Writings of Richard Rose

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" rowspan="2" width=210 BGCOLOR="#99CC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04a8dfc3.jpg"> <div> <B><IMG SRC="0566b470.jpg" border=0 width="107" height="71" ALT="spirituality meditation nirvana satori prayer zen esoteric philosophy religion" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <div> <I><B>List of Rose Writings:</B></I></div> <div> <A HREF="writings_of_richard_rose_m.htm#man_is_complex___the_truth_is_simple__" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Writings of Richard Rose "><B>Man is Complex - The Truth is Simple</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="writings_of_richard_rose_m.htm#the_way" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Writings of Richard Rose "><B>The Way</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="writings_of_richard_rose_m.htm#_an_outline_of_the_spiritual_path" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Writings of Richard Rose "><B>Outline of the Spiritual Path</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="writings_of_richard_rose_m.htm#defining_the_truth" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Writings of Richard Rose "><B>Defining the Truth</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="writings_of_richard_rose_m.htm#list_of_obstacles" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Writings of Richard Rose "><B>List of Obstacles</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="writings_of_richard_rose_m.htm#tweeny_town_" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Writings of Richard Rose "><B>Tweeny Town</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="writings_of_richard_rose_m.htm#paradox" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Writings of Richard Rose "><B>Lord Paradox</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="writings_of_richard_rose_m.htm#key_passages" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Writings of Richard Rose "><B>Key Passages</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="writings_of_richard_rose_m.htm#the_grand_work_of_the_tat_society" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Writings of Richard Rose "><B>The Grand Work</B></A><A HREF="writings_of_richard_rose_m.htm#the_grand_work_of_the_tat_society" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Writings of Richard Rose "><B> of TAT</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="writings_of_richard_rose_m.htm#intuition_and_reason_" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Writings of Richard Rose "><B>Intuition and Reason</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="writings_of_richard_rose_m.htm#zen_by_richard_rose" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Writings of Richard Rose "><B>Zen</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="writings_of_richard_rose_m.htm#top" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="Writings of Richard Rose "><I><B>- Back to Top -</B></I></A></div> <div> <I>Copyright 2003 by Richard Rose. All Rights Reserved</I></div> </td> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=95 style=" border-bottom: 1px solid #999980;" BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04b8dfe1esnpes.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#336666" FACE="Arial" ><B>The Mystic Missal - A Door to Ways and Means on the Spiritual Path</B></FONT><B>     </B><B>|</B><B>    </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Mystic Missal A Door to Ways and Me"><B> H</B></A><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Mystic Missal A Door to Ways and Me"><B>ome</B></A><B>   </B><A HREF="site_map.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Site Map"><B> Site Map</B></A><B>   </B><A HREF="monthlymissal.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Missal Newsletter "><B> Missal Newsletter</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="prayers.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mystic Missal Prayers">Mystic Missal Prayers</A>   |   <B>Writings of Richard Rose </B>   |   <A HREF="whoami.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Who Am I?">Who Am I?</A>   |   <A HREF="library.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Library ">Library </A>    <A HREF="archive_index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Archive Index">Archive</A><A HREF="archive_index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Archive Index">s</A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=385 width="100%" colspan=2 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04b8dfc3.jpg"> <div> <I>Writings of Richard Rose </I></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div>  <A NAME="top"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><I>Copyright 2003 by Richard Rose. All Rights Reserved</I></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <I><B>Mr. Rose</B></I><I> had a unique presentation, unencumbered by pomp, pretense, or pseudo-logic. He spoke directly to the hearts and minds of his listeners, mixing penetrating insight with an all-encompassing humor that often stunned his audience, while simultaneously altering their view of the world. Many people came away from his talks with the distinct impression that, somehow, he was directly addressing their personal problems and inner states. </I></div> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="defining_the_truth"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>Defining the Truth</B></div> <bR> <div> Most serious-minded people talk about the "Truth." But they take it for granted. They never get down to setting up measurements by which to gauge the Truth so that they will realize it when they hear it. They presume to be able to recognize it, and some go as far as to presume to be the fortunate possessors of it.</div> <div> The Truth is a path more than a realization of measurability. The scientist feels that he is a pursuer of Truth, but the products of the scientific laboratory are more likely to be cannons and culture rather than inklings of the first cause or man's picture of ultimate destiny. And the same scientist who may be trying to crack the atom or split a chromosome, may privately have massive rationalizations about religion, personal definition, or personal destiny. So that he is a mechanical seeker, but not an entire and dynamic seeker,--even though he functions mechanically in his scientific quest much more valuably than most of humanity.</div> <div> Truth is a path because it is never fully realized, and because many aspects of the search for Truth remain relative. Man is a being whose consciousness depends upon fickle senses and a mind largely capable of witnessing in a relative manner, and largely incapable of direct knowledge.</div> <div> Truth may well be absolute in nature, but to bicameral man with the necessary bi-polar survey of all things,--a definition of absolute or abstract things or states may be readily seized and accepted in relative form, that is, with relative and possibly equivocal words.</div> <div> Every last one of us thinks we are right. Which means that we think we have the Truth or that if we do not have it, no one else will do any better. But everyone has a different definition of it. And with this different definition upon the minds of men, we have a subtle, unseen Tower of Babel which stands between the minds of men so that they cannot strive together. There is much talk of the brotherhood of seekers for Truth, but this brotherhood is split up into myriad groups with no common language or understanding. And all of this is because they presupposed, a priori, that which they expected Truth to be, and so defined it, rather than sought it for whatever it might be when found.</div> <div> The Bible indicates that we should seek if we wish to find. Yet with equal authority Christ exhorts us to believe in Him if we wish to be saved. Now finding the Truth and being saved may be<B> </B>two entirely different projects, but believing is not compatible with seeking. The believer does not seek; he accepts that which another extends.</div> <div> And with this bit of ambiguity the Christian world, for one, is hampered in honestly seeking for Truth. Lazily each sect rests upon a belief rather than upon a conviction. They comfort one another with the mutual back-scratching, and make decrees to the effect that other religions are worthy seekers also, but perhaps less fortunate. They comfort their congregation and financial supporter by telling them that man was never supposed to learn the True nature of things, and dumbfound the mind with the cliche that the finite mind will never perceive the infinite.</div> <div> It cannot be that terrible. Absolute Truth is not absolutely inaccessible to us, and relative truth is definitely accessible. We must desire the Truth, and have a capacity for it else we could not receive it even if it came to us by accident.</div> <div> We cannot shut our mind to any phase of reality, and still have a capacity for Truth in another field. For if we rationalize about one thing, then rationalization may well be a mental habit cooperating with our laziness or desire-thinking, and we are liable to rationalize about vital things. We cannot lie to ourselves in little things, or what we consider little things, and still be competent to receive knowledge of that which we admit to be more vital or more important.</div> <div> The divergences of beliefs among men, whether these beliefs be religious, philosophic, or political, are not an indication of the infallibility of the masses nor of justification for the idea that everyone is correct to a degree. We like to think that the divergent observer is just looking at Truth from another or oblique angle. And rather than solve the problem, the divergent parties democratically vote everyone to be correct.</div> <div> These procedures make for compatibility and social harmony, but they put the mind to sleep. We are either right or wrong. And if we are honest with ourselves and true to ourselves we do not wish to wait for twenty years to outgrow a religion. It is our sacred right as profaned animals to understand our state. It is our sacred right to doubt and to question. It must remain our valued trust,--that we trust no authority. We must listen and sit down with an occasional book, but any acceptance should be tentative until we have a complete picture.</div> <div> When I say that we are either right or wrong, I am speaking of relative truth-seeking. In the absolute state, things may well be neither right or wrong, or both. And while we aspire to an absolute state, and to absolute Truth, it remains doubtful if we will ever attain the absolute Truth if we compromise relative truth, or shut our eyes to reality.</div> <div> Let us not pretend to be seekers while we remain addicted to vanity or enslaved to conventions. Likewise we are living a lie when we dedicate years or decades to the pursuit of pleasure or ambition, when in the honest analysis, we can find no valid gain for our search. And when we are guided by fear or emotion to accept a creed, we have neither a chance for truth nor an honest self-identification.</div> <div> Many people have found reality for the first time in the depths of alcoholism, or drug addiction, or rather, have found reality after passing through the depths. They managed to become alcoholics because alcohol alone, or drugs alone, made it possible for them to live with massive rationalizations in the form of religion or social mores, from which their inner intuition rebelled.</div> <div> We live in a cloud of illusions. We cling to them, legislate them in our councils, create and deify them in our religious dogma, breed them into our children, and rarely realize that we are spinning this web of fiction for all the hours and days of our lives unless we are fortunate or unfortunate enough to die slowly. I was shocked the first time I heard a priest at a funeral pray that all of those present might be granted a slow death. For a moment I thought him a barbarian carrying to the extreme his cult of masochism. But perhaps that slow death may be the only moments of reality for the total life of many earthlings. Because a dying man is forced to face the fact that he is about to become zero, and the pseudo-comforts that promised glorious lights, trumpets and escorting angels, now have no meaning. All that the dying man knows is that he is about to begin to rot. Nothingness has more meaning to him, and embodies his world of reality more than all of the religions and cliches of a human-animal philosophy eternally cursed and confounded by language and its deceptions.</div> <div> This dying man knows too late the value of the doubt, and the foolishness of faith unless that faith be in his own power to solve the problem or cut the Gordian knot. Blind faith is only rationalization. It is the little pig that does not wish to grow up, and procrastinates weaning. It is the weakling-child that replaces sturdy effort with boasting and lies of pretended achievement. The most fanatical and dangerous (that is recriminatory) type of religious zealot is the one that would make a political cause out of his favorite religion, rather than go through the effort to make his life a true religion of Search.</div> <div> There is but one Truth. To equivocate for the sake of social compatibility is to sell our spiritual nature for cowardly bargaining with the herd, when the bargaining is not necessary. For ages the wise men have served notice that we must remain inconspicuous, and this silence will help avert the teeth of the herd. But unless someone occasionally speaks up, the sincere will have no encouragement.</div> <div> We might ask here, "How shall we know the Truth? What is Reality?" We can only know the Truth by teaching ourselves to face the truth in all things. If we encourage our computer to come up with erroneous answers, because they are more desirable, then we are developing a computer that we may never be able to trust.</div> <div> Let us take examples in social experience. Many of us, and many people we know employ incomplete formulae to govern their lives. After decades of misery they realize that they were lying to themselves. The decades would usually be prolonged but the person's friends become alienated, or they continue until some disastrous climax brings the truth into focus. This distress is usually caused by inadequate or incomplete assessment of the general picture of life.</div> <div> We have the young bully who thinks that he is invincible. Repeated conquests have led him to believe that kindness is a sign of weakness. He may even believe that he is a gigantic avatar sent by the gods to boot the peasants of the earth into line. He does not bother to find out what line the gods want him to follow, for in reality it is his line.</div> <div> The bully will eventually be rebuffed. Someone will change his philosophy with the same convincing force he meted out to others. His sadism will become inverted and he will see that he did not even have half of the picture of his destiny. But he may have rationalized half or three-fourths of his life away trying to be a bully before he relents and admits that he has little sure destiny except the all-conquering grave. And by the time he relents and realizes, it is too late for his brutalized brain to ponder anything beyond the grave.</div> <div> Everyday we meet people who admit that they have been fooling themselves for years. They are generally up in years, and will be found more frequently in ale-houses than in churches. Instead of group-therapy, the churches specialize in mass-make-believe.</div> <div> It is difficult to prescribe a conduct of Seekers of Truth. But Truth is that which is. A person who dyes his hair or wears a wig is not truthful. A person who wears clothes other than to cover himself is not truthful. A person who uses cosmetics except for comedy, is not truthful. The naked body with its tell-tale wrinkles, its sagging folds of fat, bowed legs, and collapsing organs, may be much more conducive to Truth than years of church-attendance, if we just observe in it our unglamorous destiny.</div> <div> I am not advocating nudity since nudity may well be a rationalization or excuse to emphasize the urges of the body. Yet it is hard to tell which would do the worse for our salvation (enlightenment),--a parade of undyed nudes or a parade of vain clothes-horses on Easter Sunday.</div> <div> Much of our religion is vanity. We clothe ourselves in it and strut about as if to mock the feathers of our neighbors. Too many of us think that we have chosen the true religion by virtue of our better intellect. We even manage to glorify ourselves by manifesting compassion for those who are less concerned with such toys as missionary work and conversion. We will carry a badge to show our superior position. The badge will be a quotation from the Bible, a talisman, a secret word, water on the head, or a missing foreskin.</div> <div> What do we know for sure? We know very little. We find ourselves to be a rotting body, with thoughts and hope for something more permanent. Yet like children, we deck the body with importance, even as we vainly embalm the corpse to delay the truth. I am reminded of the case of the Narcissist, a woman who always wished to be a nun. She maintained that she was living for God, and that she was remaining pure for Him. In reality she was remaining pure because she abhorred change and aging. But her grand rationalization carried right through until her death. She refused a doctor out of modesty, and the result was a slow death. This woman never seemed to contemplate that God might have intended for her to reproduce. We evince the most blatant egotism when we announce that we are doing something for God. We who are not able to identify ourselves are about to oil the eternal mechanisms.</div> <div> Let us look at this woman with candor. Let us just see that which she is. We will not presuppose that God created her, or that God is even around or concerned. This we do not know. But we know that she has been born with female organs, and feminine instincts to promote her female functioning. The prompting of those instincts, and the uncontrollable cycles imposed upon her by nature have become evil things or sins. She feels responsible for the hormones that might find their way into her blood, or the consequent thoughts that might find their way into her thinking. She lives a life of self-recrimination and confession in never-ending apology for having a body that she did not ask for, and which may have been created by agencies who are more responsible for it than the sufferer.</div> <div> Again we do not denounce this unfortunate lady. Her tactic was her only means available to seek a better existence. She saw only a facet of the picture, and thought she had found the only door in the universe. She was a seeker in her own way, and her death-ordeal testifies to her intensity. But we cannot help but feel that her dynamic energy was wasted somewhat, and that the waste lies at the feet of the priest-union that preferred to let her make a life of sincere effort and tangential uselessness, out of what may have been a more articulate and understanding seeker. The priest-union preferred this to making an admission concerning the relative importance of moral teachings.</div> <div> The purpose of this example is to show that it is possible for persons to follow a diligent tack all through life, which tack is absurd to minds of most other observers. It is possible that similar zealots find themselves on these life-long tangential paths because somewhere early in their lives they formed a fabric of rationalization rather than face reality.</div> <div> That which is believed by the majority of humanity is not necessarily the truth. This is a common error, man makes. Man thinks that if everyone or the majority of people believe a thing, that popularity makes it the truth. At one time the universal concept was that the sun revolved about the earth. At one time the thinking or scientific world had a "phlogiston" theory which was later dissipated.</div> <div> Faith can change material things to a limited degree only. It did not render the earth flat nor did it arrest the cycles of the sun. If the sun danced at Fatima it would have involved motions for that star which would not only have been noticeable elsewhere, but would have required that the sun travel at fantastic speeds out of its regular position. So that while millions of people may believe that the sun danced at Fatima, it is equally valid to offer or to believe that the minds of the viewers were simultaneously hallucinated, or hypnotized. I do not mean to imply that the hypnosis was caused by human agency, necessarily. Religious leaders when weary of their theological diggings, resort to edict and dogma. The scientific world, while more laborious, is prone to lean heavily upon its "concepts" and "theories," and much of the engineering in new fields treats these theories as fact by virtue of habit.</div> <div> Again let us return to the observation of the two apparent types of truth. There is actually only one real Truth, but too soon we must admit that real Truth is absolute and ideal in nature. We are apt to coin another word, "relative truth," for want of a better word to express our attempts to calibrate validity with a relative and restricted mind. It is better to understand that while searching for the Truth we will believe things that we will later no longer believe to be the truth, and this previous state of appreciation I would prefer to call incomplete truth, leading perhaps eventually to absolute Truth.</div> <div> The human family is constantly finding things to be more true or less true. It is finding more perfect material formulae, and is discarding inetticient or erroneous formulae. If it can apply this weeding-out process to the vast tangle of metaphysical and religious formulae, it will begin to make progress.</div> <div> The human family has been in the past in the habit of accepting ideas or spiritual concepts without even a half-hearted attempt to set up a formula. We know nothing of life after death, of the nature of our own essence, or of the motivating agencies of the visible or invisible worlds. The human family for centuries has just accepted that which sounded good or quieted their fears and made the children more tractable.</div> <div> Our civilization has come to a point where we know about quality and demand that our food contain certain qualities, and that those who handle it do so with clean hands. But that admittedly most valuable tbod which is spiritual, too often comes from mountebanks, misfits, and often degenerates who know that their pretense may never be challenged, or their venality exposed. Modern society accepts religions that render compatibility, that keep down crime, and that work in harmony with the state.</div> <div> We are allowing ourselves to be tortured by our clergy, even as the witch-doctor applied the needle of fear to keep his sinecure, in primitive cultures. The clergy maintained darkness for centuries with their "Anti-modernistic Oaths," or equivalents of such. They were not concerned with the laity, who over those centuries were reacting with.more mature common-sense. While unable to deny that their function was that of a hammer, they maintained that God was the hand that swung the hammer. Generally if the peasant questioned the identity of the swinger of the hammer, he received a blow from the hammer.</div> <div> A new trend now is growing. The men of science and the beatniks who proclaim their own common sense, have united to admit that God is dead. The new trend has no more validity than the old one. Yet, we may take a note. If the existence of God in the minds of men may be maintained by faith or belief, then denial or belief of non-existence may bring an end to God ,--if God has no more existence than in the minds of men. We must seek for that which is, and we will find that such facts are indestructible and not dependent on belief or human acceptance.</div> <div> There is but one way to begin and promote such a search. It is the sorting of the most likely answer from the oceanic froth of data. It requires courage, diligence, perseverance and an open mind.</div> <bR> <div> <I><B>Richard Rose</B></I></div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B> <A NAME="key_passages"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>KEY PASSAGES REGARDING THE METHOD OF</B></div> <div> <B>SPIRITUAL SEEKING</B></div> <div> <B>-- FROM THE WRITINGS OF RICHARD ROSE</B></div> <div> <I>Compiled by Shawn Nevins</I></div> <bR> <div> [Note: This is not an introduction to Richard Rose's writings. Rather it is a study aid for those attempting to understand and implement the Albigen System.] <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" ><I>Copyright 2003 by Richard Rose. All Rights Reserved</I></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>--from </B><I><B>The Direct Mind Experience :</B></I></div> <bR> <div> The path to Truth, or Reality or Essence is very simple: </div> <div>      It requires a Selfish man, an individualist not afraid of the annihilation of individualism, a fearless man not afraid of powers within him that are much greater than himself, and a man of suicidal relentlessness once his commitment is given.</div> <div> All that is necessary to find the Truth is an unconditional commitment, -- not putting a time upon the commitment nor a greater value on any other desires or fears. If a person sincerely makes a commitment he automatically becomes a vector in a sure direction.</div> <div> But if we wish to see the commitment become an Absolute result in this lifetime, we must be conscious of our limited time, and of ways and means to expedite the realization. All energies must give priority to the vector. Every hour must be used in a way to expedite the success.</div> <div> So that as soon as the general commitment is made, we should immediately commit our energies which are generally used for anger or pleasure so that transmutation will bring Intuition.</div> <div> The voice of Intuition will be our most valuable teacher. It will furnish all future planning for the campaign. But do not rest. Make violent efforts but do not disturb the sleepers. (P. 315)</div> <div> Before you get into too much of this business of a reverse vector you have to develop an intuition, or you will not know how to decide that which is absurd.</div> <div>      Basically we have to develop our intuition and our reason. Now there are ways of developing your intuition. One</div> <div> of them, of course, is by checking it. For instance by using ESP cards, -- trying to pick up things directly with your mind and then watching to see if you're getting a greater degree of accuracy.</div> <div> There are certain mental exercises, such as using mathematics, that can be used. We give an "intensive" of largely mental math exercises, prepared for the purpose of exercising logic, to try to get you to try to think in an orderly manner, rather than in a random, desire manner.</div> <div> There is a certain lifestyle, a certain way of living that develops your intuition.</div> <div> The next thing to concentrate on of course is, basically, work. You have to get into the place where the material is, with people who know something. You have to join some sort of human relationship, to work with some group if possible, so that you will be reminded to go back when you slip and forget. Reminded to keep digging, keep meditating, or keep some sort of action going that will keep your head on the problem. Because this process is basically the sharpening-up of a computer. Giving the computer two important faculties, developing these faculties, and then keeping a problem in that computer incessantly.</div> <div> This process is equated in some Zen schools by the use of a koan.</div> <div> You can use then an English koan to a much better advantage. Such as the words, "Who am I?" or "What am I?" or "What am I doing?" This type ofkoan is more effective. And there are variations of it as you go along such as, "What is intuition?"</div> <div> Now this outline is about as much as can be given out as the generally advised path. The detailed path for the person who is interested in finding self-realization -- that is, total self-realization -- is almost an individual case. You just can't write a general blueprint .... Because you're going to run into many instances of roadblocks that are not in the books. Each personality is different and each set of egos is rooted differently.</div> <div> Here again the group is of value. Whether there is a teacher or not, some people may be able to help you recognize an ego that you may not be aware of. And it is not always a group confrontation, -- the cure for a lot of this is an individual one-to-one thing. (pp. 79-81)</div> <bR> <div> Outside of what I have already told you [in the previous quote], there are two things that are practiced. One is the arrival at a knowledge of let's say the mundane self, or personality, -- the elimination of the discrepancies in the personality, false beliefs, and that sort of thing.</div> <div> The second is the practice that aims at direct mind communication. There's nothing complicated about this, -- we call it confrontation. It's like an encounter, where people actually try to be honest. And then there's the rapport. (p. 106)</div> <bR> <div> It [finding Reality] will only take you as long as it takes to master Between-ness, -- Between-ness according to this formula.</div> <div> You must will to find the Truth. Now that term is so general that the mind is apt to reject the quest as being without direction. But where would I tell you to look for the Truth? ...You begin by reading and studying everything that you can find on the subject of psychology and philosophy: Then give an equal period of time to the study of esoteric phenomena and claims to such, and to the compilation of phenomena not explainable by science. And then spend another period of time in thinking of nothing, or in an attempt to purge the mind from all thinking.</div> <div> Set you mind against dogmatic, or political trends in mental and spiritual organizations. Set your mind against an obsession with money, pleasure or power .... Set your will to find the Truth or die trying, and become so much of a vector that you will actually choose death to a life style that would damn the Search.</div> <div> Then when your will is set in the matter, forget about the Will and allow anything to happen that does not jeopardize your Search. And you thus become a Will-less Will-ful vector ....</div> <div>      Practice introspection. You are looking for your Self. You must begin with studying the body, even though you may suspect that the body is only a temporary shell. You cannot allow yourself to simply suspect this, -- you must prove the real relation of the body to the Self. You cannot pretend that it is an impediment to Truth. While on this planet, it is the only point of reference for your awareness until you are able to leave that body and return.</div> <div> The body must be encouraged to remain still while the mind watches both the body and the mind. When the body becomes so still that it becomes lost in sleep, then we must become a peripatetic,-- for a while. (pp. 305-306)</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>--From the </B><I><B>Meditation Papers :</B></I></div> <bR> <div> Unless we examine the thought process simultaneously with intense psychological analysis, there is a chance that we may</div> <div> be sidetracked for long periods of time, meaning years      (p.10)</div> <bR> <div> Levels of Meditation</div> <div> 1. Remembering incidents of traumatic or reactive nature.</div> <div> 2. Finding the final self among the many selves of voices.</div> <div> 3. Analyzation of thought-processes.</div> <div> 4. Going within. Employ whatever necessary.</div> <div> 5. Transmission</div> <bR> <div> Confrontation is not meditation. It is a technique used to provoke meditation, to get the mind off dead center.</div> <bR> <div> Preparation for Meditation</div> <div> 1. Find a place that will allow you to be quiet.</div> <div> 2. Reduce body-turbulence.</div> <div> 3. Do not fight Nature, but take a holiday from the whole Nature-game.</div> <div> 4. Provide synthetic irritation to keep the mind working.</div> <div> 5. Be aware of all obstacles, and Laws [listed in <I>The Albigen Papers]. </I>(p.30)</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>-- From </B><I><B>The Albigen Papers :</B></I></div> <bR> <div> I recommend for those not otherwise addicted, to embark upon a threefold path .... I would explain the mechanism as a sort of troika, the vehicle being the individual, and the three powers that are pulling the vehicle with proportionate pace are the Truth, the Law of the Contractor (brotherhood), and the Life of Search. (p. 184)</div> <bR> <div> I feel that a sincere seeker who possessed the determination to find the Truth at any cost, suffering, or expenditure of energy, would most certainly find the Truth, if he followed the threefold path with an open mind. The part of that path which is hardest to realize is that dealing with the brotherhood or school .... This latter requires compatibility with a group of people and requires that we find a group that is doing something worthwhile. (p. 189)</div> <bR> <div> If I have a system, it is simply a system by which Truth is reached by the continual analysis (not breakage) of various transcendental poses, and by a constant vigil over the many factors within the self. (p. 193)</div> <bR> <div> The rate of realization is directly proportional to the amount and quality of energy and attention applied to the quest. (p. 194)</div> <bR> <div> A lot can be said about techniques that are relative to our thinking processes, or that help in understanding ourselves. This is a partial list:</div> <div> 1.  Progressive elimination of concepts and concept-building by eliminating those not as consistent within themselves, not as inclusive, and those whose scope does not bridge the range of unexplained phenomena as well as some other system of thinking does.</div> <div> 2.  Self-observation.</div> <div> 3.  Self-remembering. (Looking at our past.)</div> <div> 4.  The respectful doubt.</div> <div> 5.  Application of the paradox.</div> <div> 6.  Development of the Intuition.</div> <div> 7.  Retaining the identity of the Real Observer in various states of mind. (p. 195)</div> <bR> <div> The inhibition of the appetites, for a period of time, is conducive to the development of the intuition. Sex, being the appetite with the strongest desire, must be proportionately inhibited. (p. 208)</div> <bR> <div> Three Steps in Using the Maximum Reversal Technique</div> <div> 1.     When we employ curiosity and desire to search for our definition, we are on the path.</div> <div> 2.     Step-two deals with developing the intuition.</div> <div> 3.     The third step involves a conscious effort to retraverse our projected ray. (pp. 215-216)</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>-- From </B><I><B>Psychology of the Observer :</B></I></div> <bR> <div> It does not matter which posture you choose for thinking [meditation], nor whether you have a prayer or chant. I sometimes feel that it is better to think on your feet, and while walking. However, whichever posture or place is chosen, it is good to be alone, -- to spend a prescribed time alone each day in some manner.</div> <div> As for diet, the only thing to remember, is that we should avoid getting overloaded. A distended paunch takes all the blood from the head, and negates most thoughts except the thought of sleep. (p.75)</div> <bR> <div>      The beginnings of meditation take on the appearance of a mental and physical battle. First the body has to come under control.  Secondly the mind has to come under control.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <I>[Four steps to controlling the mind]</I></div> <div>      1.  It is realized by now that our thoughts happen of their own, one thought paving the way for the next, causing the next. The first step in controlling the thoughts is to realize this.</div> <div>      2.  The second step is the establishing of an objective which we wish to insert into this seemingly unbreakable chain of thought-caused thoughts. In this instance the thing which we wish to place into the computer, or before the mind, is the self.</div> <div>      3.  The third step is to avoid trying to view the self directly and objectively until the mind is placed under some control. Do not try to visualize an Umpire for instance. Wait until you know the mind well enough so that the workings which we label as the Umpire become overwhelmingly manifest ....</div> <div>      4.  The fourth step begins the work of controlling the thoughts. To begin with the thoughts are not controlled, directly, but indirectly. We cannot force ourselves to think of a subject, but we can isolate the mind so that there is nothing else of importance to think about.</div> <bR> <div> If you wish to, you can literally put things out of your mind.</div> <div> We use this blocking-out technique <I>only after we have vocally or manifestly made our commitment which was the second step. </I>So that we have given a silent order to the computer. And the order reads that we prefer to think of nothing rather than tolerate rambling thoughts.</div> <div> Something happens after this routine is practiced for a length of time. We begin to notice a motion within the head. The physical head does not move, but we become conscious of a mental head that literally tums away from a view. When you are able to turn this internal head, whenever you wish, without any inability to continue thinking, you are half way home. (pp. 87-88)</div> <bR> <div> There are no further steps, beyond reminding the self of the urgency of the study, and the setting up of ways and means to renew the interest of the mind, and the exercising of the imagination to find new avenues to approach the study. From the fourth step, all depends upon the increase of inspiration by the fruits of our labor into introspection. (p. 90)</div> <bR> <div> We must have first become a vector. We must first have spent a good period of time studying our own awareness and consciousness with our own consciousness until we accidentally or by some unknown purpose, -- enter the source of our awareness.</div> <div> Directions beyond the Process Observer depend upon a determination that sustains the seeker in the face of no methods and no blueprints. If you are interested in Psychology only, the realization of the self as a Process Observer is a satisfactory achievement. If you are interested in looking for Essence, from the point of Process Observer you can be stimulated only by writings of inspiration rather than reason and direction (read the <I>Books of the Absolute). </I>(p. 92)</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>-- From </B><I><B>Energy Transmutation and Betweenness :</B></I></div> <bR> <div> Individual genius, is directly related to the ability by that individual to know and store, and properly use that quantum-energy. Likewise with spiritual progress. Spiritual progress depends upon that transmuted energy. (p. 19)</div> <bR> <div> The use of energy involves three steps: The <I>creation </I>or <I>generation </I>of energy, the <I>conservation </I>of energy, and the <I>projection </I>or <I>sublimation </I>of energy. (p. 41)</div> <bR> <div> Celibacy was one of the disciplines used to generate additional Mental Quantum, usually with the hope of finding Essence- Realization or GOD. (p. 42)</div> <bR> <div> Concentration, if persistent enough, will transmute the sexual energy, and influence the direction of future sexual energy build-ups. Most Kundalini exercises involve concentration, and therein lies the real secret of raising that power. (p. 44)</div> <bR> <div> However a few guideposts can be set up [regarding celibacy]. One is that sex should not be attacked as an evil.</div> <div> We should also constantly remind ourselves that we are determined to be celibate, but that we will not blow our brains out if we are occasionally remiss in the early days of the attempt.</div> <div> We should never take the stand that nature is evil either. Celibacy should be approached mentally, not physically. No physical means of repression is advisable.</div> <div>      If the sexual urge is persistent and strong, we should get into some sort of discipline (mental) that will keep the mind occupied so that it will not wander into morbid reverie. (pp. 47-48)</div> <bR> <div> There are two roads to enlightenment. The way of intense, individual effort that has no predictableness at all about it. It is just a relentless blind struggle to summon the whole entity to find definition. The other way is semi-synthetic. It too involves all of the above conditions and unpredictableness, but in addition to the solitary efforts of the student, there are attempts by the student to accelerate his progress with the aid of a group of fellows, or with the aid of a teacher or helper.</div> <div> In the use of the semi-synthetic method of expediting the individual search for Truth, some artificial methods are employed to provoke the Tension needed for a break-through.</div> <div> Tension is the prime element in any spiritual exaltation. (pp. 53-54)</div> <bR> <div> Our particular group employs a practice of sitting in a meditative circle that is known as a rapport session.</div> <div> A monitor or teacher should be present that is able to perceive the presence of the energy in the room, and who is likewise able to know the person in the room most able to receive it. When he knows this, he can direct it, and propel the recipient into an experience.</div> <div> The rapport is really a Tension technique in itself. It is a phenomenon inspired by the Tension of meditation, combined with the automatic habit of sharing energy, the latter being the inclination of social functions. This function, or session, occurring as it does among people who have no physical or sexual contacts, will automatically utilize that Tension for reaching out .... (pp. 57-58)</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>--From Unpublished "Laws" Paper :</B></div> <bR> <div> <U>Law of Proportional Retums: </U>You will get that which you give. Effort is rewarded and helping others inspires help. Helping also develops in us a more acceptable attitude.</div> <div> <U>Law of the Ladder: </U>The law says that you should not reach below the rung upon which you stand, except to the first rung below you, -- in order to help people. If you reach down too low your efforts will be wasted .... The Law also says that you cannot be helped by anyone too far above you, because you are not prepared to work on the same level at which he is working .... We will be lucky if we can find one man who can help us, but we should be working with six or more on the rung below.</div> <div> <U>Law of Love: </U>The proper application of the Law should be in the direction of the friends upon the path, those on our rung and 2 adjacent rungs. This love can be expressed as friendship of the most unselfish type ....</div> <div> <U>Law of the Reversed Vector: </U>Man must become identified as a vector, or force, if he wishes for results. If this vector is ailned in the wrong direction (relative world scene) his life is wasted. The Law states that you cannot approach the Truth. You must become (a vector), but you cannot learn the absolute Truth.</div> <div> We find that there is only one way, and that is to first build ourselves a very determined person, -- a vector. We must back into the Truth by backing away from untruth.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>--From Unpublished "Visitor's or Enquirer's Sheet" :</B></div> <bR> <div> The whole core of our system revolves in confrontation. Attendance is the first step.</div> <div> Confrontation is the [second] step. A practice of starting to look seriously inside.</div> <div> The third step is participation in rapport sessions.</div> <div> So that the system which you see here is two-fold. It is a mental technique for approaching a knowledge of essence, and an energy implementation for the direct experience of that essence.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>--From Unpublished "Monitor Papers" :</B></div> <bR> <div> This is a system that finds truth by retreating from untruth. (p. 3)</div> <bR> <div> With each error we know of things to look for. With each error the [group] monitor who errs, is able to see his ego, and he helps the other monitors to avoid that which tripped him.</div> <div> First of all the important thing about monitoring is that it is ladderwork .... If he is able to function as a monitor, he will have the advantage of using the whole group to better see himself, so that his group confrontations should be taken humbly, in full knowledge that he will see himself more clearly at the expense occasionally of others.</div> <div> Also, the monitor is now functioning in an increasing[ly] dual role. He is working on himself, in that he mirrors all of his own personal traits against the group...and he is taking advantage of the very existence of the group to do his ladderwork on higher and higher levels, or more and more intense levels.</div> <div> SO THAT THE MONITOR MUST ALWAYS BE COMPASSIONATE AND HUMBLE, while being forceful and impersonal. (p. 12)</div> <bR> <div> It is apparent that each must help someone else grow, while working on his private life and discipline. The group must always continue to grow, and plan to grow, and plan to anticipate and avoid slippages against growth...in order to form more and more opportunity for each to have some matrix within which to do ladder work. (p. 13)</div> <bR> <div> We have to draw a code for general Ashram morality. A sexual relationship, even though normal, is a trap. If you like traps, go ahead, but do not look for or demand company. A heterosexual trap is not as bad as a homosexual trap. Homosexuals who pair off and live quietly are not as bad as those who play the field because they are not operating even under the guise of faithfulness and friendship. People who have sex with animals are the lowest on the ladder. You have the right to take your pick of these levels. (p. 22)</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>-- From Unpublished "Chart of the Detailed Steps" :</B></div> <bR> <div> WAY:</div> <div> 1.     Set the house in order. (Domestic)</div> <div> Plan for tranquility and security.</div> <div> 2.     Learn to conserve the energies. Find DETERMINATION AND DESIRE FOR DIRECTION with the success of conserving the energies.</div> <div> 3.     Direct the energies profitably. (Study and search)</div> <bR> <div> LIFE:</div> <div> 1.     Value BROTHERHOOD AND COOPERATION. Brotherhood involves spiritual, mental, and physical help, in that order.</div> <div> 2.     Utilize and understand the LAW OF THE LADDER. The Sangha is the matrix in which the law of the ladder bears fruit.</div> <div> 3.     Become a VECTOR. You must become a vector BEFORE YOU CAN BECOME THE TRUTH.</div> <bR> <div> TRUTH:</div> <div> 1.  Tell the truth in all things relative. (Physical or vocal truth)</div> <div> 2.  DO NOT RATIONALIZE. (Mental truth)</div> <div> 3.  BECOME THE TRUTH. (Absolute Truth)</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>-- From Unpublished "Method" :</B></div> <bR> <div> The directive is threefold in that you are advised to BE or become the Truth, the Way, and the Life, which has practically the same meaning as the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.</div> <div> The manner of following each of these three directives, in turn involves work on three levels, the Physical, the Mental, and the Essential (or Essence).</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> I. Physical Steps</div> <div> A.  Set the house in order. This means that we must find some economic security, we must keep the physical house healthy as it will either quit thinking or think unreliably, and we must adjust the domestic scene, so that the people with whom we live will be amenable to the search.</div> <div> B.  Find a person or persons who have been down the road that we wish to follow. Look for books that will advise or furnish coordinative material. Travel in this regard if necessary, but never allow travel to become an escape in itself from interior work.</div> <div> C.  Find your fellow-seekers.</div> <div> D.  Find a place to meet, and work together with these teachers and fellow-seekers.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> II. Mental Steps</div> <div> A.  Implement regular, periodic, mental exercises with directed meditation.</div> <div> B.  Or use Koan concentration.</div> <div> C.  Use self-confrontation. That is to find for yourself ways and means of self-analysis.</div> <bR> <div>                          III. Essential Steps</div> <div> A.  Reverse the vector</div> <div> B.  Find the obstacles that you must learn in order to avoid them in the process of reversal.</div> <div> C.  Allow the ego to be eliminated, as it is the main obstacle.</div> <div> D.  Constantly implement the Laws that are listed in the Albigen Papers.</div> <div> E.  Find transmission from someone who has attained. (This transmission can best be effected in Ashram life.)</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="man_is_complex___the_truth_is_simple__"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <div> <B><U>Man is complex.  The Truth is simple</U></B><B>.  The path to the Truth needs to be complex only in coping with complex interference by man's mind. As that interference is removed, the path becomes proportionately more simple.</B></div> <div> <B>The questions that you must ask yourself naturally begin with a question as to whether you actually want to approach reality. The next question would ask yourself if you are going to postulate reality before discovering it. Are you aware that there is relative reality, which is the god of conventionality, and then there is reality, not yet attained fully, but which is understood to be ultimate or absolute reality.</B></div> <div> <B>Another question to ask yourself deals with the amount of time you can or are willing to spend in search of that Reality.  Results are proportional to energy applied. Can you afford to waste twenty years of your life, probing and believing a system, only to find that it is incomplete, spurious or of an anodyne nature?  That you lose your money in the process is not near as important as the time that is lost, because the older you get the more intractable and calcified the mental abilities become.</B></div> <div> <B>We should give some attention to the observations of life in relation to life's termination. Is memory synaptic or molecular, and not a spirit-attribute? If the former is true, what type of post-mortem survival can we expect? Is there any real immortality without the memory of previous or earthly actions and personality? Recent experiments with planaria, and with observations of the DNA molecule, lead us to believe that memory is physical.</B></div> <div> <B>It seems that if this is true, there are only two windows open by which we can hope to see immortality. One would be a system of spiritualizing physical memory, or of adjusting to a life after death that would be one of awareness only, or possibly of particularizing that awareness down to mundane and personality-memories.</B></div> <div> <B>Observing and tentatively accepting these ideas for the sake of planning future spiritual endeavors, we can see that wisdom, if it is at best only synaptic, cortical or molecular, ---will do us no good in any future life. So that many old systems of development aimed at the relative mind, and now meet with little response from the public that is more aware. And it does not matter if those systems were involved in magic, symbolic study, ritual, prayers, or in some arcane system of concentration. All is lost when the brain rots, or when the memory-bearing chromosome decays and allows the DNA molecule to disperse and deteriorate.</B></div> <div> <B>Man must first know that part of him which really IS, before he begins the cultivation of faculties. First know thyself. And this also implies that you must first become. The Albigen Papers include a system that tells you how to become.</B></div> <div> <B>They do not pretend to offer any somatic advantages or improvement of physical faculties, nor do they pretend to be a spiritual placebo, nor to improve your business, nor to flatter your estimates, nor to lengthen your life, --but they do hope to use some of that brief span of time to its best advantage in finding self-definition and essence-realization.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Richard Rose</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div>  <A NAME="_an_outline_of_the_spiritual_path"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> <B>-An Outline of the Spiritual Path:</B></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B><U>METHOD</U></B></div> <bR> <div> The system advised is threefold, and the symbol of the pyramid is used to remind the student at all times that he cannot just work on one level at a time.  The directive is threefold in that you are advised to BE or become the Truth, the Way, and the Life, which has practically the same meaning as the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sanghat.</div> <bR> <div> The manner of following each of these three directives, in turn involves work on three levels, the Physical, the Mental, and the Essential (of Essence).</div> <bR> <div> Some of the work on these levels can be done by the individual, and some of them can only be done by the individual. On the other hand, the final realization of Essence comes about by the help of another person, or by accident.  To gamble upon accidental happenings is to risk the dangers involved and to run the risk that Essence realization may never come about.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> Physical  Steps</div> <bR> <div> I   a.  Set the house in order. This means that we must find some </div> <div>       economic security, we must keep the physical house healthy as it will either quit thinking or think unreliably, and we must adjust the domestic scene, so that the people with whom we live will be amenable to the search.</div> <div>     b.  Find a person or persons who have been down the road that we wish to follow. Look for books that will advise or furnish coordinative material. Travel in this regard if necessary, but  never allow travel to become an escape in itself from interior work. </div> <div>     c.  Find your fellow-seekers.</div> <div>     d.  Find a place to meet, and work together with these teachers </div> <div>       and fellow-seekers.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> Mental  Steps     </div> <div>    </div> <bR> <div> II  a.  Implement regular, periodic, mental exercises with directed meditation. </div> <div>     b.  Or use Koan concentration. </div> <div>     c.  Use self-confrontation. That is to find for yourself  ways and means of self-analysis.  </div> <div>         </div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div>  Essential  Steps</div> <div>       </div> <bR> <div> III a.  Reverse the vector.</div> <div>        Find the obstacles that you must learn in order to avoid them in the process of  reversal.</div> <div>        Allow the Ego to be eliminated as it is the main obstacle.</div> <div>        Constantly implement the Laws that are listed in the Albigen Papers.    </div> <div>        Find transmission from someone who has attained.</div> <div>        (This transmission can best be effected in Ashram life.)</div> <bR> <div> Richard Rose</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="the_way"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>THE WAY</B></div> <bR> <div> by</div> <bR> <div> Richard Rose</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div>      Listen to the confusion of ignorance. For that which is wisdom belongs to the silent.</div> <bR> <div> Are you of the tumultuous masses that agonize for definition? Then of the human babble of voices, can you hear this voice? For this voice speaks of words, and all words define nothing.</div> <bR> <div> In the abyss there is a path, that is invisible, that leads to the garden. Oh, what foolishness, to speak to the blind, and to those who hear words.</div> <bR> <div> Only those who believe there is a path will ever find one. Only those with faith will find despair. And those who despair may come closer to Truth.</div> <bR> <div> Now you have seen words with two eyes; for one eye will avail thee nothing. Though it is but one thing that thou seekest.</div> <bR> <div>      Two people must thou be, man and woman. Either must thou be, and yet neither.</div> <bR> <div>      Thou must lose to have, and forsake love to be Love.</div> <bR> <div> If thy purpose be steadfast and certain, then unto the very goal be sure of nothing. But be certain that the paradox permeates all. For if thou art certain that thou hast eaten the dragon, and thy stomach feels vast, how much greater is thy nausea if thou cannot digest or regurgitate.</div> <bR> <div> That which is important is to know, and to listen to words that will enable thee to know. But logic has only the pretense of knowing.</div> <bR> <div> Then that which is important is feeling, but feeling without testing the feeling, even though it be a feeling of certainty, is but pretense. For even as disease at either end of a nerve renders unreliable feeling, so the subject or object of intuition may be rendered erratically.</div> <bR> <div> So that there is not one without the other. And together they are Being. To know, and to know nothing. To feel, and cease feeling and become.</div> <bR> <div> But before thou knowest nothing, thou must lie with the conceit of knowing. In what bed dost thou lie?</div> <bR> <div> Know thou of salvation? Of Saviours and Adversaries? From what art thou saved? From death? Then know that all men die, even saviours. For it is only by dying that one knows of life. For life has no value until it is lost.</div> <bR> <div> Know thou of faith? Dost thou seize thy mouth that it cry out not against thy ears? To know is to know that which is. To believe is to weave.</div> <bR> <div> Know thou of love? Lovest thou which end of the nerve? Lovest thou thy body or the fat of thy intellect? Hast thou love, or art thou Love?</div> <bR> <div> Know thou of thought? Hast thou proven everything with worded thoughts? Then great is thy vanity. For thou art caught in the whirling hub of the wheel, not in the seat of the chariot.</div> <bR> <div> Know thou of piety? Then thou knowest of right and wrong, and knowing both is sweet sickness, that results from surfiet of impiety. But greater still is he that is both pious and impious, and is neither.</div> <bR> <div> Know thou of teachers? Know that teachers beget teachers, even as words beget words. And if the words of the teacher are kind to the ear, then the ear hears that which it wishes to hear. Then how shall the ear hear of that which IS? For the real teacher speaks neither to the ear, nor the mind, nor the heart, but by circumstances and acts. Yet the real teacher is not a man, and is known only in that circumstances befall us.</div> <bR> <div> Know thou thyself? Art thou the asker of the question or the answerer of thine own questions? Thou art not the quest, and yet first thou must find thyself.</div> <bR> <div> To be the quest, oh soul, thou must first be a seeker. To avoid action, thou must first determine for great action.</div> <bR> <div>      Peace to the wanderer.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B><U> <A NAME="list_of_obstacles"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></U></B><B><U>List of Obstacles</U></B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B><U>Of External Nature</U></B><U>:</U></div> <div>      Visible, terrestial life and planetary relationships.</div> <div>      Invisible, or dimensions beyond our senses.</div> <bR> <div> <B><U>Of Internal Nature:</U></B></div> <div>      <I><B>The appetites</B></I>:</div> <div>           Sex</div> <div>           Security</div> <div>           Food</div> <div>           Pleasures other than sex</div> <div>           Curiosity</div> <bR> <div>      <I><B>The Fears:</B></I></div> <div>           Fear of dying</div> <div>           Fear of scorn or social harm</div> <div>           Fear of mental or spiritual harm</div> <div>      </div> <div>      <I><B>The Blocks:</B></I></div> <div>           <U>The seven deadly sins:</U></div> <div>                Pride</div> <div>                Covetousness</div> <div>                Lust</div> <div>                Hatred</div> <div>                Anger</div> <div>                Envy</div> <div>                Sloth</div> <div>           </div> <div>           <U>The six catches</U>:</div> <div>                The think-talk syndrome</div> <div>                The starry-eyed syndrome</div> <div>                The False-Messiah Syndrome</div> <div>                The personal salvation syndrome</div> <div>                The Sunday-go-to-meeting syndrome</div> <div>                The hunt-the-guru syndrome</div> <bR> <div>           Physical limitations</div> <div>           Economic exigencies</div> <bR> <div> <B><U>Forms of Rationalization:</U></B></div> <div>           That we will be able to do the thing better at a later date. Procrastination.</div> <div>           That we will ride the tide of humanity into heaven.</div> <div>           That social services or "good works" have spiritual gain.</div> <div>           That the gods have ears. Salvation through prayers.</div> <div>           That the gods have noses and eyes. Incense and displays.</div> <div>           That positive thinking will make gods of us or lead us to liberation.</div> <div>           That the guru will save us.</div> <div>           That faith will save us.</div> <div>           That spiritual paths may be evaluated by their popularity.</div> <div>           That we can "feel" our way alone. Intuition alone.</div> <div>           That we can do it with our omnipotent reason.</div> <div>           That God, (or Mr. X) will take care of everything. This is a variation</div> <div>             of the "Knight on the white horse" rationalization.</div> <div>           That our present belief shall be our final evaluation of Truth.</div> <div>           That everything is hopeless or useless.</div> <bR> <div> <I><B>Richard Rose </B></I></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="tweeny_town_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>TWEENY TOWN</B> </div> <div> In Tweeny Town, in Tweeny Town</div> <div> there lived a boy and maid.</div> <div> And they went up and they went down,</div> <div> but all their children stayed. </div> <div> In Tweeny Town, in Tweeny Town</div> <div> the two were free of sorrow.</div> <div> For they delayed the ups and downs,</div> <div> and looked for them tomorrow. </div> <div> In Tweeny Town, in Tweeny Town</div> <div> there were no rich or tragic,</div> <div> Nor age or youth nor chain nor crown -</div> <div> For between-ness was their magic. </div> <bR> <div> <I><B> <A NAME="paradox"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></I><I><B>There was a god of wisdom in consternation. His name was Paradox. Fear him not and know yourself. That which seems to be may not be. Up is down and east is west. Good is to some evil, and evil to some is good. In time there seems to be space, and in space we find duration. And in space-time we find that time and space no longer exist. Know that knowing -- real knowing -- is not knowing. Know that all laws cannot enter the knowing of the mundane mind until they have been given to us by Lord Paradox</B></I></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B> <A NAME="the_grand_work_of_the_tat_society"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" ><B>The Grand Work of the TAT Society</B></FONT></div> <div> <I>by</I></div> <div> <B>Richard  Rose</B></div> <bR> <div>   <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >  It has been my privilege to know, at different times in my life, three enlightened people.  Besides those three, I know of several more whom I did not meet, but became aware of their depth of Spiritual awareness or their claim to have reached enlightenment, by writing to them. </FONT></div> <div>      I found a common denominator in my association with all of these people, and that was that we could not work together. I considered Spiritual Work to be the most important human function, and I am sure they did also. But privately all of them knew that we could not find a common language, nor could each find a common ground for working together in what appeared to be necessarily highly individualized systems or paths of teaching, and sometimes we could not even find a good method of just keeping in contact and exchanging ideas. </div> <div>     This knowledge made me feel very desperate and determined to do something about it.  After all, are we not all working for the same goal, which is Truth, which is God if God is found through the search for Truth, or for the Absolute, if the Absolute is found through a search for Truth? </div> <div>      There are millions of people looking for the Truth through established religions, and they profess that they are equating Truth with God. And the world is continually dismayed to find religious wars by millions who profess to be killing for the “true God.” They do not KNOW that they are killing for the “true God,” they merely believe or have faith. And we can probably write off their isms, noting that they will not get anywhere until they quit believing and start seeking. </div> <div>     But there are hundreds of thousands who have turned away from blind faith, and have joined some esoteric, metaphysical or occult group in hopes that this group will be recognized (by its fruits) as a bona fide method of searching and seeking.  And in this smaller group of people we find that it is really a loose conglomerate of many cults, smaller still, each of which has a language and method peculiar to itself. Divisiveness is the chief denominator of these groups also.  Some of this divisiveness is caused by financial competition, or the campaign for membership that sometimes involves one movement stating its claims in such superlatives that any future demonstrations for tolerance by its leaders or writers for other movements would imply the other movements might be worthwhile. </div> <div>     We go on to the highest form of Spiritual Work, the Realization of the Essence of Man. The final definition of man.  And with this definition, - the realization of ultimate and absolute definitions of the nature of everything visible. This last sentence is included in this level of work because of the testimony of those who claim to have reached self-definition.  The claim is that self-definition brings with it the definition of all things, and a realization of the Nature, or Absolute, or God, behind all things. </div> <div>      And in this third category, whose membership involves no more than one in a million, if we are to believe Richard M. Bucke [author of Cosmic Consciousness], there is likewise no harmony between its members.  The Tower of Babel casts its shadow on all levels. We are dissembled and mute. </div> <div>     Over a period of many years I tried to do something about this Spiritual Babel. I traveled back and forth across the country visiting people, temples, ashrams, and prelates of established churches. Everywhere I met the same smiles of patient condescension that indicated that I had just not reached their level of understanding yet.  I received this attitude regardless of the level from which the person came.  They did not bother to ask me about my level, - each felt that there was only one church, - one spiritual path, - and one level, and that was the one with which they identified themselves. </div> <div>     I did not give up.  In 1956 I placed an ad in a magazine that was published for people of occult interests. I received hundreds of answers, and almost each represented a different tangent from the others. It was discouraging, but I still learned a lot from those letters. </div> <div>     For instance, I have just named the three major categories of seekers. The first might be called the Believers. The second group, which numbers in the hundreds of thousands, might be called the Investigators.  This second group are really trying to use their heads.  They are very sincere, usually, but they spend entire individual lives in a single investigative search, such as Magic, Astrology, Trance Work, Yoga, astral projection, or in the examination of any or all of the gimmicks that come out of the East packaged as holy merchandise. </div> <div>     The third category we might call the Becomers.  These people go in for ways to find the Truth by processes which usually involve a change of state of mind and this in turn leads to a change of being.  Those who have reached enlightenment (the word being synonymous with Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi, an attainment of an Absolute state or ultimate trip) all equate that acquisition or realization with a necessary change of being. Man does not discover the Truth. He becomes the Truth. </div> <div>     I learned that you cannot just put people into these categories and pigeon-hole them securely. They infiltrate different levels and tend to convey naiveté if they are reaching upward into a group beyond their complete understanding, and they convey unwarranted encouragement if they reach down to a group that may use their name and reputation to further the aims of a lesser group. </div> <div>      But the most unfortunate thing that I learned was that truly enlightened people are still confused about the proper communication with those on lower levels, and this communication uses such poor systems or vehicles for conveying their instruction as to proper methods for attaining the higher consciousness, - that the general inquirer often winds up doubting that the person is enlightened at all because of the latter's preoccupation with what is often a waste of time. </div> <div>     Paul Wood was one of the men who I met that convinced me that he was truly enlightened.  However, his system was discouraging to almost everyone he met. He insisted upon having people repeat and study the Lord's prayer. Now the Lord's prayer is basically part of the structure of organized Christianity, which is identified as being in the group called the Believers. Now the strange truth is that Paul himself came upon his Realization while clinging to the Lord's prayer for counsel and guidance. He had an opening of the mind as a result. It seems only fair to assume that if Paul is going to transmit, it will be done by the same leverage that was used upon him.  But this is not true; each man blooms from a different catalyst. The only thing that the enlightened men have in common is that which they find. So that it is better to encourage an inward search, without demanding to find for the student an exact formula or discipline. Likewise, we are saying that we should pursue the search, which process may be helped by creating conditions that will help anyone regardless of their unique catalysts.  These conditions include the conscious effort to bring people together, and to provide retreats or ashrams for meditative purposes. </div> <div>      Katherine B., a lady who experienced Cosmic Consciousness, approached me twenty years ago, inquiring as to that which she could do with her Realization. We have another case of genuine Realization, but accompanied by no direction or method.  She was overwhelmed with the urge to now become a healer. She knew that no one would listen to her advice unless she met them on some sort of sensational basis, and exuded some sort of dynamic purpose and compelling language.  She argued that she would attract attention with her healing, as Christ did, and then give out her advice in the form of a devotional message. I could not find myself in that type of picture and our correspondence ended.  She was a living, walking example of a person who has experienced all of life and death, and who is now walking amongst us. But this person cannot make herself properly understood. Nor can she work with people on the Becomers level.  She too is back in the Believers section, because she is talking of healing through faith. </div> <div>     We can see where the highest of levels can become once more entangled with lower levels and lose their importance. There are also many individuals who have reached the highest experience but who despaired all their lives about communication, and did not ever communicate.  I was one of these people until I accidentally met some energetic young people who pledged themselves to work at the grand task. </div> <div>      We can add more confusion to the problem when we realize that enlightenment is not the property of any particular level alone. Some Believers, like St. Theresa, and John of the Cross, penetrated their level and transcended it. The Kabbalists are investigators whose literature gives evidence that some of them may have reached an ultimate formula.  And on the other hand, many of those who join a cult aimed at Becoming often get sidetracked in preconceptions of what they think becoming should be for them rather than allowing themselves to change in response to the inevitable refinements of Truthfulness, and the parallel labor of constantly retreating from untruth. </div> <div>     And so we, as a group, set ourselves a task.  We realized that we must make available, if possible, more advantage than that which brought us forth from ignorance and uncertainty.  The task lies in attempting to find better and better ways to reach into all levels or groups for the purpose of bringing fellows together. The aim is not gregariousness, but the sharing of many experiences that took many lives in the gathering.  The aim is also the making available of the function of transmission for those who might recognize the usefulness of such. </div> <div>     The TAT Society undertook this in 1973, to bring together, in a sort of Chautauqua, people from all levels and experiences, so that people could meet other people of like and also of different interests. The Albigen System has seemed to many to be a monolithic and inflexible system.  However this appraisal came about as a result of not completely understanding the system, or not reading the book [The Albigen Papers] comprehensively. We speak of a Spiritual Ladder, and a Law regarding it. How can there be a ladder without rungs?  While we know that we cannot function expeditiously on all rungs, and also know we can function at best on three (the one we are on, the one above to which we look for advice and teaching, and the one below where we can help others without too much risk), we can still help someone on the rung below who in turn needs to work on still a more basic rung to help still more people.  To provide people for all these opportunities needed to fulfill the Law of the Ladder we must be prepared to bring together people of all those many levels. </div> <div>      Of course you cannot go out into the crossroads and drag in, or allow in, everyone who wants to mingle. There must be some fundamental purpose in each besides being involved socially. And each must abide by certain simple rules.  No one should make a pest of himself, and no one should bring alcohol or narcotics to the meetings, in their body or on their body. </div> <div>      We must distinguish between the function of the TAT Society and the Pyramid Zen Society [i.e. those working with the Albigen System]. The TAT Society is the parent, and the PZS is a function of it.  While the PZS group should not be assailed or irritated by non-agreeing other members of TAT, no one should deny the opportunity for the formation of a unique group within the TAT Society, provided the TAT Society gives it permission [to claim association]. </div> <div>      If this above information is explained to new people coming into the weekly group meetings, they may find a comfortable place to work, even if they do not agree with the Albigen System.  I feel that the TAT Society is strong enough at this point to withstand any attempts by newcomers to undermine or take over our work. </div> <div>     I know that many people who know of this effort of ours will minimize its importance, saying that things like this should be left to chance or gravity, or indicating that we can easily contact fellows of like interest through the media whenever we wish. </div> <div>     It is true that we can advertise and get large responses.  But it is another thing when we try to communicate with hundreds of people for the purpose of sorting out two or three that we can work with.  I have been honestly trying to bring these various esoteric factions together for forty years, and in the first thirty-four years was able to meet only about a dozen people who appeared to be in agreement with the idea of cooperation. </div> <div>      In the last six years I have been fortunate in meeting at least a hundred people who are in agreement. Part of this success has occurred because of a miraculous decade that began around 1965 and is now ending.  The pendulum is swinging back into another long era marked by dormant, established religions, pressing against anything that appears less than that which is currently defined as being conventional. Esotericism has already been assailed as being the pastime of sinners, atheists and degenerates.  And many of the cults that herded together under the banner of transcendentalism and Esotericism have rightly earned for themselves, and for the whole field of esoteric investigation, the criticism and disdain of the public. </div> <div>      We are returning to the dark days of forty years ago. The alchemist, Kabbalist and mystic must once more become inconspicuous. And this is going to make it harder for mystic to find mystic, or for sage to find students of worth. </div> <div>      The job is upon us, and it is worthwhile. The job is to encourage membership in the TAT Society, and to prepare at the farm a better place for them to meet. </div> <bR> <div> <B>Richard Rose,</B> circa 1978 </div> <bR> <div>   <A NAME="intuition_and_reason_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A><B>INTUITION AND REASON </B></div> <bR> <div> By meditation men have improved their Intuition, </div> <div> By suffering and adversity, men have improved Intuition, </div> <div> By abstinence from food, or from certain foods men have improved their Intuition.</div> <div> By abstinence from sex action men have improved their Intuition.</div> <div> By the establishment of a system of shocks, or alternation between abstinence and indulgence, between suffering, and happiness, or even ecstasy, men have improved their Intuition.</div> <div> By various mental exercises men have improved their Intuition.</div> <div> By the practice of concentration on one thing, then on many things, and then on nothing, men have improved their Intuition.</div> <div> By the practice of remembering the self, men have improved.</div> <div> By the practice of concentration on various nerve centers, men have improved their Intuition.</div> <bR> <div> Reason may be improved by the coordination of similarities and opposites in nature. </div> <div> Reason may be improved by qualifying all statements with their relative nature. </div> <div> Reason may be improved by exploring the "possible opposite" of that which seems to be final.</div> <div> Reason may be improved by listening to the words of those who firmly believe in opposition to ourselves. </div> <div> Reason may be improved by the study of mathematics.</div> <div> Reason may be improved by the study of symbols, words numbers or figures, or by the juggling of these, or by exchanging or interpolating symbols of one system for those of another system, and by the resulting effect of all this upon memory and imagination. </div> <div> Reason may be improved by desire, or fear. </div> <div> Reason may be improved by the determination to reason.</div> <bR> <div> <I>Copyright Reserved - 2003 by Richard Rose</I></div> <bR> <bR> <div>  <A NAME="zen_by_richard_rose"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A><FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" ><B>Zen</B></FONT> by Richard Rose:</div> <bR> <div> We talk of Zen in regard to a Truth System, or a system that will lead to Reality, and we use Zen terminology at times. Sometimes the use of these Zen aphorisms, such as "no-mind", become easy slogans for a rationalization for laziness or spiritual procrastination. </div> <div> Some say, "What is the use of talking about Truth when many writings on Zen tell you that there is nothing you can do about finding Truth or Reality." These people have the idea that life is futile, and that all we<B> </B>should do about it is meditate- with the chance that we may stumble upon the awareness of Reality. </div> <div>             However, regardless of the writings to which they refer, no man writes or teaches if he thinks it is futile to write without some assurance that it will result in action. We must discount the writers that write for cleverness only, or to merely impress readers with their complex mentality. </div> <div> Zen is not complex. It is made complex by the many different types and levels of ignorance. The simple Truth is written in many different ways to encourage the vision of minds of widely variegated perspective and perspective-potential. </div> <div>            The Truth is not in Zen alone. The Truth is found in the minds of men if they look deeply enough. It is not regional, or resident only in some geographic focus. It is not inaccessible to certain races. It is inaccessible to those who are undetermined, only. We find that enlightened men have emerged from almost every religion. The quality of such men was not religiousness by traditional standards. The quality of such men was in nearly all cases an undaunted courage of enquiry. </div> <div> I chose to work under the banner of Zen because down through the ages it amounted to a system of pure enquiry, putting little accent on ceremony and dogma. I also chose it because of my connection with Zen teachers who manifested a better facility for communication on matters esoteric, than did any of my contacts in Western religious circles. </div> <div> I find that that which matters is Truth, and that which we choose as an instrument for digging out the Truth should be that which is more effective upon the understanding of the aspirant or listener. </div> <div> With this I am saying that, while some enlightened men evolved from esoteric Christian groups, their importance and significance has been lost because of the negative mental picture with which many Christians have colored and endowed the word "Christian." There is also the factor that many sincere minds are charmed more by exotic terminology and foreign teachers. It is the "Grass is greener on the other side of the fence" syndrome. </div> <div> Man cannot hear unless he has ears. But by the same token, man dances to the tune of different drummers because his ears are tuned to different receptions. So it may be advisable for the teacher at times to bend his language to the ears of the students who are eager and sincere. This should never be interpreted as being an excuse for a compromise-a compromise with erroneous or biased thinking. </div> <div> I would like to give at this time also my attitude toward other systems. It is foolish to denounce other systems merely because they exist, and because we see no agreement with their method.  It is likewise cowardly to fail to denounce any system that functions under a false pretense, and which in so doing, consumes the valuable young years of a student's life in repayment for that student's trust and faith. Of course we may be tempted to say that people without the proper vision deserve to be duped, but such thinking only spells the doom and hopelessness for future<I> </I>generations of which we are the seed, physically and spiritually.  </div> <div> We must discriminate, even as Buddha enjoined. We must point out error and denounce deliberate spiritual chicanery. We cannot lie down with fornicators and remain pure. We cannot get into mutual back-scratching, or lie down with rationalization unless we wish to become dishrags. </div> <div> We can only find Truth be retreating from untruth, not by postulating a "Truth" that we achieve by visualization rather than by realization. In Matthew, 10:34, Christ gives his aims, pointing out that he is not an agent of peace but the agent of the sword. He is referring to the sword of discrimination. In Zen writings it is called the sword of Prajna. </div> <div> We cannot lie down with the liar and the huckster and ever become the Truth. We cannot indulge in compromising intercourse either. We cannot flirt politically or engage in log rolling with materialism, materialistic psychological dogma, or a sociology that is based strictly upon foods and fertilizer.<I> </I>We cannot lie down with expediency. </div> <div> We must continually avoid being the type of people who whip their children for telling some tiny lie of evasion, when as parents we encourage some mammoth theological lies for the sake of social harmony. And what is even worse is when we as parents encourage some monstrous psychological lie that subverts the innocence of our children when they are in their helpless years. </div> <div> Each generation is encouraged into greater and greater dissipation by the teachers of most of our schools, and by the text-books that are issued. And all the while the parents and teachers in this collusion are hypocritically attending churches of Christian name or origin, pretending to search for a God that exhorted mankind to become again as little children. There must be some value to being a child. And most esoteric guidelines point us in the direction of child-like innocence....indicating that such innocence is germane to perfection of intuition and thinking  processes. </div> <div> I am therefore a moralist in what I consider relative to spirituality. I do not believe in preaching morality to those who<I> </I>believe in immorality. It is generally useless to preach about life to a man who is dying and cannot better his situation. I do believe in confronting even the proponents of immorality when they collectively approve and encourage moral decay. </div> <div> I believe that sexual innocence is a common denominator in every esoteric path of any worth or permanence. </div> <div> I likewise believe that our becoming the Truth has more chance if we concentrate on theological and philosophical discrepancies rather than everyday conversational lies, or lies related to our survival. </div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <I>Copyright Reserved - 2003 by Richard Rose</I></div> <bR> <div> <I>All Material - Copyright 2003 by Richard Rose. All Rights Reserved</I></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>