This is long, but interesting read:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/tib/psydead.htm ~ 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 yo
