1975-Akron-version-1
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| Title | 1975-Akron-version-1 |
| Recorded date | 1975 |
| Location | Akron, Ohio |
| Number of tapes | 1 tape 2 sides. Plus newly discovered beginning of the talk, very poor condition, as below in Notes |
| Other recorders audible? | |
| Alternate versions exist? | |
| Source | Gary Harmon. |
| No. of MP3 files | 2 files, times are 30:22 + 30:47 |
| Total time | 61:09 |
| Transcription status | 1st pass Nov 16, 2024, Auto-AI, Happy Scribe, reviewed and pasted here June 17, 2025
Progressive 2nd pass along with very rough Auto-AI of discovered segment June 22, 2025 |
| 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 | |
| Audio quality | |
| Identifiable voices | |
| URL at direct-mind.org | https://www.direct-mind.org/index.php/1975-Akron-version-1 |
| For access to this wiki or the audio files please send an email to: editors@direct-mind.org | |
| Revision timestamp | 20250627024505 |
Proposed file lecture name
1975-Kent-State-University-Fragment
To do
Resolve location as below.
Update metadata
— emdash
Notes
Year
Has to be 1975, not 1974, because he mentions the Transmission Paper, which was published in 1975.
Location
At file gh2, minute 3:07: "As I said at the lecture I gave last evening in Theosophical Society," so this is not the Theosophical Society.
Venue unknown. If not the TS where is it? Candidates University of Akron or Kent State. But it is unlikely that he would speak at 2 places in Akron on the same trip (TS in Akron, then Univ. Akron)
Old note: "Recorded by Gary Harmon 1975 on a KSU lecture tape." Could this actually be a lecture at Kent, and the T.S. lecture the night before being at the Akron T.S.? (Theosophical Society Kenmore Boulevard Akron Ohio)
From gh2 about 22:40: "I was talking at the Ashram before I came over here." Note: There was no ashram in Akron, so must be in Kent.
Next sentence: "I had a boy from Pittsburgh came down [to the farm] - So this is not Pittsburgh.
Fragments, versions, file order
The beginning is missing. So gh1 is probably gh2, and gh2 is probably gh3.
gh1-00:13 = sh2-00:16 = In the collections gh and sh, the files 1 and 2 are reversed. GH order seems correct because gh1 opens with reference to Ramana's "ocean" but at the end of gh2 there is no mention of Ramana. Therefore gh1 comes before gh2.
The entire lecture is titled "Fragment" because it is apparently sides 2 and 3 of a lecture:
Site 1 = missing.
Side 2 = gh1 = shB-1975-Akron-unknown-source.mp3 (1 and 2 are reversed in gh vs. sh)
Side 3 = gh2 = shA-1975-Akron-unknown-source.mp3 (1 and 2 are reversed in gh vs. sh)
Side 4? = ??
Recap:
Side 1 There was an unknown reference to Ramana Maharshi
Side 2 Immediatey starts with a mention of Ramana's statement (river and ocean).
Side 3 No mention of Ramana, hence the logic of the order above
Side 4?
Renamed set
There was a tape set misnamed as 1975-Theosophical-Society-Akron that was misidentified. That was actually this tape, and has been moved to 1975-Akron-version-1 then will be moved again probably to 1975-Kent-State-Fragment. Year and and city were marked on the cassettes. Note says "1975-Akron--marked-as-such-on-yellow-cassette.txt"
In the 'Theosophical" version (sh tapes ) and the "Akron" version (gh tapes) sides 1 and 2 (files 1 and 2) are reversed.
Tape sets are as follows:
Gary's version: 1975-Akron-to-resolve tapes are:
SH version, several attempts attempts
2014-1122
sh1-1975-Akron-unknown-source.mp3
sh2-1975-Akron-unknown-source-do-this-over.mp3
shA-1975-Akron-redone.mp3
shB-1975-Akron-redone.mp3
In directory "fragments-all-dups" ated 2014-1215 there are 11 different files, including in a subdirectory "test-for-bad-file".
x = reviewed
2014-1215: Directory "1975-Akron-first-attempt-tape-sticking":
x shA-1975-Akron-unknown-source-sticking.mp3
x shB-1975-Akron-unknown-source-sticking.mp3
"fragments-all-dups" directory x sh1-1975-Akron-redoing-in-process.mp3 reviewed 6/21/25 x sh2-1975-Akron-redoing-in-process.mp3 reviewed 6/22/25 sh2-1975-Akron-side-2-redoing-in-process.mp3 sh2-1975-Akron-side-2-redoing-in-process-START-MIN-16-TO-EDIT.mp3 sh2-1975-Akron-side-2-starting about min 17.mp3 side2-temp.mp3 side-minutes-1-through-8.43.mp3
Transcription
File mj1 = gh, missing = sh missing
This is "mj-undated-Meeting-unknown-Location" and "dm-undated-Meeting-unknown-Location". MJ version is slightly better. Both sets have terrible white noise and could not be transcribed by listening. The following is Auto-AI at Rev.Com for mj-undated-Meeting-unknown-Location dated JLun 22, 2025.
mj1-00:03 file mj1-undated-Meeting-unknown-Location
Rose: Informal. What if we take one
mj1-00:29
Phase at one chapter of the book or one little lecture and give it a complete picture? There has to be some effort, my part to guess what points you might be wanting to hear about. Of course, I have to know to some degree where you're coming from. A lot of people have done extensive, have none. I'm surprised at this. Sometimes the older members of the group, I've been with the group for maybe a year, they'll say, well, I came up with a group I had absolutely no reading, previous reading, somewhat amazed. I look upon the work that we doing a postgraduate course first level. It's not just the first guy gets the first flush of spirituality, Andes Outzen joining religions and debunking them and getting disgusted and trying to find something more to the center, more meaningful so that we have people from, as he said, from different levels that come in to find out what's going on. Now, what is our common denominator? We must have a common denominator.
mj1-02:00
Common denominator in all humanity regards to the people here, common denominator is the truth. Everybody wants the truth. They may not always want to extend it. They want want the truth in a relative sense where they're dealing, they're buying groceries over the counter. They want a fair shape on their pound from the price, want the truth not from their friends actions and if philosophy, they want truth, that philosophy. But the thing is the strange thing of a truth and philosophy, the individual colors, it is what he wants to believe. When he wants to know how many pounds is in a package, there's no argument what he means by pounds. When we talk about truth philosophically, there immediately throws up argument to what? Truth is the truth. Some people say, well, I don't want any truth that is not this or that. A party one time said to me, they don't think I was enlightened because I didn't believe in women's, they put a qualification on enlightenment. You had to, as far as me believing in women's, I would like to believe in male liberation, not liberated, but that neither here nor there doesn't matter too much at this point. What does matter is that a person will take a mundane premise and associated for public. They're not going, they're going to believe what you say unless you're Asiatic. It's an Asiatic religion. I'm not going to believe you if you a C.
mj1-03:50
Why? Because the father was a Christian. You reject everything. Dad stands for Christian religion and when I see this, I discourage him because basically you cannot in the final sense ever understand the truth and it's become the truth. You do not learn the truth. You learn the truth only about things that are in a changing world. Even the laws of physics and chemistry, chemical, even these things changed. As I mentioned the concept of the concept of oxidation, we were quite convinced years ago, no one dared to challenge it. We were talking today about medicine. Their doctors 10 years ago put drugs on the market that today are considered oline.
mj1-04:44
SM hasn't changed. The understanding of the chemical reactions that years ago, 10 years ago is no longer truth, but there is a truth that doesn't change. That which is both passes away perhaps even ceases to be truth remains. So I presume that everybody here is here for the truth and possibly good many are here with their own own hat full of reservations. I'll listen to the truth as long as he agrees with me. Of course I maintain. I don't even want you to agree with me. I don't want you to come in with that angle that I know something you, I'm just a redneck from West Virginia, but I would like to stir your head so you do thinking on your own at least. But I do say that you have to start moving. You can't just say, well, I like this business of reincarnation because it gives me another crack. I can waste this life and I'll be coming around again.
mj1-06:11
Maybe the next time I'll, next time will be booze. So let's experience. Let's go into this big thing called experience. Be here now, but immediately I say this isn't logical. Who's here now? Find out who's here now. And you talk about flowing. I say, where are you going? So these cliches, if we labor on it as we think so pregnant, the truth are really nothing more than some part of our mundane personality to accept. So you start to peel away this stuff and if you continue, if you've got the courage to see it as you see it, to peel away, this is our system not postulating what truth is ahead of time. This is the air that's been made down to the ages. This is the reason that we use the word Zen. I don't say you have to be addicted strictly to Zen alone, but down through the ages people have postulated with God and worked for 500 years to try to prove it and you can't postulate proof. You've got to go directly to that which is so what is the difference in what our concept of truth are? And I find that where as soon as we embark upon a path of truth, as I said, we carry a little bit with us but also we carry with us other common denominators. We all have these common denomin in the book. I list them as obstacles and I'm going to read them to you. That's all I'll read tonight.
mj1-08:07
Like to ask questions, I like answer questions, but the obstacles and they're just put them down whether flatly here in the book without too much explanation, obstacles of external nature by external, mean outside of your body, visible dress, your life in relationships. I recognize that it's possible relationship advantage and spiritual growth. Invisible or dimensions beyond our senses outside the body, but invisible or dimensions beyond our senses. These are not only obstacles of the truth or obstacles of survival. A lot of people that are addicted to dope are not addicted to a chemical. They, they're addicted to an entity.
mj1-08:57
Call it medo if you wish. There's a separate one for almost every trip that takes your energy. There's an energy loss. Something takes system or the entity they don't obsess. Now, obstacles of internal nature, the appetites, sex, security, food, pleasures other than sex, curiosity, these are obstacles. They, they're necessary in their place, but these are also obstacles because I've heard people say the only motivation they have in life can't have me die. Of course, my attitude is when I have to live for that, I'm just in a cow hole in the pasture. I'm good for my service. I'm no longer serviceable, no value, and if that's all a human being is a sex apparatus to keep bunch of fertilizers, face security, they nuts of building a bigger mansion and a bigger mansion and a bigger bank and they become obstacles. S work food is absolutely necessary on feeding wine and whiskey, just making a big thing out of it.
mj1-10:37
Destroy our body. Heart trouble, obesity, pleasures other than sex pleasures other than sex, I'm talking about the whole of or even travel, gambling, anything it takes up your time, option, anything come from obsession. Curiosity. Curiosity is a necessary natural implant. Without curiosity then evil would not survive at the same time. Curiosity, bu curiosity leads us into one trap after another unless we're able to. This is the whole secret of this system. The whole secret of this system is beginning a new vector, reversing the vector of curiosity and desire, putting them in the direction of curiosity for things. Spiritual, I say things, absolute definitions, curiosity for an absolute definition opposed to curiosity for better ways of mundane place, desire for the top ego, ego as opposed to the little league. Desire for survival, the absolute sense desire for survival through children survival day by day.
mj1-11:55
The other obstacles are the fears. We talk ego, ego here a lot, talking to Zen about dropping ego, egos. There are other things besides egos that have to drop, have just mount your fears. I just list three of them that are outstanding. Spiritual work, fear of dying, dying. The fear of dying may promote spiritual investigation every the answer because they're afraid of dying unresolved, but nevertheless, the very fear of dying, pleasure to grab and accept the faith and cling to a blind belief, comfort rather than proves the fear of scorn or social harm. Don't join that outfit, those people crack. That's that fear. And this was covered when I was young. You had to sneak around and find philosophy, job unstable underlining the business, fear of mental or spiritual harm. This still, I still recognize this. People coming into the group today, I see it in their faces. They say, oh, there's power there. Be careful. Careful be gone to the blocks and these blocks are written by, they're described by various authors or various books, blocks to spiritual progress or the seven deadly sins. I use those with loosely as a Christian concept. The six catches refined in the rock. Good debris, physical limitations in you. A economic exigencies. If you're too poor, we have to find a job before.
mj1-13:54
I don't see too much spiritual progress from meal to between. The point that it's free of it's family responsibility and I've jotted down here some rationalizations forms of rationalization that people use to avoid spiritual work. Incidentally, I use this word spiritual without any definition. I'm asking to accept word general just in a general sense about it. I don't at this point to be define is such a thing as a spirit so that this would be leading to a certain spirit realization. What I say is that you can't be postulate that you have a soul or you you'd have dog. And of course when you use the word spiritual, you immediately imply that's where people get snag. You use the word spiritual. They say, yes, I know all about God. I'm not talking about God, God's another. Spirituality is a postulation, but I'm using it loosely.
mj1-15:08
When I say the search, I use the word spirituality. I could say better perhaps the search for self definition, but because it's a common word and people pick it up in make general sense and one rationalization is that we will be able to do things better to later date. It's called procrastination. As soon as I get there, my first thousand, the bank, then I'll come back to this, that we will ride the tide of humanity into heaven. I'm every, well I if you don't believe that, right? You get a job in a hospital and observe few hundred people dying and watch phenomen. That's what they see.
mj1-15:59
You realize they're going different places. The social services that social services are good work. That spiritual gain, this permeating they're imbibing booze and taking and running out and with the god's have ears, meaning we can pray, something's going to hear us. The only thing that hear from you that the god's head noses and eyes, incense, place pictures, churches, that positive thinking will make God's or lead us to liberation. Oh, you have to do hold your head a certain way, but the guru will save us. I can't help you. You can't help yourself. That faith will save us. Faith is the, I believe I put my and spiritual paths may be evaluated by their popularity. Everybody believes this. Nobody believes in these little isolated philosophies. Go join the church. There's 20 million people.
mj1-17:35
That means that you can vote what your final definition is. People will get together and decide. We have. It's that we can feel our way alone. That's intuition. You hear people say, I feel I dig that we can do it with everybody's digging so different. Some of these digs must that we can do it with our own limited reason. Some guy comes up to my group and he says, good psychologists that he says we're nothing but a bunch of, I figured it out in my head, logical, even the of his logic, but they like to think that they're so smart that they're with objective reason. Objective means such as numerology or that God or Mr. X will take care of everything, put it on his hands. Just trust. This is good attitude. This is a variation of the night on the white horse. I'll be resting because God, me and our present belief will be our final evaluation of truth. Get a little exaltation if you like. You're saved. You start wrapping everybody on the head.
mj1-19:15
Be saved. Be down on your knees. Some idiot mailed us back. One of our poster told us all about Jesus found his salvation. All he has Istation, which maybe he needed. He might been second devil before that second. The only thing he could pull him out of the, so he could say, but he doesn't realize that it's possible that he'll even graduate from, that's like a kid in the second grade looking down his kid in calling and immature, but he doesn't realize that there's something somebody looking about, so they refuse to believe in spiritual work. They can't see the third grade in grade school. You can see the third grade spiritual work. You can't see that everything is hopeless or useless. This is another rationalization. This is the big thing. They even translate Watson, of course, maybe Watson Wats did fly this. There's no use doing anything.
mj1-20:23
This is sort of an offshoot of be here now instead of being here now they're saying do nothing now that you can do absolutely nothing. Well, my belief is why move in? Why move? Why date a girl? Why eat doing anything for useless, hopeless? So we cannot, as organic fees take the philosophy of future fu. We just don't act that. We still go about putting money in the useless on doing things, things. So I would go back and say, what have we here today? What's in the group today? I know some of you have, some of you just come fresh from, maybe you're still preparing a little bit. We get people into various things and they say, why do they hang on to something else?
mj1-21:36
Well, first of all, I don't want anybody to let loose of anything else until they're ready. Generally your hidden movements, because that's that's the vehicle that your mind is more or less its own barometer of these things. Your mind will not take on voltage until it's prepared for the voltage. This is one of the automatic thermostats. Real stats takes care of that voting. But yet sometimes we're locked into certain little groups because of here's a group that says, well, you can do this also. And you talk to these people. Why do you stay in this group? Well, because they don't argue with sex. Christianity argues reason. Religion doesn't emanate from India. Most of the virgins in India. India is a solution to the overpopulation that probably homosexuality. So if they shut off all the homosexuals movements in India, they might have to close the doors. They might be the only people support can afford to pay the dues. So in a lot of situations, theology adjusts itself to back.
mj1-23:18
It will not clash too violently the status of the state. But anyhow, we find regardless, we find people rejected for whatever reasons they are, they'll reject a movement because that movement does not include an encouragement of their pet weakness. That weakness is, I'm not saying with any form of physical outlet or pleasures any more valid than anyone else at this time. I'm just saying that it's an energy drain regardless. If it takes too much of your energy, it's going to inhibit what you're doing. In other words, if you want to be a successful half athlete each, you inhibits certain energy drains. You can go up your muscle.
mj1-24:03
But I don't see too many gigantic bodies, real healthy bodies, real alert minds of people that are smoking a half a dozen joints a day dropping pills every day. So you can't do everything. And this is the thing. We like to believe that we can indulge in all forms of sex, do everything we wish people does. The modern psychologist has voted these things as normal, just have fun, but pay your taxes, the psychologist to be funded and we say this is valid now because we've been validated by the rubber stamped authority and we'll not accept this philosophy or this particular ism, whatever it is that doesn't give us this encouragement.
mj1-25:01
Each religion goes through, each religion will find there attraction the variations of the Christian religion. Just like Mormonism. How many people were possibly followers of Mormonism because they thought it was given a good chance to, I never saw theological change in Mormonism. Nice economic group to get into. They don't have the multiple marriages anymore. Big advantage today, Mormonism 50 people. But I've read parts of the Bible or their handbook. I saw a great illumination, great revelations beyond what you find in the Bible. But regardless, this is the thing. There's a motivation in a lot of, there's comfort. Do you want comfort or do you want to fight for the facts? Be comfortable. Okay, go get comfort.
mj1-26:12
I think if we, instead of arguing about all these things, each person casually, carefully examine their own present path that might expedite the graduation next level.
Q and A
Now I'd like for you to ask questions to ask. I know there's a lot you'd know about. As I said, I prefer to explain what we're doing in terms of what we're thinking and what our concepts are. Basically, we don't have dogmatic concepts as much as we have challenge to retreat from whatever you're thinking, whatever you're thinking to evaluate.
The only thing I challenge is belief. And I just say why? Maybe your beliefs are sound without it, but I still want to challenge why and I'm not going to challenge we do that. Competition. I'm going to challenge and I don't particularly think us any good here for you to just challenge the sake of argument what we're doing here today.
I think I'd like to turn this meeting over to an honest evaluation of what we're doing today so that if you have any question and you can compare it with by questioning, you can compare what you've been into up until today. Previous disciplines and a better idea.
mj1-28:37
Q: Inaudible.
Rose: There was a system. There was a system, but it was my own. I didn't learn this right. I did not arrive at my experience through Zen. I only learned the language of transmission through Zen. But this what I've just read to you is basically the things that I retreated from. I started off believing several times. I started off with the faith. My ancestors, I was a Catholic, believed maternal acceptance. I believed my mother and I believed what she believed. She couldn't be wrong when was a child. So sometime I had to wean myself and it was just a matter of retreat each and first I'd get my foot in one pile of garbage after another and I'd get away from it. I'd see another pile of garbage. It looked a lot better. I thought was more flowers of garbage and I'd get into it and I follow a discipline for a period of time and I'd meditate and think and move on from there, and I cursed the darkness.
mj1-29:51
I looked for people that could teach me, tell me something. I didn't find anything honest, but I'd devise this system of retreating from this type of area. That's the system that we talk about today. I've not addicted to Zen and I'll not advise you to fall, especially the zen things that are coming out today, the books that are coming out on Zen. I fail to find anything solid in any of them. Some have good some, but you find that he tries to over theorize, over intellectualize something that is a basic process of just going inside. He says in one book he writes, he says, let go it. You can let go and fall off.
File 2 = gh1 = sh2 = mj2 = dm2
Same as shB-1975-Akron-unknown-source-sticking.mp3 (1 and 2 reversed)
Total time 30 min 47 sec
gh1-00:01
' Questions regarding prayer and faith'
Q: Someone does hear you.
gh1-00:05
Rose: Who is that someone? Who is the someone that hears you?
gh1-00:10
Q: My personal God?
Rose: Well, if his final experience is one in which he is nothing but a river that's been emptied into the ocean and lost its identity, where does this God disappear to when he's emptied into the ocean? This individual that knows nothing except the ocean. Is the ocean God?
gh1-00:28
Q: An impersonal God.
R. Huh?
Q. An impersonal God.
Rose: See what I'm saying is rather metaphorical, but what I'm saying, when I say, the only way you should pray is to yourself. And I meant big S, not little s. The Self, big-S Self.
gh1-00:45
Q: Oh, I see. Yeah, but pray to big-S Self.
gh1-00:48
Rose: Of course, you don't know what the big Self is, but you can continually challenge yourself. You can say, "Hey, I want to know who you are!"
gh1-00:57
Q: I'm saying focussing through, though, devotion to a personal God...
gh1-01:04
Rose: Ahh, that's kidding yourself. That's putting the blinders on immediately, qualifying, postulating before you prove. So I know that Maharshi, that's what I said. I didn't say that I endorsed everything he said. He's talking a language for particular people. But if you examine, he talks about Krishna. Okay, Krishna, he may identify in the final analysis, Krishna with the absolute. But regardless, When he reached his point of enlightenment, he recognizes himself as a non-identifiable river emptied into an ocean. He's lost his identity. Now, whether he wants to call that ocean Krishna or the absolute, why I'd have to examine the writing and see if he's really consistent.
But when you talk about yourself and a God, a personal God, and then you're a river that's emptying into an ocean, losing your identity, it doesn't do you any good. This God's there, you're gone. Unless the God is the ocean. Then it don't matter what the name of it is.
It does matter if the name gives you a false conclusion of being something personal. For instance, this idea of God and Krishna is too often taken as something outside of us. They call it duality as opposed to monism.
I'm a monist. I cannot conceive the God as standing there watching a man become the absolute. Then you got two people, the absolute and God.
gh1-02:41
Q: Could you see a personal God as being the manifestation of that impersonal God praying to the self through that personal relative?
gh1-02:58
Rose: Yeah, pray to the guy next to you. He's a manifestation of the impersonal God. Why pick one name? You are a manifestation of the impersonal God. Everyone here is a manifestation of the impersonal God. Why pick one? Why build a church to one man? Why build a temple? You're all manifestations. Just one guy gets up and says, just like me, I'm getting up and saying, "Here, look." But this is not Rosology, see? I don't matter. This carcass doesn't matter.
gh1-03:34
Q: You don't see any value in prayer?
gh1-03:37
Rose: Unless you pray to yourself. But when you start to create an icon, whether it's a mental icon or saying it's something is the living, the living -- this one guy is the living incarnation of God, first of all, don't say anything until you define the word God. This is the idea. It's too easy. These are euphemisms. Nobody dares to challenge anybody when they say "God". I challenge them. I say, "What are you talking about?" This is a mistake. This is why people don't work. Because somebody says God, and then somebody says, "I read the Bible and the Lord told me to tell you". And you say, "Oh, yes, I better do that." Somebody else comes along, starts a war because the Lord told him to tell somebody something else.
gh1-04:35
Q: What about all sorts of experiences... ? [of a personal God. repeated below so omit]
gh1-04:39
Rose: Different incarnations. The God of the Muhammadans chopped hell out of the Krishnites. If the people had realized that each one of them was an incarnation of God, they wouldn't have been fighting. No, but they objectified one name and put it up.
gh1-04:58
Q: What do you say about the experiences many people have?
gh1-05:04
Rose: No, you've got the...
Q. What about other people's experiences where they have some illuminations through prayer or they feel...?
Rose: They're good to read, but you have to go by what you feel, what you experience. They're good to read, especially after you have an experience. That validates it. You realize that somebody else has had one. But they're no good to you until you have the experience. You're just dreaming, that's all, hoping, wishful thinking, postulating again by some manner or another.
gh1-05:35
Q: From that point of view, what would you say about, in Christian mysticism, say, relating to a Godhead, which would be Christ?
gh1-05:46
Rose: Well, when you hear the accounts of Christian mystics, they have reached the same thing. Absolutely. This is what I discovered. I was born and raised to Christian, and I went all over into Asia [figuratively] for my exotic trip. But when I came back, I realized that there were Christian mystics who had found it, but I couldn't pay attention to them because all I knew were hucksters. The churches that I encountered, the Christian churches I encountered, were full of hucksters, the liars that were just eating off of the public and that sort of thing, and giving you double talk as scriptural fundamentalistic interpretations of a book. Which when I translated it, I found out they didn't even know what they were talking about, literally. The literal translation was lost. And they're taking this book and beating you on the head with it for 10% of your wages.
But there are Christians, well, St. John of the Cross. There are Christians who have reached it. The truth is in you, in whoever, whether that's John of the Cross or you. The truth is in the Confucianist if he wants to find the truth. The only thing is, he can't kid himself and say, "Oh, it's only in Confucianism. It's only in Christianity. It's only in Zen." That's what I'm trying to get away from. When anybody tells you it's only in something, watch out.
gh1-07:09
Q: I guess what I was trying to get around to was I've met many people who, well Jesus feaks, are one extreme example, but who are trying to develop a personal relationship with that Godhead, with Christ.
gh1-07:25
Rose: I know. There's gurus in India that are homosexuals, fallen in love with their master.
gh1-07:29
Q: Do you think that's ? acknowledged?? Or do you think that you can go through a vehicle of, say, one Godhead, you consider a manifestation of God and go beyond that?
gh1-07:42
Rose: I don't want you to consider a one Godhead. I don't want you to consider anything.
gh1-07:46
Q: If you do that, do you think that you get stuck at a certain point?
gh1-07:49
Rose: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. I don't want you to get hung up. I don't want you to accept anything until you validate it. But this is what I'm opposed to, is you accepting. But I maintain, I'm saying that from my point of view, from what I've discovered, and of course, you can't accept that either, you find out for yourself. I maintain that we're all an emanation of one thing. That's the idea. Yes.
Q: You keep talking about proof. What do you consider proof? How do you know what that is?
gh1-08:17
Rose: There's no such thing as proof except when you become. When you talk of proof, you talk of learning the answer, knowing the answer. There is no such thing as knowing. And yet you have to follow this. You have to read books. You have to know the book. You have to know certain answers. You have to get through life. But in the final analysis, there's no proof and there is no knowing. The method is becoming. You will become the truth. And that's the little thing in the Bible everybody misses. "I am the way the truth in the life." He didn't say, "I know it." He said, "I am." And they read that, the preachers read it, and they never get it. They say, "No, you got to pay. You've got to learn. You've got to study." All this sort of thing. "You got to go and study theology and be a minister before you find the truth. You've got to read the Bible."
gh1-09:17
These things might help. If you get a book in front of you, no matter what the book is, it'll stimulate meditation. But I'm not saying that that is the [way]. If you're ever going to learn the truth, that means that you're never going to learn proof.
But you're going to retreat from that. Again, it sounds paradoxical because we're talking about retreating from the impractical or the improbable, and approaching that which is more sensible. Because this is what we're stuck with right now. We're in a relative dimension in which things are settled according to proof. In other words, to give you an example, the preacher doesn't believe in drinking booze, so we get down and catch him in a beer joint getting drunk. We have proof of his inconsistency. That's all. See what I mean? These things, that type of proof we have. If somebody says, "Well, I can raise the dead," and we prove him wrong because he failed to raise the dead, these things are proof in our search for validity among mundane preachers or something of that sort. But in the final analysis, why there's no theological proof. That's the reason. If you can go direct, if you can bypass all the fundamentalistic reading, whether it's the sutras—I include the sutras, the same as the Bible—anything. It's here. you don't have. When you externalize, that's time you're taking from looking at yourself. And even this book, that's the reason I condensed it. I tried to write as little as I could because, just to provoke thought, because the basic path is inside yourself. But sometimes you have to stop and go outside yourself and say, "Hey, Jack, how do I get inside myself? How did you get inside yourself?" So Jack tells you how. Then you get rid of Jack and you go inside yourself.
gh1-11:21
Q: In that Ramana Maharishi book, he's talking about the guru and the guru as a way of helping you find yourself. I guess any teacher... How important?... Okay, I guess pointing back to this group here. Out of all of this theorizing. How has it changed from having just a group of people who are trying to work together to reflect each other? If you bring someone in who is enlightened, what is your role? I guess is sort of what I'm asking.
gh1-12:03
Rose: Well, the thing for people. I say it's better to labor with a group of people who are pretty much on the same level of enlightenment or awakening. It's better to do that than to work by yourself, because you'll progress. You can get off the track and go back to sleep for a year at a time. I know people do it. The whole year of their life is shot. Forget about it and don't pick up a book for a year, don't even think about anything. Of course, sometimes it's a rest too. They're taking a rest. But the group has that value that it'll remind you. The group has voltage. We found this out too. That voltage is generated by a group of people. "Where two or more are gathered together, I am in their midst." That means when he says, "I am," that's the absolute essences in the foreground, so to speak. And of course, now, if you bring in somebody that's had it --.what is he? He's a guide. He's a guy that went down through the woods before you. He comes back and he says, "I know a shortcut. Now, you could wander around if you want to for 10 or 20 years, but I know how to get through that jungle."
gh1-13:12
Rose: So you try it. You try to validate that teacher, if possible, because he could be leading you around, too, for 20 years. But basically, when ,,, and that's the reason I say that the... when you know the direction, you really don't need a teacher. Unless just maybe to help you over some little hurdle or something. You can say, "Well, I run into this problem, what do you think about it?" Well, that expedites. Or a guy comes and says, "What do you think of this? I'd like to join this movement. They claim that I can get anything I want just by chanting a certain mantra." Some people approached me in Pittsburgh: "We've got this mantra, and all we have to do chant that we get anything we want.
Q. inaudible
Rose: Yeah, right. But will they get, will they get enlightenment? Now, this is a question. Suppose they say, "Yes, I'll chant, I want enlightenment." Now, that's a bit of an argument there, because I'm not, because I have never encountered anybody that received enlightenment that way, I can't argue too much on it, but I do. They call them, one branch Amida Buddhists that chant the name of Buddha.
gh1-14:18
And they say that there have been people reach enlightenment. Well, I can't say they haven't, but I just have never met anybody. I've met very few people in my lifetime who are enlightened. One was a Zen monk, and the other was a Christian mystic who reached it through the Lord's Prayer. So that's the reason I don't laugh at anything, you know, I mean, any group. But I do say that you got to be careful getting hung up in certain things that are, you know, like, you could say, "I want to develop my aura." I've had guys that say, "I want to develop my ESP." And they'd fiddle around with cards and stuff for years, thinking that if they expanded their mind, their mental potential, that they'd eventually expand that mind to included Russia and China and then Mars and the moon and God knows what, see? And all sorts of fantastic.
Q. Do you know much about Krishnamurti?
Rose: Krishnamurti? Yes. I have a lot of respect for Krishnamurti. I think he's an enlightened man. I think he gets off the beam occasionally, but I think he's an enlightened man.
gh1-15:16
Q: He teaches awareness of...
gh1-15:18
Rose: Yes. Well, this is basically what we're doing. This Is what we're doing is... See, in the final analysis, you don't know anything, but you're aware. So if you, This is what remains, is awareness. And Ramana Maharshi mentions this: Awareness, consciousness, bliss. He says that. I take issue with the word bliss. I don't know why he threw that one in there, because that's a relative term. But what it is, I think is eternal content. That's what he means. See, I take a connotation from the word bliss. But the thing is awareness, that you have to become aware of your awareness.
gh1-15:52
Q:... chance... it's just that you have to not .. of your mind and come to your senses. You've got to stop the endless chattering.
gh1-16:00
Rose: Yeah, yeah, yes. It's an energy drain. But he does a lot of it. See, it's like me. Of course, I'm not going anyplace. I'm blowing out my last fuses. Yeah. Yes, what do you got?
gh1-16:18
Q: Why do you aim at this ultimate truth?
gh1-16:21
Rose: You can't help yourself.
gh1-16:25
Q: And why do you want it? For eternal? Eternal contentment?
gh1-16:30
Rose: Well, you don't take it. You don't say I want. I don't say a man should want eternal contentment. You want the answer.
gh1-16:35.900
Q: I mean, what do you want? The answer. The answer to what?
gh1-16:38
Rose: To your definition. Who you are, where you came from, where you're going.
gh1-16:43
Q: And what will that do you in the final analysis?
gh1-16:45
Rose: What would it do for you? It will do nothing for you. Small "you". It won't do anything for you.
gh1-16:55
Q: What will it do for the big you?
gh1-16:57
Rose: Well, you'll be there. You'll become.
gh1-17:02
Q: And what will the value of it be for you?
gh1-17:03
Rose: For how can you juggle mundane ideas of values against absolute values? You're trying to talk in terms of relative values, saying, "What's the utility of the absolute?" And from the absolute point, you might be looking back and saying, what the hell is the value In a nightmare or a dream that I just came from? And here the guy down the dream, he's saying, what's the value of me getting out of this dream?
gh1-17:37
Q: Okay, then what would you say the nature of. Many people have talked of the nature of the absolute as bliss. I guess that's what Maharshi must be in this book, as eternal content. Do you agree with that?
gh1-17:53
Rose: Yes.
gh1-17:55
Q: Okay. And then that's awareness of...
gh1-17:59
Rose: Well, let me point out, first of all that it's impossible to evaluate or to describe an absolute condition. But I would say this, that from where I sit today, I'm content with what I found.
gh1-18:16
Q: And do you say that this awareness, this absolute awareness of awareness, is eternal?
gh1-18:25
Rose: Yes.
gh1-18:26
Q: And some people have posited thay there's existence, and then this becomes aware of its own existence and that takes on the aspect of consciousness.
gh1-18:38
Rose: Well, that's a psychological definition. Is that psychological definition...
gh1-18:43
Q: Do you feel that awareness is always aware of its awareness?
gh1-18:47
Rose: No, no. You're generally aware of the. You're generally aware of what you're projecting. The mundane world is a projection, so that we're fascinated by our own projection. We don't know who's projecting.
gh1-19:02
Q: I'm talking about big self being aware of big self. Big self is aware of big self, say enlightened person, right?
gh1-19:11
Rose: Yes.
gh1-19:11
Q: And after they drop the body, then awareness is still present. And is awareness of, is big self's awareness... I'm talking in relative terms...
gh1-19:26
Rose: It's pretty hard to talk otherwise.
gh1-19:34
Q: Do you feel that big self is aware of big self without this body?
gh1-19:41
Rose: Yes.
gh1-19:46
Q: And...
gh1-19:49
Rose: If it weren't, I wouldn't waste your time. Because if you were just going to oblivion, there's no sense in encouraging people just enter oblivion. The best thing is to hide it from your children then, so they won't know.
gh1-20:04
Q: Do you feel then that, say, this drop, which in essence is the ocean, and becomes the ocean, when you reach enlightenment, do you feel that that drop, which is, say, as it merged with the ocean, ever comes out as a drop again?
gh1-20:27
Rose: That's not what Maharishi said, you remember: "That which enters the ocean is never redirected." You don't redirect your river from the ocean. It's very possible that your awareness may be in the scope of that. Awareness is not predictable. From this point, I wouldn't undertake to predict what could happen. But from where we would view it, there's no meaning to redirecting your energy or your consciousness, limiting it, for instance, from a totality down to the conviction that you're one being, one little tiny ant, or one dog or one human. So I can't conceive of why that would happen. I'm not saying it might not happen. There's stories told of this, that after a death we return, but then we deliberately steep ourselves or dip ourselves back into unconsciousness, which is this life...
gh1-21:25
Q:... as most people know it.
gh1-21:26
Rose: Yeah. Then the avatars are supposed to come down and somehow get the hunch that they have, hey are eternal, and they try to shake a few people out of the nightmare. But what the purpose behind all this is? When you reach enlightenment, you'll know everything, but you'll not know how many hairs are on a dog's head. So the details and all of the possible... It's impossible to... With our concept today of consciousness, which is focused upon one thought at a time, it's impossible for us to conceive of knowing all possible thoughts.
So we can't... That's the reason you can't visualize what I call the magnitude of the unknowing. Because the absolute condition is somehow tied, as well to total knowledge, it's also tied to total unknowledge. It is a state of everythingness and nothingness. But always remember to add that second one too. It's a state of nothingness as well. As regards, when we talk about this as being something [taps the podium], say this something still exists, but a tremendously different valuation of it.
gh1-22:48
Q: Do you agree with what Maharshi says about... Ramana Maharshi talks about the relative world as if a dream. Do you agree with that too?
gh1-23:05
Rose: Yes.
gh1-23:06
Q: And what do you see as the value or how could this dream ever come out of...?
gh1-23:10
Rose: I don't know. I don't know. In other words, I don't know why Cecil B. DeMille wrote a picture. All I know is I went to the show and paid to see it. Somebody projected it. Maybe I was one of the actors. I'm in the picture show. Remember you got the analogy of the picture show? I'm watching the show, that's all. Then there's a time when you say, "Hey, I could be out there sitting and watching this show instead of being up here all fevered up and imagining I'm running it." So we retire and we go back into the audience and watch the show.
gh1-24:05
Q: So is the endeavor of enlightenment becoming the same as what's thought of as God?
gh1-24:21
Rose: Well, I wouldn't say what's thought of as a God. That's the reason I use the word absolute, because God has gotten to be a bad word. What I mean is there's so many connotations that are put on it, and every huckster comes up and says, "God told me to tell you". And the result is as soon as anybody hears the word God... That's the reason we have so many of our young people today going to some other continent for religious inspiration, because they're justifiably fed up with somebody abusing the most sacred thing on earth, which is our thinking. I'm opposed to this abuse. I often say we have pure food and drug laws. They can't put filth in your candy or filth in your food. But some huckster can pick up a Bible and fill your head full of crap just to get some money off of you. And they'll admit it. And if you get intimate enough with them, you get to them and get talking to them and say, "Yeah, well, we keep the old women happy. So don't interfere. These ladies come in here and they don't scream when they die, or if they do it just right before they die."
They keep them hypnotized or reassured or comforted. This is a comfort. We hold their hand when they're dying. And this is a service and we should be funded for our service. And it becomes a utility. I'm opposed to this sort of thing. And of course they're employing the word God and a whole generation of people are fed up with this abuse of the word. So immediately... and not only that, but it has another connotation of somebody that talks to a huckster. It isn't somebody that talks to a huckster. The poor huckster is God. He don't know it. You know, he'd take a different path, but he's basically the God. That's why I believe in saying, "Hey, look inside yourself." Don't keep trying to buy it for $500. Or you give somebody 200 bucks to give you a syllable to repeat.1 You can get them out of a book or you can create one yourself. You can find tranquility from repeating anything. "Hocus pocus," that'll do.
gh1-26:38
Q: What do you think of an everyday, like the existence that we're leading right now, of making decisions for, like, what to buy in a store or something like that? I don't understand what this enlightment is.
gh1-27:01
Rose: I don't either. I don't understand how I can tell you. I don't want to tell you. I don't want to confuse you. In other words, you can't... You shouldn't be concerned with enlightenment. I know they come up in a conversation here and I try to talk to you, but basically this is not our objective here. If I said that the objective of this group is enlightenment, I would be lying to you. The objective of this group is to define yourself. Now, if it is a result of defining yourself, you reach an experience which later you define as enlightenment. Good, good. But don't go at it. You're postulating. Whenever you start off with that word, you shouldn't postulate it. Yeah...
Q.... past enlightenment... awareness... discrimination...
Rose: What was that again?
Q. Past enlightenment, is awareness an option... inaudible
Rose: Yeah, that sounds good. Buddha laid down some good precepts on that. I mean, the Eightfold Path, those are all good. That's good advice. The Threefold Path of first knowing one thing, first studying one thing, then studying everything, then studying nothing.2 These are good, but they are not necessarily the last word. I mean, there's other little hints that you can get too, that will help. See, but what I'm trying to get you away from is...
I'm not advocating, I'm not saying if you come here, you'll get enlightened. I know this pops up and everybody's read about it and it's like Watts. Watts read a lot of books. And what was the gist of Watts's books on Zen? That enlightenment was an orgasm. So he's trying to define something in relative terms which throws the reader, perhaps. If he really didn't know, it's going to throw the reader. And there's nothing I can say about that will not throw you. The only thing I can say is that we basically, if we're sincere human beings, want to know the truth, and that's our self definition.
gh1-29:15
Q: What do you call the truth? Do you define truth?
gh1-29:17
Rose: That which is not untrue, I can't... If I could define the truth for you, you'd be enlightened.
gh1-29:27
Q: How could something be untrue?
gh1-29:31
Rose: Well, by virtue of the fact if something can be true, there has to be something untrue. Now we're speaking in a relative sense again. It's manifest. In other words, if I point to a cat and tell you that's a dog, can't that be untrue? Okay, that's a simple one.
gh1-29:54
Q: We were talking about prayer before. Do you believe that one could pray to a personal God for direction, just as you ask a teacher for direction?
gh1-30:10
Rose: Well, I don't approve of either one. I mean, I don't approve of using either one of those as a system.
gh1-30:16
Q: If you need help, sometimes you make your way when you can.
gh1-30:20
Rose: Well, yeah, but see, your...
File 1 ends at 30:22
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gh2-00:00
Rose: Follow one of the two. We're either an extremely, and again, I'm saying this is the beginning of an upper path, but there is no turning back. We can't help this. We have to. Either people are in a category of unreasonable faith, extremely subjective faith, that is, or they're in a position of extremely objective logic. It's a vanity of saying, Don't tell me anything. Don't, don't, don't. I can't prove that these two conditions are untenable. I'll give you an example. One of them is modern psychology. Modern psychology says,....
gh2-00:43
[sh1 starts here]
[But what I'm saying is] to go directly within yourself. You must be able to search for the truth and not kid yourself. If you can do that and dynamically keep it up, you will find the truth. It don't matter what religion you're in. Of course, as you get into it, you'll more or less see less and less value to the religion you're in, or you'll see more and more meaning to certain things that are said, like Christian admonitions, "Seek and ye shall find," means something to you now. "Unless you become as a little child, you shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven," has new meaning to you now. Some of the other things you look upon, maybe just political. But some of the things they said didn't have any meaning before, but once you start on the path, they start to have meaning.
gh2-01:18
Rose: The same way with the words of Buddha. You find out that Buddha is saying us the same thing Christ said. But you don't become addicted any longer. You're not necessarily addicted. You push out the misconceptions. There's millions of people that are following conceptions, say, of Christ that are not necessarily valid. So that part is right. Did I answer anything?
Q: Ah, Yes.
Rose: Yes...
gh2-01:51
Q: Do you ever consider the search over with?
gh2-01:53
Rose: Yes.
Q: When is that?
Rose: Oh, I thought you were talking about me.
Q: No.
Rose: For you, it's over when you know who you are. When you know who you are, you will know everything.
Q: silence < omit
Rose: I'm not trying to be a enigmatic. But it's a very simple thing and a very simple formula, that's knowing thyself. When you know yourself, really know yourself. And if I go further, of course, I start to say things that are not provable, but I can say that you are also everything. Not to prove that, but maybe you'll pick it up. But when you know yourself, you'll know everything because you'll be everything.
gh2-02:42
Q: What are your meditations?
gh2-02:46
Rose: Well, again, that's something I can't give you in just a few words. I'll try to, but we have a paper.3 I've written a paper on it. The reason is, because I do not agree with the meditations of placidity or peacefulness. I think that they tend to put you to sleep. As I said at the lecture I gave last evening at the Theosophical Society,4 protoplasm tends to become lethargic. Inertia sets in. We have to be continually arousing our protoplasm and our minds from that lethargy. It's not good to indulge in a form of meditation or contemplation that will put you to sleep. You have to indulge in a form of meditation that will keep you awake and keep prodding you and irritating you and looking into traumas of the past and wondering why you had those traumas, solving those problems as you go. When those things become clear to you, you become freer, you get more energy. You're not putting your energy then into feeding traumatic memories.
gh2-03:55
Q: Do you have any concept of purifying the body, the physical nervous system, so that this material body can project the living of a fully spiritual life? The material being the basis of living that immaterial spirituality.
gh2-04:24
Rose: Well, you cannot live a spiritual life until you know what that is, so that any form of discipline or anything of that sort that you embark upon without fully understanding it is meaningless. Now, as far as for accepting the fact that you have a body, this is valid. In other words, you hear in Zen, of course, that the material world is illusion, and you'll find out someday that this is true. But until you fully realize that, you have to go along the road as if you believe you have a body. You have to accept that body. When in the process of accepting it and understanding what goes on, you will find that you can raise energy with the body. Now, we don't necessarily need to call it spiritual. This is somatic, an exudation, which is, well, for instance, I have a paper written on that also. It's called the Transmutation of Energy.5 It's similar to Kundalini yoga, but it's more specific. It's more of an engineering paper than one using a strange Hindu terms that have no meaning in the English language, such as chakras. It's basically a method of tracing your energy from the food you eat to the residual or glandular storage. Energy stored in glands, stored in fat, stored in the muscle.
gh2-05:49
This transmutes some of it automatically into brain and neural energy, what I call neural energy, cerebral energy, which in turn can be transmuted into spiritual quantum. Now, that might sound enigmatic, but this is all demonstrable. They talk about auras, but only healthy people have auras, supposedly. Only healthy people seem to exude spiritual energy, can heal people and have that type of energy. We trace our steps in and say, sure, it's good to have a healthy body. It's good to be able to train yourself to raise your kundalini, if you want to call it that. There's no correlation in English, so I use the word kundalini there. But it's not a mysterious Oriental method. It's just plain sensible living and inhibition. Inhibition of the channels through which that energy is wasted.
gh2-06:50
Q: Well, many systems of meditation are based on the idea that, to agree with your system, it's free from stress and strength, to which it can function perfectly.
gh2-07:05
Rose: How do you know it's perfect?
gh2-07:06
Q: Well, it's perfect as I guess the physical can be. This is what they...
gh2-07:08
Rose: I think a hog would grow fatter and be much more tender pork to eat if he had no stresses and strains. But supposedly Jesus Christ, when they nailed him up, he was kind of a horrible mess to look at. But he had proved his point. He had made his goal. The hog doesn't find a goal except the slaughterhouse.
gh2-07:44
Q: I don't necessarily mean on a gross level, such as just irritations on your skin, but I mean, maybe on some very subtle level, like on where your brain functions, the coherent patterns.
gh2-08:03
Rose: Yeah. What's your point, though? Where are we going? Where are we going with your point?
gh2-08:09
Q: That if you can purify your body to a certain degree...
gh2-08:12
Rose: Yes. How do you purify it?
gh2-08:15
Q: Well, one way, I practice Transcendental Meditation.
gh2-08:19
Rose: We're not interested in what you practice. I mean, we're interested in proving that that will purify your body.
gh2-08:25
Q: But by giving deep rest, by allowing the body to straighten itself out...
gh2-08:32
Rose: How do you know it does that, though? How do you know that you're not kidding yourself? That this is not a suggestive technique you're using? When you chant "Ang" or something like that, that you're not just hypnotizing yourself.
gh2-08:42
Q: Well, I'm not trying to put this up against it.
gh2-08:48
Rose: That doesn't matter. I mean, if it's valid, it should be put up against it.
Q. There are scientific results, scientific studies...
gh2-08:55
Rose: No, no. I don't agree with you. I don't know of any scientific results except that it brings you peace of mind, helps your business and people are more tranquil. But so are hogs in a hog pen. Do they know, does TM bring you to a realization of who you are? Do you know who you are?
Q. No.
Rose: Then you don't know that TM will bring you there. Now you're talking about something with no knowledge of where it will take you then, except tranquility. You're talking about purification of the body. How do you know what pure is? Are fish and worms impure?
gh2-09:30
Q: I'm not saying I do. I find a direction that seems to be taking me somewhere, so I follow it.
gh2-09:37
Rose: Seems, feels. feels, seems. Yes. Be careful.
gh2-09:43
Q: I'll find out how it is, and then I...
gh2-09:45
Rose: I could hypnotize you and you'd feel much better than that yet. It could be done in five minutes instead of waiting for two years to make you feel good. I could hypnotize you and you'd feel wonderful. I can even get you drunk on water.
gh2-09:58
Q: I'm not going towards just feeling good. I want to have knowledge of myself. But I'm just saying, how do you think about this theory of purifying the system?
gh2-10:11
Rose: How do you purify? That's what I ask you and you didn't answer me. How do you purify your system?
gh2-10:15
Q: Through deep rest.
gh2-10:16
Rose: Deep rest or breath?
gh2-10:21
Q: Deep rest.
gh2-10:23
Rose: Rest, R-E-S-T?
Q. Rest, yeah.
Rose: Sure. I know some people in a cemetery that are into that.
gh2-10:30
Q: But I don't mean a dull rest as in sleep. This is on the brain wave studies, they find that …
gh2-10:37
Rose: I know. They have wired up a few yogis, too, who weren't in TM, and they find out they had a good condition, whatever it is, alpha or beta. But see when you use words, this is what I'm getting at, this is my challenge, what do you mean by purify? Putting yourself to sleep. We're not talking about purification. We're talking about putting yourself to sleep. You're talking about getting rest. But how do you know that purifies you? Taking dope will make you tranquil, too. But there's an aftershock that comes later. The organism is not meant for rest. The organism is meant for action.
gh2-11:16
Q: It's a balance.
gh2-11:19
Rose: Who knows the balance? What is the balance? A physical balance in which you're able to work and feel better while you're working without the trauma? Or where you would have trauma, and that type of thing would balance the pleasure principle to a point where your mind did something for you. What type of balance do you speak of?
gh2-11:42
Q: .I'm talking about activities that you can live a progressively more enlivened life on all levels.
gh2-11:52
Rose: What good is it? Who wants to lead a more enlivened life? Is that all you're living for, so you can be more enlivened?
gh2-11:59
Q: I guess I live for more happiness, yes.
gh2-12:02
Rose: What good is happiness? What is happiness?
gh2-12:05
Q: That's what makes me feel good I don't mean just a...
gh2-12:08
Rose: It's a state of mind. It's a state of mind. This is what we're talking about in Zen, is that people live and die in certain states of mind. That's where we get hooked.
gh2-12:21
Q: Well, happiness can be in the absolute sense, too.
gh2-12:24
Rose: It can be, but do you know?
Q. No, I don't know.
Rose: Do you know? No. Let Let me tell you something right now. You cannot equate happiness with absolute states of mind because happiness is a relative term and can only be related to a relative experience. Whenever you talk of bliss, this is one of the ways of defining these systems, the systems that will take you to an absolute state, whereas the systems that will keep you in a relative condition is whenever they talk about bliss in a spiritual experience, they're talking about a relative state of mind. The absolute condition of the mind does not experience relative experiences. That's just by virtue of the definition of the words. Absolute means absolute, not relative. Absolute doesn't mean pleasure and pain. When you talk of pleasure, you identify it and define it in the dictionary terms of pain. It's the opposite of pain. The absolute condition doesn't talk of pleasures versus pain. It talks of absoluteness, both or neither, or both and neither.
gh2-13:30 = sh1-12:56
Q: I had a question about your use of the word faith. Are you saying that it is an obstacle to you as long as you're putting faith in the relative concepts and things? Well, I suppose I have a feeling that any spiritual path you go on, you know somehow, maybe some way beforehand, that it's going to take you somewhere, or you probably wouldn't be there. Or that maybe you've been brought there for some reason. Isn't that sort of a faith? And isn't that something that maybe you have to have? If I'm going to work in this group, don't I have to know somewhat that it's going to take me somewhere?
gh2-14:14
Rose: I don't think we ever know anything until we know the final answer. For anybody to tell you... This is the reason that I more or less ask questions about these various things that people have to accept on faith. I don't think you should accept this on faith. I don't think there's anything to accept. Basically, all we say is, "Don't accept." Somebody tells you that you're going to have peace of mind from doing it? I immediately say, "Where's peace of mind going to take me?" You can get drunk and maybe have five seconds or five minutes or five hours of peace of mind, but you'll have misery later. And if you waste your youth in an auto-hypnotic process that goes on for 10 years, and believe me, I'm talking from first-hand experience. I was into this chanting business when I was 21 to 28. I went the whole trip and I had peace of mind, tranquility, and I cursed it later because I was hung up. I was like in a shell. I didn't get the proper irritation to encourage my thinking processes. And I thought that I was going to heaven because I had equated somehow heaven with peace of mind. See?
gh2-15:13
And it's evident when you look around you that the whole process, this is like an aquarium where everything is eating and fighting and devouring each other. And what is the purpose of that? Why does a tree in the woods fight the tree next to it? To get to the sun. And if he gets up there, he lives, and the other one dies. And this is the same thing that, Gurdjieff mentions this. Bucke in Cosmic Conscience mentions this. Only a few. Christ said it, "Only a few are chosen." So consequently, this is a battle. This is not where you're going to drift in and say, Hey, "I don't want the sun. I'm going to sit here and meditate. I'm not going to grow. I'm not going to fight for my oxygen. I'm just going to sit here and meditate."
Now, I say this is good. I'm not arguing with a system because a system of meditation, TM or anything else. I'm saying this may be very necessary for people, but it won't be good to mix it with this system, because we're in for cracking stained glass windows. We're in for analyzing these things and say, "Why do people do this? Why do people have to be...?"
gh2-16:19
They take dope and the dope gets them down. They had peace of mind with it. Not only that, they had a lot of happy visions. But sometime this here undercurrent, this subconscious mind starts telling them in a voice that isn't even audible yet, "Disquietude, disquietude, you're not right." So they run and they get Jesus or something. Well, this is necessary. Good, good. But I don't want those people to tell me that they have found the tantamount now. All they have found is a pill to cure another pill. You're turbulent? Okay. Do your TM, and you won't be turbulent. Then you get your head straight so you can think. But don't go to sleep. Start thinking then, now that you got your TM. Start questioning why you're doing things. Then you'll move. But if it puts you to sleep for 10 years, you're done, that's all, and you'll remember my words 10 years from now.
But I didn't answer your question. Did I?
Q. Not really.
Rose: No. What was it again?
gh2-17:22
Q: I was, okay...
gh2-17:25
Rose: Oh, the faith. Yes. Listen, this is true. In this book,6 I have laws, mentioned laws. One of these is the law of the paradox. Now, I say things flatly because there is a meaning, there's an import to that flat statement. I say you should never have faith in anything but your own ability. We must accept that we are able to do something. If we give up and say it's futile, there's no motion. It may be a false premise. Maybe we're not able to do anything, but we must have the faith. Now, I don't say that you should have the faith in this group. You should have the faith in yourself. But if your computer says, "Hey, maybe there is something here," then it's reasonable to stick around a few days and ask questions and come to some conclusion as to whether it's valid. And if it appeals your intuition, that's all you have to go by. Now, if your intuition makes too many mistakes for you and you look back over five years of making mistakes, then the thing you go to is to take make steps to check your intuition. This is part of the system also. I don't believe that any spiritual system is valid unless there's a way of checking the computer as you go.
gh2-18:40
These computers generally tell you what you want to hear. So all the time you're on a spiritual path, you have to have some system checking the computer. But nevertheless, you must have the faith in yourself that you are not beyond ability to find, or to move ahead.
Now, I say this can be in turn reassured by steps along the path. In other words, you can move along. Now, I know the person who gets into meditation or chanting or anything of this sort, when they first get into it, they are reassured, and this is valid to them. Their intuition has been reassured. Now, if their intuition is erroneous, they may interpret this as the total, the summum bonum, that there's nothing above it. But if their intuition is valid, really valid, they will accept exactly what it is for that moment, that it is valid now. They'll keep saying this to themselves, "Well, it is evidently valid to me now. It is evidently filling a need." And if it's filling a need, be careful. Do we need it? Should we just settle for things that fill a need? Or should we settle for that which is definition?
gh2-19:54
Do we get along better with it? That's what I say. People join churches and you ask them. I stopped at a church one time, I was waiting for a minister to come out and talk to him. I said to one man there, "Why do you go to church?" And this fellow says, "Oh, he said, I take my children. I don't care myself. This is all garbage. But I take my kids." Because why? "If you think it's garbage, why are you taking your kids?" He says, "To keep them out of the penitentiary." It's a utility then. Another guy says, "I joined Unity." Why? "Better business. My business doubled when I joined Unity." Positive thinking. "My business doubled."
And of course, to me, I am curious about these values. As somebody who's concerned about their creator, if there is such—we don't know it until we prove it—concerned about their definition, if there is such, can stop and trade it for 50 bucks or an advantage on the stock market. That's what I question.
Or a relief from the battle. See, I maintain that when you go through spiritual work, you go through on levels. You coast on a level and you rest. Then in time, something will bring you out of it and you'll fight again. You'll go for another level. And when you reach that level, you rest. These rests are called exaltations, spiritual experiences. But this continues until you reach the final one.
gh2-21:26
Q: Does it always go up?
gh2-21:27
Rose: Always up. You can't go down. You can't go down. You can stay where you're at, but you can't go down.
gh2-21:32
Q: How long can you stay where you're at? Can you stay there indefinitely?
gh2-21:35
Rose: I stayed there seven years, on the level you're speaking of. See, we didn't have Ang in those days. We didn't have to pay for Om, so we used Om. O-M. I did the yogi bit. I didn't have a teacher. I did it out of books. But I remained celibate for seven years. I didn't eat any meat. There was no such thing as macrobiotics in those days, you just ate whatever garbage they had left over in the kitchen in a form of salad. But I was a vegetarian for seven years, and I meditated every day, and I isolated myself from influences. I was very happy, very peaceful, except on a few rare occasions where somebody despised my peacefulness and put a gun to the side of my head. I had that happen twice. Something irritated them because I looked too smooth.
So eventually, I got tired. I looked in the mirror one day and my hair was falling out. I had a big bald spot on top at the age of 28. My teeth were falling out. I thought if I'd listen to these yogi books, that you lived to be 200 years old, and I I thought, "Well, I'm going to look like hell by the time I'm 200, at the rate I'm going." So I better chuck this stuff and go in for some common sense.
gh2-22:50
Common sense tells me I'm not going any place. So I didn't even know where to start. I started all over again, is what I did. But I never stopped. That was the thing. From that time on, I never stopped looking. And I had never stopped looking before that, but there was a time when I coasted, and I coasted too long. I really believe I coasted too long. Of course, in this period, I developed my intuition There's no better way to develop your intuition than to shut the doors that confuse you. So I think if you follow TM, you will probably develop intuition, if you follow it along with inhibiting the chief energy outlets. A lot of people get into TM—I was talking at the Ashram before I came over here.7 I had a boy from Pittsburgh [so not in Pittsburgh] come down [to the farm], and he was into mult sexual activities. I mean, he had homosexual and heterosexuality. He was taking dope. He was leading a very disciplined life: he meditated at exactly a certain time in the morning, and no matter where he was, he meditated, and exactly maybe another time in the day, I don't know.
gh2-23:55
But he had intercourse at an exact time of the night, and one day for boys and one day for girls. He ate macrobiotics, and he was just waiting. He was waiting for the trumpets to blow in his ear and beautiful things to happen. I don't know what happened to him. He disappeared after that. He was so happy with TM, he thought that when you reached Satori, that it was the ultimate in hilariousness. He says, "Does it get funnier as we go along?" Did you ever see him again?
Q. I just saw him a little while ago.
Q. I don't understand how you're fighting for this, trying to get it, I think. But honestly, I guess that's a part of it...
gh2-24:52
Rose: The only thing I really believe is you have to fight for it, you have to fight to keep awake. We tend to go to sleep. That's what I'm saying. I want to leave this thought in in the back of your head. If TM quiets you down or finds peace of mind for you, in view of the fact that you had to have peace of mind, if you've been through a living hell or if you've been on the battlefield, I think TM is good for somebody on the battlefield to bring them down. I'm not arguing with that, but I don't believe in a peaceful drifting. You're not going to drift into spirituality. There's no quibble with me about that. You may drift into peace of mind, but you will not drift into spirituality. Nature is opposed to spirituality. Nature will tolerate you if you don't indulge too much. But nature is only interested in reproduction and fertility in its various forms.
gh2-25:41
Q: But do you think the laws of nature are all guided towards more evolution, and that it's more evolution towards more spirituality?
gh2-25:50
Rose: Well, the signs don't show that. I think that there is a spiritual evolution, but it seems as like there's never been a generation more intelligent, so many more intelligent young people, produced as there has been in the last, say, 30 years. And what do we have? The most degenerate race of people that's hit the Earth. They're into everything, dope, sex, and everything else. They're not conserving their energy, not really going for spirituality. So if you call that evolution, why...
gh2-26:24
Q: Well, maybe that's intelligence flowing... [sounds like flowing from the bullshit mix]
gh2-26:26 = sh1-28:35
[sh side 1 fragments start here]
Rose: That's intelligence flowing back down the opposite way the Kundalini goes. That's what's happening. They're using their head to design new methods of pleasure rather than using their pleasure to find more potency in the head.
gh2-26:45
Q: Well, okay. About this meditation technique... I don't see where... spirituality seems immaterial to me. It seems like you're trying to go for something, but I don't understand what you're going for.
Rose: Definition. Definition. It's not immaterial. It's the whole objective: find out who you are. You find out who's meditating. That's what I want to know. Who's meditating? It's all right to meditate, but who's meditating? Why? Why, basically?
gh2-27:17
Q: But how do you define the self?
gh2-27:20
Rose: Well, you've got to ask a lot more questions. You would have to read. In other words, there's many other systems that will...
Q: No, I've done a lot of reading, but I'm trying to understand on your meditational technique, how do you understand who you are?
Rose: By looking at yourself, by really looking at yourself. Now that helps, but I'm talking about looking within. It's an auto-psychanalytic method. There's no doubt about that.
gh2-27:51
Q: Exploring your relationships with others...
gh2-27:54
Rose: That helps, but that isn't the thing. You can look within yourself. If you were able to just look within yourself directly and hold that study, you would find yourself within a short period of time. But unfortunately, we're confused by things around us, people next to us. So then you have to take them into the picture. That's part of the picture then, and you have to study them, too. Your relationship to them, that is. Sometimes through inequities in your relationship with other people, you find inequities or inconsistencies within yourself, where you're kidding yourself.
gh2-28:26
Q: How can you know your absolute self if you study the relative...?
Rose: You can't know your absolute self. You cannot know your absolute self. That's the paradox. This is the only way there is to it. The only way to go to it, is what tools you have. When you reach there, your mind will be dead, but you have to use your mind to get there to a point where your mind is dead.
gh2-28:51
Q: But I'm really going to go to a state where the Self knows the Self.
gh2-28:57
Rose: Well, the self knows the self, capital-S Self will know the Self.
Q. Yes. That's what I mean.
Rose: But your mundane self, this logical argumentative self, never knows the capital-S Self.
Q: Capital-S Self knows the small-s self.
Rose: Right.
gh2-29:14
Q: But I don't see how… You seem to be saying small-s self. By exploring all the small-s self in its relationship with other…
gh2-29:26
Rose: That's all we got to work with. It's unfortunate, but that's all we got to work with. And then you're kidding yourself that you got the absolute self until you get there. But by this tremendous struggle to probe and find yourself, miraculously, it happens. You become closer and closer and closer. And you know as you're going along, that you're getting a clearer and clearer picture of yourself as you go.
gh2-29:47
Q: I have a question. You talk in terms of enlightenment as opposed to progressively blending into a realized being. I mean, you're talking about an enlightenment experience that hit you. I was wondering how you can leap, [inaudible a certain ?? goes] how you can lead up relatively and then all of a sudden hit a point where everything jumps.
Rose: Right, right
Q: It's paradox.
gh2-30:15
Rose: This is what happens because it isn't a gradual. It's not just a gradual changing or refinement. A lot of people think a spiritual path is a gradual refinement. But it's a transcendence of foolishness, that you see that you're kidding yourself. When you go into it, maybe for a while, you adopt more complicated forms of kidding yourself. You'll get into disciplines. In the final analysis, just like we talk about a book here, this book is not about the...
[tape ends]
