TAT Journal Issue 7
TAT Journal is a meeting place...
We who are interested in philosophy, esotericism, depth psychology and other pioneer ventures of the mind and spirit find it hard to get together with people who will not only understand us, but who will work with us and exchange ideas. For this reason we invite all of our readers to feel a part of our quarterly forum and write in with their contributions.
PERSPECTIVE
Children do not think deep thoughts, we assume. Since most adults rarely condescend to speak with children rather than at them (with no effort to understand the child's mind) they consider their mental world to be purely fantastic, with no relation to the adult's "real" world. A few sensitive people realize, however, that the young boy or girl who has not yet been confused by puberty (or boxed into the packaged world of television) can know things accurately and naturally - especially human character - because he or she has an intuition that has not yet been drowned by the exigencies of day-to-day "rational" living.
Even more rarely recognized than the child's ability to understand is the child's ability to philosophize. The parent, who has learned to turn off the toddler's endless series of "Why?" questions that telescope into seeming absurdity, may not even listen to the child of nine or ten who asks, "If the universe is all there is, then what's outside of the universe?" or "Where was I before I was born?" Do you remember your early efforts to wrestle with the concepts of infinity and eternity, of universe and void? Do you understand those ideas any better today?
Perhaps only some children ask such profound questions, but if you ask your friends you will, no doubt, identify a few who did. What becomes of this natural, philosophical impulse to comprehend the incomprehensible? With adolescence it may have to serve, as do so many of one's qualities, to impress the opposite sex; but there is usually enough food, in the form of new experience and information, on which this curiosity can thrive. If a person goes to college and is so inclined he can speculate and ponder to his heart's content, for this is the time and place that society has established for such irrelevant activities. But if graduation day comes and you still do not have the answer to the ultimate "Why?" you began asking at age three, you may have to wait until your next lifetime, for the age of conventionality is upon you.
If you lived in India as a man of the Brahmin caste you would have the opportunity, once your family had been established and children raised, to return to your philosophic quest as a sannyasin (renunciate). Western society makes no such concession to man's innate urge for meaning, however; you are expected to shoulder social and familial obligations to the day of your death, or at least until you are consigned to a nursing home because you have become useless. For most, the only respite from the goalless rush to nowhere comes at the funeral of a relative or close friend when the meaninglessness of it all is brought into focus for a brief moment, then dissolved into the background of mundane existence once again.
Despite the difficulties, some people manage to keep alive the spark of wonder and inquisitiveness that can become the flame of knowledge, if given the chance. Perhaps these people have no real choice in the matter, since for them an acceptance of the "truths" about the world as taught by science and established religion would mean an intellectual and moral death as final as the grave. Science and religion have their proper roles in the progress and maintenance of society, but the individual who can be satisfied by nothing less than the answers to his childish questions must, like a child, continue to ask, "Why?"
Cover Illustration by John Crawford, from an old illustration.
Editor: Louis Khourey
Managing Editor: Paul Cramer
Associate Editor: Mark Jaqua
Circulation Manager: Eric Hadidian
Production Assistant: Cecy Rose
Printing: Doron Fried
Staff: Michael Baldrige, David Diaman, Keith McWilliams
©1979 TAT Foundation. All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
Biological scientists are rapidly gaining the ability to control the course of human evolution. Have ancient civilizations also sought such power, only to be crushed by jealous Nature?
As Gordon Broussard succeeded In drawing autistic children out of their Isolation, he also learned more and more about his own Inner nature. In the conclusion of his book, he explains that "miracles" are reality for the fully harmonized individuals who have contacted the source of all energy.
A story of how love and hate weave their fateful compulsion Into the small world of a boy.
Dr. Miller discusses nutrition, weight control, auriculotherapy, arthritis and allergies.
Everyone has had flashes of Inspiration or Insight that help to solve a problem or answer a question; but few realize that these experiences are caused by the same mystical faculty that, in the most unusual men and women, produces the phenomenon known as "cosmic consciousness."
Eileen Garrett, the greatest medium and "psychic" of this century, strove to understand her gifts, and allowed scientists to scrutinize them in countless experiments. She could see ghosts and talk to spirits, but always maintained a respectful doubt about her powers.
TAT JOURNAL BELIEVES THAT BY HELPING OTHERS YOU CAN HELP YOURSELF. Our Reader's Forum is the best place to "meet" other inquirers and searchers like yourself. TAT wants to help put you in touch with friends you would otherwise not have access to. Contact other TAT Journal readers with your thoughts and ideas, and share your discoveries. Send your letters, comments or articles to TAT Journal, Reader's Forum, P.O. Box 236, Bellaire, Ohio 43906. If you wish to contact someone in the Reader's Forum personally, send your initial correspondence to us in a separate, stamped and unaddressed envelope and we will mail it to the party you choose.
Cosmic Eggs
I have noticed a peculiar thing happening within my own life which relates to Jake Jaqua's article on The Crack in the Cosmic Egg in the Winter, 1979 TAT Journal. The implication of the article is that we live in a world of our own creation. In other words, we do not actually see the world as it is but instead see what we want to see. We generally want to maintain the status quo, which is made up of our beliefs about the way life is. People get out of life what they expect to get.
I have visited more than a few "self-development'' groups in my travels and noticed that they usually have a common denominator - they agree about the nature of reality. Whether they do it unconsciously or not, this agreement sets up an actual force which affects the environment and the people that come into contact with their circle. As I sat in with one of these groups for a couple of months, I gradually saw my views on life change. In the presence of another group of friends, I saw my previous beliefs return.
For instance, one group stressed the potential inherent in all human beings. I began to look at people in a new light, and began to see the uniqueness and life of each person. The other group stressed the self-deception that is so much a part of life. In the state of mind of the latter, I saw people more as hopeless cases.
This is a rough reduction of what I observed. The main point is that our beliefs can actually change our observations. Our thoughts set up a certain vibration around us that fulfills itself. And our beliefs of the people around us affect them. In order to get beyond this projection, I think we have to be willing to say "I don't know," and proceed from there.
Dr. Bissell
I really liked the lecture by Dr. Fred Bissell in the last TAT Journal. I find Dr. Bissell's approach to wholistic health to be quite open and refreshing. It answered some questions for me which I've wondered about for quite a few years, especially about the individuality of nutrition and fasting. I hope to hear more from him in the future.
FRIVOLITY
If I could be free of this black and vapid place
To amble, run and stride thru unfenced fields.
And letting careless breath refresh my face
Leave morbid thoughts behind for laughter's yield
I'd fast unbind my soul, Take my fling full swing
Release my tortured heart to freely sway
Like the sweet open wind unmuzzled sing
Renounce the twisted shadows of my grey
And tragic past, stand dazzled in the sun
Of my uncovered self. Escaped at last!
Disentangled from the web I myself have spun
From the dingy fibres of a gloomy past,
But memory's shackles hold me to this place.
I am a wilted blossom in time's vase
Cults
I thought Raymond Lieb's article "Cultists and Anti-Cultists'' in the Winter issue of TAT Journal "hit the nail right on the head." It is sad that a few "nuts" or perhaps unfortunate and mentally ill persons like Jim Jones will cast suspicion on many worthwhile groups labeled by society as "cults."
I am familiar with several so-called cults and am quite convinced that most do more good for society than ill, not to mention the right of freedom that cults represent here in America. By choosing to be a member of a cult, a person exercises his individual right of freedom regardless of the good or ill it may do society as a whole.
Cults do generally benefit society as a whole, though. Often they provide a useful place and fulfilling work for those who would fill the role of a social misfit otherwise. Some can simply not live the normal work-a-day life, or find meaning in the traditional middle-class values. Cults often serve as rehabilatators for those who are going through a mentally traumatic and adaptive period of their lives. Many young persons who've fizzled their brains on drugs or other excesses, find a place to work themselves back to health.
Nothing is "for sure" in life and it can not be assured that another Jim Jones incident will not occur. If a harsh public reaction against all cults should ensue, we can be assured that a more subtle, but even worse disaster will occur - loss of our prized American freedom.
About Pain
Nature uses pain as a warning signal to us when there is a pathological condition anywhere in our bodies. The purpose, of course, is for us to take the necessary steps to cure the condition and thus remove the pain. There are other pains such as emotional pains. These actually hurt all over the body and exact a deeper toll from us than physical pain, despite the fact that physical pain can be unbearable at times. I suppose the purpose of this emotional pain is also to warn us to remove or alter the situation which is causing it.
Therefore pain, and the bearing of pain, which almost all of us avoid earnestly, does have a necessary and even constructive role in our lives; since everyone in life must endure pain of many kinds, it is necessary for us to suffer it without going to pieces mentally, emotionally, or physically.
Women in childbirth suffer pain. Everyone, man, woman and child, has illnesses and trouble sometime in his life. The everyday task of running a house, or making a living has unavoidable pains or hardships as a corollary to it. Athletes have to withstand pain and possess great endurance. All people that experience a death in their family or among dear friends suffer a deep pain.
My point in all this is that people who try to avoid every pain, even the minor ones, are doing themselves a great injustice. I refer in part to the "pill-poppers," people who have a large assortment of pills in their cabinets. They take one for a headache, one for stomach acid, one for a tranquilizer, one to go to sleep, one to wake up, one to lose weight, and so on and on. What happens when these people have to face an unavoidable crisis? They may go to pieces because they cannot stand any great pain.
Another very important fact in the area of bearing pain is that we all have to learn to function in our daily experiences, tasks, and responsibilities despite the presence of a small or even of a larger amount of pain. Many people do just that and press onward. The rewards for going on and not quitting are considerable. First and foremost, are the daily achievements and earnings that people make, and also the cumulative achievements of a lifetime, which are precious. This "pressing on" of course requires courage and so we get into the area of "character." When you look at an older person who has lived a full and good life, you can see the character and the lines of experience in his or her face. This is a mark of valor and it reflects inner soul beauty. Examine and look about at the Creator's plan. You will understand how highly courage, and character are valued by Him and how necessary these characteristics would be in the universal experiences we may go through in a subsequent living experience.
Gnosticism
Gnosticism is the name for the teachings of a group of religious sects which flourished from about the first to the fourth centuries A.D. All of the Gnostics exalted knowledge over faith. This knowledge, or gnosis, (Greek for knowledge) was of a special kind. It was the esoteric knowledge of the secrets of existence as related to the Gnostic myth or world view. More specifically, it represented knowledge of the absolute transcendence of the Divine.
Gnosticism was syncretic in that it borrowed from many ancient religious traditions. Among these were: the Jewish Kaballah, Greek philosophy (especially Plato), Egyptian Hermeticism, Zoroastrian myths, Babylonian astrological lore, and most importantly, Christianity. Although Gnosticism was derived from all these sources, it still maintained a peculiar unity and character. No one knows exactly when or how it originated, but it got its major impetus one hundred years after the death of Christ.
Almost without exception, the Gnostics subscribed to a strictly dualistic interpretation of Man's relationship to the world and the Divine.
First, there was the realm of the "Creator," who was considered by them as an evil being who is responsible for this bungled creation (matter). On the other hand was an absolutely trans-mundane presence. The former was called by the Gnostics the Demiurge, and the latter was called the "unknown God," or the "alien God." The ruling Demiurge, like the Hebrew God, Jehovah, was vengeful and would admit to no power higher than himself, hence the great Cosmic struggle between these two rival powers. They presented their philosophy in a grand and elaborate myth, not by means of logical system-building or rational argument. This myth, which encompassed Man's creation, fall, and salvation, parodied the Bible.
The following is a brief account of one Gnostic sect's view of the creation: In the beginning, before Man or anything else was created, there existed two primal principles - the darkness and its twin, the light. The light was sufficient unto itself, and needed no contact with anything. The darkness however, being evil, and envious of the superior light, conspired against his twin, not understanding that the light was divine and could never be ultimately defeated.
So the evil principle proceeded to create the physical universe, including man. He then placed or trapped portions of the light in man and kept it subdued and dispersed because man with his senses, was kept distracted. Therefore we have man as a potentially divine being but whose essence, the light, was kept in a state of subjection.
At this point, the principle of light decides to intervene. He implants gnosis in certain individuals whom he deems are worthy of being saved. In gnostic theology, this intervention takes the form of Christ, who according to them, was sent to proclaim gnosis to his intimate disciples.
This is an account found in many gnostic mythological systems. Usually, scores of intermediary powers (angels), or emanations (aeons), are involved in the story-making.
All of this is obviously an attempt at reconciling the opposites and explaining how men who feel themselves being totally alienated in this world can be saved.
As I have mentioned, in gnosticism the physical world was considered contemptible and inferior to the world of the spirit. The heavens - including the planets and the stars, were the domain of the archons. They guarded the outermost gates of the universe. In the heavens, the cosmic spheres are arranged like concentric enclosing shells. Most frequently, there are the seven spheres or planets surrounded by the eighth, that of the fixed stars. The soul must somehow overcome the power of these archons. Archons are really names for impediments to the progress of the spirit, although they are given an entity-like quality. The collective rule of the archons is called the "heimarmene," or universal fate. They might be analagous to the powers of Nature.
Man is composed of flesh, soul, and spirit (pneuma). But reduced to ultimate principles, his nature is twofold: mundane and extra-mundane. Not only the body, but also the soul is a product of the cosmic powers (archons) which shaped the body in the image of the "primal man," and animated it with its own psychical forces. These are the passions and appetites of natural man, each of which stems from, and corresponds to, a cosmic sphere, and all of which make up the astral soul of man - his psyche. Through his body and his soul, man is subjected to the heimarmene.
Now enclosed in the soul is the spirit or "pneuma." It was also called by the Gnostics the "divine spark," or portion of the divine substance which has fallen in the world. The Demiurge, through the archons, and in turn through the heimarmene, created man for the express purpose of keeping it captive there. Thus, as In the Macrocosm man is enclosed by the seven spheres, so in the human Microcosm the pneuma is enclosed by the seven soul-vestments originating from them. In its unredeemed state, the pneuma thus immersed in soul and flesh is unconscious of itself, benumbed, intoxicated, or asleep, by the poison of the world. In brief, it is ignorant. Its awakening is affected through knowledge (gnosis).
I suppose that what governs whether an individual can achieve salvation is (1) individual intensity or quality, or (2) an accidental short circuiting of the cosmic computer. The former has to do with predestination while the second is a more spontaneous affair.
I have five main criticisms of gnosticism. The first is that in gnosticism, there was an obsessive preoccupation with the juggling of abstruse mythological concepts. Mythology may have its place in religion, but the gnostic systems were all diverse and contradictory. They were basically speculations of highly imaginative and creative minds, but much of what they created was merely confusion. That sort of thing could get to be an endless tangent akin to one of our modern philosophical systems. The gnostics utilized the imagination, while the latter esteems reason.
Second, to say that the physical world is evil is an over-simplification and a misinterpretation. This attitude hints of some motive in wanting to believe that it is and exalting the self over the world. It may be better to regard the manifested world, or that world as perceived through our less-than-perfect senses, as illusory rather than inherently bad. Being relative, it possesses negative characteristics but in gnosticism, it was given sentience. In regard to this, Ouspensky says that evil cannot be conscious, only mechanical. One could also discount the idea of a conscious opposition to the progress of the spirit - the idea of Satan, or a Satan-like figure (the former supposedly being an evil genius, while the gnostic's Demiurge was an incompetent bungler, responsible for creation).
Ritual magic, and secrecy were also incorporated into gnostic philosophy. There is no mention of any specific techniques to free the self in gnostic literature other than magical incantations. This does not mean that they didn't exist however. They simply are not known due to the strict secrecy common to most cults at that time.
Lastly, the practice of any foreign religion, ritual trappings and all, seems to me to be highly affected. But today we witness thousands of cultists, and even devotees of Eastern religions taking part in complicated and sometimes ridiculous rituals which rightly belong to another age. Gnosticism was a very "mysterious" religion, and this, in itself, may be responsible for its present day popularity.
Spiritual Suicide: An Observation
The American Indian, when asked about his religion, failed to comprehend the word "religion." The reason for this was that the Indian had no separate time set aside to remember his spirituality. Everyday Indian life incorporated those values modern man would relegate to Sunday. To the Indian, his way of life was his religion and his spirituality. The traditions and customs of the tribe kept him alive and sustained his spirit. They had intelligence behind them and they worked. The Indian survived in the wilderness of America until the coming of the white man with his "superior intelligence." I am not campaigning for Indian rights. I've used the above example to define what I think is the closest approach to some sort of spirituality. In fact, the word "spirituality" doesn't even need to be mentioned. For me, it has no practical value. What does have value though, is intelligent living. How can a man live the most intelligent life possible?
Man has lost touch with his essential nature. Modern psychology attempts to define man's nature in terms of rats and monkeys. At least in this respect they might be on the right track. But when it comes to questions of what is good for man and what promotes a growth of his being I encounter a mish-mash of conflicting ideas all claiming validity. I can't help but wonder when I see a psychologist or psychoanalyst sporting a beard and wire-rim glasses, then another, then another, (and I'm not kidding), what the problem is. My own personal opinion, after talking to many psychology students, is that most of them have some neurosis of their own, conscious or unconscious, which they are trying to cure. The public in turn, always looking elsewhere for guidance because of stupidity or laziness, or simply out of gullibility, looks to these same psychologists for direction and answers, and accepts their edicts of how and what a man is.
In terms of intelligent living and ultimately, spiritual matters, who holds and controls our fate? The psychologist? The Government? The churches? Surely not the churches for they are empty. What has happened to the questions that man has sought answers to since Nature spawned him? Where is the survival instinct of man? Where is his so-called "superior intelligence?" Here I can only give an observation.
It has always been said that today's youth is tomorrow's hope. The young shall be given the chances their parents never had. Wisdom will be passed on.
Not today. Modern civilization is dedicated to the destruction of itself and especially its youth. Ever present in the media, the schools and the streets, and often in the quiet of the home is an ugly, pervading cloud of drugs, dehumanization and sexual degeneracy. At one time I would have read the words I just wrote and laughed at their seeming absurdity and called to mind some old biddy, frustrated and reactionary, reading her Bible and putting her hand on the T.V. when Oral Roberts called for a healing.
Unfortunately degeneracy can become so incorporated into a system that it is unrecognizable until the chips are cashed in. This is the state of modern man, and particularly the young.
I see my own friends moving to distant cities and getting involved with drugs provided by the "professionals" they are working for. They want out but are afraid of losing their jobs because they are "unsociable."
The mass availability of drugs to children without knowledge of their use Is creating an Incredible future-world. It is a fact that burned-out hippies from the 'sixties and probably other "withit" people give their pre-school children LSD and marijuana to "expand their minds." "Everything's cool," they say, "everything's fine."
To college kids, smoking dope is not a special kick, it's part of their matriculation fee. When their grades go bad or life seems somehow hazy, or personal problems increase, it's always anything but the dope.
Among the chic and increasingly among the young every form of sexual degeneracy and debauchery is practiced, even encouraged, by a supportive society which values sex, mediocrity and disco-dancing as the highest forms of culture and attainment this civilization can offer to its young and the yet to be born.
Of course there are exceptions to all of this. But obviously they aren't running the show, are they?
Oh, yes. The gurus and swamis. Man is making a spiritual attempt after all. He now turns to EST and kundalini to save mankind and rescue his soul. The new-age psychologists for us to accept and be gullible to. I've known of people who've been on a spiritual retreat weekend and returned refreshed and invigorated enough to continue their sexual degeneracies with renewed intensity. What's sad Is that there are some people involved in spiritual movements who are looking for some kind of intelligent life but get suckered into the wrong thing. Most, not all, but most spiritual faddists and their followers are, I feel, the horse's ass. I've never seen so many swamis come out of nowhere so fast, for so many American dollars. I'm surprised they don't parachute them down over major cities in crates, there seems to be such a need for them. But what of the intelligent life? Where then, does it begin? I've quickly and sketchily described what I see happening around me. I suspect that I've only seen a part of it. That's quite enough.
So, in this age of freedom to do what you like because it feels good and produces no immediate observable bad effects, and ultra-chic sophistication and knowledgeability, we find modern man, the supreme egoist who looks out upon his creation and says, "It is good."
Man is not outside of Nature. He builds monuments to himself In terms of Taj Mahals and skyscrapers, and litters the streets with cars forgetting that the materials to build and the builder himself are given by Nature. Man looks around and sees himself everywhere, - in the buildings, advertisements, garden arrangements and clothes that others wear. He surrounds himself with himself until he can no longer see himself. He takes pride in his sick vanity.
And pride goes before a fall. Humans are gullible, with little thinking capacity no matter how vaunted they feel themselves to be. Man is not outside of Nature. Like any other animal only the strongest of the species survive. Not all men can fight physically or psychologically. We are not created equal. We have no equality in each other's eyes or the eyes of the Government. Anyone who contests this is a hopeless fool. As to the eyes of God we know nothing. We know not even if there is a God but that someone once told us.
For these reasons it is important that those who lead, lead with the best interest for the survival and growth of the species. In the past, tradition and the family took care of this. The tradition today is one of degenerate dissipation and the family has divorced its members and left the kids to themselves or the street. We can no longer count on the Government to protect us or keep the flames of wisdom burning. Psychology would have us masturbate ourselves into the grave.
Perhaps the solution is simply to stop and really look at ourselves and really think about it. Not for an hour, or a week, but every moment of our lives. The intelligent life is only for those who have the possibility of living it. If a man can find a true path of individual survival and growth, and not be led by the nose out of gullibility or laziness, then that man may create the same possibility for others. Otherwise the course of man is one of despair and spiritual suicide, without reason, without dignity, without hope.
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DOOMSDAY, ATLANTIS AND GENETIC RESEARCH
by Mark Jaqua
The story of Atlantis foreshadows today's biological revolution in which scientists seem to be irresistibly drawn to the creation of new life-forms. Perhaps they should resist the impulse.
We have a crisis on our hands. Another one! The last major crisis that affected humanity as a whole was nuclear. We built bomb shelters in case of nuclear attack, and staged gigantic debates as to whether or not to use nuclear reactions to power our electric generators. This has died down a bit, we have become used to living under the threat of the Bomb, and we have decided to use nuclear power stations, at least until something better comes along - or until there is a catastrophe.
Our next major human crisis is already upon us, even before we were warned of it, except for a few sensational headlines, and a few more mumbles on the TV news. The term "genetic research" may bring to mind new breeds of corn, or a faint memory of high school textbooks and Gregor Mendel's experiments with pea plants. It means much more to the informed today. Humans are being conceived in test tubes, artificial life-forms are being created and "clones" are just around the corner.
The greatest fury in scientific circles of late is that centered around "recombinant DNA". DNA is the system of complex molecules contained in the nuclei of each of our body cells that determine heredity. This DNA is the "program" of each of our cells that determines what color of eyes and hair we are born with as well as more subtle things, like if you are "smart" or maybe not so "smart." It determines your individual human characteristics, and that you are born a human and not a frog or some other animal. Your DNA determines that you are born with a nose and not a beak or that you have hair and not feathers.
... plans to create humans who can consume hay or grass (to solve the world hunger problem) are already being researched.
Modern genetic researchers are progressing so rapidly that within a mere ten or twenty years they may have the capability, by "tinkering" with DNA, to create a human with a beak or with feathers. It is hard to imagine why this would be a priority but plans to create humans who can consume hay or grass (to solve the world hunger problem) are already being researched. Dr. A.M. Chakrabarty and staff, of General Electric, are currently working on this unusual proposal. (1) We can see that in genetic research, science fiction is becoming, all too fast, science reality.
Recombinant DNA research entails separating strands of DNA from different life-forms and connecting portions of the alien DNA together so that they form the "master plan" or "program" for an entirely novel form of life. Successes with creating novel viruses and microbes have already been achieved using this method by Dr. Paul Berg (2) and Dr. Stanley Chohan (3), but if success has been reached in creating more complex life-forms, such as plants or animals, it has not been made publicly known.
"Novel" life-forms are being created that are not present anywhere in nature. They are totally artificial, created by combining genetic tendencies of common life-forms. Taken in the extreme, for example, they are "chimeras" such as the mermaid, with the torso and head of a human but the tail of a fish. No such monster has been created in the laboratory as of yet; we are presently dealing only with microbes and other primitive life-forms. The principle, however, is the same. Few authorities deny that our technology may be advanced enough in a few decades to create a mermaid or other chimera. Our biotechnology is advancing so rapidly that it is difficult to say, and frightening to imagine, what will be possible in a short period of time.
The most dangerous recombinant research presently going on is that with microbes and viruses. Superficially this may seem harmless and purely of scientific interest, but its dangers can be seen on deeper inspection. Most diseases are the result of bacterial infection, and modern medicine has created and discovered drugs and antibiotics which are effective in combating most of these disease-causing bacteria. Bio-engineering is resulting in the formation of completely new types of bacteria. The effect of these new microorganisms on the human system is completely unknown. If an artificial strain of bacteria is carelessly created which is lethal to humans, it could conceivably escape from the laboratory and result in a plague of vast dimensions. Medicine would be impotent against such a lethal germ until it could perform time-consuming research for an antidote. Such time-consuming research could prove fatal to thousands or even millions of people. Michael Crichton's book, The Andromeda Strain, centered around an imported lethal bacteria from outer space. Unfortunately, scientists do not live in a void and we all may be more intimately involved with genetic research than we would like to believe.
Bacteria are just too small to completely monitor. In the best containment lab in the country, at Fort Detrick, Maryland, there have been 423 known "accidental" escapes of dangerous bacteria resulting in numerous illnesses and three deaths. (They have even been unable to keep out cockroaches at the Fort Detrick lab!)
There are basically two methods used in controlling errant and possibly lethal bacteria created and used in recombinant research: "biological containment" and the use of "environmentally impotent" bacteria. In biological containment, elaborate equipment such as air locks, negative pressure experiment tanks and chemical showers for the technicians are used. All these mechanical gymnastics do not, however, insure absolute containment of dangerous bacteria. Some will get out no matter what the precautions. Bacteria are just too small to completely monitor. In the best containment lab in the country at Fort Detrick, Maryland, there have been 423 known "accidental" escapes of dangerous bacteria resulting in numerous illnesses and three deaths. (4) If this can happen in the best lab in the country, we can't place too much confidence in less exotic labs. (They have even been unable to keep out cockroaches at the Fort Detrick lab!) Since records have been kept, there have been over 900 incidents of infection involving 5,000 people and 100 disease-carrying bacteria. One-third of these have occurred in various containment labs. (5)
A more promising method of dealing with artificially created microbes is the use of "environmentally impotent" bacteria. These are specially created bacteria which are so weak that they can not maintain life outside of specific laboratory conditions. For instance, this special microbe may be able to live only at a temperature of 70-74° F., and thus, if it did escape, it could not live at the human body temperature of 98° F. This seems like a much safer type of "bug" to perform genetic experiments on. Still, as a remote possibility, there is no guarantee that such a harmful bug could not mutate and survive in the human system.
The jeopardies of genetic research emerge from medical perils into ethical considerations concerning "clones" and the potential creations of half human-half ape chimeras to be our garbage collectors and whatnot. The book, In His Image, by David Rorvik, claims that such a clone of a millionaire has already been performed by a private laboratory. Cloning, the asexual reproduction of a human being, has recently captured the imagination of a large number of people, resulting in a plethora of books flooding the newsstands. Rorvik's book may or may not be a factual account, but we are very close to the feasibility of cloning, if not already there. In genetic research, the quantity of information doubles every two years (6) and J.B. Gurdon managed to clone the African Clawed Frog as far back as 1965. It is only a step of finesse from frogs to human.
Cloning is really nothing new to nature. Plants have been cloning for billions of years, and there are over 200 million human clones (identical twins) in the world right now. There is even a unique and rare process, parthenogenesis, by which a "virgin birth" and an identical clone is produced by a human mother. In this process, somehow a body cell of the mother fertilizes an egg, develops, and she gives birth to her exact duplicate. An expert in genetics, Dr. Helen Spurway, holds that as many as one in two million women are the result of this. (A parthenogenome can only be a woman for obvious reasons.)
Man-created clones will be the result of taking an egg cell from a woman, removing its nucleus, and replacing this nucleus with the nucleus of a body cell of the person to be cloned. Once the egg cell receives its new nucleus, it is placed in a woman's uterus (any woman!) where it will hopefully come to maturity in nine months. Theoretically this does not seem to be a difficult task, but human nuclei are so small that it will take a great deal of skill. Microscalpels and miniscule laser beams are used in operating on nuclei in plants and microbes, but human nuclei are thousands of times smaller than those of plants and microbes so these techniques are too cumbersome. What will be used is "chemical surgery" with enzymes and specially coded viruses. (DNA strands are hardly more than one-dimensional lines to our imagination. If all the strands of DNA in your body were placed end-to-end, they would stretch over 74 billion miles, yet the volume of this material is so small that it would fill only a cubic inch. A single strand of DNA from one cell holds information comparable to 1000 six-hundred page books. (8)
... the technology for breeding animals has "simultaneously made gorilla/man and chimpanzee/man hybrids possible."
While cloning is causing a great deal of excitement, it is doubtful that it could ever have as much utilitarian value as other areas of genetic research like recombinant DNA. The basic problem concerning human cloning is not a technical problem, because we are very close to its achievement, but it is an ethical problem. Should we, or should we not clone humans? It seems that the crux of this problem revolves around the clone himself. One of the major proposals of cloning advocates is the cloning of geniuses. What would be the affect on the clone? Gerald Leach writes in his book The Biocrats, "To aspire to genius is fine, to be the child of genius can be dreadfully difficult, but to be expected to develop into a genius because you are its identical twin could be crushing." There is no guarantee that a clone of Einstein would become another Einstein; he could become a miserable social misfit.
The possible production of human and animal chimeras is of more ethical concern than clones. Such possibilities are speculated about by the most eminent scientists of genetic research. Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg reflects, "... it may become possible to incorporate part of a human nucleus into the germ cell of some animal, say a gorilla, which might produce various 'sub-human' hybrids." (9) Bruce Wallace, professor of genetics at Cornell, says that the technology for breeding animals has "simultaneously made gorilla/ man and chimpanzee/man hybrids possible." (10) Another scientist sees still more frightening things: "Those of us who work in this field see a developing potential for nearly total control of human emotional status, mental functioning, and will to act." (11) "Gene fixes" have been proposed to increase memory capacity or to improve manual dexterity. Genetic potions have been hinted at that will increase the size and capacity of the brain. Hormone shots have already been given to rats that increase their brain size and learning capacity by 70%. (12) These wild scenarios are not idle science fiction meanderings but have the potential of being realized before the end of the century.
Presently the public would violently resist creation or use of half-animal, half-human chimeras. I wonder though, what would be the reaction if it were discovered that use of "parahumans" could cut our taxes in half, or that one's own personal butler could be had for a few thousands dollars and board? Unless it were outlawed, private industry would undoubtedly jump on such a possibility to use parahumans in menial and dangerous jobs. To what degree we would use parahumans would depend on the opinion of the general population. It all seems highly improbable now, but the zeitgeist can change ever so quickly. It was only a short forty-five years ago that Hitler had a whole nation mesmerized in "racial supremacy" and righteous genocide. It may be that the moral fiber of a nation can change much more quickly than we would like to believe. Only twenty years ago, the morals accepted by much of the country today would be regarded with downcast eyes. Who can speculate on what may be the current opinion in twenty or thirty years?
Deep in the heart of every man there is a vague, undefinable mistrust of science, especially when it intrudes on formerly sacrosanct areas of nature. "If man were meant to fly, God would have given him wings!" may come to mind, or numerous other sayings of apprehension. Prometheus stole the "fire" of the gods and was made to suffer for it. Deep within the archetypal part of man's mind there seems to be a warning or fear of delving in matters that were not meant to be interfered with. Could it be that deep within the racial memory there is a faint recollection of the devastating consequences of foolishly violating some basic laws of nature? In the world's mythology there is such a tale, the tale of Atlantis.
All we have that can support the existence of Atlantis is mythology, the words of psychics, and the massive compilation of circumstantial evidence by such pseudo-scientists as Ignatius Donnelly in his book, Atlantis, The Antediluvian World.
Presently the public would violently resist creation or use of half-animal, half-human chimeras. I wonder though, what would be the reaction if it were discovered that use of "parahumans" could cut our taxes in half, or that one's own personal butler could be had for a few thousand dollars and board.
Personally, I find the fact that the earth is several billion years old to be the most convincing evidence that some civilization has predated our own. That most scientists take as matter-of-fact that our civilization is the first and only in this tremendously long time, has a bit too much hubris in it for my liking.
It is amazing that mythology and psychics the world over agree about many things in regard to Atlantis. It is even more amazing that much of this mythology and psychic report intimates aspects of Atlantean science that could not be speculated about more than a few years ago. For instance, a 1940 "reading" of Edgar Cayce, the famous American psychic, stated: "We find that in those periods there was not a laboring for the sustenance of life... (Atlanteans) were served by automatons, or THINGS, that were retained by individuals or groups to do the labors of a household, or to cultivate the fields or the like, or to perform the activities of artisans. And it was concerning these 'things' about which much of the disturbing forces grew to be factors to be reckoned with, between the children of the Law of One and the Sons of Belial. For these were the representation of what in the present experiences would be termed good and evil, or a spiritual thought and purpose and a material thought or desire or purpose." (13)
If you can read beyond the mystical phraseology, isn't this the very crisis we face today, or will soon be facing? Potentially, we will encounter the creation, through genetic engineering, of parahumans to be used in menial and specialized occupations. When this potential becomes reality, one faction will be morally opposed to it, and another, utilitarian faction will be in favor of it. Hugh Lynn Cayce says further of the Atlanteans, "Some misused.. creative power to reproduce grotesque life forms for their own purposes, interrupting the evolutionary pattern going on in the earth.... They may have been mixtures of man and animal. Evidently they were held in low regard and treated as slaves or machines." (14) That the Edgar Cayce readings were given between thirty and fifty years ago, when only a few were dreaming of the possibilities of genetic engineering, is quite amazing.
Scientists are creating novel life-forms, not really knowing what they will get beforehand. I remember when I was a child, persistently mixing chemicals from my chemistry set, until I could find something that would "blow up."
Madame Blavatsky, in The Secret Doctrine (published in 1888), has some intriguing things to say about the Atlanteans. She claims that they "breeded with animals" which brought about biological monstrosities and the wrath of Nature. Since impregnation of animals by men seems biologically impossible, this myth could be an allegory concerning recombinant DNA experiments by the Atlanteans. In the ancient Tibetan manuscript, The Stanzas of Dzyan, Blavatsky quotes a reference to the Atlanteans: "Having fallen down in godliness they mixed with animal races... Many acquired Divine, more - UNLAWFUL knowledge, and followed willingly the LEFT PATH." (15) If you can interpret the arcane language, "mixing with animals" could refer to genetic experiments, and the "LEFT PATH" would be interpreted as the "path" of utilitarian and material values. In another place in The Secret Doctrine Blavatsky relates an Indian myth about the lost land of "Mu" where "The great lords each had their speaking beast... " I am treading on shaky and highly speculative areas here, but until the most recent science, some aspects of the Atlantean mythology could not be interpreted in even a vaguely sensible manner.
Blavatsky maintains that all processes of Nature and evolution are spiral or periodic in nature, and that we are presently entering the same period of crisis that the Atlanteans went through, and which resulted in their destruction. Edgar Cayce maintained a similar line of thought and held that many former Atlanteans are reincarnating today. According to Edgar's son, Hugh Lynn Cayce, "Many individual souls (or entities) who had one or more incarnations in Atlantis are reincarnating in the earth in this century, particularly in America. Along with technological abilities, they bring tendencies for being extremists. Often they exhibit individual and group karmas associated with selfishness and exploitation where others are concerned. Many of them lived during one of the periods of destruction or geological change in Atlantean history. If Edgar Cayce's prophecies are correct, a similar period of earth changes in imminent." (16)
Interpreting the Atlantean disaster in terms of today's knowledge, Atlantis was not destroyed because the people treaded on the toes of some "wrathful gods," but because they did not fully understand the forces of nature they were unleashing with their science. Similarly today, we are treading in unknown regions and hoping that no disastrous consequences will result. Scientists are creating novel life-forms, not really knowing what they will get beforehand. (I remember when I was a child, persistently mixing chemicals from my chemistry set, until I could find something that would "blow up.")
Myth suggests that the Atlanteans frivolously used the forces of nature and conducted experiments that unexpectedly resulted in geologic cataclysms, the sinking of their continent and even a polar shift. We are approaching such technology today, and may be confronted with side effects of our technology which we do not at all expect. We have the nuclear potential to "crack the core of the planet" and it is a rather minor thing to stimulate an artificial earthquake. For example, recently it was speculated that the Soviets caused a major earthquake in Iran in September, 1978. The Soviets accurately predicted the time and place of this earthquake which destroyed the town of Tabas and killed 25,000 people. Just 36 hours before the quake the Soviets set off an underground 10-megaton bomb 2,500 miles from the earthquake site. It is horribly possible that the Soviets may have caused this quake by a strategically placed bomb, perhaps on a fault line. (17)
It does not matter if Atlantis ever existed factually or not. It is in the least a myth that gives form to deep-seated psychological apprehensions about meddling with the four billion-year-old natural process and evolution of the planet. University of Virginia geneticist Joseph Fletcher has said, "To be civilized, is to be artificial, and to object that something is artificial only condemns it in the eyes of subrational nature lovers or natural law mystics." (18) This may be so, but we should know what we are dealing with before we begin. It takes 10 million years for a mutated gene to become dominant in a species. We can now perform this trick overnight. If God does not play dice with the universe, neither should man. It may be time to question the seeming technological fiat of modern science that says, "If something can be done, it should be done."
Notes
Part II: The Way of the Heart
A transpersonal Approach to the Severely Disharmonized Child
by Gordon Broussard
In the first six chapters of "The Way of the Heart" that appeared in the Winter, 1979 issue of TAT Journal, Gordon Broussard explained that "autism" and "schizophrenia" are labels attached to children who suffer from a severe disharmony of their mental, emotional and spiritual natures. These children can be helped by a "spiritual harmonizer" who understands how to transmit the energies emanating from the Heart center, described by Ramana Maharshi; the harmonizer can engage in a form of silent communication to reach the child who is cut off from normal social contact, and can use play to establish mutual trust and affect the disharmonized energy field of the child. You can use the form in this issue to order the Winter, 1979 issue (Vol. 2 No. 1).
Chapter 7: THE ENERGY OF HARMONIZATION
There are many points of focus for the energy present in man. Each of them is said to be the place to concentrate in order to properly utilize the potential of the energy. For certain yogis this place is Sahasrara, the crown chakra; for practitioners of the martial arts, the tan t'ien, a center just below the navel is the focal point; other disciplines focus on the third eye, the heart chakra, etc. It is indeed true that by focusing on each of these centers various things can be accomplished; but always the energy is being focused on at a point not from which it has originated but to which it has traveled.
The source of all the energies of all these methods is the Heart center. (1) I speak from experience in saying that by dwelling in the Heart I am in Sahasrara and the energy kundalini flowing up sushumna and activating the chakras is only in the Heart. Yet again, when dwelling in the Heart I am in the tan t'ien. When doing T'ai Chi in this manner, from the Heart, it is the same as when done from tan t'ien. The energy C'hi is the energy of the Heart manifested in a particular way. Swimming through the air in the flow that is T'ai Chi, one is swimming in tingling energy that is perceptible. Swimming in energy with a different name than prana which is in reality no different from the energy used by the yogi or the healer. It is only how it is used that is different. (2)
The energy of the healer - the harmonizer - is also said to flow from many places but ultimately it too comes only from the Heart. It is for this reason that the way of the Heart goes directly to the source. It is here that the spiritual harmonizer focuses; here he dwells, first unconsciously and then with growing awareness until he is there all the time, becoming totally harmonized if he is determined enough.
Coming into contact with the severely disharmonized child, the harmonizer can utilize the energy of the Heart in an unfocused or focused manner. Generally speaking, the unfocused manner is utilized only in play involving activity such as rough-housing. As this form of harmonization was discussed in the last chapter, only the focused manner will be considered in this chapter.
Harmonization of the focused manner can be done through direct contact (usually with the child's knowledge) or it can be done at a distance (usually without the child's knowledge). In order to know how to proceed with a particular child one must listen within.
Looking at the child, one dwells in the Heart and many ways of proceeding may come depending on the nature of the child's disharmony. Possible techniques are laying on of hands or the variation of this in which the hands remain just above the body, the meditation harmonizing circuit, transmittal through the eyes, or any combination of these methods. From one interaction to the next the method or methods to be used may vary. Methods used may vary even during a single interaction, as conditions can change (they usually don't) from moment to moment. It is important to remember that whatever occurs in one or several interactions is not personal choice but what the harmonizer has been led to do. He is not an experimenter using trial and error to determine how to proceed; rather, he is proceeding according to inner knowledge and direction.
Taking the possible focused methods of working with the child one by one, let us first consider the laying on of hands; a method which is usually done with the child's knowledge unless a particular child is blind or unless he is too wrapped up in his own world to initially notice anything anyone does. When utilizing this method or the meditation harmonizing circuit with an aware child or young adult, it is necessary to explain what one is doing if he feels within that he is going to use the technique frequently and that the child is likely to understand the explanation. I usually tell younger children unlikely to understand or be interested that I am going to "zap" them, demonstrating what I mean in their right or left palm, depending on which is more sensitive. The child generally feels either tingling, warmth or cold. (3)
Explanations aside, one can proceed in a number of ways. It is possible to just know where to place one's hands. Or, some harmonizers may "see" the areas of disharmony. Another method is to move one's hands above the body thus detecting areas on which to focus energy. In this latter detection method one's left hand is usually positioned in one spot above a particular section of the body while the right hand moves in the vicinity of this area. Sensations in the left hand (and possibly the right one) along with an inner feeling indicate when one has found the spot on which to focus. A variation of this utilized by practitioners of polarization therapy is the taking of pulses and "feeling" for blockages of energy. One may also develop a variation which feels best to him. Whatever the method of detection, once a spot of focus has been located energy is allowed to flow to it. When sufficient energy has flowed, inner guidance lets one know that it's time to stop. If that is all that is required, you'll know. If not, reposition your left hand above another section of the body and explore in the vicinity with the right hand.
As given in Chapter 3, the focused energy travels from the Heart out the right arm and hand - the right hand being the positive pole. The left hand, which is negative, may also radiate a little energy, but in my experience it only completes the circuit whether above the body or in contact with it. This makes its primary function - at least in this approach - that of completing the energy circuit from the Heart so that the energy may go full circle.
An important thing to point out at this point is that, as mentioned above, one allows the energy to flow. No effort should be made to send it, for it sends itself. In other words, when referring to the harmonizer as the "transmitter" or "focuser" of the energy it is not meant that he is concentrating on sending the energy or that it is his energy that is being sent. One dwells in the Heart and allows the energy to send itself and no effort is made to send energy, especially the energy sustaining the body. If a harmonizer were to use the energy sustaining his body he would quickly drain himself, getting old before his time. It is true that following each child (I work with eight a day) one may feel tired but this is only because in acting as a channel for the energy of the Heart one puts a strain on the body until he is at or near total harmonization. Short breaks between each child during which I dwell as the Heart allow me to quickly overcome any exhaustion. At the end of the day I am also full of energy, so my energy is not used. The energy which sustains the body also comes from the Heart center but relatively speaking it is of a slightly different sort than that which is "focused" on a disharmonized child. This energy from the Heart is infinite. It is the energy which sustains all things - God's energy.
The meditation harmonizing circuit can only be used with those children who can sit still long enough and who can understand to at least some degree what you are doing. Although inner time limits are the best ones, usual duration of an interaction of this sort is ten to twenty minutes. As explained in Chapter 3, one sits facing the child (young adult) and the two of you hold hands - left palm up, right palm down. The energy then flows in the manner given. Usually everything is reasonably straightforward. Occasionally, however, one may encounter an individual whose energy field is highly unstable, frequently changing polarity as a result. When this occurs - I've had it happen with one of the two young adults with whom I've used this technique - the energy in the right arm becomes so intense either because of a blockage or a short circuit that the arm feels as though it's on fire. One deals with this by either focusing in the Heart to rectify the problem or, if one is a beginner, by crossing hands - right to right, and left to left - without touching arms.
One step beyond the meditation harmonizing circuit is meditation in which one sends energy through the eyes to the meditating individual. The energy from the eyes is much more intense than the energy received through the circuit even though the latter is often much more easily perceived by someone with whom one is just beginning. Energy "sent" through the eyes is not as obvious as energy "sent" through direct contact. For this reason, in addition to being the most effective method of focusing energy it is also the best to use if one needs to work surreptitiously. Unlike the other methods in which the child knows energy is coming from the harmonizer because he can feel it, the method of sending energy from the eyes leaves the child thinking that his good feeling or the tingling that he is experiencing - in the event that he initially feels anything - is coming from within himself (4) and has nothing to do with the harmonizer.
As already emphasized, the harmonizer never sends energy, it sends itself. He does not choose the method or methods to be used with a particular child, they choose themselves. All that is done by the harmonizer with regard to "focusing" energy happens in and of itself without effort on the part of the harmonizer. In the beginning he may visualize the child or levels, etc., but as he himself becomes more harmonized he grows beyond these mental crutches.
As time passes, the harmonizer begins to see how effective what he is doing really is, for results are often quite remarkable. Thus, not only does he have the subjective feel of the energy flow and possible comments from lucid enough children to let him know that he is effecting some sort of inner and outer change, he also has tangible results which are usually far more than could have been expected in a similar interval of time if some other method had been used.
It is no longer necessary, however, for the harmonizer to depend just on this subjective evidence. He may also turn to science for validation, for science has measured the energy of harmonization in various ways and has validated that "impossible" changes which are other than psychosomatic do sometimes occur when living things or organic or inorganic matter is focused on by a healer (harmonizer).
Consider, for example, Dr. Bernard Grad's experiment with skin wounds on mice, which demonstrated that the wounds, "healed faster when the mice were held in (a) healer's hands." (5) How to argue this away? Or, consider the research which has shown that, "unrefrigerated foods radiated by healers hands have kept much better, without spoilage, than comparative samples which the healer did not hold." (6) Unless one can consider spoilage as a psychosomatic disorder of food that the healer (harmonizer) rids the food of with a variation of the placebo effect, this research cannot be explained away either.
Other research (7) which firmly demonstrates that an energy with measurable effects does radiate from the hands of healers (harmonizers) has involved formation of moving wave patterns inside a cloud chamber in response to this energy from a healer's (harmonizer's) hands; demonstration of a different crystalline structure in crystals formed from solutions of copper salts held by a healer (harmonizer); changes in the hydrogen bonding of water molecules in a sample held by a healer (harmonizer). These are only a few of many studies done to show that a harmonizer can emit measurable energies which can effect measurable changes even in substances which have no real mind. Those with open minds must look and acknowledge at the very least that here is something beyond their usual experience, something which cannot be attributed to "belief" or "hysteria." They must also acknowledge that if such changes in response to a harmonizer's energy can occur in inorganic matter and in organisms much less developed than man, then they can almost undoubtedly also occur in man. Perhaps not as quickly or as completely - for man is a complex being - but nevertheless they can occur.
As the harmonizer approaches closer and closer to total harmonization, he finds it unnecessary to "focus" the energy of harmonization. It becomes unnecessary to think of a disharmonized child in order to harmonize him as the spiritual harmonizer moves nearer and nearer to existing always as the Heart. Harmonization then becomes automatic and the harmonizer also finds that one cannot even say that the energy has "sent" itself for, in truth, where did it have to go?
This stage in the "development" of the spiritual harmonizer is considered in the next chapter.
Chapter VII Notes
By turning his attention to the Heart center, one focuses on the Self (on the Christ within), for not only is the Heart the dwelling place of the Self, it is the Self and contains all things. Thus, energy cannot be said to flow to or from, for there is but the Heart and there is, in truth, nowhere for it to go away from itself. Aspects of this will be further developed in Chapters 8 and 12.
Usually such a master (totally harmonized being) does not bother doing this just as he doesn't bother with psychic abilities (and other siddhis) because he finds them superfluous. He is content to dwell as the Heart and let what happens happen.
Chapter 8: THE ESSENCE OF HARMONIZATION
As the harmonizer grows, he comes to the realization that he is not the one harmonizing the child. Reaching this point, he has come that much nearer to total harmony.
Looking beyond energies, focusing, speaking within, or listening within, one sees that there is no one to send energies to, to speak to or to listen to. One who perceives that there is is not only perceiving incorrectly, he is dividing the indivisible.
Look at the highest teachings of all the religions of the world - the teachings not of the clerics but of the mystics. In all of them reality is perceived not as man and God - a person and an entity who is worshiped - but as God alone. Those who are not yet able to perceive this truth assign labels to it. Those who have perceived it recognize that it is beyond words. How, then, can one use words to label or describe it? Words are three steps (see Chapter 5) from truth; at most they can be a distorted, fragmented sketch of a reality that simply cannot be captured on canvas. How to paint or verbalize the indescribable majesty that is God?
When the spiritual harmonizer "harmonizes" the severely disharmonized individual, he may at first think - "I am focusing energy," or "I am acting as a conduit for God's energy." At one "stage" of harmonization such an attitude is only natural. Later, as one's perception of reality evolves, it is recognized for the egotistical misperception that it is.
Much reference is made to spiritual evolution, the growth of man as he progresses from lower to higher spiritual states. In actuality, only one's perception of reality evolves, reality is always the same. It is not surprising, however, that persons perceiving others who are either much more or less spiritually aware than they are should believe that it is due to some form of evolution not unlike the supposed evolution of the species. The partial truth that is reincarnation (1) contributes much to this belief.
In actuality, as has already been stated, the only spiritual evolution man undergoes is in his perception of reality. Consider the following analogy:
"Think of the process of spiritual growth as one of climbing up a set of stairs which run alongside a highly unusual wall. A person who is near the bottom of the wall is able to perceive only a tiny portion of reality by peering through a tiny hole in the wall, whose function is to obscure the vast panorama that is reality. As an individual progresses up the stairs, he is able to perceive more and more of reality, having gained access to increasingly larger windows. On the next to the last step, although still behind the wall, a person has his clearest perception of reality and is all but totally harmonized. On the last step of all, one goes beyond the wall. No longer separated from the panorama, he becomes an integral part of it."
Like most analogies, this one has its faults. For example, the wall separates individuals from reality while in actuality everyone is always a part of it. Faults aside, however, the wall is the ignorance of people, the increasingly large windows their growing spiritual insight. The stairs their "stages" of evolution or growth. Their absorption into the panorama is the step of casting aside all ignorance to become God.
Individuals who dwell near the bottom of the wall are quite satisfied that their perception of reality is completely right, for they can see the truth and anyone who says otherwise is either a fool, a con man or one who is in league with the forces of evil. (2) As one progresses up the stairs and his perception is allowed to expand he is less unforgiving of other points of view for he is increasingly aware that though he may eventually perceive all of the panorama he will never fully understand it so long as he is separate from it and he will have no need to when he is one with it.
The individual at or near total harmony perceives that by dwelling in his Heart center he is also in the Heart center of everyone, for the Heart is all. Thus, when he "focuses" the energy of the Heart, "sending" it through methods of direct or indirect contact it is NOT GOING ANYWHERE. Where does it have to go? Further clarification is undoubtedly necessary.
Moving from the highest to the lowest level of perception: There is nothing other than the Heart, which is God, the self or Christ consciousness. Anyone who is in the Heart is everything that was, is or will be.
Several steps down, one who dwells in his own Heart is also at the same time in the Heart of every other human being, for they are all the same. However, it is only the harmonizer who knows this; those who are "normal" or severely disharmonized have little inkling of it. Acting from his own Heart center to harmonize the disharmonized child the spiritual harmonizer is also acting from the child's heart. In actuality (skipping up a level) he is none other than the disharmonized child so by focusing the energy all he is really doing is helping the child (who he is) heal himself. At no time does the energy go to a place from a place, for it is always in the one "place" that is really all there is. Even though this is true, the child could not heal himself (from a still lower point of view) without the "help" of the harmonizer, for look where he was when the harmonizer first encountered him.
The explanation may or may not be clear. It is unfortunate that explanations of this sort are made difficult by the fact that to give them one must shift levels of viewpoint. The person with a similar level of view is able to perceive the explanation with a reasonable amount of inner contemplation; the person functioning some steps down from this point of view considers it - rightfully so - as so much mishmash. It is impossible to comprehend more than you can see within through the window beside the particular step to which you have climbed.
If it is indeed true that the harmonizer "helps" the severely disharmonized child heal or harmonize himself why aren't such harmonizations instantaneous and complete? For, unfortunately, some children never go beyond a certain point just a bit beyond where they originally were, while others approach - if not achieve - "normalcy," and the rare few even go beyond it.
This is an excellent question: why aren't all such harmonizations instantaneous and complete? Isn't it so, as pointed out in this book, that as the spiritual harmonizer becomes more and more harmonized he grows closer and closer to oneness with God? Isn't it also true that this book has presented total harmonization as union with God? If this is so isn't anything less than a complete and instantaneous cure a limitation on God's infinite power? Again we come up against the complications of the multi-leveled points of view. Explanations for the limitations on harmonization of severely disharmonized children will be considered in the next chapter.
Chapter VIII Notes
Chapter 9: LIMITING FACTORS
Things are not always as they could be or as one would like them to be. Life is not storybook perfect and few people ever realize their full potential. Consider the likelihood that somewhere in this world is a potential Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, or Shakespeare. Because circumstances may never be right, this individual will probably never express talent which lies dormant within him. Even as this is true for so-called "normal" individuals, so too is it true for the severely disharmonized child.
What is the nature of the factors which limit the development of a severely disharmonized child? To begin with, one can be almost certainly sure that one of them is not lack of proper circumstances, for the dormant potential of the child is usually obscured by more than just lack of opportunity to express it. Possible limiting factors are of two varieties - those associated with the child and those associated with the spiritual harmonizer. As the former factors are the ones more likely to contribute to the child's failure to realize his full potential, they will be considered first and in greater detail.
In Chapter 1 it was stated that all disharmony - illness of whatever sort - is spiritual in nature, having been assumed by an individual as a means of learning a lesson. In order to accept this assumption, one must also accept the premise that man is more than just a body or just a mind. What happens in life must be recognized as more than just coincidence. Instead, one must be ready to accept the possibility that almost everything that happens in life happens for a reason. That there are, in fact, few accidental occurrences.
This brings us to reincarnation - a theory accepted as true by a large portion of the world's population. In actuality reincarnation is only a partial truth, for it only applies to those whose point of view allows them to be reborn. Thus, once again we turn to the analogy of the last chapter.
From the last few steps of the stairway of spiritual development reincarnation is perceived as a false perception because there is only the Self or Christ consciousness, which is always the same. One who has reached this point is no longer subject to reincarnation and he perceives the theory of reincarnation as both true and false - true for those not yet at his point of development because of their incorrect points of view; false for everyone even though they are not aware of it as they are the Self and always have been and always will be. Therefore, repeated birth and death of an individual soul (jiva) can only occur so long as one is behind the wall of ignorance which functions to obscure the fact that there is actually nothing to die or be reborn. Inasmuch as this is not the viewpoint of the greater portion of humanity, however, how does one view reincarnation from their point of view?
The multidimensionality of man makes it impossible to dismiss reincarnation out of hand as an outmoded superstition as one reviewer of a recently released book (1) did. Just because dying individuals who experience death do not perceive reincarnation as a reality does not mean it is not real. An extended explanation of the whole process would be too lengthy to go into here, but suffice it to say that there is no heaven or hell. When one dies, he goes to the plane appropriate to his level of perception (the stair to which one has climbed in the analogy). Considering the fact that a dying man's relatives were probably at about the same point of development when they died, it is not too surprising that such a dying patient would perceive these relatives on the "other side of death" as the patients in the above mentioned book did. (2)
Now in the theory of reincarnation one continues to return to earth until he is at or near total harmony. Such harmony is more rapidly achieved if one is willing to rid himself of the karma (3) which he has accumulated in large rather than small amounts. Therefore, prior to birth individuals can elect to take on certain handicaps from birth or later in life in order to accomplish one of several purposes: (1) to rid himself of a large amount of karma as mentioned above, (2) to teach his parents or others who will be close to him a necessary lesson which will hasten their achievement of total harmony, (4) (3) to accomplish both of these ends. This, then is the basis for saying that illness is spiritual in nature. Here also is the reason why many totally disharmonized children never go beyond a certain point.
Everyone has free will. They are free to choose to have handicaps in life. They are free to fail to learn from the handicaps even though that is the reason they originally elected to have them.
Suppose that before birth an individual elected to be "autistic" so that he could develop and his parents could learn patience and understanding. Once born, everything may go as planned up to a point. The parents may develop as planned, but the child may be so wrapped up in the security that his handicap provides him from a topsy-turvy world - perhaps because of perceptual difficulties - that he does not respond to the harmonizer he knew that he was going to meet and be harmonized by at a certain point in life. But this is only one of numerous possible explanations why a child may fail to respond to a harmonizer's efforts. Perhaps the child knew he would never improve too much unless his parents learned their lesson. If they fail to learn what they should, they stay where they are while the child progresses because he elected (5) to remain as he was even though he could have completely recovered in response to the harmonizer. As a result of this in a future birth he could be much further along.
One could go on and on with reasons why a child might respond only a little or a great deal to the energies from a harmonizer. Each case is unique unto itself and it would take a psychic able to do past life readings, etc. to unwind the chain of events which led to the failure to improve. It might be for one of the reasons given above, or it might be attributable to the harmonizer in some way.
Usually, the harmonizer has something to learn (6) from an interaction too. Almost every significant interaction and many seemingly insignificant ones occur because they were meant to. Learning occurs on such occasions. This learning is not, however, necessarily on a conscious level. More often than not, it is on other than the conscious level. When the harmonizer fails in his efforts to produce any change at all, or he produces only minimal change, it is possible that he has failed because he had a lesson to learn. For instance, perhaps he was becoming too egotistical about his abilities, forgetting for the moment that the only difference between him and the rest of mankind is that they have not yet reached his state. Failure has a way of forcing one to once again face reality - different paths may have stairways with different numbers of steps, but everyone reaches the top eventually. Another possible reason for a harmonizer's failure is that he may have been so overwhelmed by doubts when working with a particular child that he effectively prevented anything major from happening. True, the energy comes from the Self (God) but one can block it by not being open to this infinite source. Then there is the possibility that no matter how unsuccessful an interaction may appear on the surface, it has not been so unsuccessful after all. Who has the right to say what is failure and what is success? As a result of an "unsuccessful" interaction the child may get better over a period of time. Or, perhaps as the result of such an interaction someone else is able to successfully work with the child. In this case, the harmonizer would have been a catalyst, having initiated the inner change which allowed someone else to be effective. In the final analysis, no one is likely to be successful all the time, for whatever reason.
This last statement applies even to the totally harmonized individual. Even such a being as this is not likely to harmonize everyone - instantaneously, completely or at all. This does not mean the totally harmonized being (God) could not instantaneously and completely harmonize (heal) everyone if he wished to. Consider for a moment, however, just what purpose healings of this sort have. When instantaneous healings occur, it is often as much for the benefit of society at large - particularly those closest to the healed individual - as it is for the benefit of the individual. Mankind needs its occasional miracles to remind it that there is a God. That faith can be rewarded in appropriate circumstances. However, if every severely disharmonized individual were completely healed - or to take an extreme example, if every person who had passed away were raised from the dead - think how quickly mankind in general would become blase about the whole thing. Most people would go from doubting, to believing, to expecting. This is not the proper attitude for growth.
It would be too easy for the majority of people to achieve a sort of "welfare spirituality" state of consciousness - "Why bother to work at it when I can get it for nothing?" This is a large part of the problem attached to belief in reincarnation. The majority of people in India and other countries with a belief in reincarnation have allowed this belief to become a belief in welfare spirituality - why work at growing when I'll have another chance to grow and another and another ad infinitum? Everyone who adopts this kind of belief seems to overlook the fact that things worth having, including total harmonization, are usually most appreciated and most deserved only when won as the result of concerted effort. Things such as this are not handed one on a silver platter just because one says "I believe," or "Praise the Lord," or "Hallelujah!" It is the inner not the outer state of consciousness that is the final measure of man's right to advance up another step. God reads the Heart of man; he does not listen to songs of false praise which have no meaning other than on the surface.
In the next chapter, the manner of progression of two children with whom I worked will be considered. These two cases - successful ones - demonstrate possible routes a disharmonized child might follow on his way to greater harmony.
Chapter IX Notes
It is the latter karma which produces results in a particular ongoing life.
Chapter 10: PATTERNS OF GROWTH
There is another side to the coin of limitations - this is the growth that can take place as a result of harmonization. It is this part of the harmonizer's job that is the most rewarding - so long as he might be motivated by rewards.
No two children move from disharmony to harmony in the same way or take the same amount of time. The most that can be said is that once they reach a certain point they go beyond plateaus and from then until they reach as far as they are going to go they climb at an ever increasing rate. (1)
There is a logic in this difference of rates of progression. People are different, only statistics make them the "same." No two "normal" people are the same; nor are any two totally harmonized beings externally the same. Even two children in the same family grow up as individuals - although some teachers and other adults sometimes expect them to "be the same," insofar as grades are concerned, as siblings who have gone before. Severely disharmonized children are often expected to progress at the same rates too. For some reason people unreasonably expect that if you put in so much you'll get back so much although they don't even expect this from the people with whom they work.
Consider, just for starters, that no two children began from the same place. Two may "seem" the same or quite similar, but as should be clear by now, man is much more than he externally appears to be. To some extent he can be behaviorally restructured but the more harmonized a man is the further beyond conditioning he becomes for, resting as his essential core, he "controls" his body and mind; they no longer control him. Although a disharmonized child can be changed by means of a behavioral approach, his essential core cannot be. This means that the child can never reach the point he could have if he had worked with a harmonizer.
As an example of what sort of growth can take place in response to a harmonizer, the patterns of growth of two children mentioned elsewhere in this book will be briefly considered in this chapter. Those children are the four year old from Chapter 2, referred to as "Ted" throughout the rest of this chapter; and "Joe" (2) from Chapter 6.
Ted came to the institution where I work with a diagnosis of "early infantile autism." As is true for so many of these children, he had been many places and his parents, in desperation, were trying once again.
At four, Ted was moderately abusive of himself and severely abusive of others, especially a sister just over twice his age. The reason for this abuse was that he was able to perceive fear in others and to read the expectations of others. Being intelligent as well as perceptive, he took advantage of fear and expectations using them to intimidate those around him. He would often go out of his way to do just the opposite of what he knew was expected of him and if an attempt was made to stop him, more often than not he'd resort to biting or scratching in an attempt to continue getting his way. In addition to the above characteristics, Ted spun things, he avoided physical contact or show of affection, he avoided talking even though he had a vocabulary of something over a hundred words and he sometimes destroyed things in a fit of rage. In other words, Ted did things that made Dennis the Menace look mild by comparison and the only time he wasn't doing them was usually when he was asleep, sleep occurring only when he ran down from sheer exhaustion. This, then, was Ted when we first got him.
Upon his departure nine months later - he was withdrawn for financial reasons - Ted was a different child as a result of the combined efforts (3) of an excellent speech teacher, his classroom teacher, myself and my associate. Gone was the aggressive attacking, the destruction, and, for the most part, the spinning. Ted now allowed others to hold him and often sought contact. Additionally, he had so come to enjoy being lifted up into the air and being tickled that he willingly said "up" and "tickle." As he was also aphasic, (4) prompting was sometimes necessary to get him to say these things, but despite his aphasia he was correctly asking for things more and more every day at the time of his withdrawal. Ted was well on his way to a point much closer to normalcy.
It had taken Ted almost the entire nine months to reach that point beyond plateaus which I call the take-off point for want of a better name. Before reaching this point, his progress had been gradual with many steps forward and backward as he tested and came to trust those around him. Joe reached in three months the point it took Ted nine months to reach. As Joe was the first severely disharmonized child with whom l ever worked, however, I initially had no idea that such a thing as a "take-off" point even existed.
When I began working with Joe I didn't even know what inner listening was nor inner communication. None of the concepts presented in this book were consciously mine. Even so, I somehow knew that Joe had more going for him than he was showing. It was this feeling that led me to spend time with this eleven year old boy.
In the beginning Joe looked beyond reaching. He appeared totally unaware of the world and early photos taken when I first began working with him showed what appeared more zombie or robot than human - the eyes were vacant and the gait mechanical. Additionally, Joe got frustrated easily, shredding paper when he felt this way. He loved magazines on cars, motorcycles and airplanes. He often stuck his right arm out in a Nazi-like salute. He avoided affection. Attempts to interrupt what he was doing produced a rage. Speech was minimal - he identified things he saw in a whisper. This was Joe when I first met him.
At first, I did little more than sit and rub Joe's back and head, two things that he loved having done - they sent him off to some Never Never Land. Yet, this alone was sufficient to produce a change in Joe; even though in the past it had made him even more withdrawn. What I was doing came to the attention of the medical director and he was sufficiently impressed to "prescribe" me for Joe - one dose of interaction at a specific and for a more prolonged time each day. I began.
For a great while I was groping in darkness. With Ted I knew how to proceed, it was necessary only to look within and do what came to me. Much of what I did with Ted involved the use of harmonizing energy. However, at the time I was working with Joe I didn't know that I was capable of such things. It wasn't until near the end of my relationship with him that I really became aware of what I was doing. Thus, while working with him I was an unconscious harmonizer. I was not sure how to proceed nor did I know just where to turn for guidance.
I was totally unsure of myself and this lack of certainty led me to read a number of books on autism and to try techniques given therein. I quickly found that one couldn't go rushing to a book every time he encountered some new behavior, so I began seeking for a way of proceeding that was uniquely my own. Gradually, as I felt my way step by step I came to the realization that what I did had to come from within me. It was in this way that I began to utilize the way of the Heart - a technique of meditation I had been practicing for nine years - without even knowing that I was doing so until sometime after Joe's death. I knew that I was doing things that seemed right but I was frequently uncertain for what I was doing was so unconventional. Conscious use of energy did not yet exist.
Because I was unaware of inner guidance or solace - although I now realize that I was receiving it - I was frequently stricken by doubts that Joe would even "learn." Daily I was ready to quit, sure that I could go no further. Drawing on some then unknown well of strength I would decide to go on working with Joe for just one more day, one more week, one more month. Almost always, shortly after my greatest despair some new behavior would appear, and remain, and generalize. These changes kept me going until, suddenly, after three months, the dam broke and plateaus became a thing of the past. Joe then began soaring toward normalcy and he never stopped until his unfortunate death.
Magically old behaviors fell away. The Nazi-like salute disappeared; restlessness became less and less a thing to contend with, frustration became more and more infrequent; Joe went from getting up when he saw me to getting up, smiling, saying my name with enthusiasm and bounding toward me. Affection grew - near the end Joe was hugging and kissing people and telling them that he loved them. Thus, the light went on in Joe's eyes, he was there again, and having been made aware of the world once again he moved out into it more and more.
These, then, were two of the children with whom I have successfully worked - Ted and Joe. I have only touched on their patterns of growth, for to properly present nine months work it would take a whole book. I've presented the beginning and the end more than the middle, for it was more important to show where they were and where they got to than to show how they got there. Too often people look to the how as a recipe - take a pinch of this and a dash of that - making a therapeutic method a cookbook sort of thing which always produces certain behavioral and emotional changes. Such people do not look within themselves and find their own way of progressing. They do not realize that there is only the starting point, the take-off point and the end point and that no two paths are the same no matter how similar the starting points. They need to learn that although books have their place they cannot supersede the knowledge of the Heart, which is all knowledge.
Some insight into how I came to be a spiritual harmonizer has been given in this chapter. In the next chapter the way of the Heart as I have come to know it will be briefly considered.
Chapter X Notes
Chapter 11: THE WAY OF THE HEART
It has been said again and again throughout the pages of this book that man is none other than the Heart, which is the Self, Christ consciousness (the Christ within), or God; and this is so. Additionally, in Chapter 5 it was said that man's natural state is peace, calm, joy and unlimited love; and this is also so. This is, of course, easy to say, but not always so easy to know. How, then, is one to know either of these things? Most certainly, a depressed individual with suicidal thoughts does not know that he is the Heart nor does he know that peace, calm, joy and unlimited love are his real nature. Most likely, all that he knows is that life is a bummer and he's got nothing worth living for.
Consider the following - man seems to gravitate toward things which give him pleasure. Things such as sex and money, things that are "fun" or that can buy or provide this fun. In this search for fun man feels himself most satisfied when he has "enjoyed" himself and most dissatisfied when he is "bored" and has nothing to do.
If one were to probe beneath the surface of most of these "fun" seekers it would be relatively easy to discover just how shallow their fun is. Most often such fun is sought after out of sheer desperation - although few of the seekers of it would initially be willing to admit this. The go, go, go, don't stop nature of this fun should, however, tell one something. There is a clanger to stopping for one is then so unoccupied that he gains insight into just how little "fun" he is really having.
What is it that man is seeking when he runs desperately after fun? Why is this drive especially so prevalent among the young?
Deep within us all we have memories of our true nature. These memories are in the Heart which is our essential nature. Like a sleeping giant which stirs restlessly, (1) its essence sometimes seeps to the surface of our mind. What is perceived when this occurs is usually extremely brief but nevertheless extremely satisfying. Although like a flicker of light issuing forth from a brilliant but well baffled source (the baffling being one's ignorance, the wall in the analogy) it is enough to set one seeking for something similar. Inasmuch as one is only minimally aware of this essence seeping from the Heart and is completely unaware of the Heart itself, the search is almost always initially both futile and desperate.
The pleasure which man seeks in an effort to emulate the peace, calm, joy and unlimited love which he dimly perceived issuing from the Heart provides sensations which are temporary at best. After all, one can have only so many orgasms before exhaustion sets in; or money runs out or is in such abundance that one discovers being rich isn't all that it's cracked up to be; or, "fun" things like eating, sky diving, surfing, drinking, partying, etc. grow old as one gets too much of them. It is this pleasure saturation point of every "fun" activity which leads many people to turn to more and more unusual activities in an effort to once again experience the thrills less strenuous (or dangerous) activities once brought them. Too few go the other way - toward the Heart, which initially sent them on their wild goose chase.
In the Upanishads the pleasure of one who has realized the Self (the Heart) is described as many, many times the pleasure of any other being. (2) This pleasure is unique in a number of ways. For instance, the totally harmonized being experiences peace, calm, joy and unlimited love all the time. This experience is not the fleeting thing of the man cloaked in ignorance, it is a magnificent thing - the experience of being God. Too few people ever know this experience, however.
Among the seekers after pleasure there are the few who realize the fact that they'll never find what they're seeking by continuing the way they have been going - their desperate search is realized as a dead end. Individuals who have gained this insight almost always turn to some spiritual path or other; where they turn being dependent on the stairway they began ascending in other lives and on how far up they got last time around.
There are many stairways, some having more steps (and thus more windows) than others. The higher a person previously ascended the more accepting he is of the others; the lower down, the more his vision is focused on his stairway alone. This is true no matter which stairway a person is ascending. Be he Christian, Buddhist, Jew, Muslim, Bahai, the person who has climbed all but the last few steps of his own particular stairway is cognizant of the fact that there is really not that much difference between various stairways, as they all lead to the same point. Even though this is so, no one is forced to accept what they are not ready for. It should be obvious, however, that even though they can't accept it it is, nevertheless, no less true.
An unfortunate tendency of people who have not clarified their vision enough to see beyond their own stairway is that of crying out against what they cannot understand and of proclaiming their way as the one and only way to the truth. This tendency might be likened to the tendency of teenagers to form cliques which one must belong to in order to be in; eventually almost everyone grows beyond this stage.
This brings us, briefly, to why the young (in body if not in mind) are usually the ones most likely to be driven by the need for "fun." The drive for fun is a cliquish thing which must also be outgrown.
And now, once again, how does one come to know oneself as the Heart whose natural state is peace, love, joy and unlimited love?
There is but one true test of any of the statements made in this or any other book on spiritual paths. No matter what the source of written spiritual knowledge one adheres to - be it the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Mormon, whatever - the only test of the truths contained in any of them is to turn within to the Heart. By turning within to one's core - to God - one can discover for himself what is true and what false.
Of course, one must be at the point where he can do this. Before he reaches this point, however, he does best to abide by what is written in the scripture that he follows; for he is thus able to focus his mind. This allows him to wean it away from more mundane things. In short, one must "grow" away from one's scripture, finally reaching the point where he could write scriptures of his own - though few of those who achieve total harmony have that mission in life.
In the way of the Heart there are essentially two means of becoming aware of your essential nature as the Heart (God) and the Heart alone. These are the ways of Atma Vichara (Self Enquiry) (3) and the way of focusing on the Heart, experiencing the sensation that is the Heart, and then going beyond this sensation as one becomes the Heart.
Briefly, the way of Atma Vichara is that of asking "Who am I? each time one has thoughts, sensations, etc. Utilizing this query, one traces the thoughts to their source - the Heart or Self. Additional information on this method will be found in books referred to in Note 3 above as well as in other notes which refer to Sri Ramana Maharshi.
The second of the two methods can be achieved through the first, i.e., one can come to know the Heart through Atma Vichara; (4) or, one can be shown the way of the Heart by a harmonizer who has that as a part of his mission in life.
Whichever of the two methods or starting points one turns to it is still a truism that it is only when one is ready that he experiences the Heart.
In neither case does the person decide that he is ready. He can proclaim himself ready for all the world to hear but that is not the way things work. No, instead, in the former method the Heart makes itself known when it is time and in the latter the harmonizer shows only those he perceives as ready how to begin that path. Thus, although an individual may go to a particular harmonizer who is said to show the way, he may be told that he is mistaken; that it is some other harmonizer somewhere else who shows the way. This will mean only that the individual is not ready. Protests to the contrary will only prove what the harmonizer already knew - too much ego exists to allow the protester to follow the way of the Heart.
Should one become aware of the Heart through either of the two means given above, he is still not through. One may become aware of the Heart years before he becomes the Heart. This may sound depressing, but during each of those years a person becomes more and more fixed in the Heart. Then, suddenly, one day he finds that he is the Heart and nothing remains to be done or really needed doing in the first place.
In the next chapter what can occur when one becomes totally harmonized is considered.
Chapter XI Notes
Books to which one may turn for insight into Atma Vichara are:
The Spiritual Teachings of Ramana Maharshi (Berkeley, Ca., Shambala Publications, Inc., 1972).
The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi, ed. Arthur Osborne (New York, N.Y., Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1959).
Arthur Osborne, Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge (New York, N.Y., Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1970).
Mouni Sadhu, In Days of Great Peace (Hollywood, Ca., Wilshire Book Co., 1957).
Chapter 12: THE ULTIMATE HARMONIZERS
When, at last, one has ascended to the final steps of the stairway in the analogy in Chapter 8, he has reached that point where he is (or almost is) the panorama or Heart. Where his energy field extends to infinity. No longer is there an "I" and God, nor an "I" and others; there is only "I am." (1) Reaching this point, all things become possible to this now totally harmonized being. (2) The capability of the totally harmonized being to perform "miracles" is easily explained. As the Heart, such a being is the reality underlying all apparent reality. His energy field, which is the Heart, is the universe and he is all matter, all energy, all laws of nature. Because he is all these things, he is also God and he has the ability to supersede these laws. (3)
Not too different from the viewpoint of the Heart as the substratum underlying everything is the view in theoretical physics suggested by J.S. Bell (Bell's Theorem), a physicist who formulated it in response to the potentialities suggested in the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky experiment. This theorem hypothesizes a subquantal level in which two events, "though happening at distant points in space, must be instantly connected at the moment of their occurrence. Though they are quite separate spatially they must be considered in some sense to be a single event." (4)
The point of connection of these events, the factor which makes them a single event, is the Heart. They are both contained in the Heart in which there is no space. As this is so, they are, in actuality, a single event since they cannot really be separate, there being no location other than the Heart. Not only is there no space (location) in the Heart, there is also no time. Time is relative. It is because these two facts are true (5) that totally harmonized individuals are capable of such remarkable things as an effortless affinity with all living things, conscious bilocation, awareness of thoughts and actions of others, total and instantaneous healings of all diseases (delusions) including death.
Even the budding harmonizer can achieve some degree of affinity with other living things besides disharmonized individuals. As he becomes more and more harmonized, it becomes easier and easier for him until it is no longer necessary for him to achieve attunement or affinity. He reaches the point mentioned in Note 5 of always being in tune with all things. Recorded examples of this ability - especially in accounts of Hindu saints - are myriad. An example is the experience of Paul Brunton in A Search in Secret India. Brunton tells how Yogi Ramiah, an advanced disciple of Ramana Maharshi, acted upon encountering a young cobra which had Brunton frozen with fear:
"... weaponless as he is, he holds both hands out towards the snake! It's forked tongue moves about in its open mouth but it does not attempt to attack him... the strange visitor stands quite close to the snake which bends its head before him, and then he gently strokes its tail." (6)
Although bilocation, or conscious existence at two or more points at once, (7) is less frequent in occurrence than attunement with all living things, it too is found described in accounts of saints with surprising frequency. Many famous Christian and Hindu saints are known for their ability to bilocate. Examples include Padre Pio, a priest of the Capuchin order presently being considered for beatification, (8) and Swami Pranabananda, the "Saint with Two Bodies" described in Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi. (9)
Still another ability of saints - which goes far beyond ordinary telepathy (or beyond the inner listening of a harmonizer who is less than totally harmonized) is that of knowing the innermost thoughts and desires of individuals who have either directed their thoughts toward them or who have surrendered to them as God incarnate. Padre Pio manifested this ability as does Sai Baba. (10)
One of numerous accounts in Samuel H. Sandweiss's Sai Baba the Holy Man and the Psychiatrist tells how a woman requested something for "which she had been praying for a number of months." (11) Sai Baba responded by "stepping back playfully, his eyes twinkling, his face a broad loving smile, and answered her in the very words which she had been using in her prayers to him." (12) The author continues that Sai Baba "simply had no way of knowing what these words had been" and that the lady was "overwhelmed." (13)
One may find examples of how Paramahansa Yogananda knew the most intimate thoughts and actions of his ''disciples" in Swami Kriyananda's The Path. (14) Having surrendered to Yogananda, who was totally harmonized, they had in effect surrendered to God, giving Yogananda carte blanche insofor as their spiritual ''growth'' was concerned.
The ability of the being who is at or near total harmonization to instantaneously and completely heal a disharmonized individual can also be read about in literature on saints. This ability, too, exceeds that of lesser harmonizers.
In such healings, the harmonizer need not even be present nor still "alive." (15) Additionally, the healing - though still instantaneous - may be delayed until a certain symbolic action dictated by the harmonizer is carried out. Such actions are a test of faith in the harmonizer as God manifest. (16) These healings may even be such that they overcome the greatest illness (delusion) of all - death. These are the ultimate healings of the ultimate harmonizers.
One may find accounts of several of these ultimate healings in the New Testament, for Jesus was one of these ultimate harmonizers. One such account is found in Luke 8:49-56:
"While he was still speaking, a man from the ruler's house came and said, "your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Teacher any more.' But Jesus on hearing this answered him, "Do not fear; only believe, and she shall be well.' And when he came to the house, he permitted no one to enter with him, except Peter and John and James, and the father and mother of the child. And all were weeping and bewailing her; but he said, 'Do not weep; for she is not dead but sleeping.' And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But taking her by the hand he called, saying, 'Child, arise.' And her spirit returned, and she got up at once; and he directed that something should be given her to eat. And her parents were amazed; but he charged them to tell no one what had happened. (17)
One may also find examples of this ultimate healing in Paramahansa Yogananda's book.
These, then, are the ultimate harmonizers - individuals who have ascended to the last step or two of their own stairway. Abiding as the Heart (God), they are capable of the things given here and of many others.
It is easy to read about "miracles'' such as those described here and scoff. For, unless one sees them it is not always easy to believe. It is for this reason that those who believe without seeing are somehow special. They are more in tune with their Heart even though they do not always even know that it exists. This makes them "closer" to total harmony than those who allow skepticism to so blind them that they would even deny a miracle occurring right in front of them rather than restructure their system of belief; or those who would deny them even though they see the miracle that is life happening around them every day.
At sometime in the future everyone will eventually go beyond belief to knowledge - reaching at last the final step of total harmony. When this occurs there will be no further need for spiritual harmonizers as all individuals will be such. This time is still in the future. When it might be is considered in the final chapter of this book.
Chapter XII Notes
Chapter 13: THE END AND THE BEGINNING
We are all the Self; there is nothing other than the Heart. Yet, because of the wall of ignorance and the stairways with varying numbers of steps, few people know this.
There is nothing but God manifest. Yet, there is God manifest with knowledge (the totally harmonized being), God manifest in ignorance (one at or near the bottom step) and degrees of knowledge or ignorance between these two points.
Eventually everyone will go beyond ignorance to knowledge-ascending the final step and going beyond the wall. Yet, the time for this to happen for more than a few at a time is not yet.
Some say this is the Kali Yuga-the age of darkness. One who has read Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri's The Holy Science (1) knows that this is a misconception. There is a time - yet to be - when the majority of mankind will climb to the top of the wall. When this time is to be may be found in The Holy Science or in Roy Eugene Davis' The Way of the Initiate. (2)
As one may find by reading either or the above mentioned books, man allows himself to be governed by cycles. Yet, this does not have to be. Ignorance is accepted by man, or it would not exist. The mass of mankind is happy where it is. If this were not so, the time for all to ascend beyond ignorance would be now.
Even though - generally speaking - mankind is adrift in a sea of self made ignorance; there are more and more individuals who are finding their way to shore where they stand on their own feet and become lighthouses guiding others to a safe harbor. When enough sources of light light the shore, all those who are not satisfied with their free drifting trip will find their way to shore.
Man elected his ignorance and man must elect to cast it aside. So long as he is enamored with all the sources of ''fun,'' he has no reason to hunt for anything else.
When, at last, man is willing to grow, to be open, to look to the Heart by whatever name, this will be the end of ignorance and the beginning of knowledge. Until that time, there will be the disharmonized and the spiritual harmonizers. There will be paths and guides. There will be stairways, walls and windows. Until that time, books such as this will have a reason for existing - as signposts indicating starting points for the few.
Chapter XIII Notes
Fiction
CIRCLE AMAZE
by Keith McWilliams
Frank was young, but he could love and hate. In fact, he couldn't stop.
Frank watched intently as the ant scurried back and forth on the cement trying to evade the broiling rays of light emanating from his magnifying glass. He felt a slight pang of guilt inside him. He knew it was wrong to torture ants but it was kinda fun and, after all, it was only an ant. Lisa would get upset and start crying if she saw him doing this because she didn't like anything to get hurt. Frank was watching out for her though. She wouldn't find out.
The ant, frustra