1977-1012-Psychology-of-the-Observer-Kent-State

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Title	1977-1012-Psychology-of-the-Observer-Kent-State
Recorded date	October 12, 1977
Location	Kent State University, Kent, Ohio
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Source	DM, BM, DW, GH. (note, the mj version "undated" is 1979-0403-Pgh)
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Transcription status	Notes only Feb 25, 2015
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Link to PDF	http://distribution.direct-mind.org/ Or try http://selfdefinition.org/rose/
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URL at direct-mind.org	https://www.direct-mind.org/index.php/1977-1012-Psychology-of-the-Observer-Kent-State
	For access to this wiki or the audio files please send an email to: editors@direct-mind.org
Revision timestamp	20150225145501

Notes

MJ and RA versions are undated. See if they match this.

These notes are from DW collection. (1 x 90 + 1 x 60)

Versions in wiki:

1977-1012-Psychology-of-the-Observer-Kent-State << this

1977-Psychology-of-the-Observer-commercial-recording

1979-0403-Psychology-of-the-Observer-Pittsburgh

1977-1004-Psychology-of-Zen-Science-of-Knowing-OSU << Has significant notes and reconciliation. Was distributed 11/3/2014. << has much of the paper, so copy from that << says “This is the third”

See

File 1

00:00

We’re going to tape this, naturally, so I’m going to go straight through

if you don’t interrupt me until after the paper is rread

paragraph by paragraph

we presume that we know what knowing is

There are two forms of knowing, or directions of knowing

thought, thought patterns and dreams

The result of all this is that our social climate is becoming increasingly more muddled; our morality is declining under the pretense that morality is only a subjective attitude, and in the wholesale acceptance of B.F. Skinner, we’ve decided to make morality a sacrifice deemed necessary for the peace of the herd.

But the herd is getting daily more hateful, because it is rankled by the idea of shotgun-love. The socio-psychological authorities are reinforced by specially vested groups, which may be minorities of special interests or by lone individuals who think that they may become famous or funded by accurately representing a trend or a zeitgeist. This modern approach is failing, because the wants of the individual cannot be granted to him until we know more about the real nature of that individual. He’s just not as B.F. Skinner says, a lion that needs masturbating. He may be something more. A man who pretends to know what is best for humanity, or a socio-psychological dynasty that think they know what is best for humanity – and know how to force upon humanity the prescription of spiritual leeching through physical masturbation in order to render everyone placid, helpless and harmless – do not take into account the true nature of the individual, let alone the nature of the blueprint.

Even discounting the force which we might call God, it is manifest that there is an order in the universe, not just among the inhabitants of this planet, this natural aquarium. And this natural plan must be known, not guessed at. It may go deeper than we think. It may go deeper than just fertilizing the soil.

[comments here]

The material scientist would like for us to ignore all that is not seen, except with the eye. However, you can take one eye out and look at it with the other. You can discover nerves running from the eye to the brain, but upon examining the brain, you can’t decide that which sees. We look at an apple on a table, and we can close our eyes and still see the apple. We might say we imagine an apple. But we see this apple with visualization and we don’t see it with the physical eyeball. We do not see the apple when the eyeballs are removed except by visualization. And we do not see except with the whole sense-nerve-brain combination, originally, and then with visualization.

Visualization not only occurs in dreams and in deliberate recall, but with every perception at the time of perception. Somewhere behind the brain-part of the combination there is a part that visualizes. The word visualize means to create, because we are able to create that picture of the apple at any later time when the apple itself is no longer there. With the ability to create comes the ability to delude oneself. We’ve all experienced this self-delusion but neglect to note that we have just dichotomized ourself: one self is doing something to another self. If you delude yourself, that means that one self is recognized as true, and there is recognized as being untrue certain faculties which are part of an erroneous self – that lack the ability to react properly to environmental thoughts, reactions and various stimuli.

Of course we can say this differently: that the inside self is at times incapable of true apprehension, and is capable of making distorted creations. An entire, separate set of instructions on the intuition is necessary at this point to try to correct this delusion- and distorted-creative ability.

min 9:30

This creative ability is projection.

We must return to the point at hand: If behavioral psychology is the science of behavior observed, we cannot neglect these internal observations. And determining a few basic things may correct for us many external reactions. We must determine first of all, who is observing? Is it the eyeball, the sensory arrangement, or an entirely separate creative mental self? – which up until the present mention of it may never have occurred to us as existing at all.

Another point to determine is that when something is observed, we must admit that there is an observer.

This brings us to the admission first of all that we can observe our own behavior. We can observe not only our own thoughts, but also thought processes such as visualization and introspection. And it brings us to another admission, that either the observer and the observed are one, or the "we" that we refer to when we say we think or behave a certain way is separate from what is observed. We have to take one course or the other. This means that the true self is always that anterior observer. I maintain that the observation of the anterior observer brings us to an ultimate or absolute observer. This sounds like a simple verbal manipulation or formula, but in reality it is the true method of reaching the realization of the absolute state of mind, pointed at by writers on enlightenment. So we go back to our simple search for inside and outside knowledge. We usually want to know what is “out there” first.

The external world attracts us from the moment of birth. We build an orderly explanation of what we, mankind, collectively see.

min 12

Our external world is largely one of agreement, and the material sciences are really just systems of getting along.

[comment re Ornstein, quotes Kuhn, paradigm]]

We develop systems of measurement, and cataloging according to genus and specie. And later we discover that we failed somewhat in our methods of calculating and cataloging. I majored in chemistry around 40 years ago and there were 92 elements, with an infallible fiat from the hierarchy of chemistry that there would never be any more. Now of course we agree that there are over a hundred elements.

It may go even deeper than that. It may go as far as that this whole visible world in which we live as one is here just because we agree that it’s here.

min 13 This habit of agreeing upon things not fully understood has not caused very great mishap to humanity as a whole when such agreements were limited to the material sciences. Many of us believed that penicillin would cure everybody of certain infections, and when deaths were reported from allergic reactions to penicillin there was no great sorrow; a few people died, but in the whole it was orderly.

In science we say we can get by with it. But this goes on to a greater degree in psychology. Our psychic and psychological determinations are made, and they seem to come from an orderly examination of the field of phenomena in question. But they too are developed and determined by campaigning for the public’s agreement.

[comments on Freud] min 14

There’s an understandable fault that causes our reliance upon agreement rather than exact knowledge. To begin with, exact knowledge is the same as absolute knowledge – which does not exist, at least for us today – and we cannot delay the preparation of all medicine until we know all possible side effects upon all people. This is where the word reasonable comes in. And we use that term as a euphemism instead of the word orderly. We hang a man when there is no longer any reasonable doubt, when circumstantial evidence that points in his direction makes him a criminal. It’s true that we’re going to go on hanging, gassing, trepanning, ice picking, and shock treating a certain percentage of the population, and this lethal sort of lottery must have some explanation for the sake of conscience.

min 15:30

While exact knowledge is for practical purposes impossible, there are methods that can be used that might eliminate some of the bungling, gassing and hanging. We soon learn that our inadequate understanding of the outside world is the result of defective observation mechanisms.

This points in the direction not only of our senses, but also in the direction of mental habits of visualization, dreaming, creating or projecting.

We may not understand the external world properly until we understand our self. This is especially true in the psychotherapy department and the attempts by individuals to get along with their fellowman. The psychiatrist who can no longer prescribe for a patient in terms of medicine or behavioral analysis, turns the patient over to group therapy, in the hope that an accident will do for the patient that which his paradigm or theory-agreement failed to do.

min 16:30

The other people in the therapy group serve as a mirror for the individual. (Now this part is true.) He begins to see himself in a new light and realizes that he may be taking an erratic or selfish pose that alienates him from the mainstream of human agreement.

He goes back inside of himself, and realizes that he has been fooling himself. When he recognizes this, instead of being a social misfit he may immediately become a budding psychologist. When one part of a man fools another part, the part that has been fooled is the essential or anterior self. With the ability to create, come visions and states of mind so powerful that the anterior self or mind accepts as valid all of these creations.

min 17:40

We might dramatize this idea of fooling yourself by mentioning the practice of some Tibetans. This tulpa becomes their companion and often their master. One Tibetan priest commented to this author that it took him six months to create this tulpa and six years to get rid of her.

We get into habits which seem to be acceptable and later find that our peace of mind has been permanently impaired. We may have acquired habits such as drinking because we thought that the habit was harmless: it was a nice social thing to do, everybody was doing it, and the first thing you know we’re hooked.

min 19

Let us get down to the business then of studying the inside of ourself. It is not as easy as it sounds. Most people think that they know themselves.

Descartes said, "I think therefore I am." But if a man thinks, he should immediately ask himself who’s doing the thinking.

min 19:30

Is it the mouth and the body talking? Or is there something behind the body that is trying to communicate? If a Tibetan priest talks to his tulpa, is he the one who’s talking, or is the desire for the tulpa talking?

The tulpa is a creation in the mind of the priest, but a tulpa is also the materialized embodiment of the desires of the priest. So the desires may be talking to the tulpa, which in turn is the desires of the priest.

We can see that a man can quickly lose track of himself if he were such a priest. But there may not be too much difference between the tulpa of Tibet and the Galatea of Pygmalion, or between the sexual voyeur and the objects of his desires.

min 20:30

If desires are observable then desires are objective and outside. When the subjective considerations are viewed they immediately become knowable and objective. Whether the desires are recognized by us as gestalts or entities, they are external afflictions or assets. They are not us. Desires may try to involve us, try to identify themselves as being us. But if we go to jail or the hospital because of our desires, we will quickly become identified with another set of desires – which will save us – which are the desires for health and survival, or the desire for peace of mind. When this happens, we divorce ourselves from our desires nominally, by identifying the dangerous ones as “not us”.

But we continue to deify ourselves; we assert that we desire to love and be loved.

We use this as a bond with the cosmos and with God, by announcing that God is love. Many of us identify ourselves very closely with the desire for love. We are little, harmless, fluffy balls of love. But it becomes apparent to us that we are really not as loving and lovable as we project ourselves to be.

It is then that we view our fluffiness and loveableness as being external ideas, more compatible with our fellowman than the desires for lust and blood. And we eventually recognize that our love is a projection, born out of a desire for love.

min 23

Umpire

We are better able to recognize our desires and fears as being external when they conflict with one another.

The desire to get drunk will be countered by the desire to be delivered from the consequences. The fear of death will temper our desire for body pleasures, and join with the desire for prolongation of life.

We watch this contest for human energy, and then we notice that we are acting: we are taking steps to conserve our energy. And this step-taking is witnessed by us as a process. I would like to give a name to this anterior self and call it the umpire. The umpire has a motive, and the motive is the preservation of the body or the self.

So there goes on inside of every human being a sort of automatic procedure – until it’s recognized as being automatic, and then there’s a chance you can reinforce it.

The umpire may be extremely intricate, and in the contests between desires, it is necessary to study the thought processes – so we can identify and forestall any destructive trends before they get too strong. We now find another anterior observer, one behind, one that observes the umpire. The umpire seems to be very real, meaning very objective. This new anterior observer is still hypothetical until we can see it. And when we see it, it will be something observed and will not be us.

min 24:45

Of course we do not see the umpire with the physical eyes, nor does it have an image that might be visualized. We witness a process . And this witnessing is scientific, because we define science as an orderly thinking process that carries with it an ability to predict.

We observe our reactions in regard to the senses and our fears and desires. We observe these things not directly but as forces and factors that impinge upon the body. (When they impinge upon the body, the effects are observable with the senses.) I am not saying that all reactions are perfect or bring ideal results, nor that the umpire knows how to preserve the body in all cases.

min 25:30

We can witness adjustment in the body as the result of this umpire. If we had been in jail for getting drunk, with promptings of the umpire an appeal to the survival ego may create conditions for the body – in which the body may be free from jail and legal complications. Everyone who goes through these changes is aware of the processes of thinking mentioned. They will never deny that these thinking processes are logical and valid for the new self. But the individual rarely watches the complexity of the inner struggles, nor does he see all the factors involved, nor does he name these factors the same as others name them in similar experiences.

min 26:30

Some are delivered from alcohol and say God was the agent. Others will say they just made up their mind. Others receive help from a clinic or a special group of people like AA. However, they had to make a decision to search out their God, their inner strength, or human assistance. And the umpire was behind that decision. A lot of thinking and reasoning went into it that was never talked about.

Process observer

We get a picture now of an umpire being observed by a newly-discovered, more anterior observer. This second observer is distinct or unique in that it is totally a process observer.

The umpire watches over the body or the self, the small “s” self, and while getting interested in preserving the body-life, it cannot help but get into planning for ultimate survival or immortality.

Consequently, the search for immortality is not a screwball idea – that a lot of psychologists would have us believe – it is basically a fundamental, animal direction. All life desires to live forever.

The aim of all survival has to be a hope and a plan for eternal survival. But because the umpire has somatic values at stake, it cannot get to the problems of ultimate survival as much as it would like – since it identifies with the physical survival first. And of course, the ultimate survival is a big project.

min 27:30

The process observer, the mind, retreats from material observations and contemplates patterns in thinking. This may well be called higher meditation. And it is this observer that watches the mind, and comes up with results that are like mathematical functional curves instead of exact, demonstrable answers.

min 28:30

For instance, it is the process observer that sees that the physical universe may well exist, and at the same time may not exist.

At the same time it will see that the physical universe may exist as an illusion only to people able to reach certain abilities for observation. Likewise it takes an abstraction such as "good" and again realizes that the definition depends upon the position of the observer who takes the value of "good" into consideration. He may see that good is God and everything’s final destiny. Or he may at the same time see good as a polar point of evil.

And he may, by observing the previous two conclusions, come to the further conclusion that "good" is defined from the position of the observer and has no real meaning as a thing in itself.

We get the possibility that the answer lies in the fact that the universe may be physical, it may be an illusion, it may be whatever we see from our point of viewing.

The amazing thing is, that all of the different conclusions are valid in relation to the accepted validity-standard of each position of the observer.

According to material standards, material exists. We measure it and it exists. If we identify ourselves as being strictly material bodies in a physical universe, we are valid and we are being consistent – but it is like saying that material defines material.

min 30

Definition

Definition requires comparison. Knowing may be direct and absolute, in understanding the nature of things, and we know that we are not absolute creatures. Or in the event that we know we are absolute creatures, we have not found a means to communicate that finding except with words.

Words relate to bodies, and that includes our own body, body-mind or mundane consciousness. So that we come back to definition, unless we have found a state of being that satisfies us, and which we do not care to promote among our fellow man.

When the man who has become says that the universe does not exist, he means that it does not exist as permanently as does another dimension.

min 31

He looks from this other dimension, and uses words on us that have been used to explain the validity of the material universe. And from this practice results an endless explaining of limitations of language, and of the limitations in the listener’s mind, that is explained best by the use of the word paradox.

We take a stand on good and evil: we might say that life is good and death is evil.

For the pig about to be butchered, death is bad. But for the man about to eat the pork, the pig’s death is good, as it extends the life of the man. However, for the man who has become afflicted with trichinosis from eating the pork, the situation may change, and death as evil for the pig once more becomes evil for the man.

min 32

However, there is still another point of observation: the man may sometime later view the scene from another dimension and decide that neither pig nor man held the same values as before, and that death, good and evil were simply the results of man’s position of observation at the time. Most of us don’t like to accept the possibility that we might view the physical universe from a dimension of any other type of validity. We cannot accept this possibility until we realize that we are demanding that a non-material dimension render itself material so that we can measure it with material standards.

Of course this business of communication cannot be done except in ineffective word imagery if that dimension is more real than the physical universe.

min 33

Observing the observer

Up until now I’ve only hinted that these new dimensions are possibilities that might be surmised by pattern observation, by taking note of pattern thinking that results from inadequate physical senses. What happens to the process observer is that this consideration of the possibility of alternate natures for things apparent, brings the observer to a point of high confusion – that puts all physical evidence in jeopardy, and then puts all mental process observation in jeopardy.

min 33:40

The process observer is the mind in its deepest potential. This becomes with relentless meditation on pattern possibilities, and observing-the-observer processes, a dynamic study of the mind with the mind. And the results are an explosive quandary.

This is the first time we realize that we have been studying the mind itself. When we talk of an observer anterior to another objective observer, it looks like we are either chasing our own tail, or that man has an infinite number of observers: that we are continually something that is observing the observer.

We take this process observer, alias mind consciousness, as being “us” once more, never dreaming in the beginnings that it too will become an observation. And when it truly becomes an observation, not just a possibility of being an externality or observation, this happens by reaching a deeper or more anterior position of observing.

min 35:40

Correlation

We are now approaching a real self by divorcing all of our pattern thinking – even from let’s say the genetically-imposed patterns of thinking. And we come across an awareness of correlation at this point.

In the initial stages of observing we deliberately look for patterns.

One method of looking for patterns is to examine the field of data for common denominators. This does not always bring us mathematical revelations unless we can throw into the computer all the factors that cause these common denominators. To give an example, one justifying argument for the God theory in theology would be the common-denominator type of evidence of the God theory existing in nearly all religions.

Many are eager to seize this type of evidence, as they are hungry to believe and too tired to do further thinking. The factor that is missed is that things are not proven by belief. A belief is only a postulation. Another factor that affects the conclusion is that the beliefs may have sprung from a desire to believe – a certain dogma – rather than to try to find things out for whatever they really are.

min 37

Still, correlation can be of use. In esoteric writings we come across the correlation, “As above, so below.” This is no more absurd than Einstein’s theory of relativity. Checking patterns of thinking with patterns of thinking – for example, looking for common denominators – may be the only tool we have for this mental observation. We just have to keep an eye on slipping into projection of our desires.

min 37:40

We hit a snag in our studies of the material world by using material to check material. The material world is consistent within itself, and the material sciences are the evidence of that. But we cannot use the material world to check anything beyond that.

So we need to define the material world properly. And to know that, for the interior observation of the material world to be valid, it has to be defined from outside. Definition requires comparison. The thing under scrutiny must be viewed in terms of something else – something outside the self – in order to determine its uniqueness.

So a man is defined as an animal but a unique type of animal, and the difference becomes his definition. However, when we lump the entire material picture together, and attempt to define the visible, physical universe – this whole material universe – we can only do this adequately from another dimension. We cannot do it properly even from another universe, if that universe is of the same material as we are.

In trying to be reasonable, we might say that we will accept these findings if we could be sure that the exponent of the new theory, the describer of the new dimension, is not creating the new dimension out of whole cloth.

min 39:40

I’d like to make some comments on the method of searching for an anterior observer. I don’t have much time to get into it but I’ll make a few comments. Here are some general principles: There is no sense in looking for anything but the observer, for he who is looking.

We should not try to define something and then try to find it.

The anterior observer must be discovered and not just substantiated by evidence.

We begin the adventure of inside investigation from the basis of no conviction.

The average psychologist does not take this stand. He accepts with conviction testimony of predecessors in the field of psychology; he accepts the definition of mental attributes as laid out by fellow psychologists. Very few scientists go back to the roots of their field and prove to themselves step by step the postulations that are the backbone of their own work or experimentation.

min 43:30

In other words, much of scientific work is the acceptance of previous ground work, even though the ground work is admittedly only conceptual.

What do we know for sure?

When we are looking at ourselves, we have to take into consideration just what we know for sure. We mentioned previously that there are three major explanations for the existence of the physical universe: One is that the material is the real substance of our possible experiential field. Another is that all is an illusion. Another is that any definition of the physical universe must be and will be qualified by the position …

[break in tape]

[side dw1 ends at 44:33]

File 2

00:00

To the ant, the universe might be an acre of ground. To an insane person the universe might be something inside the core of an apple. So we must get a clear idea of he who is looking. We do not know who is looking, and we are not too sure of that which we see, especially after we have been hallucinated, or have seen a hologram or a mirage. So we start with nothing, deciding to look inside. We know nothing for sure. Descartes had an urgency for self-definition not based upon simple internal observation. Much of our thinking is forced upon us.

We have little choice in picking a thought or claiming it as our property if it is caused by previous thought, previous determinations, previous situations forced on us, and by present environment influences that afflict us before we can prevent them. Many of these environmental influences exist in the body, or they affect bodily reactions that we do not completely understand or endorse. We cannot start by negating our presence. This would be absurd.

And in this reverse searching we must always retreat from the absurd, in favor of things or ideas that are manifestly less absurd.

When we ask ourselves, “Who am I?” we take an initial step. We do not begin by saying, “I am this or that.”

We explore the fields of possibility: We may be only a body. We may be a soul or spirit housed in a body. We may be a body with a mind separate from the body and still separate from the spirit. Or we may decide that we are something that we really cannot identify properly. We may conclude that we are an awareness that witnesses a mind and body functioning in some relation to our individual point of awareness.

min 1

that might be a phase of you

if we don’t like them then we may try to alter them

we are not our fingers or toes

more harm than

bring more harm to the whole combination of body and mind

they may have cme from physical appetite

thoughts are obsessions

make an obsession of understanding our thoughts

retreat and deliberately look at ourselves

why did I think that/

source and direction of thoughts

projected on us and projected by us

like a radio that sends out a message van der Leeuw

the senses are not infallible, nor are they exact

the sounds are there, we just don’t get them

mirage or hologram

there is no way to know of colors other than what we see

animals

black and white only

and they see it by agreement; they all see the same thing

wen we are born we learn to interpret

but we don’t learn to see

compare yourself with other

using this type of mirror

this is the reason for the social incompatibility

we project all sorts of things

zoo and having his arm torn off by an animal

summary

this is a summary of my lifetime’s

qualities of the mid are basically perception, retention and reaction

perception, observing yourself, is one type

but then there’s a mental perception

you saw something in your mind that didn’t exist

Jack’s been shot.

ESP or psi phenomena

the mind perceives

branded as it goes through

I call them visions. I say that everything a man sees is a vision

what you are seeing is a vision

there are 5 main types of vision

1. sensory perception

2 memory perception, visualization

relive, or make new combination

green apple with purple stars

the mind projecting upon the mind

3 projection reaction

hologram, ghost

mind projects them on the physical world

4 introspection

mind reacting on the mind

5 deliberate perception

ESP, astral projection, mind zapping

modern psychology does not properly identify the source of this

min 17

you can ask some questions if you wish

copied from book

Psychology-of-the-Observer-book-text

Q. Could the Umpire make a mistake and that would throw me out of the ball-game?

R. Sure. The Umpire is not infallible. You either have to transcend the Umpire, or he might destroy you, by allowing one of his constituent voices to take over. The Umpire has to do with a balance of the fears and the appetites. They are hardly ever in perfect balance. And if the Umpire is not able to forestall an urge, which may really be imposed by outside interests, or helped along by the pressure from others, the Umpire may make a decision which will enslave the host for twenty years. That is, pregnancy may occur as the result of overwhelming desire, and we will be tied up for twenty years... or longer if the child is an idiot.

Of course I believe that as soon as we start studying the Umpire we will become better balanced. We may be lucky to learn from the enslavement of an infatuation, that we must avoid infatuations and their results.

And this brings us to something which I have noticed about many people on the spiritual path... and this is true in relation to many people in our group... they overlook the need for physical adjustment. They want to jump into what they think is the heavy stuff, this pipe dream idea of enlightenment, and by studying the symptoms of enlightenment as described by charismatic teachers, say, pop, there I am. Or just act like they have no mind.

Q. Don't you minimize the body. If the Umpire is in charge of the body shouldn't our vector ignore the Umpire?

R. You can't ignore the body or the Umpire. Both will go on working. Is that what you mean... or hope for?

Q. It just seems that the body speaks sharply and clearly to me. The postulations which you speak of concerning regulation and control are not so strong. They are easier to ignore.

R. These are not postulations. If you get gonorrhea, you will know that you made a mistake, regardless as to how sharply you were urged to take the chance for it. And once you get in trouble you will see a need to reverse your vector.

We naturally have to start with the body, but we cannot start by either deifying the body, or postulating a divine soul that cannot be affected by debilitating physical experiences. The divine soul might not be affected, but our ability to be conscious of even our body might be affected by listening to body-urges without an attempt to encourage a balance.

I say, prove that you have a soul. And you have to start with manifest things like a body and its actions. This does not mean that we have to say that we are the body. It is better to observe that the body affects us, and affects our understanding of the anterior mind.

Q. I am not clear on this Umpire. Do you mean that once we see the Umpire that all this personal schism ends?

R. No, not exactly. You become more aware of the dichotomy. Previously a man thinks that he eats or drinks, and he sees no reason for inhibiting an action that feels good to him. But when he sees that it is not him, when he sees that there is another part that is hurt by the excessive appetites, he may wrongly identify the other part of him.

He may think that a spiritual force is the part that is warning him against the excess of the appetites. He may go clear over to another extreme, and attain religious salvation, which is the state of liberation from slavery to the appetites really.

But when he manages to get behind the Umpire and see real functioning of the Umpire, he will not be torn by traumatic reversals. He may eat and drink, but will not care one way or the other about it, and consequently will not care enough about the appetites to over-indulge in them. But you will still have urges, and periods of imbalance. There is no straight line possible for body energy.

Q. Should I be afraid of this venture into the mind?

R. Well, it depends on whether you want to gamble or not. When I started out in this thing, I realized that I perhaps had something to lose. I could lose my mind, or lose my life, or have it cut short prematurely by some ascetic practice.

I decided to take the gamble, myself. I decided that it is better to take some risks, if the alternative was an ignorant vegetative existence.

And strangely enough I was protected. And I want to say this very sincerely. I believe that once the commitment is made to find your Truth at all costs, some interior or anterior self sets up protection. It may even set up the whole path.

You can call it God, or the guardian angel, or a spiritual alliance, if you wish. Something sets up protection. Now I do not want you to feel too secure, because uncertainty and despair are part of the formula, it seems, for finding the final door or breakthrough. The despair is necessary to pop the head, after the long ordeal of running between the raindrops.

Q. I am afraid of losing my inhibitions. I am afraid of plunging in...

R. You know what you are afraid of. You think you are afraid of losing some part of yourself, but you are really afraid of losing a coward. Let him die. He is not worth the attention. There may be something magical found in the losing of that coward.

See, this is what I thought. I valued myself. You know everybody cherishes themselves. Especially when you are young. I got into this thing when I was twenty years of age. You can look into the mirror at that age and say, "Hey, this guy could cause a lot of trouble. Why get into an ascetic path. He could trade his looks for money, or his wit and wisdom for money or for Cadillacs or whatever. Why fool around with this junk.

But you realize, if you have ever done any introspection, that this is a rationalization, talking yourself out of real action. And when you realize that you are afraid, you have no other course except to face that fear.

Q. Isn't there a state of preparation for this path? Maybe some people would get blasted.

R. Well. . .about preparation. . .I think that everyone who sat through this is prepared. I noticed that a few got up and left. That leaving may have been protective. I think you are protected by nature. If you are a paper bag incapable of holding too much junk, you will burst and drop the contents.

This business must find a response in your intuition. If a person listens to some philosophy and announces that they want to make a move it generally comes in response to their intuition.

Of course some people hear a voice from their Umpire which says, "Do not listen to that nut any longer. You are liable to start doing these things which he talks about. You can get involved in this introspection."

Q. Do you think that there is no value to watching your dreams?

R. No, there is a lot to be learned from the dreams. Persistent dreams, that is dreams that are random and varied, are prompted by anxieties. There is something from the inner mind, that keeps wanting to attract the attention of the conscious mind, despite the Umpire which always keeps this voice squelched. There is something trying to get in, with a complaint that may do the dreamer some good.

min 35

I knew a yogi years ago that made a deep study of his dreams. In fact he used to say that it was the first step in studying the mind. It may well be a good direction. You can catch the mind when it is not battered by the torrential perception influx that occurs during the waking hours.

From this study we find that some dreams are accurately precognitive. Which means that the mind seems to be peeping into another dimension.

xx several minutes missing re prophetic dreams xx

xx missing question by Tim Calhoun xx

R. Zen does negate

student of Zen would not be provoked by dreams

Tim. Needed

R. when are you going to blast off?

Q. Do you want to come?

R. I’ll linger awhile I think.

xx missing more on dreams xx

Q. The other day I thought I saw death in my dreams

I dreamt of a man planting an American flag on the moon in 1957

Q. Tim Calhoun – q about time. These people would not be here if they didn’t will to come

R. I don’t believe anybody willed to come here

RETURNING TO BOOK TEXT

Q. I am a Catholic, and I have somehow fitted this into the Catholic philosophy that we are searching for God, for the Ultimate Reality which is the same thing.

R. Right. You see, I think that the Asiatic was a thousand years ahead of us. You see he had a direct-mind system. He called it Zen. I talk a lot about Zen. But I did not reach my realization through Zen. I have repeated this in almost every talk I give.

I reached it as a result of a tremendous amount of determination, -- regardless of the odds, to find the Truth... about myself... whatever I could about myself about my source and... who I was and where I was going. These are the three main questions that are the province of religion as well as of psychology.

But we live in a generation where people are reluctant to accept anything from religion... and that's a good idea... because religion has been too full of politics, and greed and empire building. It has lost its purity of purpose.

But we have cases in Christian history where people have reached this. But the sad thing is that the church itself... the Christian church, does not advise the finding of God. It advises a belief in the pastor. If you go to church you will find this out. There is no one there to place you in this direction.

John of the Cross was a mystic, who was looking for enlightenment. And they put him in jail. In fact it was for looking for it that they put him in jail.. .and it was in jail that he found it.

Early Christian mystics had to be very careful... had to conceal it. And the result was that the early Christian civilization, never heard of the values that could be obtained from mysticism. It was more important to keep the herd peaceful than it was to free people, -- from illusion.

Q. Is it important now for America?

R. No... no, it is not important for America. I do not know what is important for America. This does not relate to the good of the world. It would be a mistake to play God in that direction.

END OF PASTE FROM BOOK.

I have the advantage that I don’t discuss this with my neighbors

they think I’m a dangerous hillbilly

how do you aid and abet a manure pile? It will take care of itself.

File 3

00:00

File 3 ends at min 27

Footnotes

End