1974-Fall-Public-Meeting-Kent-State-Q-and-A
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| Title | 1974-Fall-Public-Meeting-Kent-State-Q-and-A |
| Recorded date | |
| Location | Kent State University, possibly Student Center, seated at tables. Rose says "I wouldn't be seated here if I didn't think etc..." |
| Number of tapes | 1 x 60 - partial, end of talk |
| Other recorders audible? | |
| Alternate versions exist? | |
| Source | Dave Mettle collection. labeled "unknown Q & A" |
| No. of MP3 files | |
| Total time | |
| Transcription status | Working on 1st pass August 2015 |
| Link to distribution copy | http://distribution.direct-mind.org/ (need password) |
| Link to PDF | http://distribution.direct-mind.org/ Or try http://selfdefinition.org/rose/ |
| Published in what book? | |
| Published on which website? | |
| Remarks | Harnish is monitor, see notes below. Introduces Turak and Cergol side 2, minutes 8-11 |
| Audio quality | Very difficult, much inaudible especially side 2. Loud hum. |
| Identifiable voices | Also Art Mandel, possibly Frank |
| URL at direct-mind.org | https://www.direct-mind.org/index.php/1974-Fall-Public-Meeting-Kent-State-Q-and-A |
| For access to this wiki or the audio files please send an email to: editors@direct-mind.org | |
| Revision timestamp | 20241219204111 |
Notes
Two versions, MJ and DM. MJ version is better.
Both versions (DM and MJ) begins in the middle. Harnish does not speak until end.
On July 25 2015 SH can’t find an unidentified fragment that is the beginning of this talk.
More of a meeting than a formal lecture but a public talk. From memory, we were sitting at tables, the group members w/ Rose facing the audience. This is confirmed by Rose toward the end of side 2. (“I wouldn’t be sitting here if ....”) Audience may have been at tables also.
At close to end Harnish introduces group members Art M., bob Cergol, Augie Turak.
The following are Rose’s references to things said earlier (may help to track down missing portion)
at dm1-02:50 R. How did you know I had it in Seattle? I told you today? Yes.
at dm1-06:10 Rose says he had mentioned Paul Wood earlier
at mj2-12:00 somebody asks him about the Zen teacher he mentioned (Pulyan)
Date of talk
Art Mandel is named as the group treasurer. Harnish is monitor. PZS Newsletters was not yet regular. First public lecture while Harnish is monitor, so sometime in Fall of 1974 (we were sitting at tables)
Harnish noted as recent monitor re letter dated 11/24/1973 in Martin's book. In Retrospect of October 1974 Rose says SH became monitor in fall of 1973 in Kent. Cergol in Columbus. Leigh Gerstenberger in Pittsburgh. Turak is coordinator. In Retrospect Rose says the new version of the book coming out was discussed at the Labor Day TAT meeting. (Offset press purchased Dec. 1974, book printed early 1975.)
Phil Franta became monitor late 1975 per PZ newsletter: http://documents.direct-mind.org/pzs/pz-news-1975-11.htm
Could be the same day as 1974-0907-WKSU-Radio-Interview-Kent-State. The next day after the interview, 9/8, Rose was at Theosophical Soc. Pittsburg. 1974-0908-Theosophical-Society-Pittsburgh Check that talk for references to this one, or to the interview.
File 1 starts middle of talk
Note: This was an informal public rather than a lecture. People were sitting at tables, including Rose. The beginning of this meeting is missing or not yet properly identified.
dm version Total time = 30:06
dm1-00:00
… alive or important enough to be ?? [noise] previous? The last ego that we drop is that we’re important enough to have a soul. Because before you cross over you lose all hope of any immortality at all. You have no preconceptions. It’s only when your mind has absolutely give up all its postulations, beliefs, hopes, fears and everything and it goes blank, then that’s when everything becomes filled?
Q. ??
R. What?
Q. inaudible
R. Karma? In the book I use a word very similar to karma, it’s called the Law of Proportional Returns. I borrow as many terms as I can [from engineering] I try to avoid Indian terms. Because I maintain that everything can be said [in English] if possible. For instance, I know that the word assassin is not of American [English] origin, it comes from the word hashish. But what words we can use in English, I prefer to use the English term, because there’s so much confusion, and it colors our language to use exotic terms. We think, that gives a false importance to start throwing Hindu words around. Now I do use the word kevala samadhi, because there are no terms, there’s no one who defines it as well as this man. [ introduced in 1974-1010-Duquesne-University-Pittsburgh ] So we coin a word from him.
dm1-01:31
But there is a simple engineering term you might say that explains karma, and that is the Law of Proportional Returns. In other words, if you throw a ball against a wall, the wall hits the ball with the same force hat the ball hits the wall.
strike an anvil with a hammer
if you make an impression on your environment, the environment will make an impression on you.
automatic
you’re in a relative universe; karma is automatic. The only time you’re immune to karma is when you’re no longer identified with this reltive system
Q.
R. When you’re absolute
Q. ??
dm1-02:50
R. How did you know I had it in Seattle?
Q. You said that.
R. Did I, today? <<<<<<< look for Seattle in unidentified tapes That’s how stupid I am. [laughs]
Q. ??
R. Well I think so. I think so. That’s one of the reasons I came out of the woodwork and made myself known. Because I was aware that there were quite a few young people. There’s no use in talking to people when they get too old. It’s impossible for them to go through this experience and survive it; that’s my belief. But it takes a certain amount of elasticity and a certain mental dynamism.
But I noticed that there were, I estimated two million people that were for instance destroying themselves with drugs. And of those two million people – by two million destroying I mean that there were two million mortalities. And many of these people were entering into death with the concept that they had seen everything, that they had witnessed some sort of satori. And that they had the answer.
dm1-04:17
And because of this I was, I’m able to contact some minds, the people who have witnessed through drugs another dimension. Before that you had the extreme pragmatic attitude, that, only believe what you can see, like the modern psychologists; hat’s in front of you is all there is. But here’s a fellow who comes along and says, “Hey, I know. I can’t describe it to you but I was in another dimension. Well this fellow has a chance then, of moving to still another dimension. This is the point.
dm1-04:45
But unfortunately, without guidance, without somebody to stand alongside and say, “Here’s what’s really happening to you.” [sentence] And the main thing of course is the lack of moral protection. because you can become obsessed. And we have, I have been, I have encountered in my talking to these groups at colleges quite a few cases of possession, hopeless possession, where people have combined drugs and sex to a point where they couldn’t figure what happened, because according to even the psychology books they were just having this beautiful thing called experience. But they were damned. I mean they couldn’t free themselves, they couldn’t think clearly for the rest of their life. The only solution, the only answer was over the cliff. You know, get rid of the rest of the brain, a good? ?? ??
dm1-05:34
So here’s a case where people could, by virtue of getting a peep? peek? site? into infinity go further and reach infinity. Or – become sucked down the sewer, by tampering without following the formula. And their are formulas involved. There is a way of living to protect yourself.
dm1-05:57
Q. Even if you follow the formulas, do you think it’s a risk, if you are approaching the absolute, if you experience that, some people might not come back.
R. That’s possible, but I don’t think so. [ dm1-06:10 ] As I said, << [look for prior audio file the most severe case was Paul Wood, the man with the Lord’s Prayer, and he was about 10 days in the hospital. But he came back, incidentally with no aftereffects, no broken legs, no ruptured veins in the head or anything of that sort. At that time, though, he would have been quite sure that he would never come back. And that was the same way with me. I was quite convinced that I couldn’t possibly come back with any degree of same sanity as I had, what I considered sanity. because your comprehension of sanity changes immediately.
In other words, on one side you’re in tune with everything, in which the physical world seems like nonsense, you know it’s an illusion. You know it doesn’t exist in fact, that the only reality is the other side. And you’ve got to come back into something which you know doesn’t exist, and then become re-attached to people whom you love, that liove people, and this sort of thing, and live with this type of life again. It’s very traumatic. But still, with all that you still come back and you adjust to it, that’s all.
dm1-07:12
But I do believe that there is a, that you’ve got to follow some of the [rules], and there’s no secrets. I mean, if you want to dig, you don’t have to find them from me, they’re written in books that have been printed down through the ages. Pythagoras , wrote stuff that will give you inklings on how to live, if you’re seeking on a dangerous path, or one that would be dangerous. You shield yourself properly and nothing can happen.
I was a loner, I mean I had no teacher when this happened. I only got into Zen afterwards in order to find a language to communicate and transmit to other people. But I sometimes, I marveled, I thought I was absolutely alone, and then I marveled that I came out at all with any sanity. I thought, you know, it was an accident. [But] it wasn’t. There was something. This is the thing. You’re not alone; your essence isn’t the only essence.
dm1-08:05
And the only way you can, I can’t prove this to you, but in looking back over my life I see so many things that just fell in place. I met people, like you’d meet somebody in a bus terminal, getting on a bus to go to Seattle or something, and you meet somebody, and maybe this person would turn out to be a lifelong friend. Why did you just happen to be at that one junction at that time? Or why did I go to Seattle for instance, 3,000 miles away from my home? The reason I was taken to Seattle was so I couldn’t get help. Because if I had had help, some doctor would have been pumping dope into me to tranquilize me or something. This way I was totally o my own; I had no friends, no contacts, I was totally on my own, I had to sweat it out.
dm1-08:22
So what I’m trying to tell you is that I had a friend someplace to help. And I believe that you will have friends, regardless. If you’ve got the determination then you’re not alone, and nothing will happen to you except what’s supposed to happen. And I think even if you died it wouldn’t be that bad. the only thing is, you wouldn’t be able to talk about it, that’s all.
dm1-09:19
Q. Um, what did you? do? ??
R. I didn’t, I just went from, I just probed and probed until I found somebody who could materialize. We went from, well, for instance, nearly all your Spiritualistic churches are phony. It’s generally what they call clairaudience or clairvoyance, and it’s just some old lady sitting there prattling about, telling you, “LBJ wants to tell you this, I heard it in my ear.” But the materializations, the materializing mediums are very rare, the people who could really do it.
The one we had was a fellow from Muskegon, Michigan, and we set it up in Delaware, Ohio, a little bit north of Columbus, at the White Lilly Chapel. That was the first one I saw, but they had one previous to that in Steubenville, Ohio. He came down for that. We just encountered him by luck, accident, you might say, after many months of digging, trying to sort the garbage from the better ones.
Q. Were you ever a practicing medium?
R. Oh, no, I wouldn’t mess with it at all. My intuition never, in fact I strongly advise, I’ve seen people who were inclined to be, you know, get into mediumship. I advise against it, Because you’re leaving a door open for you know, in other words, you’re just saying, “Come in.” To anything. You’re not challenging it. You’re leaving your house [open] they take over your house, so to speak. ??
Q. ?? in your experience ?? drawn to ?? Pyramid Zen ? ideology ?? ??
R. I don’t think spiritualism had any value toward? it, except it was just one of those things I went through, that was all. [It wasn’t any more than] the physics or the biology, the field developed ? unto? itself? In other words, I may have been a little bit curious if I hadn’t gone through it, and said [thought] “Well, maybe there is an objective method of approaching this.” But when I went through it, through that much digging, then I was no longer curious. I realized that you couldn’t find anything.
dm1-11:48
Just like this business of regression. I did some work with regression, some people were interested in it. I would put people to sleep and take them back into a supposedly prenatal condition. I found out also that, coincidental with this you could hypnotize people and put them back and tell them that they are ?? ?? [a certain figure] and they will act the part, and come up with data that their mind had no way of obtaining, except under a hypnotic state. It wasn’t their real personality, it was anywhere you wanted to put them in space-time, and they’d come up with data. If just? get? the? people, you know, certain minds are capable of doing this, tapping this universal mind, if you want to call it that.
dm1-12:33
So that negated the whole value of the science of regression through hypnosis, to find out who you were before you were born.
So this is one thing you do discover. One of the things that you discover in a lot of your objective research into spiritual matters is that objective to? be? searched? has got holes in it like Swiss cheese.
dm1-13:01
Q. I have one more question. You talk about different levels being say separated or followed or where they’re ?? a sort? of? realization at each level. If someone were say very involved with worldly things, but were at the same time looking at say this society, do you think they would have to have some sort of realization, that this is something they’re moving toward? [?] Or could they take it on, I mean some people take spiritual societies on, like they would take material activities.
R. Oh, yeah, but I mean, the results again would go back to the laws of physics: results are proportional to energy applied. If you do a half job you get half results. This is the whole secret to spiritual work. You want to make it a Sunday deal? – that’s one hour of one seventh [one day in seven] of your time. [sentence] So one hour out of 7 times 24 you go to church. So that’s the percentage of you that will be spiritual. But if you give it first priority and you give it the maximum effort, I maintain that anyone with average intelligence [can do this]. I mean if a person’s got a hatchet sticking out of his head he won’t be able to think. But with average intelligence he could be able to reach enlightenment, provided he just applied himself dynamically.
With no – it gets discouraging, because you’re dealing with something that’s intangible and you don’t see results, and you’d like to have results every day. And then we have this in the group. People tell me, like down on the farm, “I’ve been in the group a year and I don’t feel like I’m getting anyplace.” And I say, “Don’t ask me, because you won’t believe me. But ask Joe or Jake or George over here, and they’ll say, ‘Oh, yeah, 200 percent change in you since you came here.’ ” The man can’t see himself.
dm1-15:06
But it’s the result of, you have to be intense. You can’t just go at it like an avocation, it has to be a full-time drive. That doesn’t say [mean] you can’t live. You hold your job, you do whatever you have to do. But you put the priority there, that’s the thing. If you put the priority there your mind will always come back to it. You’ll find ways and means of putting more time into it. Of course you’ll find all sorts of ways to make money or to make girls or raise hell or something. They’ll multiply themselves, you’ll find the longer you’re in it the more opportunities you’ll have. And you’ll have to learn to shove those aside and put [give] the other priority, that’s all.
dm1-15:57
Q. inaudible.
R. Yes.
Q. inaudible
dm1-16:12
R. No, that’s an objective search. That’s one of the, this was one, it’s kriya yoga, one of the kriya yoga techniques, for instance, years ago there was a group of us, people about my age, who got together, we were all searching on the path. Of this group only one is living today. But we all joined different groups. And the Radha Soami group employs this also, the concentration upon this. These are objective means toward a subjective end unless? ?? ?? They do not bring you any more than a consciousness in that area.
There’s a story told about Ramakrishna, and [of] the Vedanta society. Ramakrishna was able to put Hanuman, the monkey god, in his third eye. He put him there. And then he put Kali, the female, because as he got older he liked women. So h put Kali there, and everyplace he went Kali was in his third eye. And he met a raja yogi who came along and said, You’re wasting your time. You’ve got to break up this vision that you’ve got, this obsession, and go beyond it.” And Ramakrishna said, ‘I can’t. Every time I meditate she appears.” The yogi said, ‘Try splitting her into two.” He tried and said, “It doesn’t work.” So this yogi reached down – this is a famous story of the Vedantists – and picked up a piece of glass and rammed it into his forehead. He said, “Does that help?” And Ramakrishna says, “Yes, she’s gone now.”
dm1-17:59
And this is what it amounts to. It’s strictly an objective, what I call a gimmick. The Radha Soami sect for instance has sound currents; they listen to sound currents. Not pointing? to the wrong ear, incidentally; it’s supposed to be the right ear. The devil takes the left side. And there are other outfits that talk about the saliva running down your throat. This is supposed to have a divine [meaning]. These are somatic, these are physical, these are objective things. This is not thought. You must leave the body completely, and even leave the thought. So if you can’t leave the body you’re never going to leave the thought. This is the point.
dm1-18:40
Q. When you talk about getting to the state where you don’t have much belief in say the existing systems, you sit down and, I’m going to let go kind of thing?
R. Oh, no, no, no. Now here’s another thing. There’s a book out, that Benoit’s put out lately that’s called Let Go or something like that. What’ was the name of it? Anybody here. Let Go or something. This is not true. You can let go and wind up in jail, or you can wind up in a manure pile. You’ve got to know what you’re doing when you let go. You only let go at the proper, that’s what I was telling you bout, you let go of certain egos even, ahead of time, and it’s disastrous. You have to have vanity, pride, to support yourself, until you can support yourself automaticcally without that vanity and pride.
Vanity keeps you healthy. Vanity makes you choosy about your sexual relationships. You say, “I’m too good for that one, it’s got syphilis. I’ll take one that hasn’t.” But if you say “let go” then you’ll take the woman who has syphilis. You’ll do anything. And the next thing you’re in the garbage pile. Now I’m using extreme terminology of course to get a point across. This permeates all thinking. You can’t ley go until the proper time comes.
There’s something that you hold onto. You use them. I call it milk from thorns. This is the policy of taking milk from thorns. Curiosity, for implants. These are implants. Desire. The very desire, for instance, to pursue the opposite sex, can be turned into useful spiritual ebergy. The curiosity that kills the cat, so to speak, can be turned. The idea of wanting to go down and ?? the pornographic movie because you’re sure that there’s something you haven’t seen. You can take this curiosity and channel that into curiosity for philosophic reasons. [answers?] You can say, “I want to know, and I’m going to get all the books if necessary.” You just take that and flip it. You take that curiosity and make it a valuable asset. So some egos are good.
dm1-20:48
Q. Do you believe in like a doctrine of thoughts? of things, whereas a priority of things is held in mind, and present? that, whether you want something material or spiritual? Do you think, ?? analyzing ?? take that and ?? ??
R. No, that’s postulation. I don’t believe in postulation at all. I don’t believe in projecting. This is one of the worst thing you can do in spiritual matters, striking yourself an object. [striking out for an object?] That’s what he was talking about here, taking a picture and holding it in your head. They call it the Third Eye, incidentally. This is postulating. It’s imagining, visualization. It’s one of the enemies of spiritual work, not an asset. Because, you know, it’s creation, and you don’t know what, you can come up with anything, just by visualizing it.
dm1-21:45
Q. When you talk about the path? to? spiritual enlightenment, or ?? ??
R. What?
Q. ??
R. Yes. Now I’ve warned you that I’m talking; I shouldn’t even be talking. In other words, I’m trying to draw you a picture, and you shouldn’t have any pictures. Because remember I said all the time, I don’t want you to postulate, or symptomize this thing: What symptoms do I look forward to? Or is there something that goes up like this? Of course, you’ll sense that. You should sense it even while I’m talking about it that all effort is pyramid. For every millionaire at the top there’s a million poor people at the bottom. So all human life, all human life that has energy involved in it is pyramid in form. It’s? every? mystery? mystic? but at the same time I wouldn’t want you to symptomize your life and say, “Oh, I’m getting closer,” or something of that sort. I draw correlation in order to try to help you see what I’m talking about.
Q. ??
R. The goal? No, the goal is not up there. It’s away from. Always the goal is away from, not to.
dm1-23:02
Q. You were saying, um, I understand what you’re saying [bad mic noise] um, inaudible
R. because I believe that unless – I preclude [assume?] that some of the people who come into this group are spiritual people. I preclude [assume?] that everybody on this earth is a searcher for truth. Some of them go into chemistry labs and try to do it with material forms. A man goes into the mill, he’s trying to build a better machine ?? to solve the problem. But regardless of how he’s going to come about it, all of us want to know the answer. We may only have moments of real curiosity when we’re half drunk, after 20 or 40 years of pounding the pavement down to the steel mill. But regardless, everybody is a searcher after truth.
dm1-23:55
Now the degree is what I’m talking about. I believe that you shouldn’t fool with anybody except the people who understand your language. So I presume that I will eventually encounter people – and I am, my presumption has worked out. I have encountered approximately 100 people who understand my language. And that they can profit, and save themselves a few years, of allthis stumbling that I went through. That’s my purpose. Other than that, life doesn’t have much purpose for me. So you might say I’m stumbling around in circles, for other people who are stumbling arounbd in worse circles. [laughs]
dm1-24:42
I can’t find too much meaning in life, to be honest with you. I don’t know. I feel s though, again, let me say this, I feel as though the same thing, that, whatever the friend was, you know, that follows me through life, that this is what I’m supposed to do. I can’t get interested in making money, I can’t get interested too much in making love; so consequently, I feel as though if I’m going to occupy space, this is what I should be doing. Now whether it will do any good in the long run or not, whether I kick the bucket before any of the group becomes enlightened, that’s another matter. That shouldn’t have anything to do with their enlightenment; if they’re dynamic enough they should reach it.
dm1-25:28
Q. About your “friend”,
R. Who’s that?
R.Your “friend”, your guide.
R. Oh. [laughs] Well, I believe that this [world? lie?] is nothing more than a manifestation of the absolute. I’m not talking about a guardian angel or anything. Although I would say that there’s has been a consciousness; it almost signified that there’s been a consciousness that was consciously directing or consciously picking things. Or else this was all charted head of time. This whole career was charted ahead of time. One of the two. because it seemed to be pretty well taken care of, put it that way.
dm1-26:08
Q. Ah, you said that ?? again, more or less ??
R. No, I don’t, I’m not trying to convert anybody. I’m speaking for those who have ears. I maintain that those who have ears will hear what I’m saying. And that’s the reason I use a few words, because maybe the first few words they don’t hear, so I use a few more. But there’s a limited number of visits on each campus. And if the people who, if it brings a note? and this is all you can hope to do. I’m not trying to prove anything, believe me. It may sound like a dogma itself, but it’s not. I’m just trying to ring a note of resonance, a response in someone’s mind. And if that happens we function. We understand each other, we function and can be of some help.
dm1-27:04
Q. inaudible
R. Yes. It’s paradoxical. In spiritual matters everything that is uttered is paradoxical. You can utter a precept, and as soon as you utter it the opposite is almost equally as true. So you have to take that into consideration. I run into this quite a bit in some of my talks where people will [?] or they get right? up and say, “Hey, you said this.” In Pittsburgh [so this isn’t Pittsburgh] one fellow said, “Didn’t you say that the world was illusion?” And I said, “Yes.” And he said, “Well isn’t all this stuff you’re talking about illusion? Aren’t you wasting your time?” And I said, “Yes. I wasted yours too, isn’t that terrible?” You know, we’re all wasting time. But are we? Again, are we wasting time? This is the point.
dm1-28:02
Q. ?? ?? Before you were enlightened ?? ?? then after your enlightenment ?? It’s so hard to even grasp.
R. Well, before, I can’t remember what I wrote. I never do remember exactly what I wrote. But what I have often said is when, this is an old saying in Zen, that before enlightenment mountains are mountains and valleys are valleys. During enlightenment, they are not. But when you return, mountains again are mountains and valleys are once more valleys. In other words, you come back to your previous state of mind. Your values are the same. You can still eat soup and taste it, appreciate the soup, or you can still see flowers. But I maintain tat they are not exactly the same.
Q. They’re the same but ?? different way ...
R. Yes. I maintain that you’re never quite beguiled by the beautiful flower as you were before. You’re never quite, for instance alcohol. You may have found a tremendous like Paul Wood was a drunk. He looked like Crazy Guggenheim to see [him]. He was a real sponge; he soaked up a lot of booze in his travail, all the time he was saying the Lord’s Prayer he was drinking. [must have mentioned Paul Wood earlier in the talk.] But [later] he didn’t touch a drop, because it was foolishness. He saw no reason for drinking. The, what do you call it, infatuation with booze was gone. It just didn’t count. So there is a change. The mountains don’t look the same, the booze doesn’t look the same, the dope doesn’t look the same, the sex angle doesn’t look the same. You can look at the picture, yes, and you can see the – but what I see generally, I see a whole picture, when I see it, instead of. For instance there, I’ve always thought that children were very beautiful little creatures, see. And we were up to the Sale Barn [local flea market]
Side dm1 ends at need
File 2
dm2-00:00
volume is very low, hardly audible.
Q. ... inaudible
R. This is the reason for having Zen schools. Otherwise you can all go out individually and meditate in the desert, if you find a desert to? leave? you? alone. This? is another factor that you encounter. When I was young I had a tremendous difficulty being left alone. Every time you sit down to think, somebody pounds on the door. So we set up the thing down on the farm and we got kindred souls there who respect each other’s quiet. They know the fellow’s meditating and doesn’t want to be bothered and they don’t pound on his door. The group protects the group, so to speak. The numbers? of people protect each other from invasion. You’ve got ?? people like? ignorance? whether it’s Alcoholics Anonymous, or what I call us, Ignoramuses Anonymous. We protect each other. But I don’t doubt a bit but what [a bit that] there is a transmission effect if? you? say? one to one, this occasionally happens. It has happened.
dm2- 01:06
Q. inaudible – try headset
R. Right, I know. Still have to make an effort, though.
Q. ?? I really don’t know ?? I’ve been trying but at the same time ?? whether I could control a certain environmental situation – rest inaudible
dm2-02:03
R. Well, you know, getting back to this thing about talking, the efficacy of? or? propitious of talking, I maintain, there’s an old saying those who talk don’t know. But I maintain that those who don’t know make it a hell of a site worse if they start talking. So if you have something to offer, and it’s a strain, even though it’s a tremendous strain, I believe that you have the obligation to communicate. And if you’re going to communicate, I don’t believe in communicating with mysterious koans. I believe in making a little struggle myself to find your language. I believe it’s far easier [mic noise on mj version] for me to try to find your language or to pick up your head, than [for you] if you’re not in the habit of picking up other people’s heads, to ever pick up anybody’s head. [sentence]
This is the reason that I go out on a limb sometimes, to, I say if you’re going to do it, I’m also, this is a genetic characteristic with me, I’m a persistent character. And I just use it in the work, that’s all. I’m just persistent as hell when I get started in a, contract to make a mark someplace. Not on any particular individual now; I’m not talking about making an impression on you or convincing you. But in order to see if there isn’t someone in this town or that town, or this college or that college. And if I see a door open, I’ll push the door open. If? it’s? not totally open now, I’ll say, “Let’s go in there and see.” ?? ??
dm2-03:34
And I believe not only must I do that, but everybody that? reaches? ?? ?? ?? You’re naturally obliged. If you get married and you have a child, you’re obliged to protect that child from the jungle; tell him the art of walking through the jungle so that he doesn’t get attacked, so he lives to a ripe old age. If you’re also a good parent you’re obliged to tell that child of the spiritual jungle, and how he can keep himself from getting attacked.
And where are your children? I’ve got natural children; I have a wife and my natural children [who] I can’t advise, because they have greater resistance than you. [laughs] So you talk to those who have ears. Those are your children.
dm2-04:27 – mj2-04:30
Q. ?? of it.
R. Well, it’s not a real hide-bound thing; [mic noises mj version] it’s just a matter of cooperating with the other people in the group to try [and trying] to get down to your problems, to get down to what’s blocking you. And generally as you get to these things that are blocking you they more or less melt. You’re enabled, you’re, they enable you to see them more clearly. Because, you don’t, it provokes thought, in other words. Because if you’re sitting in meditation, you’re very seldom inclined to really analyze yourself and see the negative side of yourself. You’re more or less just apt to find peace of mind and accept it. But in a confrontation type of group, it’s a gentle way of saying, “Hey, we’ll hold the mirror up for awhile and you look at yourself.”
Yeah, right here.
mj2-05:32
Q. How would you say that [your form of] meditation differs from something like TM?
R. Well I have a special paper I’ve written on meditation. And the reason I wrote it is because of what I consider the negative aspects of tranquility meditation. I don’t believe in tranquility meditation. I believe in what I call irritational meditation. You should always be irritated so that you’re alive and not asleep. You find some method of going back. You should always go back in your past to traumatic incidents, not pleasant incidents. Not the sweetness and light, but go back to where the hell was. Where somebody punched your nose or something, and you say, “Why did that happen?” Not so much in trying to argue it out, wrestle it out that way, but just to look at it. My advice is you just go back and ?? look, and it will manifest itself when? you? look? If you try to reason, you can’t reason with yourself. You feel. You go back and feel it. But by looking at it a long enough time. I’m talking about things in the past, not, because, things in the immediate past like yesterday, they’re still hot. You’re still angry. So you’ve got to wait until things cool off before you can give them a proper appraisal. So I have a paper written on that, just to kind of guide you in the proper form of meditation so you don’t waste your time being happy.
dm2-06:48 – mj2-06:58
Q. It something from the ?? ??
R. Yeah, it’s a something for an active level, the paper.
dm2-07:02 – mj2-07:14
Q. inaudible
R. Well they have them up here all the time. The boy has a couple up there now. It’s a double volume. Art M. is the house treasurer there, anytime anybody wants one.
The reason they’re in that form is that, as Steve said, << So venue is KENT STATE, we only got two hundred of them printed, and we only got those printed a hundred at a time. Because I went by Bucke’s statistics on people who were interested in this sort of thing, and we figured a hundred people would be all we’d ever encounter in a lifetime. I ran it off on an offset press and the plates were, if you print a hundred of anything the plates cost more than the printing. [?] So we sold the hundred, and strangely enough we’re in our second hundred. But we’re going into another step now, and that is the printing of two thousand, at 5” by 8” it will look something like this, about 300 pages. It will all be under one volume, all one binding. See even that was printed in two different volumes because we didn’t have enough money to pay for it right off the bat, so we printed half of it at a time. [laughs] We printed what we considered the most important half of the instruction part, [sentence] and printed the first half afterwards.
dm2-08:37 – mj2-08:51
So little by little we’re getting to the point where we can, I’m not foolish enough to try to encourage this. In fact, I don’t even encourage the sale of it where I live; I’m not trying to sell it. I don’t believe it should be, I don’t believe anybody should bother buying it unless they’re philosophically interested. I don’t consider it a best seller or anything of that sort, that would be attractive to the general public.
There’s a résumé, [of the book] I don’t have it, we had a copy of it, there was a résumé, we used to, [if somebody was] ?? buying some of our stuff, so we [they] could read it. I don’t have a copy of it. ?? it gives you an idea of what it is. Is it in there? [somebody goes to get something] Oh, yeah, I forgot about that thing in there.
dm2-09:41 – mj2-09:56
R. Well, do you have any announcements you want to make before we become less formal?
SH. I wanted to introduce the people in the group; Art M. is the treasurer, one of the officers in the group. ?? ?? In the yellow shirt over there is Augie Turak, he’s the monitor, or the coordinator of the different groups. And in the blue and red is Bob Cergol, who is the officer and monitor of the Columbus group.
Q. inaudible, very faint, could be Augie speaking
dm2-11:04 – mj2-11:22
R. Yeah, anybody has any questions or comments, feel free. There are always people who are a little reluctant to [open up]. I know that this subject is difficult to understand. Some of these words sometimes are? ?? sometimes questions are better than an hour of me talking. ?? ?? Yes.
dm2-11:41
Q. [paraphrase] Did you say you were with a Zen teacher? << missing part of lecture
R. Oh, with Pulyan I was about a year. About a year or maybe longer. And it was, like I said, it was mostly from the, I was watching his method of transmission. ?? ?? I found incidentally that, there was something that I, it was part of my nature but I had never exercised it. I was always rather shy when I was younger. I knew that when I was quite young that I was able to get into people’s heads when I was a child. But I was always rather backward about it, rather than ?? ?? wisdom ?? in other words, maybe over sensitive, as I approached people I picked up their thought. If they disliked or hated me then ?? ?? I shunted away from him ?? brought to a point of understanding. So I more or less schooled myself to ignore it rather than develop it. And when I saw that he [use it] I allowed myself to develop it.
dm2-13:01 – mj2-13:23
Q. inaudible
R. It’s not verbalizable. It’s witnessable; you’ll see it. If you’re around the group you’ll see it function ?? stuff ?? I go in, it’s just a matter of going into your head, that’s all. Go in, I’ll know your thoughts and you’ll know mine. Sometimes it’s only one-sided. I’ll? be? knowing what you’re thinking. But when you get into, you know what I’m thinking then transmission occurs. Transmit to ?? ?? experience. ?? ??
mj2-13:58
Of course, the are, part of the art is being able to feel your head well enough to know the precise moment when? at? which? the door comes open. ?? ?? my head.
mj2-14:21
Q. inaudible
R. No, I don’t have any effort? that is, I? won’t? find? it necessary. I don’t have any, um, just? reaching? that’s all.
Q. ?? ?? when I talk, I can tell whether ?? right?
R. Well sure.
Q. You know, I can tell whether they’re ?? what I’m trying to say or if they’re ?? in their own ??
R. Yeah. Well, of course you could hypno, this is, it’s just a matter of being more conscious of this once you ?? what you’re talking about, that’s all.
Q. Yeah, ?? ?? exactly. I’ll try? to? be truthful ??
R. Sure, sure. Possibly they were
Q. ?? ?? ?? would be like to have any kind of muscles? you know, couldn’t have
?? ?? [ back and forth with Rose, both sides inaudible]
Q. ?? ?? not necessarily spiritual but
mj2-16:10
R. Right, right, right. It’s simple psychology. It’s mind. See, you’re using your mind like your arm, that’s all.
Q. Well you know, eventually [long, need headset]
mj2-16:45
R. Well this is basically the dream of people who want to fall in love. They run into an incident in with they feel that they’re totally in rapport with the ither person, they’re thinking the same thoughts. And occasionally you do. The majority of people though, it’s always one-sided. Once in awhile maybe there is a case where they both dream the same dream and have the same appreciation of each little item in life. but it’s very rare. ?? ?? doesn’t stay. It’s like this we’ll ?? sitting in a group already and ?? maybe ?? functional ?? We have a select group of people who I sit with, and we sit there for awhile, and I’ll pick up somebody’s head.
Q. Just one?
R. Not all of them, just one. There have been times when I’ve been in maybe four heads at once. And they were aware of it. One fellow, both [two] guys said, “He’s in all our heads right now.” I was aware of what four people were thinking.
mj2-17:52
But you can destroy that. It’s nothing foolproof. Somebody else, get the wrong party in there, just his presence will destroy that whole rapport. When he spoke a little while ago about rapport sessions, that’s what those sessions were for, to build up this ability to communicate with each other. How? By sitting in silence together, found? the necessary conversation to communicate. And this will happen, this happens lots of times where people are highly sensitive. I’ve walked up to, right in this university, it was over in, is there a building called Bowman here at Kent? There were two people who came up to my desk – it was in a classroom and I was by the desk – and the three of us, our heads were together instantaneously, and of course it frightened them. I told them why; I said I realized why. So frightened they didn’t come back. ?? ??
mj2-18:54
A lot of people, if something happens that’s not in the textbook, they think it’s a negative influence. But this was an accident. Some people are chemically, they’re quieted down to a certain point, or there harmony is at a certain point at which your heads are one. But that very seldom happens. Sometimes it does, you’ll pass a person on the street. I pass people on the street and they look at you startled, they wonder how they recognize you. Never saw the man before in my life; he? recognized our heads. Never spoke a word, never saw him again. But our heads recognized that ?? ?? ?? you could see the starm? ? like because ?? ?? fifty years.
mj2-19:38
Q. ??
R. Yeah, that was one. He knew what I was thinking. And that’s a different phase. Kind? of a derelict? you know, he was a little bit paranoid. I was watching him and he picked up what I was thinking. I was going ?? his automobile? He glared at me; if he had had time he would have cursed me.
mj2-20:06
Q. ?? that’s a ??
R. Attitude ??
mj2-20:16
Q. [I have a question] on the spiritual realm ?? as far as ?? do you feel like you have learned [rest inaudible]
R. Well, ?? ?? I don’t know about ?? but I’ve been en rapport, totally en rapport with heads. And not only that, but I have communicated the experience to one person very completely; she was devastated. ?? ?? ?? ?? It was a girl, She walked into the room. This is a case where energy was circulating in the room, it was a rapport session. And she didn’t want any part of it. Her husband was in there. And Frank was there. ?? ?? And that’s when Frank looked me and said, “He’s in all out heads.” And just about that time the, I got into his head ?? ?? most likely reached the enlightenment experience at that moment. So I concentrated on him – and she walked through the door and it hit her. All the energy in the room hit her. And she went down and had an experience. She [he?] always hater her ever since. [laughs]
dw2-22:05
Q. Did you say ??
R. This one person went deeply enough into it to see the whole world as an illusion. The mountain experience.
22:25
Q. inaudible
R. I am God. There is none. [laughter] See this sounds facetious, but you are also God. You just haven’t found out. We are all Essence. All of us have the same Essence.
Q. inaudible [try: question about reincarnation and time]
R. I don’t know. I don’t know if I came at five-minute intervals or hundred year intervals, or if I was there all the time. The interval? doesn’t matter, because there’s no time. Once you reach this realization that there’s no such thing as time, you’ll have no belief? in reincarnation. It’s a matter of realization ?? time. It’s? just? no mystery. Einstein’s space-time continuum, or Ouspensky’s concept of relativity will demonstrate that there is no such thing as time, as we understand time. It’s a mental projection of ours.
dw2-23:44
Of course there may be intervals of consciousness, I don’t know. I don’t believe, I never studied it from that viewpoint. I didn’t want to belabor myself with analyzation of time ?? I just went directly to the heart of the matter. There is a simple method of finding the truth, and that is going directly to it. The simple method of finding self-definition is going directly into yourself, that’s all. And you don’t, as a result you don’t reach conclusions, you become.
[mic nouses]
Yes.
dw2-24:28
Q. inaudible
dw2-24:53.
R. Yes, I’m ?? I believe in this. In fact, I believe, I wouldn’t be sitting here if I didn’t believe there were shortcuts. that’s what I say, I feel as though if a person destined? for enlightenment ?? ?? without me.
Q. Sure.
R. So what value is it? I say first of all it’s the idea of a guide. He can stop you from breaking a leg. You know, trauma. And the other one of course is that there are shortcuts by human contact. but I, that’s the reason I went to the bother of, I went to study with Pulyan after I reached my own experience, not before. Because I wanted a better language. ??
dw2-25:44
silence
dw2-26:18
R. I’ve? been? able? to? ?? ?? twenty-one ?? ?? But my experience with him led to the group. ?? have? joined in ?? ??
silence
dw2-26:49
Harnish: There’s a ?? where Steiner says – inaudible
R. see, that’s what I was referring to when I talked about concentrating on chakras. Steiner’s entire thinking, if you’re? acquainted? wit it – Anthroposophy, a Christian system ?? go? against? um, mysticism. Studying ?? aware of higher worlds by studying the chakras or nerve centers. this is a objective method, objective techniques. It’s like studying, concentrating on your navel? ?? ?? not looking inside. Inside without a qualification of where you’re going.
dw2-27:45
We have no, first of all, we don’t know that the chakra exists, the average disciple? ?? chakra exist. But they draw? a? picture? ?? say this one has three petals, this one five petals, this one a thousand petals. So you start meditating on some visualization, that something’s going to help you ?? that means that you created it in your head. So that makes everything related to that possibly invalid. Possibly created. What I call meditative ?? where? you? visualize, not meditating on what is.
dw2-28:21
Q. inaudible
R. I don’t know, but I would always be concerned. I’ve been into this stuff myself. I knew people who concentrated on the figure of Jesus and he came down off the cross. Walked around and talked to them. What is this? It’s like a man on the island, or in a desert, he sees a mirage because he’s thirsty. If you hunger long enough and the visualization ? it will become manifest. This is a tremendous letdown as far as your digging is concerned, because this world here is illusion, and that is bad enough; but when you create another one inside of that, just because you’re too lazy or tired to think, it’s ??
dw2-29:23
Q. inaudible
R. What?
Q. inaudible
R. Well, I admit that the mind ?? ?? the koan, which, ?? the koan is “Who am I?” or “Why am I?” – something of that sort. And? follow? that?
Q. inaudible
R. Huh?
Q. inaudible
R. Well, I never use ?? I never gave any ?? ??
[file 2 ends at 29:49]
