
|
|
It all comes from within you.
|
|
This is the great lesson in the creativity and power of the brain, freed from
|
|
its learned structures.
|
|
Let the cascade of images and associations take you where it will.
|
|
Meditate calmly on the knowledge that all these visions are emanations of
|
|
your own consciousness.
|
|
This way you can obtain self-knowledge and be liberated.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 7: "THE MAGIC THEATRE"
|
|
|
|
O nobly born, listen well:
|
|
You are now in the magic theatre of heroes and demons.
|
|
Mythical superhuman figures.
|
|
Demons, goddesses, celestial warriors, giants,
|
|
Angels, Bodhisattvas, dwarfs, crusaders,
|
|
Elves, devils, saints, and sorcerers,
|
|
Infernal spirits, goblins, knights and emperors.
|
|
The Lotus Lord of Dance.
|
|
The Wise Old Man. The Divine Child.
|
|
The Trickster, The Shapeshifter.
|
|
The tamer of monsters.
|
|
The mother of gods, the witch.
|
|
The moon king. The wanderer.
|
|
The whole divine theatre of figures representing the highest reaches of
|
|
human knowledge.
|
|
Do not be afraid of them.
|
|
They are within you.
|
|
Your own creative intellect is the master magician of them all.
|
|
Recognize the figures as aspects of your self.
|
|
The whole fantastic comedy takes place within you.
|
|
Do not become attached to the figures.
|
|
Remember the teachings.
|
|
You may still attain liberation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE WRATHFUL VISIONS
|
|
|
|
|
|
O nobly born, listen carefully:
|
|
You were unable to maintain the perfect Clear Light of the First Bardo.
|
|
Or the serene peaceful visions of the Second.
|
|
You are now entering Second Bardo nightmares.
|
|
Recognize them.
|
|
They are your own thought-forms made visible and audible.
|
|
They are products of your own mind with its back to the wall.
|
|
They indicate that you are close to liberation.
|
|
Do not fear them.
|
|
No harm can come to you from these hallucinations.
|
|
They are your own thoughts in frightening aspect.
|
|
They are old friends.
|
|
Welcome them. Merge with them. Join them.
|
|
Lose yourself in them.
|
|
They are yours.
|
|
Whatever you see, no matter how strange and terrifying,
|
|
Remember above all that it comes from within you.
|
|
Hold onto that knowledge.
|
|
As soon as you recognize that, you will obtain liberation.
|
|
If you do not recognize them,
|
|
Torture and punishment will ensue.
|
|
But these too are but the radiances of your own intellect.
|
|
They are immaterial.
|
|
Voidness cannot injure voidness.
|
|
None of the peaceful or wrathful visions,
|
|
Blood-drinking demons, machines, monsters, or devils,
|
|
Exist in reality
|
|
Only within your skull.
|
|
This will dissipate your fear. Remember it well.
|
|
|
|
|
|
THIRD BARDO: PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS
|
|
|
|
O (name), listen well:
|
|
You are now entering the Third Bardo.
|
|
Before, while experiencing the peaceful and wrathful visions of the
|
|
Second Bardo,
|
|
You could not recognize them.
|
|
Through fear you became unconscious.
|
|
Now, as you recover,
|
|
Your consciousness rises up,
|
|
Like a trout leaping forth out of water,
|
|
Striving for its original form.
|
|
Your former ego has started to operate again.
|
|
Do not struggle to figure things out.
|
|
If through weakness you are attracted to action and thinking,
|
|
You will have to wander amidst the world of game existence,
|
|
And suffer pain.
|
|
Relax your restless mind.
|
|
|
|
O (name), you have been unable to recognize the archetypal forms of the
|
|
Second Bardo.
|
|
You have come down this far.
|
|
Now, if you wish to see the truth,
|
|
Your mind must rest without distraction.
|
|
There is nothing to do,
|
|
Nothing to think.
|
|
Float back to the unobscured, primordial, bright, void state of your intellect.
|
|
In this way you will obtain liberation.
|
|
If you are unable to relax your mind,
|
|
Meditate on (name of protective figure)
|
|
Meditate on your friends (name)
|
|
Think of them with profound love and trust,
|
|
As overshadowing the crown of your head.
|
|
This is of great importance.
|
|
Be not distracted.
|
|
|
|
O (name),
|
|
You may now feel the power to perform miraculous feats,
|
|
To perceive and communicate with extrasensory power,
|
|
To change shape, size and number,
|
|
To traverse space and time instantly.
|
|
These feelings come to you naturally,
|
|
Not through any merit on your part.
|
|
Do not desire them.
|
|
Do not attempt to exercise them.
|
|
Recognize them as signs that you are in the Third Bardo,
|
|
In the period of re-entry into the normal world.
|
|
|
|
O (name),
|
|
If you have not understood the above,
|
|
At this moment,
|
|
As a result of your own mental set,
|
|
Frightening visions may come.
|
|
Gusts of wind and icy blasts,
|
|
Humming and clicking of the controlling machinery,
|
|
Mocking laughter.
|
|
You may imagine terror producing remarks:
|
|
"Guilty," "stupid," inadequate," "nasty."
|
|
Such imagined taunts and paranoid nightmares
|
|
Are the residues of selfish, ego-dominated game-playing.
|
|
Fear them not.
|
|
They are your own mental products.
|
|
Remember that you are in the Third Bardo.
|
|
You are struggling to re-enter the denser atmosphere of routine game
|
|
existence.
|
|
Let this re-entry be smooth and slow.
|
|
Do not attempt to use force of will-power.
|
|
|
|
O (name),
|
|
As you are driven here and there by the ever-moving winds of karma,
|
|
Your mind, having no resting place or focus,
|
|
Is like a feather tossed about by the wind,
|
|
Or like a rider on the horse or breath,
|
|
Ceaselessly and involuntarily you will wander about,
|
|
Calling in despair for your old ego.
|
|
Your mind races along until you are exhausted and miserable.
|
|
Do not hold on to thoughts.
|
|
Allow the mind to rest in its unmodified state.
|
|
Meditate on the oneness of all energy.
|
|
Thus you will be free of sorrow, terror, and confusion.
|
|
|
|
O (name)
|
|
You may feel confused and bewildered.
|
|
You may be wondering about your sanity.
|
|
You may look at your fellow voyagers and friends,
|
|
And sense that they cannot understand you.
|
|
You may think; "I am dead! What shall I do?,"
|
|
And feel great misery,
|
|
Just like a fish cast out of water on red-hot embers.
|
|
You may wonder whether you will ever return.
|
|
|
|
Familiar places, relatives, people known to you appear as in a dream,
|
|
Or through a glass darkly.
|
|
If you are having such experiences,
|
|
Thinking will be of no avail.
|
|
Do not struggle to explain.
|
|
This is the natural result of your own mental program.
|
|
Such feelings indicate that you are in the Third Bardo.
|
|
Trust your guide,
|
|
Trust your companions,
|
|
Trust the Compassionate Buddha,
|
|
Meditate calmly and without distraction.
|
|
|
|
O (name),
|
|
You may now feel as if you are being oppressed and squeezed,
|
|
Like between rocks and boulders,
|
|
Or like inside a cage or prison.
|
|
Remember:
|
|
These are signs that you are trying to force a return to your ego.
|
|
There may be a dull, gray light
|
|
Suffusing all objects with a murky glow.
|
|
These are all signs of the Third Bardo.
|
|
Do not struggle to return.
|
|
The re-entry will happen by itself.
|
|
Recognize where you are.
|
|
Recognition will lead to liberation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR RE-ENTRY VISIONS
|
|
|
|
O (name),
|
|
You have still not understood what is happening
|
|
So far you have been searching for your past personality.
|
|
Unable to find it, you may begin to feel that you will never be the
|
|
same again,
|
|
That you will come back a changed person.
|
|
Saddened by this you will feel self-pity,
|
|
You will attempt to find your ego, to regain control.
|
|
So thinking, you will wander here and there,
|
|
Ceaselessly and distractedly.
|
|
Different images of your future self will be seen by you;
|
|
The one you are headed for will be seen most clearly.
|
|
The special art of these teachings is particularly important at this moment.
|
|
Whatever image you see,
|
|
Meditate upon it as coming from the Buddha -
|
|
That level of existence also exists in the Buddha.
|
|
This is an exceedingly profound art.
|
|
It will free you from your present confusion.
|
|
Meditate upon (name of protective ideal) for as long as possible.
|
|
Visualize him as a form produced by a magician,
|
|
Then let his image melt away,
|
|
Starting with the extremities,
|
|
Till nothing remains visible.
|
|
Put yourself in a state of Clearness and Voidness;
|
|
Abide in that state for a while.
|
|
Then meditate again on your protective ideal.
|
|
Then again on the Clear Light.
|
|
Do this alternately.
|
|
Afterwards, allow your own mind also to melt away gradually.
|
|
Wherever the air pervades, consciousness pervades.
|
|
Wherever consciousness pervades, serene ecstasy pervades.
|
|
Abide tranquilly in the uncreated state of serenity.
|
|
In that state, paranoid rebirth will be prevented.
|
|
Perfect enlightenment will be gained.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE ALL-DETERMINING
|
|
INFLUENCE OF THOUGHT
|
|
|
|
O (name), you may now experience momentary joy,
|
|
Followed by momentary sorrow,
|
|
Of great intensity,
|
|
Like the stretching and relaxing of a catapult.
|
|
You will go through sharp mood swings,
|
|
All determined by karma.
|
|
Be not in the least attached to the joys nor displeased by the sorrows.
|
|
The actions of your friends or companions may evoke anger or shame in you.
|
|
If you get angry or depressed,
|
|
You will immediately have an experience of hell.
|
|
No matter what people are doing,
|
|
Make sure that no angry thought can arise.
|
|
Meditate upon love for them.
|
|
Even at this late stage of the session
|
|
You are only one second away from a life-changing joyous discovery.
|
|
Remember that each of your companions is Buddha within.
|
|
You mind in its present state having no focus or integrating force,
|
|
Being light and continuously moving,
|
|
Whatever thought occurs to you,
|
|
Positive or negative,
|
|
Will wield great power.
|
|
You are extremely suggestible
|
|
Therefore think not of selfish things.
|
|
Recall your preparation for the session.
|
|
Show pure affection and humble faith.
|
|
Through hearing these words,
|
|
Recollection will come.
|
|
Recollection will be followed by recognition and liberation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR JUDGMENT VISIONS
|
|
|
|
O (name), if you are experiencing a vision of judgment and guilt,
|
|
Listen carefully:
|
|
That you are suffering like this
|
|
Is the result of your own mental set.
|
|
Your karma.
|
|
No one is doing anything to you.
|
|
There is nothing to do.
|
|
Your own mind is creating the problem.
|
|
Accordingly float into meditation.
|
|
Remember your former beliefs.
|
|
Remember the teachings of this manual.
|
|
Remember the friendly presence of you companions.
|
|
If you do not know how to meditate
|
|
Concentrate on any single object or sensation.
|
|
Hold this (hand the wanderer an object),
|
|
Concentrate on the reality of this,
|
|
Recognize the illusory nature of existence and phenomena.
|
|
This moment is of great importance.
|
|
If you are distracted now it will take you a long time to get out of the
|
|
quagmire of misery.
|
|
Up till now the Bardo experiences have come to you and you have not
|
|
recognized them.
|
|
You have been distracted.
|
|
On this account you have experienced fear and terror.
|
|
Even though unsuccessful thus far
|
|
You may recognize and obtain liberation here.
|
|
Your session can still become ecstatic and revelatory.
|
|
If you do not know how to meditate, remember (person's ideal).
|
|
Remember your companions
|
|
Remember this manual.
|
|
Think of all these fears and terrifying apparitions as being your own ideal,
|
|
Or as the compassionate one.
|
|
They are divine tests.
|
|
Remember your guide.
|
|
Repeat the names over and over.
|
|
Even though you fall,
|
|
You will not be hurt.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR SEXUAL VISIONS
|
|
|
|
O (name),
|
|
At this time you may see visions of mating couples.
|
|
You are convinced that an orgy is about to take place.
|
|
Desire and anticipation seize you,
|
|
You wonder what sexual performance is expected of you.
|
|
When these visions occur,
|
|
Remember to withhold yourself from action or attachment.
|
|
Humbly exercise your faith.
|
|
Float with the stream.
|
|
Trust the process with great fervency.
|
|
Meditation and trust in the unity of life are the keys.
|
|
If you attempt to enter into your old personality because you are attracted
|
|
or repulsed,
|
|
If you try to join the orgy you are hallucinating,
|
|
You will be reborn on an animal level.
|
|
You will experience possessive desire and jealousy,
|
|
You will suffer stupidity and misery.
|
|
If you wish to avoid these miseries
|
|
Listen and recognize.
|
|
Reject the feelings of attraction or repulsion.
|
|
Remember the downward pull opposing enlightenment is strong in you.
|
|
Meditate upon unity with your fellow voyagers.
|
|
Abandon jealousy,
|
|
Be neither attracted nor repulsed by your sexual hallucinations.
|
|
If you are you will wander in misery a long time.
|
|
Repeat these words to yourself.
|
|
And meditate on them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
FOUR METHODS OF PREVENTING RE-ENTRY
|
|
|
|
First Method: Meditation on the Buddha
|
|
|
|
O (name), tranquilly meditate upon your protective figure (name).
|
|
He is like the reflecting of the moon in water.
|
|
He is apparent yet non-existent.
|
|
Like illusion produced by magic.
|
|
If you have no special protective figure,
|
|
Meditate upon the Buddha or upon me.
|
|
With this in mind meditate tranquilly.
|
|
Then causing the visualized form of your protective ideal
|
|
To melt away from the extremities,
|
|
Meditate, without any thought-forming, upon the Void Clear Light.
|
|
This is a very profound art.
|
|
By virtue of it rebirth is postponed.
|
|
A more illuminated future is assured.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Second Method: Meditation on Good Games
|
|
|
|
(Name), You are now wandering in the Third Bardo.
|
|
As a sign of this, look into a mirror and you will not see your usual self
|
|
(show the wanderer a mirror).
|
|
At this time you must form a single, firm resolve in your mind.
|
|
This is very important.
|
|
It is like directing the course of a horse by the use of the reins.
|
|
Whatever you desire will come to pass.
|
|
Think not of evil actions which might turn the course of your mind.
|
|
Remember your spiritual relationship with me,
|
|
Or with anyone from whom you have received teaching.
|
|
Persevere with good games.
|
|
This is essential.
|
|
Be not distracted.
|
|
Here lies the boundary line between going up or down.
|
|
If you give way to indecision for even a second,
|
|
You will have to suffer misery for a long, long time,
|
|
Trapped in your old habits and games.
|
|
This is the moment.
|
|
Hold fast to one single purpose.
|
|
Remember good games.
|
|
Resolve to act according to your highest insight.
|
|
This is a time when earnestness and pure love are necessary.
|
|
Abandon jealousy.
|
|
Meditate upon laughter and trust.
|
|
Bear this well at heart.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Third Method: Meditation on Illusion
|
|
|
|
If still going down and not liberated,
|
|
Meditate as follows:
|
|
The sexual activities, the manipulation machinery, the mocking laughter,
|
|
dashing sounds and terrifying apparitions,
|
|
Indeed all phenomena
|
|
Are in their nature, illusions.
|
|
However they may appear, in truth they are unreal and fake.
|
|
They are like dreams and apparitions,
|
|
Non-permanent, non-fixed.
|
|
What advantage is there in being attached to them,
|
|
Or being afraid of them?
|
|
All these are hallucinations of the mind.
|
|
The mind itself does not exist,
|
|
Therefore why should they?
|
|
Only through taking these illusions for real will you wander around in
|
|
this confused existence.
|
|
All these are like dreams,
|
|
Like echoes,
|
|
Like cities of clouds,
|
|
Like mirages,
|
|
Like mirrored forms,
|
|
Like phantasmagoria,
|
|
The moon seen in water.
|
|
Not real even for a moment.
|
|
By holding one-pointedly to that train of thought.
|
|
The belief that they are real is dissipated,
|
|
And liberation is attained.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Fourth Method: Meditation on the Void
|
|
|
|
"All substances are part of my own consciousness.
|
|
This consciousness is vacuous, unborn, and unceasing."
|
|
Thus meditating,
|
|
Allow the mind to rest in the uncreated state.
|
|
Like the pouring of water into water,
|
|
The mind should be allowed its own easy mental posture
|
|
In its natural, unmodified condition, clear and vibrant.
|
|
By maintaining this relaxed, uncreated state of mind
|
|
Rebirth into routine game-reality is sure to be prevented.
|
|
Meditate on this until you are certainly free.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INSTRUCTIONS FOR CHOOSING THE
|
|
POST-SESSION PERSONALITY
|
|
|
|
(Name), Listen:
|
|
It is almost time to return.
|
|
Make the selection of your future personality according to the best teaching.
|
|
Listen well:
|
|
The signs and characteristics of the level of existence to come
|
|
Will appear to you in premonitory visions.
|
|
Recognize them.
|
|
When you find that you have to return to reality,
|
|
Try to follow the pleasant delightful visions.
|
|
Avoid the dark unpleasant ones.
|
|
If you return in panic, a fearful state will follow,
|
|
If you strive to escape dark, gloomy scenes, an unhappy state will follow,
|
|
If you return in radiance, a happy state will follow.
|
|
Your mental state now will affect your subsequent level of being.
|
|
Whatever you choose,
|
|
Choose impartially,
|
|
Without attraction or repulsion.
|
|
Enter into game-existence with good grace.
|
|
Voluntarily and freely.
|
|
Remain calm.
|
|
Remember the teachings.
|