~ The Psychedelic Experience ~
A manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead
By Timothy Leary, Ph.D., Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., &
Richard Alpert, Ph.D.
The authors were engaged in a program of experiments with LSD and
other psychedelic drugs at Harvard University, until sensational
national publicity, unfairly concentrating on student interest in the
drugs, led to the suspension of the experiments. Since then, the
authors have continued their work without academic auspices.
This version of THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD
is dedicated,
to
ALDOUS HUXLEY
July 26, 1894 - November 22, 1963
with profound admiration and gratitude.
"If you started in the wrong way," I said in answer to the
investigator's questions, "everything that happened would be a proof
of the conspiracy against you. It would all be self-validating. You
couldn't draw a breath without knowing it was part of the plot."
"So you think you know where madness lies?"
My answer was a convinced and heartfelt, "Yes."
"And you couldn't control it?"
"No I couldn't control it. If one began with fear and hate as the
major premise, one would have to go on the conclusion."
"Would you be able," my wife asked, " to fix your attention on what
The Tibetan Book of the Dead calls the Clear Light?"
I was doubtful.
"Would it keep the evil away, if you could hold it? Or would you not
be able to hold it?"
I considered the question for some time. "Perhaps," I answered at
last, "perhaps I could - but only if there were somebody there to tell
me about the Clear Light. One couldn't do it by oneself. That's the
point, I suppose, of the Tibetan ritual - somebody sitting there all
the time and telling you what's what."
(DOORS OF PERCEPTION, 57-58)
I.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
A psychedelic experience is a journey to new realms of consciousness.
The scope and content of the experience is limitless, but its
characteristic features are the transcendence of verbal concepts, of
space-time dimensions, and of the ego or identity. Such experiences of
enlarged consciousness can occur in a variety of ways: sensory
deprivation, yoga exercises, disciplined meditation, religious or
aesthetic ecstasies, or spontaneously. Most recently they have become
available to anyone through the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as
LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT, etc. [This is the statement of an
ideal, not an actual situation, in 1964. The psychedelic drugs are in
the United States classified as "experimental" drugs. That is, they
are not available on a prescription basis, but only to "qualified
investigators." The Federal Food and Drug Administration has defined
"qualified investigators" to mean psychiatrists working in a mental
hospital setting, whose research is sponsored by either state or
federal agencies.]
Of course, the drug dose does not produce the transcendent experience.
It merely acts as a chemical key - it opens the mind, frees the
nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures. The nature of
the experience depends almost entirely on set and setting. Set denotes
the preparation of the individual, including his personality structure
and his mood at the time. Setting is physical - the weather, the
room's atmosphere; social - feelings of persons present towards one
another; and cultural - prevailing views as to what is real. It is for
this reason that manuals or guide-books are necessary. Their purpose
is to enable a person to understand the new realities of the expanded
consciousness, to serve as road maps for new interior territories
which modern science has made accessible.
Different explorers draw different maps. Other manuals are to be
written based on different models - scientific, aesthetic,
therapeutic. The Tibetan model, on which this manual is based, is
designed to teach the person to direct and control awareness in such a
way as to reach that level of understanding variously called
liberation, illumination, or enlightenment. If the manual is read
several times before a session is attempted, and if a trusted person
is there to remind and refresh the memory of the voyager during the
experience, the consciousness will be freed from the games which
comprise "personality" and from positive-negative hallucinations which
often accompany states of expanded awareness. The Tibetan Book of the
Dead was called in its own language the Bardo Thodol, which means
"Liberation by Hearing on the After-Death Plane." The book stresses
over and over that the free consciousness has only to hear and
remember the teachings in order to be liberated.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead is ostensibly a book describing the
experiences to be expected at the moment of death, during an
intermediate phase lasting forty-nine (seven times seven) days, and
during rebirth into another bodily frame. This however is merely the
exoteric framework which the Tibetan Buddhists used to cloak their
mystical teachings. The language and symbolism of death rituals of
Bonism, the traditional pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion, were skillfully
blended with Buddhist conceptions. The esoteric meaning, as it has
been interpreted in this manual, is that it is death and rebirth that
is described, not of the body. Lama Govinda indicates this clearly in
his introduction when he writes: "It is a book for the living as well
as the dying." The book's esoteric meaning is often concealed beneath
many layers of symbolism. It was not intended for general reading. It
was designed to be understood only by one who was to be initiated
personally by a guru into the Buddhist mystical doctrines, into the
pre-mortem-death-rebirth experience. These doctrines have been kept a
closely guarded secret for many centuries, for fear that naive or
careless application would do harm. In translating such an esoteric
text, therefore, there are two steps: one, the rendering of the
original text into English; and two, the practical interpretation of
the text for its uses. In publishing this practical interpretation for
use in the psychedelic drug session, we are in a sense breaking with
the tradition of secrecy and thus contravening the teachings of the
lama-gurus.
However, this step is justified on the grounds that the manual will
not be understood by anyone who has not had a consciousness-expanding
experience and that there are signs that the lamas themselves, after
their recent diaspora, wish to make their teachings available to a
wider public.
Following the Tibetan model then, we distinguish three phases of the
psychedelic experience. The first period (Chikhai Bardo) is that of
complete transcendence - beyond words, beyond space-time, beyond self.
There are no visions, no sense of self, no thoughts. There are only
pure awareness and ecstatic freedom from all game (and biological)
involvements. ["Games" are behavioral sequences defined by roles,
rules, rituals, goals, strategies, values, language, characteristic
space-time locations and characteristic patterns of movement. Any
behavior not having these nine features is non-game: this includes
physiological reflexes, spontaneous play, and transcendent awareness.]
The second lengthy period involves self, or external game reality
(Chonyid Bardo) - in sharp exquisite clarity or in the form of
hallucinations (karmic apparitions). The final period (Sidpa Bardo)
involves the return to routine game reality and the self. For most
persons the second (aesthetic or hallucinatory) stage is the longest.
For the initiated the first stage of illumination lasts longer. For
the unprepared, the heavy game players, those who anxiously cling to
their egos, and for those who take the drug in a non-supportive
setting, the struggle to regain reality begins early and usually lasts
to the end of their session.
Words like these are static, whereas the psychedelic experience is
fluid and ever-changing. Typically the subject's consciousness flicks
in and out of these three levels with rapid oscillations. One purpose
of this manual is to enable the person to regain the transcendence of
the First Bardo and to avoid prolonged entrapments in hallucinatory or
ego-dominated game patterns.
The Basic Trusts and Beliefs. You must be ready to accept the
possibility that there is a limitless range of awareness for which we
now have no words; that awareness can expand beyond range of your ego,
your self, your familiar identity, beyond everything you have learned,
beyond your notions of space and time, beyond the differences which
usually separate people from each other and from the world around
them.
You must remember that throughout human history, millions have made
this voyage. A few (whom we call mystics, saints or buddhas) have made
this experience endure and have communicated it to their fellow men.
You must remember, too, that the experience is safe (at the very
worst, you will end up the same person who entered the experience),
and that all of the dangers which you have feared are unnecessary
productions of your mind. Whether you experience heaven or hell,
remember that it is your mind which creates them. Avoid grasping the
one or fleeing the other. Avoid imposing the ego game on the
experience.
You must try to maintain faith and trust in the potentiality of your
own brain and the billion-year-old life process. With you ego left
behind you, the brain can't go wrong.
Try to keep the memory of a trusted friend or a respected person whose
name can serve as a guide and protection.
Trust your divinity, trust your brain, trust your companions.
Whenever in doubt, turn off your mind, relax, float downstream.
After reading this guide, the prepared person should be able, at the
very beginning of his experience, to move directly to a state of non-
game ecstasy and deep revelation. But if you are not well prepared, or
if there is game distraction around you, you will find yourself
dropping back. If this happens, then the instructions in Part IV
should help you regain and maintain liberation.
"Liberation in this context does not necessarily imply (especially in
the case of the average person) the Liberation of Nirvana, but chiefly
a liberation of the 'life-flux' from the ego, in such a manner as will
afford the greatest possible consciousness and consequent happy
rebirth. Yet for the very experienced and very highly efficient
person, the [same] esoteric process of Transference [Readers
interested in a more detailed discussion of the process of
"Transference" are referred to Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines,
edited by W. Y. Evans-Wentz, Oxford University Press, 1958.] can be,
according to the lama-gurus, so employed as to prevent any break in
the flow of the stream of consciousness, from the moment of the ego-
loss to the moment of a conscious rebirth (eight hours later). Judging
from the translation made by the late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup, of an old
Tibetan manuscript containing practical directions for ego-loss
states, the ability to maintain a non-game ecstasy throughout the
entire experience is possessed only by persons trained in mental
concentration, or one-pointedness of mind, to such a high degree of
proficiency as to be able to control all the mental functions and to
shut out the distractions of the outside world." (Evans-Wentz, p. 86,
note 2)
This manual is divided into four parts. The first part is
introductory. The second is a step-by-step description of a
psychedelic experience based directly on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
The third part contains practical suggestions on how to prepare for
and conduct a psychedelic session. The fourth part contains
instructive passages adapted from the Bardo Thodol, which may be read
to the voyager during this session, to facilitate the movement of
consciousness.
In the remainder of this introductory section, we review three
commentaries on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, published with the
Evans-Wentz edition. These are the introduction by Evans-Wentz
himself, the distinguished translator-editor of four treatises on
Tibetan mysticism; the commentary by Carl Jung, the Swiss
psychoanalyst; and by Lama Govinda, and initiate of one of the
principle Buddhist orders of Tibet.
A TRIBUTE TO W. Y. EVANS-WENTZ
"Dr. Evans-Wentz, who literally sat at the feet of a Tibetan lama for
years, in order to acquire his wisdom . . . not only displays a deeply
sympathetic interest in those esoteric doctrines so characteristic of
the genius of the East, but likewise possesses the rare faculty of
making them more or less intelligible to the layman." [Quoted from a
book review in Anthropology on the back of the Oxford University Press
edition of The Tibetan Book of the Dead.]
W. Y. Evans-Wentz is a great scholar who devoted his mature years to
the role of bridge and shuttle between Tibet and the west: like an RNA
molecule activating the latter with the coded message of the former.
No greater tribute could be paid to the work of this academic
liberator than to base our psychedelic manual upon his insights and to
quote directly his comments on "the message of this book."
The message is, that the Art of Dying is quite as important as the Art
of Living (or of Coming into Birth), of which it is the complement and
summation; that the future of being is dependent, perhaps entirely,
upon a rightly controlled death, as the second part of this volume,
setting forth the Art of Reincarnating, emphasizes.
The Art of Dying, as indicated by the death-rite associated with
initiation into the Mysteries of Antiquity, and referred to by
Apuleius, the Platonic philosopher, himself an initiate, and by many
other illustrious initiates, and as The Egyptian Book of the Dead
suggests, appears to have been far better known to the ancient peoples
inhabiting the Mediterranean countries than it is now by their
descendants in Europe and the Americas.
To those who had passed through the secret experiencing of pre-mortem
death, right dying is initiation, conferring, as does the initiatory
death-rite, the power to control consciously the process of death and
regeneration. (Evans-Wentz, p. xiii-xiv)
The Oxford scholar, like his great predecessor of the eleventh
century, Marpa ("The Translator"), who rendered Indian Buddhist texts
into Tibetan, thereby preserving them from extinction, saw the vital
importance of these doctrines and made them accessible to many. The
"secret" is no longer hidden: "the art of dying is quite as important
as the art of living."
A TRIBUTE TO CARL G. JUNG
Psychology is the systematic attempt to describe and explain man's
behavior, both conscious and non-conscious. The scope of study is
broad - covering the infinite variety of human activity and
experience; and it is long - tracing back through the history of the
individual, through the history of his ancestors, back through the
evolutionary vicissitudes and triumphs which have determined the
current status of the species. Most difficult of all, the scope of
psychology is complex, dealing as it does with processes which are
ever-changing.
Little wonder that psychologists, in the face of such complexity,
escape into specialization and parochial narrowness.
A psychology is based on the available data and the psychologists'
ability and willingness to utilize them. The behaviorism and
experimentalism of twentieth-century western psychology is so narrow
as to be mostly trivial. Consciousness is eliminated from the field of
inquiry. Social application and social meaning are largely neglected.
A curious ritualism is enacted by a priesthood rapidly growing in
power and numbers.
Eastern psychology, by contrast, offers us a long history of detailed
observation and systematization of the range of human consciousness
along with an enormous literature of practical methods for controlling
and changing consciousness. Western intellectuals tend to dismiss
Oriental psychology. The theories of consciousness are seen as occult
and mystical. The methods of investigating consciousness change, such
as meditation, yoga, monastic retreat, and sensory deprivation, and
are seen as alien to scientific investigation. And most damning of all
in the eyes of the European scholar, is the alleged disregard of
eastern psychologies for the practical, behavioral and social aspects
of life. Such criticism betrays limited concepts and the inability to
deal with the available historical data on a meaningful level. The
psychologies of the east have always found practical application in
the running of the state, in the running of daily life and family. A
wealth of guides and handbooks exists: the Book of Tao, the Analects
of Confucius, the Gita, the I Ching, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, to
mention only the best-known.
Eastern psychology can be judged in terms of the use of available
evidence. The scholars and observers of China, Tibet, and India went
as far as their data allowed them. They lacked the findings of modern
science and so their metaphors seem vague and poetic. Yet this does
not negate their value. Indeed, eastern philosophic theories dating
back four thousand years adapt readily to the most recent discoveries
of nuclear physics, biochemistry, genetics, and astronomy.
A major task of any present day psychology - eastern or western - is
to construct a frame of reference large enough to incorporate the
recent findings of the energy sciences into a revised picture of man.
Judged against the criterion of the use of available fact, the
greatest psychologists of our century are William James and Carl Jung.
[To properly compare Jung with Sigmund Freud we must look at the
available data which each man appropriated for his explorations. For
Freud it was Darwin, classical thermodynamics, the Old Testament,
Renaissance cultural history, and most important, the close overheated
atmosphere of the Jewish family. The broader scope of Jung's reference
materials assures that his theories will find a greater congeniality
with recent developments in the energy sciences and the evolutionary
sciences.] Both of these men avoided the narrow paths of behaviorism
and experimentalism. Both fought to preserve experience and
consciousness as an area of scientific research. Both kept open to the
advance of scientific theory and both refused to shut off eastern
scholarship from consideration.
Jung used for his source of data that most fertile source - the
internal. He recognized the rich meaning of the eastern message; he
reacted to that great Rorshach inkblot, the Tao Te Ching. He wrote
perceptive brilliant forewords to the I Ching, to the Secret of the
Golden Flower, and struggled with the meaning of The Tibetan Book of
the Dead. "For years, ever since it was first published, the Bardo
Thodol has been my constant companion, and to it I owe not only many
stimulating ideas and discoveries, but also many fundamental insights.
. . Its philosophy contains the quintessence of Buddhist psychological
criticism; and, as such, one can truly say that it is of an unexampled
superiority."
The Bardo Thodol is in the highest degree psychological in its
outlook; but, with us, philosophy and theology
are still in the mediaeval, pre-psychological stage where only the
assertions are listened to, explained, defended, criticized and
disputed, while the authority that makes them has, by general consent,
been deposed as outside the scope of discussion.
Metaphysical assertions, however, are statements of the psyche, and
are therefore psychological. To the Western mind, which compensates
its well-known feelings of resentment by a slavish regard for
"rational" explanations, this obvious truth seems all too obvious, or
else it is seen as an inadmissible negation of metaphysical "truth."
Whenever the Westerner hears the word "psychological," it always
sounds to him like "only psychological."
Jung draws upon Oriental conceptions of consciousness to broaden the
concept of "projection":
Not only the "wrathful" but also the "peaceful" deities are conceived
as sangsaric projections of the human psyche, an idea that seems all
too obvious to the enlightened European, because it reminds him of his
own banal simplifications. But though the European can easily explain
away these deities as projections, he would be quite incapable of
positing them at the same time as real. The Bardo Thodol can do that,
because, in certain of its most essential metaphysical premises, it
has the enlightened as well as the unenlightened European at a
disadvantage. The ever-present, unspoken assumption of the Bardo
Thodol is the anti-nominal character of all metaphysical assertions,
and also the idea of the qualitative difference of the various levels
of consciousness and of the metaphysical realities conditioned by
them. The background of this unusual book is not the niggardly
European "either-or," but a magnificently affirmative "both-and." This
statement may appear objectionable to the Western philosopher, for the
West loves clarity and unambiguity; consequently, one philosopher
clings to the position, "God is," while another clings equally
fervently to the negation, "God is not."
Jung clearly sees the power and breadth of the Tibetan model but
occasionally he fails to grasp its meaning and application. Jung, too,
was limited (as we all are) to the social models of his tribe. He was
a psychoanalyst, the father of a school. Psychotherapy and psychiatric
diagnosis were the two applications which came most naturally to him.
Jung misses the central concept of the Tibetan book. This is not (as
Lama Govinda reminds us) a book of the dead. It is a book of the
dying; which is to say a book of the living; it is a book of life and
how to live. The concept of actual physical death was an exoteric
facade adopted to fit the prejudices of the Bonist tradition in Tibet.
Far from being an embalmers' guide, the manual is a detailed account
of how to lose the ego; how to break out of personality into new
realms of consciousness; and how to avoid the involuntary limiting
processes of the ego; how to make the consciousness-expansion
experience endure in subsequent daily life.
Jung struggles with this point. He comes close but never quite
clinches it. He had nothing in his conceptual framework which could
make practical sense out of the ego-loss experience.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead, or the Bardo Thodol, is a book of
instructions for the dead and dying. Like The Egyptian Book of the
Dead it is meant to be a guide for the dead man during the period of
his Bardo existence. . . .
In this quote Jung settles for the exoteric and misses the esoteric.
In a later quote he seems to come closer:
. . . the instruction given in the Bardo Thodol serves to recall to
the dead man the experience of his initiation and the teachings of his
guru, for the instruction is, at bottom, nothing less than an
initiation of the dead into the Bardo life, just as the initiation of
the living was a preparation for the Beyond. Such was the case, at
least, with all the mystery cults in ancient civilizations from the
time of the Egyptian and Eleusinian mysteries. In the initiation of
the living, however, this "Beyond" is not a world beyond death, but a
reversal of the mind's intentions and outlook, a psychological
"Beyond" or, in Christian terms, a "redemption" from the trammels of
the world and of sin. Redemption is a separation and deliverance from
an earlier condition of darkness and unconsciousness, and leads to a
condition of illumination and releasedness, to victory and
transcendence over everything "given."
Thus far the Bardo Thodol is, as Dr. Evans-Wentz also feels, an
initiation process whose purpose it is to restore to the soul the
divinity it lost at birth.
In still another passage Jung continues the struggle but misses again:
Nor is the psychological use we make of it (the Tibetan Book) anything
but a secondary intention, though one that is possibly sanctioned by
lamaist custom. The real purpose of this singular book is the attempt,
which must seem very strange to the educated European of the twentieth
century, to enlighten the dead on their journey through the regions of
the Bardo. The Catholic Church is the only place in the world of the
white man where any provision is made for the souls of the departed.
In the summary of Lama Govinda's comments which follow we shall see
that the Tibetan commentator, freed from the European concepts of
Jung, moves directly to the esoteric and practical meaning of the
Tibetan book.
In his autobiography (written in 1960) Jung commits himself wholly to
the inner vision and to the wisdom and superior reality of internal
perceptions. In 1938 (when his Tibetan commentary was written) he was
moving in this direction but cautiously and with the ambivalent
reservations of the psychiatrist cum mystic.
The dead man must desperately resist the dictates of reason, as we
understand it, and give up the supremacy of egohood, regarded by
reason as sacrosanct. What this means in practice is complete
capitulation to the objective powers of the psyche, with all that this
entails; a kind of symbological death, corresponding to the Judgement
of the Dead in the Sidpa Bardo. It means the end of all conscious,
rational, morally responsible conduct of life, and a voluntary
surrender to what the Bardo Thodol calls "karmic illusion." Karmic
illusion springs from belief in a visionary world of an extremely
irrational nature, which neither accords with nor derives from our
rational judgments but is the exclusive product of uninhibited
imagination. It is sheer dream or "fantasy," and every well-meaning
person will instantly caution us against it; nor indeed can one see at
first sight what is the difference between fantasies of this kind and
the phantasmagoria of a lunatic. Very often only a slight abaissement
du niveau mental is needed to unleash this world of illusion. The
terror and darkness of this moment has its equivalent in the
experiences described in the opening sections of the Sidpa Bardo. But
the contents of this Bardo also reveal the archetypes, the karmic
images which appear first in their terrifying form. The Chonyid state
is equivalent to a deliberately induced psychosis. . . .
The transition, then, from the Sidpa state to the Chonyid state is a
dangerous reversal of the aims and intentions of the conscious mind.
It is a sacrifice of the ego's stability and a surrender to the
extreme uncertainty of what must seem like a chaotic riot of
phantasmal forms. When Freud coined the phrase that the ego was "the
true seat of anxiety," he was giving voice to a very true and profound
intuition. Fear of self-sacrifice lurks deep in every ego, and this
fear is often only the precariously controlled demand of the
unconscious forces to burst out in full strength. No one who strives
for selfhood (individuation) is spared this dangerous passage, for
that which is feared also belongs to the wholeness of the self - the
sub-human, or supra-human, world of psychic "dominants" from which the
ego originally emancipated itself with enormous effort, and then only
partially, for the sake of a more or less illusory freedom. This
liberation is certainly a very necessary and very heroic undertaking,
but it represents nothing final: it is merely the creation of a
subject, who, in order to find fulfillment, has still to be confronted
by an object. This, at first sight, would appear to be the world,
which is swelled out with projections for that very purpose. Here we
seek and find our difficulties, here we seek and find our enemy, here
we seek and find what is dear and precious to us; and it is comforting
to know that all evil and all good is to be found out there, in the
visible object, where it can be conquered, punished, destroyed or
enjoyed. But nature herself does not allow this paradisal state of
innocence to continue for ever. There are, and always have been, those
who cannot help but see that the world and its experiences are in the
nature of a symbol, and that it really reflects something that lies
hidden in the subject himself, in his own transubjective reality. It
is from this profound intuition, according to lamaist doctrine, that
the Chonyid state derives its true meaning, which is why the Chonyid
Bardo is entitled "The Bardo of the Experiencing of Reality."
The reality experienced in the Chonyid state is, as the last section
of the corresponding Bardo teaches, the reality of thought. The
"thought-forms" appear as realities, fantasy takes on real form, and
the terrifying dream evoked by karma and played out by the unconscious
"dominants" begins.
Jung would not have been surprised by professional and institutional
antagonism to psychedelics. He closes his Tibetan commentary with a
poignant political aside:
The Bardo Thodol began by being a "closed" book, and so it has
remained, no matter what kind of commentaries may be written upon it.
For it is a book that will only open itself to spiritual understanding
and this is a capacity which no man is born with, but which he can
only acquire through special training and special experience. It is
good that such to all intents and purposes "useless" books exist. They
are meant for those "queer folk" who no longer set much store by the
uses, aims, and meaning of present-day "civilization."
To provide "special training" for the "special experience" provided by
psychedelic materials is the purpose of this version of The Tibetan
Book of the Dead.
A TRIBUTE TO LAMA ANAGARIKA GOVINDA
In the preceding section the point was made that eastern philosophy
and psychology - poetic, indeterministic, experiential, inward-
looking, vaguely evolutionary, open-ended - is more easily adapted to
the findings of modern science than the syllogistic, certain,
experimental, externalizing logic of western psychology. The latter
imitates the irrelevant rituals of the energy sciences but ignores the
data of physics and genetics, the meanings and implications.
Even Carl Jung, the most penetrating of the western psychologists,
failed to understand the basic philosophy of the Bardo Thodol.
Quite in contrast are the comments on the Tibetan manual by Lama
Anagarika Govinda.
His opening statement at first glance would cause a Judaeo-Christian
psychologist to snort in impatience. But a close look at these phrases
reveals that they are the poetic statement of the genetic situation as
currently described by biochemists and DNA researchers.
It may be argued that nobody can talk about death with authority who
has not died; and since nobody, apparently, has ever returned from
death, how can anybody know what death is, or what happens after it?
The Tibetan will answer: "There is not one person, indeed, not one
living being, that has not returned from death. In fact, we all have
died many deaths, before we came into this incarnation. And what we
call birth is merely the reverse side of death, like one of the two
sides of a coin, or like a door which we call "entrance" from outside
and "exit" from inside a room."
The lama then goes on to make a second poetic comment about the
potentialities of the nervous system, the complexity of the human
cortical computer.
It is much more astonishing that not everybody remembers his or her
previous death; and, because of this lack of remembering, most persons
do not believe there was a previous death. But, likewise, they do not
remember their recent birth - and yet they do not doubt that they were
recently born. They forget that active memory is only a small part of
our normal consciousness, and that our subconscious memory registers
and preserves every past impression and experience which our waking
mind fails to recall.
The lama then proceeds to slice directly to the esoteric meaning of
the Bardo Thodol - that core meaning which Jung and indeed most
European Orientalists have failed to grasp.
For this reason, the Bardo Thodol, the Tibetan book vouchsafing
liberation from the intermediate state between life and re-birth,-
which state men call death,- has been couched in symbolical language.
It is a book which is sealed with the seven seals of silence,- not
because its knowledge would be misunderstood, and, therefore, would
tend to mislead and harm those who are unfitted to receive it. But the
time has come to break the seals of silence; for the human race has
come to the juncture where it must decide whether to be content with
the subjugation of the material world, or to strive after the conquest
of the spiritual world, by subjugating selfish desires and
transcending self-imposed limitations.
The lama next describes the effects of consciousness-expansion
techniques. He is talking here about the method he knows-the Yogic-but
his words are equally applicable to psychedelic experience.
There are those who, in virtue of concentration and other yogic
practices, are able to bring the subconscious into the realm of
discriminative consciousness and, thereby, to draw upon the
unrestricted treasury of subconscious memory, wherein are stored the
records not only of our past lives but the records of the past of our
race, the past of humanity, and of all pre-human forms of life, if not
of the very consciousness that makes life possible in this universe.
If, through some trick of nature, the gates of an individual's
subconsciousness were suddenly to spring open, the unprepared mind
would be overwhelmed and crushed. Therefore, the gates of the
subconscious are guarded, by all initiates, and hidden behind the veil
of mysteries and symbols.
In a later section of his foreword the lama presents a more detailed
elaboration of the inner meaning of the Thodol.
If the Bardo Thodol were to be regarded as being based merely upon
folklore, or as consisting of religious speculation about death and a
hypothetical after-death state, it would be of interest only to
anthropologists and students of religion. But the Bardo Thodol is far
more. It is a key to the innermost recesses of the human mind, and a
guide for initiates, and for those who are seeking the spiritual path
of liberation.
Although the Bardo Thodol is at present time widely used in Tibet as a
breviary, and read or recited on the occasion of death,- for which
reason it has been aptly called "The Tibetan Book of the Dead"- one
should not forget that it was originally conceived to serve as a guide
not only for the dying and the dead, but for the living as well. And
herein lies the justification for having made The Tibetan Book of the
Dead accessible to a wider public.
Notwithstanding the popular customs and beliefs which, under the
influence of age-old traditions of pre-Buddhist origin, have grown
around the profound revelations of the Bardo Thodol, it has value only
for those who practise and realize its teaching during their life-
time.
There are two things which have caused misunderstanding. One is that
the teachings seem to be addressed to the dead or the dying; the other
that the title contains the expression "Liberation through Hearing"
(in Tibetan, Thos-grol). As a result, there has arisen the belief that
it is sufficient to read or recite the Bardo Thodol in the presence of
a dying person, or even of a person who has just died, in order to
effect his or her liberation.
Such misunderstanding could only have arisen among those who do not
know that it is one of the oldest and most universal practices for the
initiate to go through the experience of death before he can be
spiritually reborn. Symbolically he must die to his past, and to his
old ego, before he can take his place in the new spiritual life into
which he has been initiated.
The dead or the dying person is addressed in the Bardo Thodol mainly
for three reasons: (1) the earnest practitioner of these teachings
should regard every moment of his or her life as if it were the last;
(2) when a follower of these teachings is actually dying, he or she
should be reminded of the experiences at the time of initiation, or of
the words (or mantra) of the guru, especially if the dying one's mind
lacks alertness during the critical moments; and (3) one who is still
incarnate should try to surround the person dying, or just dead, with
loving and helpful thoughts during the first stages of the new, or
afterdeath, state of existence, without allowing emotional attachment
to interfere or to give rise to a state of morbid mental depression.
Accordingly, one function of the Bardo Thodol appears to be more to
help those who have been left behind to adopt the right attitude
towards the dead and towards the fact of death than to assist the
dead, who, according to Buddhist belief, will not deviate from their
own karmic path. . . .
This proves that we have to do here with life itself and not merely
with a mass for the dead, to which the Bardo Thodol was reduced in
later times. . . .
Under the guise of a science of death, the Bardo Thodol reveals the
secret of life; and therein lies its spiritual value and its universal
appeal.
Here then is the key to a mystery which has been passed down for over
2,500 years - the consciousness-expansion experience - the pre-mortem
death and rebirth rite. The Vedic sages knew the secret; the
Eleusinian initiates knew it; the Tantrics knew it. In all their
esoteric writings they whisper the message: it is possible to cut
beyond ego-consciousness, to tune in on neurological processes which
flash by at the speed of light, and to become aware of the enormous
treasury of ancient racial knowledge welded into the nucleus of every
cell in your body.
Modern psychedelic chemicals provide a key to this forgotten realm of
awareness. But just as this manual without the psychedelic awareness
is nothing but an exercise in academic Tibetology, so, too, the potent
chemical key is of little value without the guidance and the
teachings.
Westerners do not accept the existence of conscious processes for
which they have no operational term. The attitude which is prevalent
is: - if you can't label it, and if it is beyond current notions of
space-time and personality, then it is not open for investigation.
Thus we see the ego-loss experience confused with schizophrenia. Thus
we see present-day psychiatrists solemnly pronouncing the psychedelic
keys as psychosis-producing and dangerous.
The new visionary chemicals and the pre-mortem-death-rebirth
experience may be pushed once again into the shadows of history.
Looking back, we remember that every middle-eastern and European
administrator (with the exception of certain periods in Greece and
Persia) has, during the last three thousand years, rushed to pass laws
against any emerging transcendental process, the pre-mortem-death-
rebirth session, its adepts, and any new method of consciousness-
expansion.
The present moment in human history (as Lama Govinda points out) is
critical. Now, for the first time, we possess the means of providing
the enlightenment to any prepared volunteer. (The enlightenment always
comes, we remember, in the form of a new energy process, a physical,
neurological event.) For these reasons we have prepared this
psychedelic version of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. The secret is
released once again, in a new dialect, and we sit back quietly to
observe whether man is ready to move ahead and to make use of the new
tools provided by modern science.
II.
THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD
FIRST BARDO:
THE PERIOD OF EGO-LOSS OR
NON-GAME ECSTASY
(Chikhai Bardo)
Part I: The Primary Clear Light Seen At the Moment of Ego-Loss.
All individuals who have received the practical teachings of this
manual will, if the text be remembered, be set face to face with the
ecstatic radiance and will win illumination instantaneously, without
entering upon hallucinatory struggles and without further suffering on
the age-long pathway of normal evolution which traverses the various
worlds of game existence.
This doctrine underlies the whole of the Tibetan model. Faith is the
first step on the "Secret Pathway." Then comes illumination and with
it certainty; and when the goal is won, emancipation. Success implies
very unusual preparation in consciousness expansion, as well as much
calm, compassionate game playing (good karma) on the part of the
participant. If the participant can be made to see and to grasp the
idea of the empty mind as soon as the guide reveals it - that is to
say, if he has the power to die consciously - and, at the supreme
moment of quitting the ego, can recognize the ecstasy which will dawn
upon him then, and become one with it, all game bonds of illusion are
broken asunder immediately: the dreamer is awakened into reality
simultaneously with the mighty achievement of recognition.
It is best if the guru (spiritual teacher), from whom the participant
received guiding instructions, is present, but if the guru cannot be
present, then another experienced person; or it the latter is also
unavailable, then a person whom the participant trusts should be
available to read this manual without imposing any of his own games.
Thereby the participant will be put in mind of what he had previously
heard of the experience and will at once come to recognize the
fundamental Light and undoubtedly obtain liberation.
Liberation is the nervous system devoid of mental-conceptual activity.
[Realization of the Voidness, the Unbecome, the Unborn, the Unmade,
the Unformed, implies Buddhahood, Perfect Enlightenment - the state of
the divine mind of the Buddha. It may be helpful to remember that this
ancient doctrine is not in conflict with modern physics. The
theoretical physicist and cosmologist, George Gamow, presented in 1950
a viewpoint which is close to the phenomenological experience
described by the Tibetan lamas.
If we imagine history running back in time, we inevitably come to the
epoch of the "big squeeze" with all the galaxies, stars, atoms and
atomic nuclei squeezed, so to speak, to a pulp. During that early
stage of evolution, matter must have been dissociated into its
elementary components. . . . We call this primordial mixture ylem.
At this first point in the evolution of the present cycle, according
to this first-rank physicist, there existed only the Unbecome, the
Unborn, the Unformed. And this, according to astrophysicists, is the
way it will end; the silent unity of the Unformed. The Tibetan
Buddhists suggest that the uncluttered intellect can experience what
astrophysics confirms. The Buddha Vairochana, the Dhyani Buddha of the
Center, Manifester of Phenomena, is the highest path to enlightenment.
As the source of all organic life, in him all things visible and
invisible have their consummation and absorption. He is associated
with the Central Realm of the Densely-Packed, i.e., the seed of all
universal forces and things are densely packed together. This
remarkable convergence of modern astrophysics and ancient lamaism
demands no complicated explanation. The cosmological awareness- and
awareness of every other natural process- is there in the cortex. You
can confirm this preconceptual mystical knowledge by empirical
observation and measurement, but it's all there inside your skull.
Your neurons "know" because they are linked directly to the process,
are part of it.] The mind in its conditioned state, that is to say,
when limited to words and ego games, is continuously in thought-
formation activity. The nervous system in a state of quiescence,
alert, awake but not active is comparable to what Buddhists call the
highest state of dhyana (deep meditation) when still united to a human
body. The conscious recognition of the Clear Light induces an ecstatic
condition of consciousness such as saints and mystics of the West have
called illumination.
The first sign is the glimpsing of the "Clear Light of Reality," "the
infallible mind of the pure mystic state." This is the awareness of
energy transformations with no imposition of mental categories.
The duration of this state varies with the individual. It depends upon
experience, security, trust, preparation and the surroundings. In
those who have had even a little practical experience of the tranquil
state of non-game awareness, and in those who have happy games, this
state can last from thirty minutes to several hours.
In this state, realization of what mystics call the "Ultimate Truth"
is possible, provided that sufficient preparation has been made by the
person beforehand. Otherwise he cannot benefit now, and must wander on
into lower and lower conditions of hallucinations, as determined by
his past games, until he drops back to routine reality.
It is important to remember that the conscious-expansion process is
the reverse of the birth process, birth being the beginning of game
life and the ego-loss experience being a temporary ending of game
life. But in both there is a passing from one state of consciousness
into another. And just as an infant must wake up and learn from
experience the nature of this world, so likewise a person at the
moment of consciousness expansion must wake up in this new brilliant
world and become familiar with its own peculiar conditions.
In those who are heavily dependent on their ego games, and who dread
giving up their control, the illuminated state endures only so long as
it would take to snap a finger. In some, it lasts as long as the time
taken for eating a meal.
If the subject is prepared to diagnose the symptoms of ego loss, he
needs no outside help at this point. Not only should the person about
to give up his ego be able to diagnose the symptoms as they come, one
by one, but he should also be able to recognize the Clear Light
without being set face to face with it by another person. If the
person fails to recognize and accept the onset of ego loss, he may
complain of strange bodily symptoms. This shows that he has not
reached a liberated state. Then the guide or friend should explain the
symptoms as indicating the onset of ego loss.
Here is a list of commonly reported physical sensations:
1. Bodily pressure, which the Tibetans call earth-sinking-into-water;
2. Clammy coldness, followed by feverish heat, which the Tibetans call
water-sinking-into-fire; 3. Body disintegrating or blown to atoms,
called fire-sinking-into-air; 4. Pressure on head and ears, which
Americans call rocket-launching-into-space; 5. Tingling in
extremities; 6. Feelings of body melting or flowing as if wax; 7.
Nausea; 8. Trembling or shaking, beginning in pelvic regions and
spreading up torso.
These physical reactions should be recognized as signs heralding
transcendence. Avoid treating them as symptoms of illness, accept
them, merge with them, enjoy them.
Mild nausea occurs often with the ingestion of morning-glory seeds or
peyote, rarely with mescaline and infrequently with LSD or psilocybin.
If the subject experiences stomach messages, they should be hailed as
a sign that consciousness is moving around in the body. The symptoms
are mental; the mind controls the sensation, and the subject should
merge with the sensation, experience it fully, enjoy it and, having
enjoyed it, let consciousness flow on to the next phase. It is usually
more natural to let consciousness stay in the body - the subject's
attention can move from the stomach and concentrate on breathing,
heart beat. If this does not free him from nausea, the guide should
move the consciousness to external events - music, walking in the
garden, etc.
The appearance of physical symptoms of ego-loss, recognized and
understood, should result in peaceful attainment of illumination. If
ecstatic acceptance does not occur (or when the period of peaceful
silence seems to be ending), the relevant sections of the instructions
can be spoken in a low tone of voice in the ear. It is often useful to
repeat them distinctly, clearly impressing them upon the person so as
to prevent his mind from wandering. Another method of guiding the
experience with a minimum of activity is to have the instructions
previously recorded in the subject's own voice and to flip the tape on
at the appropriate moment. The reading will recall to the mind of the
voyager the former preparation; it will cause the naked consciousness
to be recognized as the "Clear Light of the Beginning;" it will remind
the subject of his unity with this state of perfect enlightenment and
help him to maintain it.
If, when undergoing ego-loss, one is familiar with this state, by
virtue of previous experience and preparation, the Wheel of Rebirth
(i.e., all game playing) is stopped, and liberation instantaneously is
achieved. But such spiritual efficiency is so very rare, that the
normal mental condition of the person is unequal to the supreme feat
of holding on to the state in which the Clear Light shines; and there
follows a progressive descent into lower and lower states of the Bardo
existence, and then rebirth. The simile of a needle balanced and set
rolling on a thread is used by the lamas to elucidate this condition.
So long as the needle retains its balance, it remains on the thread.
Eventually, however, the law of gravitation (the pull of the ego or
external stimulation) affects it, and it falls. In the realm of the
Clear Light, similarly, the mentality of a person in the ego-
transcendent state momentarily enjoys a condition of balance, of
perfect equilibrium, and of oneness. Unfamiliar with such a state,
which is an ecstate state of non-ego, the consciousness of the average
human being lacks the power to function in it. Karmic (i.e., game)
propensities becloud the consciousness-principle with thoughts of
personality, of individualized being, of dualism. Thus, losing
equilibrium, consciousness falls away from the Clear Light. It is
thought processes which prevent the realization of Nirvana (which is
the "blowing out of the flame" of selfish game desire); and so the
Wheel of Life continues to turn.
All or some of the appropriate passages in the instructions may be
read to the voyager during the period of waiting for the drug to take
effect, and when the first symptoms of ego-loss appear. When the
voyager is clearly in a profound ego-transcendent ecstasy, the wise
guide will remain silent.
Part II: The Secondary Clear Light Seen Immediately After Ego-Loss.
The preceding section describes how the Clear Light may be recognized
and liberation maintained. But if it becomes apparent that the Primary
Clear Light has not been recognized, then it can certainly be assumed
there is dawning what is called the phase of the Secondary Clear
Light. The first flash of experience usually produces a state of
ecstasy of the greatest intensity. Every cell in the body is sensed as
involved in orgastic creativity.
It may be helpful to describe in more detail some of the phenomena
which often accompany the moment of ego-loss. One of these might be
called "wave energy flow." The individual becomes aware that he is
part of and surrounded by a charged field of energy, which seems
almost electrical. In order to maintain the ego-loss state as long as
possible, the prepared person will relax and allow the forces to flow
through him. There are two dangers to avoid: the attempt to control or
to rationalize this energy flow. Either of these reactions is
indicative of ego-activity and the First Bardo transcendence is lost.
The second phenomenon might be called "biological life-flow." Here the
person becomes aware of physiological and biochemical processes;
rhythmic pulsing activity within the body. Often this may be sensed as
powerful motors or generators continously throbbing and radiating
energy. An endless flow of cellular forms and colors flashes by.
Internal biological processes may also be heard with characteristic
swooshing, crackling, and pounding noises. Again the person must
resist the temptation to label or control these processes. At this
point you are tuned in to areas of the nervous system which are
inaccessible to routine perception. You cannot drag your ego into the
molecular processes of life. These processes are a billion years older
than the learned conceptual mind.
Another typical and most rewarding phase of the First Bardo involves
ecstatic energy movement felt in the spine. The base of the backbone
seems to be melting or seems on fire. If the person can maintain quiet
concentration the energy will be sensed as flowing upwards. Tantric
adepts devote decades of concentrated meditation to the release of
these ecstatic energies which they call Kundalini, the Serpent Power.
One allows the energies to travel upwards through several ganglionic
centers (chakras) to the brain, where they are sensed as a burning
sensation in the top of the cranium. These sensations are not
unpleasant to the prepared person, but, on the contrary, are
accompanied by the most intense feelings of joy and illumination. Ill-
prepared subjects may interpret the experience in pathological terms
and attempt to control it, usually with unpleasant results. [Professor
R. C. Zaehner, who as an Oriental scholar and "expert" on mysticism
should have know better, has published an account of how this prized
experience can be lost and distorted into hypochondriacal complaint in
the ill-educated.
. . . I had a curious sensation in my body which reminded me of what
Mr. Custance describes as a "tingling at the base of the spine," which
according to him, usually precedes a bout of mania. It was rather like
that. In the Broad Walk this sensation occurred again and again until
the climax of the experiment was reached . . . I did not like it at
all.
(R. C. Zaehner: Mysticism, Sacred and Profane. Oxford Univ. Press,
1957, p. 214)
If the subjects fails to recognize the rushing flow of First Bardo
phnomena, liberation from the ego is lost. The person finds himself
slipping back into mental activities. At this point he should try to
recall the instructions or be reminded of them, and a second contact
with these processes can be made.
The second stage is less intense. A ball set bouncing reaches its
greatest height at the first bounce; the second bounce is lower, and
each succeeding bounce is still lower until the ball comes to rest.
The consciousness at the loss of the ego is similar to this. Its first
spiritual bound, directly upon leaving the body-ego, is the highest;
the next is lower. Then the force of karma, (i.e., past game-playing),
takes over and different forms of external reality are experienced.
Finally, the force of karma having spent itself, consciousness returns
to "normal." Routines are taken up again and thus rebirth occurs.
The first ecstasy usually ends with a momentary flashback to the ego
condition. This return can be happy or sad, loving or suspicious,
fearful or courageous, depending on the personality, the preparation,
and the setting.
This flashback to the ego-game is accompanied by a concern with
identity. "Who am I now? Am I dead or not dead? What is happening?"
You cannot determine. You see the surroundings and your companions as
you had been used to seeing them before. There is a penetrating
sensitivity. But you are on a different level. Your ego grasp is not
quite as sure as it was.
The karmic hallucinations and visions have not yet started. Neither
the frightening apparitions nor the heavenly visions have begun. This
is a most sensitive and pregnant period. The remainder of the
experience can be pushed one way or another depending upon preparation
and emotional climate.
If you are experienced in consciousness alteration, or if you are a
naturally introverted person, remember the situation and the schedule.
Stay calm and let the experience take you where it will. You will
probably re-experience the ecstasy of illumination once again; or you
may drift into aesthetic or philosophic or interpersonal
enlightenments. Don't hold on: let the stream carry you along.
The experienced person is usually beyond dependence on setting. He can
turn off external pressure and return to illumination. An extroverted
person, dependent upon social games and outside situations may,
however, become pleasantly distracted (colors, sounds, people). If you
anticipate extroverted distraction and if you want to maintain a non-
game state of ecstasy, then remember the following suggestions: do not
be distracted; try to concentrate on an ideal contemplative personage,
e.g., Buddha, Christ, Socrates, Ramakrishna, Einstein, Herman Hesse or
Lao Tse: follow his model as if he were a being with a physical body
waiting for you. Join him.
If this is not successful, don't fret or think about it. Perhaps you
don't have a mystical or transcendental ideal. That means your
conceptual limits are within external games. Now that you know what
the mystic experience is, you can prepare for it next time. You have
lost the content-free flow and should now be ready to slip into
exciting confrontation with external reality. In the Second Bardo you
can reash and deeply experience game revelations.
We have just anticipated the reactions of the naturally mystical
introvert, the experienced person, and the extrovert. Now let's turn
to the novitiate who shows confusion at this early stage of the
sequence. The best procedure is to make a reassuring sign and do
nothing. He will have read this manual and will have some guidepost.
Leave him alone and he will probably dive into his panic and master
it. If he indicates that he wishes guidance, repeat the instructions.
Tell him what is happening. Remind him of his phase in the process.
Urge him quietly to release his ego struggle and drift back into
contact with the Clear Light.
Preparation and guidance of this sort will allow many to reach the
illuminated state who would not be expected to recognize it.
At this point, it is necessary to inject a word of benign warning.
Reading this manual is extremely useful, but no words can communicate
experience. You are going to be surprised, startled and delighted. A
person may have heard a detailed description of the art of swimming
and yet never had the chance to swim. Suddenly diving into the water,
he finds himself unable to swim. So with those who have tried to learn
the theory of how to experience ego-loss, and have never applied it.
They cannot maintain unbroken continuity of consciousness, they grow
bewildered at the changed condition; they fail to maintain the
mystical ecstasy; they fail to take advantage of the opportunity
unless upheld and directed by a guide. Even with all that a guide can
do, they ordinarily, because of bad karma (heavy ego games) fail to
recognize the liberation. But this is no cause for worry. At the
worst, they just slip back to shore. No one has drowned, and most of
those who have taken the voyage have been eager to try again.
Even those who have familiarized themselves with the road maps and who
previously have had illumination, may find themselves in settings
where heavy game behavior on the part of others forces them into
contact with external reality. If this happens, recall the
instructions. The person who masters this principle can block out the
external. The one who has mastered control of consciousness is
independent of setting.
Again there are those, who although previously successful, may have
brought ego games into the session with them. They may want to provide
someone else with a particular type of experience. They may be
promoting some self goal. They may be nurturing negative or
competitive or seductive feelings towards someone in the session. If
this happens, recall the instructions. Remember the unity of all
beings. One to me is shame and fame. One to me is loss or gain.
Jettison your ego program and float back to the radiant bliss of at-
one-ness.
If you reach the Clear Light immediately and maintain it, that is
best. But if not, if you have slipped down to reality concerns, by
remembering these instructions you should be able to regain what the
Tibetans call the Secondary Clear Light.
While on this secondary level, an interesting dialogue occurs between
pure transcendence and the awareness that this ecstatic vision is
happening to oneself. The first radiance knows no self, no concepts.
The secondary experience involves a certain state of conceptual
lucidity. The knowing self hovers within that transcendent terrain
from which it is usually barred. If the instructions are remembered,
external reality will not intrude. But the flashing in and out between
pure ego-less unity, and lucid, non-game selfhood, produces an
intellectual ecstasy and understanding that defies description.
Previous philosophic reading will suddenly take on living meaning.
Thus in this secondary stage of the First Bardo, there is possible
both the mystic non-self and the mystic self experience.
After you have experienced these two states, you may wish to pursue
this distinction intellectually. We are confronted here with one of
the oldest debates in Eastern philosophy. Is it better to be part of
the sugar or to taste the sugar? Theological controversies and their
dualities are far removed from experience. Thanks to the experimental
mysticism made possible by consciousness-expanding drugs, you may have
been lucky enough to have experienced the flashing back and forth
between the two states. You may be lucky enough to know what the
academic monks could only think about.
Here ends the First Bardo,
The Period of Ego-loss or Non-Game Ecstasy
SECOND BARDO:
THE PERIOD OF HALLUCINATIONS
(Chonyid Bardo)
Introduction
If the Primary Clear Light is not recognized, there remains the
possibility of maintaining the Secondary Clear Light. If that is lost,
then comes the Chonyid Bardo, the period of karmic illusions or
intense hallucinatory mixtures of game reality. It is very important
that the instructions be remembered - they can have great influence
and effect.
During this period, the flow of consciousness, microscopically clear
and intense, is interrupted by fleeting attempts to rationalize and
interpret. But the normal game-playing ego is not functioning
effectively. There exist, therefore, unlimited possibilities for, on
the one hand, delightful sensuous, intellectual and emotional
novelties if one floats with the current; and, on the other hand,
fearful ambuscades of confusion and terror if one tries to impose his
will on the experience.
The purpose of this part of the manual is to prepare the person for
the choice points which arise during this stage. Strange sounds, weird
sights and disturbed visions may occur. These can awe, frighten and
terrify unless one is prepared.
The experienced person will be able to maintain the recognition that
all perceptions come from within and will be able to sit quietly,
controlling his expanded awareness like a phantasmagoric multi-
dimensional television set: the most acute and sensitive
hallucinations - visual, auditory, touch, smell, physical and bodily;
the most exquisite reactions, compassionate insight into the self, the
world. The key is inaction: passive integration with all that occurs
around you. If you try to impose your will, use your mind,
rationalize, seek explanations, you will get caught in hallucinatory
whirlpools. The motto: peace, acceptance. It is all an ever-changing
panorama. You are temporarily removed from the world of game. Enjoy
it.
The inexperienced and those to who ego control is important may find
this passivity impossible. If you cannot remain inactive and subdue
your will, then the one certain activity which can reduce panic and
pull you out of hallucinatory mind-games is physical contact with
another person. Go to the guide or to another participant and put your
head on his lap or chest; put your face next to his and concentrate on
the movement and sound of his inspiration. Breathe deeply and feel the
air rush in and the sighing release. This is the oldest form of living
communication; the brotherhood of breath. The guide's hand on your
forehead may add to the relaxation.
Contact with another participant may be misunderstood and provoke
sexual hallucinations. For this reason, helping contact should be made
explicit by prearrangement. Unprepared participants may impose sexual
fears or fantasies on the contact. Turn them off; they are karmic
illusory productions.
The tender, gentle, supportive huddling together of participants is a
natural development during the second phase. Do not try to rationalize
this contact. Human beings and, for that matter, most all mobile
terrestrial creatures have been huddling together during long, dark
confused nights for several hundred thousand years.
Breathe in and breathe out with you companions. We are all one! That's
what your breath is telling you.
Explanation of the Second Bardo
The underlying problem of the Second Bardo is that any and every shape
- human, divine, diabolical, heroic, evil, animal, thing - which the
human brain conjures up or the past life recalls, can present itself
to consciousness: shapes and forms and sounds whirling by endlessly.
The underlying solution - repeated again and again - is to recognize
that your brain is producing the visions. They do not exist. Nothing
exists except as your consciousness gives it life.
You are standing on the threshold of recognizing the truth: there is
no reality behind any of the phenomena of the ego-loss state, save the
illusions stored up in your own mind either as accretions from game
(Sangsaric) experience or as gifts from organic physical nature and
its billion-year old past history. Recognition of this truth gives
liberation.
There is, of course, no way of classifying the infinite permutations
and combinations of visionary elements. The cortex contains file-cards
for billions of images from the history of the person, of the race,
and of living forms. Any of these, at the rate of a hundred million
per second (according to neuro-physiologists), can flood into
awareness. Bobbing around in this brilliant, symphonic sea of imagery
is the remnant of the conceptual mind. On the endless watery
turbulence of the Pacific Ocean bobs a tiny open mouth shouting
(between saline mouthfuls), "Order! System! Explain all this!"
One cannot predict what visions will occur, nor their sequence. One
can only urge the participants to shut the mouth, breathe through the
nose, and turn off the fidgety, rationalizing mind. But only the
experienced person of mystical bent can do this (and thus remain in
serene enlightenment). The unprepared person will be confused or,
worse, panicky: the intellectual struggle to control the ocean.
In order to guide the person, to help him organize his visions into
explicable units, the Chonyid Bardo was written. There are two
sections: (1) Seven Peaceful Deities with their symmetrically opposed
ego traps. (2) Eight Wrathful Deities who can be joyfully accepted as
visionary productions, or fled from in terror.
Each of the Seven Peaceful Deities (bisexual Father-Mother figures)
are accompanied by consorts, attendants, lesser deities, saints,
angels, heroes. Each of the Wrathful Deities is similarly accompanied.
Lights, symbolic objects, beautiful, horrid, threatening, seething,
are likewise seen.
If read literally, The Tibetan Book of the Dead would have you expect
the "Master of All Visible Shapes" (or his opposite, the fondness for
stupidity) on the first day; the "Immovable Deity of Happiness" and
his consort, attendants and opposite on the second, etc. The manual
should, of course, not be used rigidly, exoterically, but should be
taken in its esoteric, allegorical form.
Read from this perspective, we see that the lamas have listed or named
a thousand images which can boil up in the ever-changing jeweled
mosaic of the retina (that multi-layered swamp of billions of rods and
cones, infiltrated, like a Persian rug or a Mayan carving, with
countless multi-colored capillaries). By preparatory reading of the
manual and by its repetition during the experience, the novice is led
via suggestion to recognize this fantastic retinal kaleidoscope.
Most important, he is told that they come from within. All deities and
demons, all heavens and hells are internal.
The student with a particular interest in Tibetan or Tantric Buddhism
should steep himself in the text of the Chonyid Bardo. He should
obtain colored plates of the fourteen dramas of the Bardo, and he
should arrange to have the guide lead him through the prescribed
sequence during the drug session. This will provide an unforgettable
series of liberations and will permit the devotee to emerge from the
experience "reincarnated" in the lamaist tradition.
The aim of this manual is to make available the general outline of the
Tibetan Book and to translate it into psychedelic English. For this
reason we shall not present the detailed sequence of lamaist
hallucinations but, rather, list some apparitions commonly reported by
Westerners.
Following the Tibetan Thodo, we have classified Second Bardo visions
into seven types:
1. The Source or Creator Vision 2. The Internal Flow of Archetypal
Processes 3. The Fire-Flow of Internal Unity 4. The Wave-Vibration
Structure of External Forms 5. The Vibratory Waves of External Unity
6. "The Retinal Circus" 7. "The Magic Theatre" [We owe the phrase
"retinal circus" to Henri Michaux (Miserable Miracle), and the term
"magic theatre" to Hermann Hesse (Steppenwolf).
Visions 2 and 3 involve closed eyes and no contact with external
stimuli. In Vision 2 the internal imagery is primarily conceptual. The
experience can range from revelation and insight to confusion and
chaos, but the cognitive, intellectual meaning is paramount. In Vision
3 the internal imagery is primarily emotional. The experience can
range from love and ecstatic unity to fear, distrust and isolation.
Visions 4 and 5 involve open eyes and rapt attention to external
stimuli, such as sounds, lights, touch, etc. In Vision 4 the external
imagery is primarily conceptual and in Vision 5 emotional factors
predominate.
The sevenfold table just defined bears some similarity to the mandalic
schema of the Peaceful Deities listed for the Second Bardo in The
Tibetan Book of the Dead.
THE PEACEFUL VISIONS
Vision 1: The Source [The first Peaceful Deity
listed by the Bardo Thodol is the Bhagavan Vairochana who occupies the
center of the mandala of the five Dhyani-Buddhas. His attributes of source-
power have been translated into those of the monotheistic creator of
Western religions.]
(Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored)
The White Light, or First Bardo energy, may be interpreted as God the
Creator. The Spreader of the Seed. The Power which makes all shapes
visible. Seed of all that is. Sovereign Power. The All-Powerful. The
Central Sun. The One Truth. The Source of all Organic Life. The Divine
Mother. The Female Creative Principle. Mother of the Space of Heaven.
Radiant Father-Mother. Magnificent revelations, both spiritual and
philosophic, can occur at this point making the highest union of
experience and intellect. But, because of bad karma (usually religious
beliefs of a monotheistic or punitive nature), the glorious light of
the seed wisdom it can produce awe and terror. The person will wish to
flee and will beget a fondness for the dull white light symbolizing
stupidity.
Persons from a Judaeo-Christian background conceive of an enormous
gulf between divinity (which is "up there") and the self ("down
here"). Christian mystics' claims to unity with divine radiance has
always posed problems for theologians who are committed to the
cosmological subject-object distinction. Most Westerners, therefore,
find it difficult to attain unity with the source-light.
If the guide ascertains that the voyager is struggling with thoughts
or feelings about the creative source energy, he can read the
appropriate instructions. ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 1: THE
SOURCE
Vision 2: The Internal Flow of Archetypal Processes
(Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored; intellectual aspects)
If the undifferentiated light of the First Bardo or of the Source
Energy is lost, luminous waves of differentiated forms can flood
through the consciousness. The person's mind begins to identify these
figures, that is, to label them and experience revelations about the
life process. [Lama Govinda tells us that Amoghasiddhi represents ". .
. the mysterious activity of spiritual forces, which work removed from
the senses, invisible and imperceptible, with the aim of guiding the
individual (or, more properly: all living beings) towards the maturity
of knowledge and liberation. The yellow light of an (inner) sun
invisible to human eyes . . . (in which the unfathomable space of the
universe seems to open itself) for the serene mystic green of
Amoghasiddhi. . . . On the elementary plane this all-pervading power
corresponds to the element of air - the principle of movement and
extension, of life and breath (prana)." Lama Govinda: Foundations of
Tibetan Mysticism. Lodon: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1959, p.120.
The fifth day of the Baro Thodol confronts the deceased with the
Bhagavan Buddha Amoghasiddhi, Almighty Conqueror, from the green
Norther realm of Successful Performance of Best Actions, attended by a
Divine Mother, and two Bodhisattvas representing the mental functions
of "equilibrium, immutability, and almighty power" and "clearer of
obscurations."]
Specifically, the subject is caught up in an endless flow of colored
forms, microbiological shapes, cellular acrobatics, capillary
whirling. The cortex is turned in on molecular processes which are
completely new and strange: a Niagara of abstract designs; the life-
stream flowing, flowing.
These visions might perhaps be described as pure sensations of
cellular and sub-cellular processes. It is uncertain whether they
involve the retina and/or the visual cortex, or whether they are
flashes of direct, molecular sensation in other areas of the central
nervous system. They are subjectively described as internal visions.
Another class of internal process images involves sound. Again we do
not know whether these sensations originate in the auditory apparatus
and/or in the auditory cortex, or whether they are flashes of direct,
molecular sensations in other areas. They are subjectively described
as internal sounds: clicking, thudding, clashing, soughing, ringing,
tapping, moaning, shrill whistles. [ The Tibetan Book includes a
brilliant discussion of internal process noises. ". . . innumerable
(other) kinds of musical instruments, filling (with music) the whole
world-systems and causing them to vibrate, to quake and tremble with
sounds so mighty as to daze one's brain. . . ."
"Tibetan lamas, in chanting their rituals, employ seven (or eight)
sorts of musical instruments: big drums, cymbals (commonly brass),
conch shells, bells (like the handbells used in the Christian Mass
Service), timbrels, small clarionets (sounding like Highland
bagpipes), big trumpets, and human thighbone trumpets. Although the
combined sounds of these instruments are far from being melodious, the
lamas maintain that they psychically produce in the devotee an
attitude of deep veneration and faith, because they are the
counterparts of the natural sounds which one's own body is heard
producing when the fingers are put in the ears to shut out external
sounds. Stopping the ears thus, there are heard a thudding sound, like
that of a big drum being beaten; a clashing sound, as of cymbals; a
soughing sound, as of a wind moving through a forest - as when a
conch-shell is bone; a ringing as of bells; a sharp tapping sound, as
when a timbrel is used; a moaning sound, like that of a clarionet; a
bass moaning sound, as if made with a big trumpet; and a shriller
sound, as of a thigh-bone trumpet."
"Not only is this interesting as a theory of Tibetan sacred music, but
it gives the clue to the esoteric interpretation of the symbolical
natural sounds of Truth (referred to in the second paragraph
following, and elsewhere in our text), which are said to be, or to
proceed from, the intellectual faculties within the human mentality."
- (Evans-Wentz, p. 128)] These noises, like the visions, are direct
sensations unencumbered by mental concepts. Raw, molecular, dancing
units of energy.
The minds sweeps in and out of this evolutionary stream, creating
cosmological revelations. Dozens of mythical and Darwinian insights
flash into awareness. The person is allowed to glance back down the
flow of time and to perceive how the life energy continually manifests
itself in forms, transient, alwasy changing, reforming. Microscopic
forms merge with primal creative myths. The mirror of consciousness is
held up to the life stream.
As long as the person floats with the current, he is exposed to a
billion-year lesson in cosmology. But the drag of the mind is always
present. The tendency to impose arbitrary, isolating order on the
organic process.
Sometimes the voyager feels he should report back his vision. He
converts the life flow into a cosmic ink-blot test - attempts to label
each form. "Now I see a peacock's tail. Now Muslim knights in colored
armor. Oh, now a waterfall of jewels. Now, Chinese music. Now, gem-
like serpents, etc." Verbalizations of this sort dull the light, stop
the flow and should not be encouraged.
Another trap is that of imposing a sexual interpretation. The dancing,
playful flow of life is, in the most reverant sense, sexual. Forms
merging, spinning together, reproducing. Eros in its countless
manifestations. The Tibetans refer to the female Bodhisattvas
Pushpema, personification of blossoms, and Lasema, the "Belle",
depicted holding a mirror in a coquettish attitude. Keep the pure,
spontaneous awareness of the Mirror-like Wisdom. Laugh joyously at the
tricks of the life process, forever decking out forms in seductive,
enticing patterns to keep the dance going. If the voyager interprets
the visions of Eros in terms of his personal sexual game model, and
attempts to think or plan - "what should I do? what role should I
play?" - he is likely to slip down into the Thrid Bardo. Sexual plots
dominate his awareness, the flow fades, the mirror tarnishes, and he
is rudely reborn as a confused, thinking being.
Still another impasse is the imposition of physical symptom games upon
the biological flow. The new somatic sensations may be interpreted as
symptoms. If it is new, it must be bad. Any organ of the body may be
selected as the focus of the "illness." People whose primary
expectation when taking a psychedelic substance is medical, are
particularly likely to fall into this trap. Medical doctors are, in
fact, extremely prone and can imagine colorful diseases and fatal
attacks.
In the case of the most widely-used psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin,
etc.), it is safe to say that such bodily effects are virtually never
the direct effect of the drug. The drug acts only on the brain and
activates central neural patterns. All physical symptoms are created
by the mind. Bodily sickness is a sign that the ego is fighting to
maintain or regain its hold over an outpouring of feeling, over a
dissolution of emotional boundaries.
If the person complains of physical symptoms such as nausea or pain,
the guide should read him the ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR PHYSICAL
SYMPTOMS.
The negative, wrathful counterpart to this vision occurs if the
voyager reacts with fear to the powerful flow of life forms. Such a
reaction is attributable to the cumulated result of game playing
(karma) dominated by anger or stupidity. A nightmarish hell-world may
ensue. The visual forms appear like a confusing chaos of cheap, ugly
dime-store objects, brassy, vulgar and useless. The person may become
terrified at the prospect of being engulfed by them. The awesome
sounds may be heard as hideous, clashing, oppressive, grating noises.
The person will attempt to escape from these perceptions into restless
external activity (talking, moving around, etc.) or into conceptual,
analytic, mental activity.
The experience is the same, the intellectual interpretation is
different. Instead of revelation, there is confusion; instead of calm
joy, there is fear. The guide, recognizing the voyager to be in such a
state, can help him get free, by reading the ==|==>> Instructions for
Vision 2.
Vision 3: The Fire-Flow of Internal Unity
(Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored, emotional aspects)
The First Bardo instructions should keep you face-to-face with the
void-ecstasy. Yet there are classes of men who, having carried over
karmic conflict about feeling-inhibition, prove unable to hold the
pure experience beyond all feelings, and slip into emotionally toned
visions. The undifferentiated energy of the First Bardo is woven into
visionary games in the form of intense feelings. Exquisite, intense,
pulsating sensations of unity and love will be felt; the negative
counterpart is feelings of attachment, greed, isolation and bodily
concerns.
It comes about this way: the pure flow of energy loses its white void
quality and becomes sensed as intense feelings. An emotional game is
imposed. Incredible new physical sensations pulse through the body.
The glow of life is felt flooding along veins. One merges into a
unitive ocean of orgastic, fluid electricity, [The Peaceful Deity of
the Bardo Thodol personifying this vision is the Buddha Amitabbha, the
all-discriminating wisdom and feeling, boundless light, representing
life eternal. Lama Govinda writes that "The deep red light of
discriminating inner vision shines forth from his heart . . . fire
corresponds to him and thus, according to the ancient traditional
symbolism, the eye and the function of seeing." (Govinda, op. cit., p.
120.) With the Bhagavan Amitabbha comes the Bodhisattva Chenrazee,
embodiment of mercy or compassion, the great pitier ever on the
lookout to discover distress and to succour the troubled. He is joined
by the Bodhisattva "Glorious Gentle-voiced One," and the femal
incarnates "song" and "light."] the endless flow of shared-life, of
love.
Visions related to the circulatory system are common. The subject
tumbles down through his own arterial network. The motor of the heart
reverberates as one with the pulsing of all life. The heart then
breaks, and red fire bleeds out to merge with all living beings. All
living organisms are throbbing together. One is joyfully aware of the
two-billion-year-old electric sexual dance; one is at last divested of
robot clothes and limbs and undulates in the endless chain of living
forms.
Dominating this ecstatic state is the feeling of intense love. You are
a joyful part of all life. The memory of former delusions of self-hood
and differentiation invokes exultant laughter.
All the harsh, dry, brittle angularity of game life is melted. You
drift off - soft, rounded, moist, warm. Merged with all life. You may
feel yourself floating out and down into a warm sea. Your
individuality and autonomy of movement are moistly disappearing. Your
control is surrendered to the total organism. Blissful passivity.
Ecstatic, orgiastic, undulating unity. All worries and concerns wash
away. All is gained as everything is given up. There is organic
revelation. Every cell in your body is singing its song of freedom -
the entire biological universe is in harmony, liberated from the
censorship and control of you and your restricted ambitions.
But wait! You, You, are disappearing into the unity. You are being
swallowed up by the ecstatic undulation. Your ego, that one tiny
remaining strand of self, screams STOP! You are terrified by the pull
of the glorious, dazzling, transparent, radiant red light. You wrench
yourself out of the life-flow, drawn by your intense attachment to
your old desires. There is a terrible rending as your roots tear out
of the life matrix - a ripping of your fibres and veins away from the
greater body to which you were attached. And when you have cut
yourself off from the fire-flow of life the throbbing stops, the
ecstasy ceases, your limbs harden and stiffen into angular forms, your
plastic doll body has regained its orientation. There you sit,
isolated from the stream of life, impotent master of your desires and
appetites, miserable.
While you are floating down the evolutionary river, there comes a
sense of limitless self-less power. The delight of flowing cosmic
belongingness. The astounding discovery that consciousness can tune in
to an infinite number of organic levels. There are billions of
cellular processes in your body, each with its universe of experience
- an endless variety of ecstasies. The simple joys and pains and
burdens of your ego represent one set of experiences - a repetitious,
dusty set. As you slip into the fire-flow of biological energy, series
after series of experiential sets flash by. You are no longer
encapsulated in the structure of ego and tribe.
But through panic and a desire to latch on to the familiar, you shut
off the flow, open your eyes; then the flowingness is lost. The
potentiality to move from one level of consciousness to another is
gone. Your fear and desire to control have driven you to settle for
one static site of consciousness. To use the Eastern or genetic
metaphor, you have frozen the dance of energy and committed yourself
to one incarnation, and you have done it out of fear.
When this happens, there are several steps which can take you back to
the biological flow (and from there to the First Bardo). First, close
your eyes. Lie on you stomach and let you body sink through the floor,
merge with the surroundings. Feel the hard, square edges of your body
soften and start to move in the bloodstream. Let the rhythm of
breathing become tide flow. Bodily contact is probably the most
effective method of softening hardened surfaces. No movement. No body
games. Close physical contact with another invariably brings about the
unity of fire-flow. Your blood begins to flow into the other's body.
His breathing pours into your lungs. You both drift down the capillary
river.
Another form of life process images is the flow of auditory
sensations. The endless series of abstract sounds (described in the
preceding vision) bounce through awareness. The emotional reaction to
these can be neutral or can involve intense feelings of unity, or of
annoyed fear.
The positive reaction occurs when the subject merges with the sound
flow. The thudding drum of the heart is sensed as the basic anthem of
humanity. The whooshing sough of the breath as the rushing river of
all life. Overwhelming feelings of love, gratitude and oneness funnel
into the moment of sound, into each note of the biological concerto.
But, as always, the voyager may intrude his personality with its wants
and opinions. He may not "like" the noise. His judgmental ego may be
aesthetically offended by the sounds of life. The heart thud is, after
all, monotonous; the natural music of the inner ear, with its clicks
and hums and whistles, lacks the romantic symmetries of Beethoven. The
terrible separation of "me" from my body occurs. Horrible. Out of my
control. Turn it off.
The trained guide can usually sense when ego-attachment threatens to
pull the person out of the unitive flow. At this time he can guide the
voyager by reading the ==|==>> Instructions for Vision 3.
Vision 4: The Wave-Vibration Structure of External Forms
(Eyes open or rapt involvement with external stimuli; intellectual
aspects)
The pure, content-free light of the First Bardo probably involves
basic electrical wave energy. This is nameless, indescribable, because
it is far beyond any concepts which we now possess. Some future atomic
physicist may be able to classify this energy. Perhaps it will always
be ineffable for a nervous system such as that of homo sapiens. Can an
organic system "comprehend" the vastly more efficient inorganic? At
any event, most persons, even the most illuminated, find it impossible
to maintain experiential contact with this void-light and slip back to
imposing mental structures, hallucinatory and revelatory, upon the
flow.
Thus we are brought to another frequent vision which involves intense,
rapt, unitive awareness of external stimuli. If the eyes are open,
this super-reality effect can be visual. The penetrating impact of
other stimuli can also set off revelatory imagery.
It comes about this way. The subject's awareness is suddenly invaded
by an outside stimulus. His attention is captured, but his old
conceptual mind is not functioning. But other sensitivities are
engaged. He experiences direct sensation. The raw "is-ness." He sees,
not objects, but patterns of light waves. He hears, not "music" or
"meaningful" sound, but acoustic waves. He is struck with the sudden
revelation that all sensation and perception are based on wave
vibrations. That the world around him which heretofore had an illusory
solidity, is nothing more than a play of physical waves. That he is
involved in a cosmic television show which has no more substantiality
than the images on his TV picture tube. [The Peaceful Deity of the
Thodol personifying this vision is Akshobhya. According to Lama
Govinda, "In the light of the Mirror-like Wisdom . . . things are
freed from their "thingness," their isolation, without being deprived
of their form; they are divested of their materiality, without being
dissolved, because the creative principle of the mind, which is at the
bottom of all form and materiality, is recognized as the active side
of the universal Store Consciousness (alaya-vijnana), on the surface
of which forms arise and pass away, like the waves on the surface of
the ocean. . . ." (Govinda, op. cit., p. 119.)
The atomic structure of matter is, of course, known to us
intellectually, but never experienced by the adult except in states of
intense altered consciousness. Learning from a physics textbook about
the wave structure of matter is one thing. Experiencing it - being in
it - with the old, familiar, gross, hallucinatory comfort of "solid"
things gone and unavailable, is quite another matter.
If these super-real visions involve wave phenomena, then the external
world takes on a radiance and a revelation that is staggeringly clear.
The experienced insight that the world of phenomena exists in the form
of waves, electronic images, can produce a sense of illuminated power.
Everything is experienced as consciousness.
These exultant radiations should be recognized as productions of your
own internal processes. You should not attempt to control or
conceptualize. This can come later. There is the danger of
hallucinatory freezing. The subject rushes back (sometimes literally)
to the three-dimensional reality, convinced of the fixed "truth" of
one experienced revelation. Many misguided mystics and many persons
called insane have fallen into this ambuscade. This is like making a
still photograph of a television pattern and shouting that one has
finally seized the truth. All is ecstatic electric Maya, the two-
billion-year dance of waves. No one part of it is more real than
another. Everything at all moments is shimmering with all the meaning.
So far we have considered the positive radiance of clarity; but there
are fearful negative aspects of the fourth vision. When the subject
senses that his "world" is fragmenting into waves, he may become
terrified. "He," "me," "I" are dissolving! The world around me is
supposed to sit, static and dead, quietly awaiting my manipulation.
But these passive things have changed into a shimmering dance of
living energy! The Maya nature of phenomena creates panic. Where is
the solid base? Every thing, every concept, every form upon which one
rests one's mind collapses into electrical vibrations lacking
solidity.
The face of the guide or of one's beloved friend becomes a dancing
mosaic of impulses on one's cortex. "My consciousness" has created
everything of which I am conscious. I have kinescoped my world, my
loved ones, myself. All are just shimmering energy patterns. Instead
of clarity and exultant power, there is confusion. The subject
staggers around, grasping at electron-patterns, striving to freeze
them back into the familiar robot forms.
All solidity is gone. All phenomena are paper images pasted on the
glass screen of consciousness. For the unprepared, or for the person
whose karmic residue stresses control, the discovery of the wave-
nature of all structure, the Maya revelation, is a disastrous web of
uncertainty.
We have discussed only the visual aspects of the fourth vision.
Auditory phenomena are of equal importance. Here the solid, labelled
nature of auditory patterns is lost, and the mechanical impact of
sound hitting the eardrum is registered. In some cases, sound becomes
converted into pure sensation, and synesthesia (mixture of sense
modalities) occurs. Sounds are experienced as colors. External
sensations hitting the cortex are recorded as molecular events,
ineffable.
The most dramatic auditory visions occur with music. Just as any
object radiates a pattern of electrons and can become the essense of
all energy, so can any note of music be sensed as naked energy
trembling in space, timeless. The movement of notes, like the
shuttling of oscillograph beams. Each capturing all energy, the
electric core of the universe. Nothing existing except the needle-
clear resonance on the tympanic membrane. Unforgettable revelations
about the nature of reality occur at these moments.
But the hellish interpretation is also possible. As the learned
structure of sound collapses, the direct impact of waves can be sensed
as noise. For one who is compelled to institute order, his order, on
the world around him, it is at least annoying and often disturbing to
have the raw tattoo of sound resonating in consciousness.
Noise! What an irreverent concept. Is not everything noise; all
sensation the divine pattern of wave energy, meaningless only to those
who insist on imposing their own meaning?
Preparation is the key to a serene passage through this visionary
territory. The subject who has studied this manual will be able, when
face to face with the phenomenon, to recognize and flow with it.
The sensitive guide will be ready to pick up, on any cue, that the
subject is wandering in the fourth vision. If the voyager's eyes are
open (indicating visual reactions), he can read the ==|==>>
Instructions for Vision 4.
If the guide senses that the voyager is experiencing the fragmentation
of external sound into wave vibrations, he can amend the instructions
appropriately (changing the visuaol references to auditory).
Vision 5: The Vibratory Waves of External Unity
(Eyes open, or rapt involvement with external stimuli; emotional
aspects)
As the learned perceptions disappear and the structure of the external
world disintegrates into direct wave phenomena, the aim is to amintain
a pure, conten-free awareness (First Bardo). Despite the preparations,
one is likely to be led backwards by one's own mental inclinations
into two hallucinatory or revelatory interpretations of reality. One
reaction leads to the intellectual clarity or frightened confusion of
the fourth vision (just described). Another interpretation is the
emotional reaction to the fragmentation of differentiated forms. One
can be engulfed in ecstatic unity, or one can slip into isolated
egotism. The Bardol Thodol calls the former the "Wisdom of Equality"
and the latter the "quagmire of worldly existence accruing from
violent egotism." [The Peaceful Deity of the fifth vision comes in the
form of the Bhagavan Ratnasambhava, born of a jewel. He is embraced by
the Divine Mother, She of the Buddha Eyes, and accompanied by the
Bodhisattvas, womb of the sky, All-good, and those holding incense and
rosary. "On the elementary plane Ratnasambhava corresponds to the
earth, which carries and nourishes all beings with the equanimity and
patience of a mother, in whose eyes all beings, borne by her, are
equal." (Govinda, op. cit., p. 119.)] In the state of radiant unity,
one senses that there is only one network of energy in the universe
and that all things and all sentient beings are momentary
manifestations of the single pattern. When egotistic interpretations
are imposed on the fifth vision, the "plastic doll" phenomena are
experienced. Differentiated forms are seen as inorganic, dull, mass-
produced, shabby, plastic, and all persons (including self) are seen
as lifeless mannequins isolated from the vibrant dance of energy,
which has been lost.
The experiential data of this vision are similar to that of the fourth
vision. All artifactual learned structure collapses back to energy
vibrations. The awareness is dominated not by revelatory clarity but
by shimmering unity. The subject is entranced by the silent, whirling
play of forces. Exquisite forms dance by him, all surrounding objects
radiate energy, brilliant emanations. His own body is seen as a play
of forces. If he looks in a mirror, he sees a shining mosaic of
particles. The sense of his own wave structure becomes stronger. A
feeling of melting, floating off. The body is no longer a separate
unit but a cluster of vibrations sending and receiving energy - a
phase of the dance of energy which has been going on for millennia.
A sense of profound one-ness, a feeling of the unity of all energy.
Superficial differences of role, cast, status, sex, species, form,
power, size, beauty, even the distinctions between inorganic and
living energy, disappear before the ecstatic union of all in one. All
gestures, words, acts and events are equivalent in value - all are
manifestations of the one consciousness which pervades everything.
"You," "I" and "he" are gone, "my" thoughts are "ours," "your"
feelings are "mine." Communication is unnecessary, since complete
communion exists. A person can sense another's feeling and mood
directly, as if they were his own. By a glance, whole lifetimes and
words can be transmitted. If all are at peace, the vibrations are "in
phase." If there is discord, "out of phase" vibrations will be set up
which will be felt like discordant music. Bodies melt into waves.
Objects in the environment - lights, tree, plants, flowers - seem to
open and welcome you: they are part of you. You are both simply
different pulses of the same vibrations. A pure feeling of ecstatic
harmony with all beings is the keynote of this vision.
But as before, terrors can occur. Unity requires ecstatic self-
sacrifice. Loss of ego brings fright to the unprepared. The
fragmentation of form into waves can bring the most terrible fear
known to man: the ultimate epistemological revelation.
The fact of the matter is that all apparent forms of matter and body
are momentary clusters of energy. We are little more than flickers on
a multidimensional television screen. This realization directly
experienced can be delightful. You suddenly wake up from the delusion
of separate form and hook up to the cosmic dance. Consciousness slides
along the wave matrices, silently at the speed of light.
The terror comes with the discovery of transience. Nothing is fixed,
no form solid. Everything you can experience is "nothing but"
electrical waves. You feel ultimately tricked. A victim of the great
television producer. Distrust. The people around you are lifeless
television robots. The world around you is a facade, a stage set. You
are a helpless marionette, a plastic doll in a plastic world.
If others attempt to help, they are seen as wooden, waxen,
feelingless, cold, grotesque, maniacal, space-fiction monsters. You
are unable to feel. "I am dead. I will never live and feel again." In
wild panic you may attempt to force feeling back - by action, by
shouting. You will then enter the Third Bardo stage and be reborn in
an unpleasant way.
The best method to escape from fifth vision terrors is to remember
this manual, relax, and swing with the wave dance. Or to communicate
to the guide that you are in a plastic doll phase, and he will guide
you back.
Another solution is to move to the internal biological flow. Follow
the instructions given in the third vision: close your eyes, lie
prone, seek bodily contact, float down into your bodily stream. In so
doing, you are recapitulating the evolutionary sequence. For billions
of years, inorganic energy danced the cosmic round before the
biological rhythm began. Don't rush it.
If the guide senses that the person is experiencing plastic doll
visions or is afraid of the uncontrollability of his own feeling, he
should read to him the ==|==>> Instructions for Vision 5.
Vision 6: "The Retinal Circus"
Each of the Second Bardo visions thus far described was one aspect of
the "experiencing of reality." The inner fire or outer waves,
apprehended intellectually or emotionally - each vision with its
correspondent traps. Each of the "Peaceful Deities" appears with its
attendant "Wrathful Deities." To maintain any of these visions for any
length of time requires a certain degree of concentration or "one-
pointedness" of mind, as well as the ability to recognize them and not
to be afraid. Thus, for most persons, the experience may pass through
one or more of these phases without the voyager being able to hold
them or stay with them. He may open and close his eyes, he may become
alternately absorbed in internal sensations and external forms. The
experience may be chaotic, beautiful, thrilling, incomprehensible,
magical, ever-changing. [In the Bardo Thodol, on the sixth day appear
the radiant lights of the combined Five Wisdoms of the Dhyani-Buddhas,
the protective deities (gatekeepers of the mandala) and the Buddhas of
the Six Realms of game-existence. According to Lama Govinda: "The
Inner Way of Vajra-Sattva, consists in the combination of the rays of
the Wisdoms of the four Dhyani-Buddhas and their absorption within
one's own heart - in other words, in the recognition that all these
radiances are the emanations of one's own mind in a state of perfect
tranquility and serenity, a state in which the mind reveals its true
universal nature." (Govinda, op., cit., p. 262.)]
He will travel freely through many worlds or experience - from direct
contact with life-process forms and images, he may pass to visions of
human game-forms. He may see and understand with unimagined clarity
and brilliance various social and self-games that he and others play.
His own struggles in karmic (game) existence will appear pitiful and
laughable. Ecstatic freedom of consciousness is the keynote of this
vision. Exploration of unimagined realms. Theatrical adventures. Plays
within plays within plays. Symbols change into things symbolized and
vice versa. Words become things, thoughts are music, music is smelled,
sounds are touched, complete interchangeability of the senses.
All things are possible. All feelings are possible. A person may "try
on" various moods like so many pieces of clothing. Subjects and
objects whirl, transform, change into each other, merge, fuse,
disperse again. External objects dance and sing. The mind plays upon
them as upon a musical instrument. They assume any form, significance
or quality upon command. They are admired, adored, analyzed, examined,
changed, made beautiful or ugly, large or small, important or trivial,
useful, dangerous, magical or incomprehensible. They may be reacted to
with wonder, amazement, humor, veneration, love, disgust, fascination,
horror, delight, fear, ecstasy.
Like a computer with unlimited access to any programs, the mind roams
freely. Personal and racial memories bubble up to the surface of
consciousness, inter-play with fantasies, wishes, dreams and external
objects. A present event becomes charged with profound emotional
significance, a cosmic phenomenon becomes identical with some personal
quirk. Metaphysical problems are juggled and bounced around. Pure
"primary process," spontaneous outopouring of association, opposites
merging, images fusing, condensing, shifting, collapsing, expanding,
merging, connecting.
This kaleidoscopic vision of game-reality may be frightening and
confusing to an ill-prepared subject. Instead of exquisite clarity of
many-levelled perception, he will experience a confused chaos of
uncontrollable, meaningless forms. Instead of delight at the playful
acrobatics of the free intellect, there will be anxious clinging to an
elusive order. Morbid and scatological hallucinations may occur,
evoking disgust and shame.
As before, this negative vision occurs only if the person attempts to
control or rationalize the magic panorama. Relax and accept whatever
comes. Remember that all visions are created by your mind, the happy
and the unhappy, the beautiful and the ugly, the delightful and the
horrifying. Your consciousness is creator, performer and spectator of
the "retinal circus."
If the guide senses that the voyager is in or seems to be in the
"retinal circus" vision, he may read to him the appropriate
instructions ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 6: "THE RETINAL CIRCUS".
Vision 7: "The Magic Theatre"
If the voyager was unable to maintain the passive serenity necessary
for the contemplation of the previous visions (the peaceful deities),
he moves now into a more dramatic and active phase. The play of forms
and things becomes the play of heroic figures, superhuman spirits and
demigods. [In the Tibetan Handbook, this is described as the vision of
the five "Knowledge-Holding Deities," arranged in a mandala form, each
embraced by Dakinis, in an ecstatic dance. The Knowledge-holding
Deities symbolize "the highest level of individual or humanly
conceivable knowledge, as attained in the consciousness of great
Yogis, inspired thinkers or similar heroes of the spirit. They
represent the last step before the "breaking-through" towards the
universal consciousness - or the first on the return from there to the
plane of human knowledge." (Govinda, op. cit., p. 202.) The Dakinis
are female embodiments of knowledge, representing the inspirational
impluses of consciousness leading to break-through. The other four
Knowledge-Holders, besides the central Lord of Dance, are: the
Knowledge-holder abiding in the earth, the Knowledge-holder who has
power over the duration of life, the Knowledge-holder of the Great
Symbol, and the Knowledge-holder of Spontaneous Realization.] You may
see radiating figures in human forms. The "Lotus Lord of Dance": the
supreme image of a demi-god who perceives the effects of all actions.
The prince of movement, dancing in an ecstatic embrace with his female
counterpart. Heroes, heroines, celestial warriors, male and female
demi-gods, angels, fairies - the exact form of these figures will
depend on the person's background and tradition. Archetypal figures in
the forms of characters from Greek, Egyptian, Nordic, Celtic, Aztec,
Persian, Indian, Chinese mythology. The shapes differ, the source is
the same: they are the concrete embodiments of aspects of the person's
own psyche. Archetypal forces below verbal awareness and expressible
only in symbolic form. The figures are often extremely colorful and
accompanied by a variety of awe-inspiring sounds. If the voyager is
prepared and in a relaxed, detached frame of mind, he is exposed to a
fascinating and dazzling display of dramatic creativity. The Cosmic
Theatre. The Divine Comedy. If his eyes are open, he may visualize the
other voyagers as representing these figures. The face of a friend may
turn into that of a young boy, a baby, the child-god; into a heroic
stature, a wise old man; a woman, animal, goddess, sea-mother, young
girl, nymph, elf, goblin, leprechaun. Images of the great painters
arise as the familiar representations of these spirits. The images are
inexhaustible and manifold. An illuminating voyage into the areas
where the personal consciousness merges with the supr-individual.
The danger is that the voyager becomes frightened by or unduly
attracted to these powerful figures. The forces represented by them
may be more intense than he was prepared for. Inability or
unwillingness to recognize them as products of one's mind, leads to
escape into animalistic pursuits. The person may become involved in
the pursuit of power, lust, wealth and descend into Third Bardo
rebirth struggles.
If the guide senses that the voyager is caught in this trap, the
appropriate instructions may be used ==|==>> INTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 7:
"THE MAGIC THEATRE".
THE WRATHFUL VISIONS
(Second Bardo Nightmares)
Seven Second Bardo visions have been described. At each one of them,
the voyager could recognize what he saw and be liberated. Multitudes
will be liberated by that recognition; and although multitudes obtain
liberation in that manner, the number of sentient beings being great,
evil karma powerful, obscurations dense, propensities of too long
standing, the Wheel of Ignorance and Illusion becomes neither
exhausted nor accelerated. Despite the confrontations, there is a vast
preponderance of those who wander downwards unliberated.
Thus, in the Tibetan Thodo, after the seven peaceful deities, there
come seven visions of wrathful deities, fifty-eight in number, male
and female, "flame-enhaloed, wrathful, blood-drinking." These Herukas
as they are called, will not be described in detail, especially since
Westerners are liable to experience the wrathful deities in different
forms. Instead of many-headed fierce mythological demons, they are
more likely to be engulfed and ground by impersonal machinery,
manipulated by scientific, torturing control-devices and other space-
fiction horrors. [Some general remarks about the Tibetan
interpretation of these visions. The Wrathful Deities are regarded as
"only the former Peaceful Deities in changed aspect." Lama Govinda
writes: "The peaceful forms of Dhyani-Buddhas represent the highest
ideal of Buddhahood in its completed, final, static condition of
ultimate attainment or perfection, seen retrospectively as it were, as
a state of complete rest and harmony. The Herukas, on the other hand,
which are described as "blood-drinking," angry or "terrifying" deities
- are merely the dynamic aspect of enlightenment, the process of
becoming a Buddha, of attaining illumination, as symbolized by the
Buddha's struggle with the Hosts of Mara. . . . The ecstatic figures,
heroic and terrifying, express the act of breaking through towards the
unthinkable, the intellectually "Unattainable." They represent the
leap over the chasm, which yawns between an intellectual surface
consciousness and the intuitive supra-personal depth-consciousness."
(Govinda, op. cit., pp. 198, 202.)]
The Tibetans regard the nightmare visions as primarily intellectual
products. They assign them to the Brain chakra, whereas the peaceful
deities are assigned to the Heart chakra and the Knowledge-Holding
deities to the intermediate Throat chakra. They are the reactions of
the mind to the process of consciousness-expansion. They represent the
attempts of the intellect to maintain its threatened boundaries. They
symbolize the struggle of breaking through to ego-loss understanding
and awareness.
Because of the terror and awe they produce, recognition is difficult.
Yet in a way it is also easier in that, since these negative
hallucinations command all attention, the mind is alert and therefore
through trying to escape from fear and terror, people get involved in
psychotic states and suffer. But with the aid of this manual and the
presence of a guide, the voyager will recognize these hell visions as
soon as he sees them, and welcome them like old friends.
Again, when psychologists, philosophers, and psychiatrists, who do not
know these teachings, experience ego-loss - however assiduously they
may have devoted themselves to academic study and however clever they
may have been in expounding intellectual theories - none of the higher
phenomena will appear. This is because they are unable to recognize
the visions occurring in these psychedelic experiences. Suddenly
seeing something they had never seen before and possessing no
intellectual concepts, they view it as inimical; and, antagonistic
feelings arising, they pass into miserable states. Thus, if one has
not had practical experience with these teachings, the radiances and
lights will not appear.
Those who believe in these doctrines even though they may seem to be
unrefined, irregular in performance of duties, inelegant in habits,
and perhaps even unable to practice the doctrine successfully - let no
one doubt them or be disrespectful towards them, but pay reverence to
their mystic faith. That alone will enable them to attain liberation.
Elegance and efficiency of devotional practice are not necessary -
just acquaintance with and trust in these teachings.
Well-prepared persons need not experience Second Bardo | | |
