[Music]
 Between Western psychology, psychiatry and psychotherapy
 and the so-called religions of Asia, there is common ground
 because both are interested in changing states of human consciousness.
 Whereas institutional Western religion, Christianity, Judaism and even Islam
 are relatively less interested in this matter.
 Western religions are more concerned with behavior, doctrine and belief
 than with any transformation of the way in which we are aware of ourselves and of the world.
 But this matter concerns psychiatry and psychology very much.
 Only those states of consciousness which are not normal
 are usually treated in Western psychology as being in some way sick.
 There are of course exceptions to this and there have increasingly been exceptions
 in the work of Jung and to some extent even of Groddeck,
 of Princehawn,
 of more modern people, Rogers
 and Ronald Lang.
 Changing consciousness is often looked upon as a form of therapy.
 But in general,
 different states of consciousness from the normal
 are regarded as a form of sickness and therefore official and institutional psychiatry
 constitutes itself the guardian of sanity
 and of socially approved experience of reality.
 And very often it seems to me that reality appears
 rather much the way the world is seen on a bleak Monday morning.
 In this official doctrine, I might even say dogma of what reality is.
 Because after all we know that our science, such as it is of psychology,
 is founded in the scientific naturalism of the 19th century.
 And the metaphysical and mythological assumptions of that science
 still underlie a great deal of psychological thinking
 in behaviorism eminently, but also to a large extent in
 official psychoanalysis.
 Indeed one might say that psychoanalysis is based on Newtonian mechanics
 and in fact could be called psycho-hydraulics.
 Not that that analogy is altogether inappropriate
 because there are certainly respects in which our psychic life
 flows and exhibits the dynamics of water.
 But of course we want to know what kind of water.
 And for the scientific naturalism of the 19th century
 the basic energies of nature were considered to be
 very much inferior to human consciousness in quality.
 Ernst Haeckel, a biologist of that time, would think of the energy of the
 universe as blind energy. And correspondingly it seems to me that
 Freud thought of the libido as essentially blind, unconscious energy,
 embodying only a kind of formless, unstructured, and insatiable lust.
 This is a generalization. Some modification in that thinking is of
 course possible. But the tendency is to regard all that
 which lies below the surface of human consciousness
 as being less evolved, because you must remember that this was
 also the time of Darwin's theories of evolution,
 of seeing the human mind as a fortuitous
 development from much more primitive forms of life,
 coming forth by purely mechanical processes,
 by natural selection and by the survival of the fittest.
 And therefore man was in general seen
 as a fluke of nature, an embodiment of reason,
 emotion, and values for which the more basic processes of nature had
 no sympathy and about which they did not care.
 If therefore the human race is to flourish,
 we must take charge of evolution, left to spontaneous process, but it must be
 directed by human ingenuity, despite the fact
 that although our brains are capable of dealing
 with a colossal number of variables at once,
 our conscious attention is not. Most people cannot consider more than
 three variables at the same time without using a pencil.
 And this shows that in many ways the scanning process of man's conscious
 attention is very inadequate for dealing
 with the infinitely many variables, the multi-dimensional processes
 of the natural universe. However, a serious attempt has been made
 and scientific naturalism issued in a fantastic fight with nature,
 in this whole notion of the conquest and subordination of nature,
 which has as a matter of fact very ancient non-scientific and biblical
 origins, with the idea of man as the head and
 chief and ruler of nature in the image of God.
 And the time has now dawned upon us all when our attempts to beat nature into
 submission are having alarming results, because we
 see that it's very dangerous to mess around
 with processes that we don't understand,
 that have enormous numbers of variables,
 and we begin to wonder whether we hadn't better let well enough
 alone.
 At the same time, although I said that Western psychology had more in common
 or more common interest with Oriental religion
 than it does with Western religion, there is a sense in which
 psychiatry and psychotherapy are becoming
 the religion of the West.
 Psychoanalysis has much in common with the forms and procedures of
 institutional religion. There is, for example, apostolic
 succession,
 the passing down of manna, of qualified power to practice therapy,
 from the father founder, Sigmund Freud, through his immediate apostles, to an
 enormous company of archbishops and bishops,
 among whom there are, of course, as there were with Christianity,
 heresiarchs such as Jung and Grodek and Rank
 and Reich,
 and the heresiarchs are duly excommunicated and anathematized.
 There are rituals, as there are also rituals with religion.
 There is the sacrament of the couch,
 there is the spiritual discipline of free association,
 there is the mystic knowledge of the interpretation of dreams,
 and there are also the two great symbolic fetishes,
 the long one and the round one.
 Now, it's extraordinarily easy to make fun of all this,
 and we must not forget that
 we owe a tremendous debt to Freud, if for nothing else than pointing out
 that that much of ourselves of which we are aware in terms of the conscious ego
 is not really ourselves. It is something superficial.
 However we find its nature, it is superficial,
 and the realities of human life are not under the gaze of its scanning
 process, at least not in the ordinary way. And that
 was a tremendous revelation, there's no question
 about that.
 But one sees troublesome signs when the doctrines and processes
 of psychiatry, psychoanalysis and so forth become
 officialized. And I think Thomas Sass in his books "The Myth of Mental Illness"
 and "The Manufacture of Madness" is pointing out something extremely
 important to us, which is that in effect
 the psychological official of today is the priest.
 And that he is beginning to exercise the same sort of controls
 over human life as were exercised by the church
 in the Middle Ages. So that a professor of psychiatry
 at Columbia or Harvard or Yale medical schools
 has today the same sort of intellectual respectability
 and authority as the professor of theology
 at the University of Toledo or Padua would have had in the year 1400.
 Now you must realize that the theologians of those days
 not simply believed in their cosmology and the
 theology, they almost knew it was true in the same way that our scientists
 know certain things to be true.
 Despite the fact that they change their opinions
 very often, while they hold them they have in effect the force of dogma
 as witness the anathematization of Velikovsky
 for his uncomfortable ideas.
 And therefore there are heresies existing today
 which are persecuted in the same way as heresies were persecuted
 by the Holy Inquisition.
 And they are persecuted out of kindness in exactly the same way that the Holy
 Inquisition persecuted heresy out of kindness and
 deep concern for human beings. That is unimaginable
 to us but it was so. For after all if you seriously
 believed that someone who did not hold the
 catholic faith and who voluntarily rejected it
 would be tortured physically and spiritually
 forever and ever and ever in hell
 you would resort to almost any means to preserve a fellow human being from such
 a fate. Especially if the complaint or disease of
 heresy from which he suffered was infectious.
 You would first of all reason with him and if he was not responsive to reason
 you would resort to abuse and to forceful argument
 and if he was not responsive to that you would give him shock treatment and bang
 him about. If that didn't work the thumbscrew and
 the rack and the iron maiden and if that didn't work as a last
 desperate resort you would burn him at the stake in the
 pious hope that in the midst of those searing fires
 he would think better and make a last act of perfect contrition and so be
 rescued from everlasting damnation. And you did all this
 within the spirit of this is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you.
 In the spirit of a surgeon who is very very sorry indeed that he has to
 make you undergo this extremely painful operation
 but it is in your best interests and there really is at least a 50/50 chance
 that you may survive.
 And so therefore in perfectly scientific medical spirit
 people may be very arbitrarily and without due process
 deprived of their civil rights incarcerated
 in prisons that are in many cases much worse than prisons for criminals
 and generally left to rot be neglected and ignored and when bumptious
 given shock treatment or put in solitary confinement.
 For what? Because they have unorthodox and heretical states of consciousness.
 A lot of these people are not dangerous
 until provoked into being dangerous by being ignored by being treated as
 machines and in generally defined as non-human.
 And if you are defined as non-human there's precious little you can do about
 it because everything you say that sounds
 human will be taken as a kind of utterance of a mechanical man
 as imitating humanness out of lunatic cunning.
 You will be suspicious everything you say will be listened to
 in a different way and with different ears
 and you will have one hell of a time talking yourself out of it
 because there really are no rules as to what one must do when
 incarcerated for having unorthodox consciousness.
 There is no clear road to repentance and this is found likewise in jails
 where people are incarcerated on one to ten year sentences as in places like
 Vacaville California where when I visited such prisons young
 men have come to me in perfect desperation
 saying I don't know what's happened to me because I
 want to live like a decent citizen I know I've done things that are wrong
 but I simply don't know what is expected of me here.
 If I try to do what's expected they say I'm compliant
 and that seems to be some sort of a sickness.
 Thomas Sass drew attention to this when he quoted
 a discussion of the types of school children who
 may very well need therapy. There were overachieving children
 there were underachieving children there were children
 who exhibited erratic patterns there were children who were
 sort of a dully mediocre in fact every sort of child
 can be given a diagnostic name for his behavior which sounds sick
 as Jung once suggested life itself is a disease with a very poor prognosis
 it lingers on for years and invariably ends with death.
 And I submit that in our present knowledge of the human mind
 such power in the hands of psychiatrists is amazingly dangerous
 for I would suggest that today we know about as much
 concerning the human mind as we knew about the galaxy in 1300
 and that while there are indeed individuals
 who are certainly able to perform psychotherapy
 it is the sheerest arrogance for anybody to say
 that he is officially qualified to do so.
 We do not know how it is done just as we do not know really how musical
 artistic and literary genius is done. You cannot really teach it you can
 put the tools for doing these things into people's hands
 and you can show them how to use the tools but whether they will use those
 tools with genius is quite unpredictable.
 And this is above all true of the art of psychotherapy.
 We don't know how it's done we've got some vague ideas
 there probably are some people who by reason of their mental derangement
 are probably not qualified to perform it because they are maybe
 out just to make other people into messes
 but to say that there are certain standards and certain examinations that
 can be passed and certificates that could be issued
 which do indeed qualify people for this work
 is I think pernicious nonsense
 and is used of course out of economic self-interest
 when those who consider themselves official therapists run into
 competition. The same was done by religion.
 I was talking imagine it to a buddhist priest
 in Thailand some years ago I was looking at some books in a
 bookshop in the precincts of a buddhist temple
 and I was wandering over and I noticed a book on a certain form of buddhist
 meditation and I murmured hmm Satipatthana which is
 the name of a certain kind of buddhist meditation
 and a voice suddenly said to me you practice Satipatthana?
 I looked up and there was a skinny buddhist monk in a yellow robe with
 rather red eyes looking at me. I said not exactly Satipatthana
 I use a different method it's called Zen. Oh Satipatthana not Zen.
 I said oh well it's something like it isn't it? No. Well it's rather like yoga
 I said isn't it? Not yoga no Satipatthana different only right
 way. Well look I said to him I have a lot of
 Roman Catholic friends who tell me that their way is the only
 right way. Who am I to believe? You know I said you
 you're like someone who's got a a ferry boat for crossing the river
 I use the buddhist simile and another fellow down the stream has opened up
 ferry business and you go to the government and say
 he's not authorized to operate a ferry boat because he's competition to you.
 Let all operate ferry boats who will.
 And if you haven't got the sense to get off to stay off one that sinks
 it's your fault.
 And after all I could say to him you believe that everything that happens to
 you is your own karma.
 So why worry?
 But now it's so interesting that since
 official psychiatry and I underline that word official because I hope those of
 you in this audience who are therapists will regard yourselves as
 unofficial.
 At least that'll give you an out.
 But nevertheless official psychiatry has curious things in common
 with western religion as well as with eastern.
 With eastern I said only in so far as it has an interest in states of
 consciousness and inclines to regard other states of
 consciousness than the ordinary as sick. But it has one very important
 feature in common with western religion.
 And to that we have to go a little bit into western religious history.
 And ask ourselves what in western religion and especially in christianity
 and this goes also for judaism islam what is the great heresy?
 Curiously enough the great heresy was first in the west committed
 by no lesser person than Jesus Christ
 who believed himself to be God.
 This of course will be unquestionably true if you think that the gospel of
 Saint John has historical value. It's a little
 vaguer in the synoptic gospels but if you read the gospel of Saint John
 there is absolutely no doubt about it for he said
 I and the father are one he who has seen me has seen the father
 before Abraham was I am I am the way the truth and the life I am the
 resurrection and the life he said all that according
 to this gospel.
 And that is something that in the western world
 you are not supposed to say especially you are not supposed to believe it.
 And naturally it was very difficult for Jesus
 because he was saying all this in the context
 of the Hebrew culture.
 And he tried to find language in the Hebrew scriptures
 with which to express his state of consciousness
 because he had an unusual state of consciousness.
 As I read it he had cosmic consciousness
 otherwise known as mystical experience otherwise known as moksha
 nirvana bodhi satori fana elfana or what you will.
 And that happens to people. It has happened as far back as we know
 it happens all over the world and in all cultures.
 We don't know very much about it. We don't really know ways in which to
 make it happen because it seems to be of the nature of
 it that it is a spontaneous surprise but it unquestionably happens.
 And most people keep their mouths shut about it when it does.
 I had a friend who in the middle of having a stroke
 had this illumination and he said to me I fear to speak to my friends of this
 but it was the most beautiful experience I shall never be afraid of death.
 In fact I recommend everyone to have a stroke.
 This was my friend Jean Varda, lately deceased
 Greek painter.
 But Jesus certainly had this transformation of consciousness
 and he was crucified for it. Why? Because he had committed an act of
 insubordination and treason against the cosmic government.
 Because if you believe that God is a monarch
 an absolute omniscient and omnipotent authority
 shall we say a sort of cosmic ego then to claim to be that is to introduce
 democracy into the kingdom of heaven to usurp divine authority and to speak
 in its name without proper authorization.
 And they asked Jesus by what authority do you speak of heaven
 or of men and he was tricky about answering that one.
 He said by what authority did John the Baptist speak
 and they were nervous about answering that one. He could have asked by what
 authority did Isaiah speak etc or Moses.
 But Moses became official authority and if you could wangle it that what you
 said was simply an extension of what Moses
 said because rabbi so-and-so said it who got it from rabbi so-and-so who got
 it from rabbi so-and-so who got it from rabbi so-and-so who got it from Moses
 then it's okay. Notice this that to be an authority today in the
 academic world depends on documentation.
 It's not enough to say for I say unto you
 you must put in your footnotes and the more the footnotes the more the
 authority obviously.
 So our dissertations tend to be books about books about books about books
 and our libraries multiply by mitosis.
 So when somebody speaks as an authority that means speaks as the
 author that's all it means.
 It's a statement for which you of which you are the author and therefore
 for which you assume responsibility that is to speak with authority
 and to be original is likewise not to be freaky
 but to speak from the origin.
 That is what Christians mean when they say to speak in the spirit
 to have your mouth possessed by the Holy Spirit
 as they believe the mouth of Jesus was possessed by the Holy Spirit.
 So the gospel of Jesus which of course was hushed up from its inception
 was that wake up everybody and find out who you are.
 Asking that again in the gospel of Saint John
 they pointing to his disciples may be one
 even as you father and I are one and when he was accused of blasphemy
 the Jews took up stones to stone him you know and he said
 many good works have I shown you from the father and from which of these do
 you stone me and they said for a good work we don't
 stone you but for blasphemy because you being a man make yourself
 God. Now listen to the reply he said is it not
 written in your law I have said ye are gods
 and if that is what the scripture says it can't be denied
 so why do you tell me I blaspheme because I say I am a son of God
 no answer
 because I said I am a son of God it doesn't say that in your King James
 translation it says I am the son of God and you'll see the the italicized and
 you will think that that is for emphasis if you don't realize that passages in
 italics in the King James Bible are interpolations by the translators
 in Greek leaving out the definite article is equivalent of having the
 indefinite article
 we are to you is a son of God not oh yes to you
 so son of in Hebrew and in Arabic means of the nature of
 when we call someone a son of a bitch we mean
 bitchy and so if you call someone a son of God you mean divine
 of the nature of God as the Nicene Creed subsequently defined it
 he is of one substance with the father
 but what happened was that this being blasphemy for the Jews
 it became blasphemy for the Christians for anyone else than Jesus to say it
 they said okay baby it was so with you but there it stops
 no more of this business
 and as a result of that Jesus was made irrelevant by pedestal ization
 by being kicked upstairs
 in spite of the fact that he said greater works
 than these that I do shall you do oh no upstairs with you baby because
 uh we just can't have that sort of thing going on in a monarchical universe we
 are not going to have democracy in the kingdom of heaven
 so this is why the gospel is impossible because we are supposed to follow the
 example of Christ
 where he says for example be not anxious for the morrow
 do not worry about what you shall eat what you shall drink and what you shall
 wear God will take care of you doesn't he take
 care of the birds don't the flowers grow and they're wonderful they're crazy
 they're great what are you worrying about I've never
 heard a sermon preached on that never because it's totally subversive the
 economy would crash
 so they say oh yes that's all very well but he was the boss's son
 see he had that colossal advantage take up your cross and follow him hey but
 wait a minute I don't know I'm going to be resurrected
 three days later
 I can't do all those miracles he had an unfair advantage
 so how could you ask us to follow the example of Christ
 but supposing he didn't have an unfair advantage
 supposing that what was true about Jesus as a son of God is true of us
 only only a few of us know it and we are pretty careful to be
 quiet about it lest the same thing happen to us has
 happened to Jesus
 and indeed it often does and you know you get these people from
 Arkansas or Texas or anywhere in the Bible Belt who never heard
 of the Upanishads and they have this cosmic consciousness
 experience and they realize that that's what happened to Jesus they say I'm
 Jesus come back well everybody says to them you aren't
 Jesus it's pretty obvious you're not Jesus you're just
 you're just Joe Doakes well they say he says that's what they said about Jesus
 he has a perfect argument except they say you're not much of a Jesus
 they say uh all right if you're Jesus command
 that these stones be made bread and he says a wicked and deceitful
 generation seeketh for a sign and there shall no sign be given
 [laughter]
 now why talk about this is it interesting is it important
 for the human being to realize that in some sense of the word
 whatever it means he is God or one with God as is plainly
 taught by the Hindus hinted at by the Buddhists
 only they don't like to put it out as a concept
 in case people will use the concept as an idol to hang on to
 they want you to find out for yourself and not believe in it
 and certainly the Taoists understand it the Sufis understand it
 a lot of people understand it but so what
 well the importance of it is this that to know that you are God
 is another way of saying that you feel
 completely with this universe you feel profoundly rooted in it and
 connected with it you feel in other words that the whole
 energy which expresses itself in the galaxies
 is intimate it is not something to which you are a stranger
 but it is that with which you whatever that is are
 intimately bound up that in your seeing your hearing your talking your thinking
 your moving you express that which it is which moves
 the sun and other stars and if you don't know that if you don't
 feel that well naturally you feel alien
 you feel a stranger in the world and if you feel a stranger you feel hostile
 and therefore you start to bulldoze things about to beat it up
 and to try and make the world submit to your will
 and you become a real troublemaker
 so i feel also one reason why you become hostile
 is that feeling that you were just brought into this place that your father
 and mother went up to some monkey business that they
 probably shouldn't have done or it was bad rubber goods and as a result of this
 here you are and you didn't ask to be here well you always feel you can turn
 around and blame them you can blame somebody you can blame
 the government you can blame the rascals you can play the
 blame the cheaters always supposing you yourself aren't a rascal which is a
 long odds you always can blame someone and say
 i didn't ask for it take it away and yet and yet and yet very few people
 are all too ready to take it away camus said that the only serious
 philosophical problem is whether or not to commit suicide
 and if you don't if you don't say take it away
 what are you going to do you've really got to assume responsibility for it
 you've got to say yes to what happens it's my karma and that doesn't mean
 merely there are many misinterpretations of the doctrine of karma
 it's usually unpopularly understood is that what happens to you
 either fortunate or unfortunate is the result of good or bad deeds
 in a previous life well that's popular superstition
 the real meaning of karma the word in sanskrit means simply
 doing and if i say of an event it is your karma
 it is saying it is your doing
 so the exposition a book which would expound karma
 would be not so much a whodunit as a you done it
 but that seems fantastic
 now therefore what i propose we do is that we
 instead of just ideologizing
 we have a clinical experience
 you know in psychiatric school in medical school
 it's very usual for a doctor to bring a patient out in front of the
 students and talk with the patient as a kind of
 demonstration he says i want you to recognize the difference between a
 psychopath and a manic depressive or a schizophrenic or something they don't
 know what all these things mean and uh especially the schizophrenia
 and uh so he he has a dialogue with the patient
 right there
 so let us suppose that i'm the patient
 and you are the students and the doctors
 and i suffer from what you would call the delusion that i'm god
 and therefore you might want to do something about me or with me
 or humor me or ask me questions and so i'm perfectly willing to
 submit to your examination and your treatment and uh
 invite you to help yourselves
 now when did you become god now will you marry me
 no
 [Laughter]
 yes sleeping is like politics
 one sleeps on the right side and then when you're tired of that you sleep on
 the left when you're tired of that you sleep on
 your back and when you're tired of that you sleep
 on your stomach and it is thus that the world goes round
 if you were god now what were you yesterday now
 you don't become god am i also god yes
 remember same person no remember three persons but one god
 could i tell you a little bit about satan yes
 uh although the matter is a little esoteric but uh i
 told you all about it in the book of job where you will see
 that in the court of heaven satan is the district attorney
 he is not as christians imagine the enemy of heaven
 and the enemy of mankind he's merely the person who sees the bad side of things
 and carries out the dirty work and therefore he saw job
 and wondered whether job really was as great a guy as he seemed to be
 and suggested that god should appoint a committee of investigation to find out
 and the committee did its work very thoroughly but
 the case went against satan because it was proved in the end that job was an
 honorable man
 now you notice that although we pay the salary of the district attorney
 whenever there's a great criminal case before the public eye
 people begin to take the side of the underdog
 and the prosecutor always has less public sympathy
 than the defense except in political trials
 on the right hand of god and you know the defense is always on the right hand
 of the judge in court is our only mediator and advocate
 which is the phrase referring to jesus christ our lord
 so there is the defense and there is the prosecution
 and it is the function of satan to be the prosecutor there is a good deal more
 to it than that because before all this started
 as in a stage play there was an arrangement in the green room
 before coming on stage
 in which uh certain things were understood
 but that are only to be revealed uh when the curtain goes down at the end of the
 play
 yes but he doesn't know it why do you hide from the saints so many
 why do you hide it's for the same reason you're hiding
 yes
 who else
 what
 man has free will to the extent that he knows who he is
 not otherwise
 where i got it from
 yes to the extent that she knows who she is yes
 to know just what he is and man is god then
 you're saying then you'd say that you are no more than any god in this room
 or any man that is correct i'm no more god than any of you
 then you only have the power to know who you are
 well that is saying quite a bit yes
 what is not god what is not god there is nothing that is not god
 it's like waking up from a dream
 after a while one's experience begins to have what i would call a haven't we been
 here before feeling
 going round and round and round and then you begin wondering
 where am i going and to answer that question
 you have to try and find out what you want
 and so i went into that very thoroughly what do i want to happen
 and of course as soon as you ask yourself that you begin to fantasize
 and our amazing technology is of course an expression of human desire
 desire for power for what we want to achieve
 so i simply set myself to thinking through how far we could go
 and so i soon found myself at a great push button place
 where i had a fantastic mechanism with buttons available for every
 conceivable thing i could wish
 so i spent quite a bit of time playing with those
 and science fiction wasn't in it
 you know you go going like that and here is cleopatra
 and so on you know and then press this button
 a symphonic music in uh four channel sound
 16 channel sound anything you know all possible pleasures are available
 and when you know you're like everybody's dream of the sultan in the
 palace you suddenly notice there's a button
 labeled surprise you push that and here we are
 yes boredom is of course the problem
 boredom is is the other side of creativity
 and the energy of creation has as its that is the yang
 the yin side of that energy is called boredom
 everything of course is fundamentally yang and yin if you understand that you
 really don't need to understand anything else
 what responsibility do you feel to ameliorate evil in the world
 as god what responsibility do i feel to ameliorate evil in the world
 i begin with the point that i am responsible for the way
 the world is
 if i couldn't feel that i'd have to blame somebody else
 i'm not willing to do that because i know that under various
 changing circumstances it might be appropriate for me to be as big a
 rascal as rascals have been
 now as to improving the world
 the world is always improving
 it may look to some people slow
 but it's improving even when it is declining
 because the world works in an undulatory process
 like a wave it goes up and it goes down it goes up and it goes down
 and it couldn't go up all the time because if it did we wouldn't know that
 that was up
 so it goes down some of the time so that we can know when it goes up because if
 we didn't know when it went up it would like
 it would be like being in a space where everything was light
 there'd be nothing to write home about there would be no black marks on the
 space and so it would be like a piece of perfectly empty paper
 similarly to be in a completely black space
 would also be a kind of unconsciousness with nothing to write home about
 because there'd be nothing nothing would make any difference
 so therefore if you're going to have black you won't know that it's black
 unless you have some white and if you're going to have white you
 won't know that it's white unless you have some black
 why do you teach us all to love one another because if we get to that point
 there won't be any of these ups and downs what happened
 correct but that's not a teaching it's a koan
 a koan a koan is a japanese word for a spiritual problem used in zen
 buddhism such as what is the sound of one hand
 and these problems are given to those who ask questions concerning their
 spiritual development
 and sometimes as saint paul pointed out commandments are given not in the
 expectation that they will be obeyed but in the expectation that they will
 reveal something to those who hear them
 that was saint paul's comment on the whole mosaic law
 yes sir
 the hereafter is of course now because if you will examine it closely
 there is no when else than now
 and if you want to make hell of it you can make hell of it if you want to make
 heaven of it you can make heaven of it purgatory purgatory
 it's all here always was always will be what is death death is an undulation in
 consciousness how would you know you were alive unless
 you'd once been dead
 yes
 it wasn't unnecessary for him to have material possessions
 they said of saint john the baptist that he was an ascetic but of jesus
 this man consorts with gluttonous and wine bibbers and comes eating and
 drinking and when uh the lady mary
 poured precious ointment on his feet and anointed him they said the same
 thing that the members of the vestry say to the minister
 today why this great expense couldn't it all
 have been sold for much money and given to the poor
 it is a problem sure but you see uh in many ways when you get down to these
 very deep ethical problems where there sure is no easy decision one
 way or or the other
 you you must look in the at the problem from the point of view of an artist
 which way of doing this is in some sense greater
 it may be better to go off with a bang than with a whimper


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