Now today
We're living in an age which is quite peculiar
Because in the world of science, there are no longer any secrets
Because the method of science requires that all scientists be in communication with each other
And therefore every scientists to sum as soon as he has discovered something or got a good idea
He rushed into print and it's important for him to do so
Because some other scientists somewhere else in the world maybe thinking about something on the sameline
And would be stimulated in his work by this man's speculation even if not by discoveries
And so the whole scientific world tries to remain in communication
and for this reason it wasn't absolutely impossible to keep atomic energry a secret
In former ages, that might have been managed
Because there were many secrets once upon a time
And people were not admitted to these secrets
Unless they were in someway tested and found capable of handling them without running a muck
We live in such a dangerous age because all the secret are out in the open and anybody can run a muck with them
And that is just a situation we have to face and that is just a situation we have to handle
It is too late to stop it because that would be as the say
"Blocking the door after the horse has bolted."
The vice president of an extremely important corporation in the United State
Very progressive and very vital
A few months ago said
There are two major forces operating in the world today: for good and for evil
One is red china and the other is LSD
And there is a certain reason
Why such a thing as a certain chemical
Which is capable of opening people's mind in a certain way
Should be something extremely disturbing
Because this particular chemical in common with the number of others have been known for centuries
That have been rather played cool through those centuries
It's capable
of doing something which simply cannot be tolerated
That is to say capable of letting
Properly prepared individuals or sometime improperly prepared individuals
In all ages secret
which is very closely guarded
and which is a matter fact
The deepest and most fundamental of all our social taboos
I have just finished writing a book
which I've had with a sort of tongue in cheek attitude have the temerity to call a book
It is subtitled, the book you see on the taboo against knowing who you are
cannot be let out sex is not really a
serious taboo in our culture if you are
initiating a young person into life and
you realize that your son or daughter is
going to college and that you are
therefore to have a serious talk with
them they'll laugh at you and say all
this thing you're telling us about sex
we knew years ago and we know more about
it than you do
so that is not a subject for a serious
initiation talk to a young person so we
have to think again and try and find out
think deeply what is fundamentally taboo
in this culture and perhaps in other
cultures as well
what would what information in other
words would really let out let the cat
out of the bag and give away the show
now quest around a bit ask yourself this
for what reason would a person be
considered hopelessly insane
what sort of claims must a person simply
not make well there is one and that is
if anybody claims that he is God that
simply isn't done certainly not in our
culture although it's very frequent in
India but in our culture that is simply
not allowed because we most of us from a
Christian background and if not that
from a Jewish background and there's a
great deal in common because both
Christians and Jews are deeply concerned
about somebody called Jesus Christ both
Christians and Jews are in a way
followers of Jesus Christ in different
ways he is a problem to both because
he was the man who came out and
discovered he was God and that simply is
impermissible the Jews handled it in one
way the Christians handled it quite as
effectively in another way the
Christians handled Jesus perfectly even
more tactfully than the Jews by putting
him on a pedestal and saying this was
the only man who ever was God and nobody
else was really so before and certainly
nobody can be so afterwards stop right
there put him on the altar bow down to
him worship him so that everything he
had to say will be now on void
and it worked beautifully but you see
the trouble about deep secrets is they
can't be repressed indefinitely now
here's the problem you see that there
are certain processes some of which are
what you might call spiritual exercises
others are simply chemicals others are
just horse scents whereby one comes to
see very clearly indeed that black goes
with white then self goes with other and
as this becomes clear to you it's rather
shaking because it look if what you
define as you is inseparable from
everything which you define as not you
just as front is inseparable from back
then you realize that deep down between
self and other there is some sort of
conspiracy if these things always occur
in combination and look very different
from each other and feel quite different
nevertheless the feeling of difference
between them allows each one to exist
and so underneath the opposition or the
polarity between self and other or
between any other pair of opposites you
can think of there is something in
common as there is for example between
figure and background you can't see a
figure without a background you can't
have an organism without an environment
equally you can't have a background
without a figure or an environment
without organisms in it or without
things in it you can't have space which
is unoccupied by any solid you can
cannot have solids not occupying some
space this is absolutely Elementary
yet we don't realize it because for
example the average person thinks that
space is nothing that is just a sort of
not their nests in which there are
things and we are slightly afraid that
not their nests that nothingness that
darkness that the negative poles of all
these opposition's will win that they
will eventually swallow up every kind of
being and every kind of Venice but when
you catch on to the game you realize
that that won't happen because what is
called not existing is quite incapable
of being there without the contrast of
something called existing it's like the
crest and the trough of a wave you can't
have a wave that is all trough or no
crest just as you can't have a wave
which is all crest and no trough such a
thing has never been manifested in the
physical universe they go together and
that is the secret who really is no
other secret than that but it is
thoroughly repressed and therefore we
are all educated to feel that we've got
to fight for the white because the black
might win we've got to survive you must
survive that's the great thing we're all
working on there and pounding it out
day after day in anxiety because this is
a description of anxiety anxiety is the
fear that one of a pair of opposites
might cancel the other forever and if by
any chance by any means you find out
that that is not so you have an entirely
new attitude to what human beings are
doing which may be very creative but
which also may be very dangerous you see
through the game
the game called white must-win because
you know that neither black nor white
are going to win because they belong to
each other so one of the problems of the
various chemicals which can change the
human mind in certain ways so that it
becomes apparent that inside and outside
go together is that they do rather give
the show away and people who take these
chemicals and see through the human game
cannot be trusted they may decide to be
good sports and go back into the game
and play it as if it were for real
or they may not and if they don't what's
going to happen
now you see what is let me speak
specifically for a moment I said the
subject of this is LSD LSD is one such
chemical that does produce this curious
effect of making you aware of the
polarity of things it does lots of other
things it does lots of rather uh nacelle
and trivial things and these of course
in all the publicity in the various
national magazines about LSD yet
thoroughly emphasized in other words
when somebody says something's real
psychedelic they mean bizarre and when
the national magazines try to illustrate
the effect of these chemicals with
various photographs they come on with
blurred photographs of all sorts of
things higgledy-piggledy mess together
naked girls seen through prisms well
that's absolutely nothing to do with it
if you wanted some sort of appropriate
illustration for a life magazine article
on the effects of LSD you would have one
very simple solution you would publish
the most gorgeous color reproductions of
Persian miniatures and of emerge
arabesques and of the illuminations of
Celtic manuscripts that would give you
the story so far as changes in human
sensation are concerned but there would
be one thing very difficult to put
across in pictures because the people
who looked at them if they didn't get
the point of view wouldn't see it and
that is what I will call the sensation
as well as the intellectual
understanding of polarity that is to say
that the inside and the outside the
subjective and the objective the self
and the other go together in other words
what there is a harmony an unbreakable
harmony I'm when I'm using the word
harmony I don't know
thoroughly mean something sweet I mean
absolute concordant relationship between
what goes on inside your skin and what
goes on outside your skin it isn't that
what goes on outside is so powerful that
it pushes around and controls what goes
on inside equally so it isn't that what
goes on inside is so strong that it
often succeeds in pushing around what
goes on outside it is very simply that
the two processes the two behaviors are
one what you do is what the universe
does and what the universe does is also
what you do not you in the sense of your
superficial ego which is a very small
little tiny area of your conscious
sensitivity but you in the sense of your
total psycho physical organism conscious
as well as unconscious this is not
something that arrived in the world from
somewhere else altogether that confronts
an alien reality what you are is the
universe in fact the works what there is
and always has been and always will be
forever and ever performing an act
called a John Doe and this is such a
subversion of common sense but is it
fact matter of fact something if you
stop to think about it that is
completely obvious only everything
conspires to prevent you from seeing
that obvious thing because when you were
babies practically all your parents and
your teachers and your aunts and uncles
and your older brothers and sisters got
together and they told you who you were
they defined you as Johnny who's just
Johnny and don't you come on too strong
Johnny because some
no you got elders and betters around
here but you're responsible you're a
free agent you'd better be and so when
you are told from childhood that you are
expected and commanded to behave in a
way that will be acceptable only if you
do it voluntarily you remain permanently
mixed up that if anything is permanent
brain damage so but that's the idea you
see because that's the game we're
playing you started it
I didn't that's the game we're playing
and we can make all kinds of
complexities out of that and really in a
way have enormous fun but once anybody
sees through that well we are frightened
once you get the sense of polarity of
your inside being the same process as
your outside and your ego being one and
the same process as the whole universe
going on then we are afraid that people
may say well good equals bad and we can
do anything we like and we didn't in any
way be further subject to the ordinary
rules of human conduct and we could wear
what clothes we like or no clothes at
all we can have what sexual life we like
we can do anything and we are going to
generally because the world is being
rather oppressive towards us challenge
the whole thing and run amuck and a lot
of people are doing just exactly that so
I want to introduce into this whole
problem some ancient wisdom I have
really two things to talk about how
cultures which always did know in some
way or among whom a large number of
people always did know this secret
handled it and then I want to make some
observations about how we are trying to
handle it
and how it's not going to work among the
Hindus and among the Buddhists this view
of the real identity of a human being
has always been known at least by a very
influential minority the central
doctrine of the Hindu way of life I call
it that rather than a religion is in
Sanskrit tattva masih you're it to put
it in a kind of colloquial way you're it
and it is the which then which there is
no which are which they call the brahman
or the Atman with a capital a meaning
the self you are only just kidding that
you're just poor little me see the
function of a guru that is to say a
spiritual teacher in India is to look
give you a funny look in the eye because
you come to him and say mr. guru I have
problems I I suffer and it's a mess and
I can't control my mind and I am
miserable and depressed so on and he
gives you a funny look can you feel a
bit nervous about the way he looks at
you because he think you know he is
reading your thoughts and this man is a
great magician he can read everything
that's in you he knows right down into
your unconscious and you know all the
dreadful things you've thought and all
the awful desires you have and you are
rather embarrassed that this man looks
right through you and sees them all
that's not what he's looking at
he's giving you a funny look for quite
another reason altogether because he
sees in you for the Brahma the Godhead
just claiming it's poor little me and
he's going to eventually buy all sorts
of subtle techniques that are called in
sanskrit upaya that in politics means
chicanery and in spiritual education
means skillful pedagogy he is going to
try and kid you back into realizing who
you really are that's why it gives you a
funny look why seems to see right
through you as if to say Shiva oh boy
don't kid me I know who you are but
you're coming on beautifully in this act
that you're somebody else altogether
and I congratulate you you're doing a
wonderful job playing this part which
you call the person my person you know a
person is a fake
the word means a mask so if you read
books on how to be a real person you're
reading books on how to be a genuine
fake the word persona as you know means
a mask worn in Greek or Roman drama so
if you I come on to the guru and say
well he asks you who you are a Sri
Ramana Maharshi when anybody came to him
and they said to him his people do who
was I in my last incarnation or will I
be reincarnated again he always replied
who's asking the question and everybody
was irritated because he wouldn't give
them answers about what they were in
their former lives he said who are you
and he looked at you have you looked at
photographs of this man I keep a
photograph of him you are close by
because of the humor in his eyes they're
looking at you with a dancing twinkle
saying come off it
now then in these Asiatic traditions it
is well recognised that people who get
the knowledge that your it may very well
run amok and therefore they always
couple any method of gaining this
whether it is yoga whether it is smoking
something or drinking something or
whatever is the method they always
couple it with a discipline now I know
the word discipline isn't very popular
these days and I would like to have a
new word for it because most people who
teach disciplines don't teach them very
well they teach it with a kind of
violence as if a discipline was
something that is it going to be
extremely unpleasant means you're going
to have to put up with but that's not
the real secret of discipline I would
prefer to use the word skill discipline
is a way of expression say you want to
express your feelings in stone now stone
doesn't give way very easily it's tough
stuff and so you have to learn the skill
or the discipline of the sculptor in
order to express yourself in stone so in
every other way whatever you do you
require a skill and its enormous ly
important especially for American people
to understand that there is absolutely
no possibility of having any pleasure in
life at all without skill money doesn't
buy pleasure ever look if you want to
get stoned drunk and go out and get a
bottle of bourbon and dammit you can't
do that except for people who have
practiced the distillers art you can't
even make love without art where I live
in Sausalito we have a harbor full
ever so many pleasure craft motor
cruises sailing boats all kinds of
things and they never leave the dock all
that happens with them is their owners
have cocktail parties they're on
Saturdays and Sunday because they
discovered having bought these things
that the discipline of sailing is
difficult to learn and takes a lot of
time and they didn't have time for it so
they just bought the thing as a status
symbol so in other words you can't have
pleasure in life without skill but it
isn't a unpleasant task to learn a skill
if the teacher in the first place gets
you fascinated with it there is immense
pleasure in learning how to do anything
skillfully to make carpentry things to
cook to write to calculate anything you
want it can be immensely pleasurable to
learn over discipline and it is
completely indispensable because look
you may be a very inspired musician I am
NOT a musical technologist you see and I
regret it but I'm a word word
technologist but I can hear in my head
all kinds of symphonies and all kinds of
marvelous compositions but I don't have
the technique to write them down on
paper and share them to somebody else
too bad maybe next time around
but you see so far as words are
concerned I can express ideas because I
have studied language and I worked very
hard not that I didn't like it I
intensely enjoy the work of writing a
book although it is difficult but it's
fascinating to say what can never
possibly be said so I would you see
what's happening what you have to do you
have inspiration but then you have to
have technique to incarnate to express
your inspiration that is to say to bring
heaven down to earth and to express
heaven in terms of Earth of course they
are really one behind the scenes but
there's no way of pointing it out unless
you do something skillful you see we are
all at the moment absolutely in the
midst of the beatific vision we are all
one with the divine or some I don't like
that for the wishy-washy language but we
are all there but we are so much there
that we like fish in water they don't
know they're in water like the birds
don't know they're in the air because
it's all around them and the same way we
don't know what the color of our eyes is
I don't mean whether you've got blue or
brown eyes but the color of the lens of
your eye you call that transparent no
color see because you can't see it but
it's basic to being able to see anything
so in order to find out where you are
there has to be some way of drawing
attention to it and that involves skill
upaya in sanskrit skillful means so it's
all very well anybody can have ecstasy
anybody as a matter of fact can become
aware that he is one with the eternal
ground of the universe but since that
what's what you are anyway I'm going to
ask so water when a hero goes on an
adventure and he leaves his people and
is going to a strange land he can go
away
and just hide himself around
kourin and obscure house and then appear
a year later and say I've been on a
heroic journey and tell all sorts of
tales and they say prove it because they
expect him to bring back something
something which nobody has seen before
then they believe you've been on the
journey so in the same way exactly
anybody who goes on a spiritual journey
must bring something back because if you
just say oh man it was a gasps anyone
can say that
now this is why in the doctrines of
Buddhism there is a differentiation
between two kinds of enlightened beings
they are both forms of Buddha which is
to say the word Buddha means somebody
who has awakened who has discovered the
secret behind all this it in other words
all this thing we call life with its
frantic concerns is a big act which you
in your unconscious deaths are
deliberately setting up so you can do
one of two things when you discover this
you can become what's called a
pratyekabuddha that means a private
Buddha who doesn't tell anything or you
can become a bodhisattva partaker Buddha
goes off into his ecstasy and never is
seen again Bodhisattva is come one who
comes back and appears in the everyday
world and plays the game of the everyday
world by the rules of the everyday world
but he brings with him oppaya he brings
with him some way of showing that he's
been on the journey that he's come back
and he's going to let you in on the
secret to if you if if if you'll play it
cool and also come back to join in the
everyday life of everyday people because
this is the rule if the world is
dramatic if the world as the Hindus say
is a big act put on by the divine self
one of the rules of coming on stage is
that you don't come on as yourself you
come on as the part that you're going to
play it's very bad form if an actor
always acts the same way that's what's
called a star as distinct from an actor
a real actor can become anything and so
but in private life well he's just mr.
Jones and but he doesn't come on the
stage that way so in the same way if you
know that behind the scenes in the
depths fundamentally you are it you
don't come on that way
it always comes on as something else
that's the rule of the stage because
without that there wouldn't be a play it
would only be reality no illusion and
the whole point of life is illusion from
the word Nathan looter II to play
showbiz the show must go on so don't
give it away but the truth has a way of
leaking it gets out but then the
important thing is you see when the
truth gets out those who catch hold of
it must find a way of staying in contact
with what society calls reality
that is to say if you have a radio you
don't only need an antenna you also need
a ground so what happens in the world of
mysticism of psychedelic visions and so
on needs to be grounded so then there
are always two directions in which such
a discipline works one preparatory in
other words those who taught disciplines
for awakening in the Orient were always
careful to screen first of all to screen
those who applied and then after
screening them to make them sensible so
that they knew how to handle the game
and of ordinary human existence and play
it by the ordinary human rules in other
words that they had strength of
character and we're not the sort of
people who would be wiped out
because they had no strength of
character by an overwhelming experience
then they let them in but there are
certain disciplines such as Zen where
you get into the in central secret very
early on in the discipline and after
that they are concerned with much more
training in showing you how to use it
how to use the power to use the vision
which you have acquired and so it is
with the current what we will call LSD
scene that is raging through the United
States it unfortunately it lacks
discipline and I'm not trying to say
this in a kind of severe authoritarian
paternalistic way but only that it would
be so much more fun if it had it in
other words when people try to express
what they have seen in this kind of
changed state of consciousness they show
five movies going on at once
are projected upon torn bed sheets with
stroboscopic lights going as fast as
possible at the same time an 11 jazz
bands playing and they're going to blow
their minds baby whenever everybody else
who hasn't seen this thing look around
and say well it's a mess I don't like
the looks of it let's suppose that while
you were very very high on LSD you
looked into a filthy ashtray and you saw
the beatific vision which is of course
the case because wherever you look if
your eye your eyes are open you will see
the face of the divine then you come out
of your ecstasy with the dirty ashtray
and say to everybody here it is
No there is a possibility if you are an
extraordinarily skillful painter or even
photographer of presenting the dirty
ashtray so that everybody else will see
almost what you saw in it but you will
have to have a technique which will
translate every grain of ash into a joke
because that's what you actually saw but
that requires mastery of an art and I'm
afraid people think that all it's
necessary to do is just throw out any
old thing because under that transformed
state of consciousness any old thing is
that is the works but nobody else can
see it if they haven't shared that point
of view so then this becomes for us in
the United States an extremely important
social problem the cat is out of the bag
we are living in a scientific world
where secrets cannot be kept and anyone
anytime can pick up something which will
short-circuit all the ancient religious
techniques yoga practice meditation etc
so this is all very embarrassing but it
will happen not for everybody but for a
lot of people and they will see what all
those sages and buddhas and yogis and
the prophets saw in ancient times and it
will be very clear so what
so you see you can say look at all these
people who haven't seen it this is a
temptation look at them all going about
their business earning money and
grinding it out at the bank or the
insurance office or whatever it is every
day and I'll serious they look all about
it and they don't really know it's again
and you can err err you can cultivate a
certain contempt for people like that
but it's very very bad to do that
because of course don't forget they have
a certain contempt for you you see
always the nice people in town who live
in the best residences they know that
they are nice because there are some
people on the other side of the tracks
who are not nice and so at their
cocktail parties they have a lot to say
about the people who are not nice
because that boosts their collective ego
there would be no other way of doing it
you don't know that you're a law-abiding
citizen
unless there are some people who aren't
and if it's important to you to
congratulate yourself on being
law-abiding you therefore have to have
some criminal classes outside the pale
of course of your immediate associates
on the other hand the people who are not
nice they have their parties and they
boost their collective ego by saying
that they're the people who are really
in whereas these poor squirrels who
deliver the mail faithfully and who
carry on what you call responsible jobs
they're just dupes or when they earn
their money all they do is it by toy
rocket ships with it and they'll roaring
around and so on and that's they think
that's pleasure so the people who are
not nice boosts their collective ego in
that way neither of them realizing that
they need the other just as much as a
flower needs a B and a B needs a flower
so you when you see the people who you
think
are not in on the secret you if you
really understand you have to revise
your opinion completely and say that the
squares are the people who are really
far out because they don't even know
where they started see an enlightened
Hindu or Buddhist looks at the ignorant
people of this world and says my
respects because here I see the divine
essence having altogether forgotten what
it is and playing the most far-out game
of being completely lost congratulations
how far can you get
so if you understand that you don't
start a war with people you might say
r-square don't challenge them don't bug
them don't frighten them the reason is
not because they are immature because
they are babies and you mustn't scare
babies it's nothing to do with that you
mustn't frighten them because they are
doing a very far-out act they are
walking on a tightrope miles up and
they've got to do that balancing act and
if you shout they may lose their nerve
see that's what the we call the
responsible people of the world are
doing it is an act it's a game just like
the tightrope walker but it's a risky
one and you can get ulcers from it and
all sorts of troubles but you must
respect it and say congratulations on
being so far out
