I'm going to talk to you this evening on the subject of the spectrum of love.
We know that from time to time there arise among human beings people who seem to exude love as naturally as the sun gives out heat.
We would like to be like that, and by and large, man's religions are attempts to cultivate that same power in ordinary people.
But unfortunately, they normally go about this task as one would attempt to make the tail wag the dog.
However, I remember when I was a small boy in school, I was enormously interested in being able to do my schoolwork properly.
And everybody told me that I didn't work hard enough and that I ought to work.
I had an intense desire to do this, but when I asked, how do you work, everybody shut up like a clam.
So I was extremely puzzled, but there were teachers who apparently knew how to work and had attained considerable heights of scholarship,
and I admired them very much for their attainments.
And so I thought that maybe I could learn the secret by copying their mannerisms.
I would imitate the style of handwriting that they used.
I would use the same kind of pen.
I would affect the same mannerisms of speech and gesture, and insofar as I could get around the school uniform, even of clothing.
I must assure you this, of course, was a private school in England, not a public school in America.
But none of this revealed the secret, because I was, as it were, copying the outward symptoms,
and knew nothing of the inner fountain of being able to work.
And exactly the same thing is true in the case of people who love.
When we study the behavior of people who have the power of love within them,
we can catalog how they behave in various situations,
and out of this catalog formulate some rules.
One of the peculiar things we notice about people who have this astonishing universal love
is that they are apt, but not always so, but they are apt very often
to play rather cool on sexual love.
The reason for this is, generally speaking, unknown to preachers,
but it is because an erotic relationship with the external world
operates so far as they are concerned between that world and every single nerve ending.
Their whole organism, in all its aspects, physical, psychological, and spiritual,
is an erogenous zone, and therefore their flow of love
is not specialized or canalized so exclusively in the genital system
as it is with most other people,
especially in a culture such as ours,
where, for so many centuries,
that particular expression of erotic love
has been so marvelously repressed
as to make it seem
the most desirable kind of love that there is,
and so, er, we have, as a result
of two thousand years
of Christianity, er,
sex on the brain.
Which isn't always the right place for it.
Of course, also,
people who exude love
are apt to give things away.
Er, they are, er, in every way,
like rivers, they stream.
And so, when they collect possessions
and things that they like,
they are apt to give them to other people.
Because, er, when you,
have you ever noticed
that when you start giving things away,
you keep getting more.
In the same way as you empty, er, out,
er, you create a vacuum,
nature abhors a vacuum,
and more flows in.
So, noticing this,
the codifiers of loving behavior
write down
that you, er, should give, er,
so much money
to, er,
tax-deductible institutions,
and, er,
to the poor,
and, er,
that you should, er,
be nice to people,
that you should act,
er, towards your relatives,
and your friends,
and indeed, even your enemies,
as if you love them,
even if you don't.
And, of course,
for Christians, and Jews,
and believers in God,
there is a peculiarly
difficult task enjoined upon us,
namely,
that thou shalt love the Lord thy God,
and not only here,
going through the motions of it externally,
but with all your heart,
with all your soul,
and with all your mind.
And that is, of course,
very demanding indeed.
But you see what is happening.
It is as if, for example,
we admired the music
of a certain composer,
and having studied
his style
very thoroughly,
we draw up
rules of musical composition
based on the behavior
of this composer.
We then go to,
send our children
to music school
where they learn these rules
in the hope
that if they apply them,
they also will turn
into first-class musicians,
which they usually fail to do.
Because,
what might be called
the technique of music,
as well as the technique of morals,
as well as, say,
the technique of speech,
of language,
is very valuable
because it gives you
something to express
if,
and I repeat,
if you have anything to express.
But if you don't,
if you don't have anything to say,
not even the greatest mastery
of English
will stand you in good stead,
unless you can manage
to fool your listeners
by talking beautiful nonsense
and make it sound profound.
Now,
so the question
and the puzzle remains,
you cannot imitate this thing,
there is no way
of getting it,
and yet it is absolutely essential
that we have it.
Because, obviously,
the human race
is not going to
flourish harmoniously,
unless we are
unable to love each other.
But,
the question is,
how do you get it?
Is it something you simply
have to contract
like measles?
Or is,
as theologians say,
is it a gift
of divine grace
which somehow
is dished out to some
but not to others?
And,
if there is no way
of getting divine grace
by anything you do,
as the Calvinists aver,
then we better just sit around
and wait until something happens.
Although Calvinists
never did that.
They were almost
depressingly energetic.
But,
surely,
we can't be left
in that kind of a
hopeless situation.
There must be some way
of getting the grace
or getting divine charity
or love,
some sort of wangle,
some sort of way
in which we can,
as it were,
open ourselves
so as to become
conduit pipes
for the flow.
And,
so,
the more subtle preachers
try
to see
if we can open ourselves
and teach
methods of meditation
and spiritual discipline
in the hope
that we can contact
this power.
The less subtle preachers
simply say,
you don't have enough faith,
you don't have enough guts,
you don't have enough willpower,
if you only put your wheel,
I mean,
your shoulder to the wheel
and shoved,
you would be,
of course,
an exemplar
and a saint.
Actually,
you will only be
an extremely clever hypocrite.
The whole history of religion
is a history
of the failure
of preaching.
Preaching
is
moral violence.
If you,
you know,
when you
deal with the so-called
practical world
and people don't behave
as you would wish they would,
you get out the army
or the police force
or the big stick
and if
those
strike you
as somewhat crude
you resort
to giving lectures.
And I mean lectures
in the sense
of a pie jaw,
a solemn
adjuration
and exhortation
to behave better
next time.
Now,
let us look
at some of the
practical consequences
of adjuring people
and commanding people
to love.
Many,
a parent
says to the child
nice children
love their mothers
and,
of course,
I'm sure
you're a nice child
you ought to love
your mother
but not because
I,
your mother,
say so
but because
you really want
to do so.
Because one of the
difficulties is
none of us
in our heart of hearts
respect love
which is not
freely given.
If,
for example,
you are an ailing parent
and you need
to be looked after
and you have a son
or daughter
who feels
dutifully
that they should
look after you
because after all
you've done
so much for them
but this somehow
you're living
with your father
or mother
prevents you
from having a home
and a life
of your own
naturally
you resent
this duty
and your parent
is well aware
that you resent it
even if they
pretend to ignore it.
They therefore
feel guilty
that they have
imposed upon
your loyalty
and you
in turn
can't really
disclose from
yourself the fact
that you hate
them for getting
sick
even though they
couldn't help it
and therefore
nobody enjoys
the relationship.
It is a painful
duty carried out
and the same thing
would naturally
happen
if after a number
of years
having at the altar
made a solemn
and terrible promise
that you would
love your wife
and husband
come what may
forever and ever
till death
you part
and then suddenly
you find you
really haven't
at the heart
in you
to do it
anymore
then you feel
guilty
and that you
ought to love
your wife
family or whatever
and naturally
this is a sort
of fiasco
as would be
obvious
if you were
to ask your wife
do you really
love me
and she were
to reply
I'm trying
very hard
to do so.
You see
the difficulty
of it is this
you cannot teach
a selfish person
to be unselfish
by any means
that is to say
whatever a selfish
person does
whether it be
giving his body
to be burned
or giving all
that he possesses
to the poor
he will still do it
in a selfish way
of feeling
and he will
be able to do
this with extreme
cunning
and marvellous
self-deception
and deception
of others besides
but the consequences
of fake love
are almost invariably
destructive
because they build
up resentment
on the part
of the person
who does the
fake loving
as well as
on the part
of those
who are its
recipients
this is why
the foreign aid
program has been
such a dismal failure
now of course
you may say
that I'm talking
in a very impractical
way
because you
you would say
well do we just
have to sit around
and wait
until we become
inwardly converted
and learn
through the grace
of God
or some sort
of magic
how to love
and in the meantime
do nothing about it
and conduct ourselves
as selfishly
as we feel
there is as a matter
of fact
something to be said
for that
because
the first
problem
in the whole
of this
is honesty
and the reason
why the Lord God
says at the beginning
of things
thou shalt love
the Lord thy God
with all thy heart
and with all thy soul
and with all thy mind
is not because
the Lord God
is stupid
but because
he's very clever
that which appears
to be a commandment
is actually
a challenge
or what in
Zen Buddhism
would be called
a koan
a spiritual problem
because if you
exercise yourself
resolutely
in trying to love
God
and or your neighbor
you will find
that you get
more and more
tangled up
you will realize
increasingly
that the reason
why you are
attempting to obey
this as a commandment
is that you want
to be
the right kind
of person
and obviously
you want to be
the right kind
of person
for your own reasons
and so if
you do
in the first place
feel selfish
and come to the conclusion
as a result
of trying various
experiments with love
that you love yourself
more than anybody else
the proper thing
to do
is to investigate
your self-love
to find out
why you love yourself
and what you mean
by yourself
when you say
you love yourself
for the reason
is this
love is not something
that is a sort
of rare commodity
everybody has it
existence is love
but it's like
water flowing
through a hose
it depends
in which direction
you point it
so everybody
has the force
running
and maybe
the way
in which you find
the force of love
operating in you
is that you have
a passionate like
of booze
or ice cream
or automobiles
or good looking
members of the opposite
sex
or even the same sex
but there is love
operating
and people
of course
tend to distinguish
between the various
kinds of love
there are good kinds
such as divine charity
and allegedly bad kinds
such as
in quotes
animal lust
but it should be understood
I think
that they are all
forms of the same thing
but they differ
in rather the same way
that the colors of light
of white light
divide
into the spectrum
when passed through a prism
so we might say
that the red end
of the spectrum
of love
is Dr. Freud's libido
and the violet end
of the spectrum
of love
is agape
the
what is called
divine love
or divine charity
and that in the middle
the various yellows
blues and greens
are friendship
human endearment
consideration
and all that sort
of fellow feeling
but it's all
the same thing
and so
the thing is
first of all
to get it moving
to follow
whatever kind of love
you have
in the first place
because
you cannot control love
until you have some
to control
until you have it running
you've got to get
your car running
before you can learn
how to drive it
you will not
become a skillful driver
by sitting
at a still car
in a garage
any more
than you will become
a skilled dancer
if you
simply never
move your arms
and legs
and so
the first thing
then is to discover
what indeed
you do love
if anything
and you will find
there is something
and then
go into the nature
of that
now it's said
that selfish people
love themselves
I would say
that that is really
a misunderstanding
of the whole thing
because
yourself
is something
that is really
impossible to love
there are various
reasons for this
but
one obvious reason
is
that
loving oneself
is as difficult
as kissing
your own lips
oneself
when you try
to focus on it
to love it
or to know it
is oddly
elusive
it always slips
away
like
the pursued
tale
of a dog
who is trying
to get hold
of his own
tale
so to pursue
your own end
has some
difficulties
about it
if you explore
what you love
when you say
you love
yourself
you will make
the startling
discovery
that everything
you love
is something
which you thought
was other
than yourself
even if it be
very ordinary
things
such as ice cream
or
booze
in the conventional
sense
booze is not you
nor is ice cream
it certainly
it turns into you
in a manner of speaking
when you consume it
but then
you don't have it
anymore
and so
you look around
for more
in order to love
it once again
but
so long as
you love it
you see
it's never you
when you love
people
however selfishly
you love them
because of the
pleasant sensations
they give to you
still
it is somebody else
that you love
and as you
inquire into this
as you
follow honestly
your own selfishness
many interesting
transformations
begin to come
about in you
one of the most
interesting transformations
of being
directly and honestly
selfish
in the same way
that for example
cats are
is that
you stop
deceiving people
a great deal
of damage
is done
in practical
human relations
by saying
that you love
people
when what you
mean is that
you ought to
and you don't
really
you give the
wrong impression
and people
begin to expect
things of you
which you are
never going to
come through
with
we have been
taught for example
that we ought
to love our
enemies
now
we don't
really understand
what it means
to love our
enemies
we think it
means
to
be charitable
towards them
in the hope
that we will
convert them
and so that
they will cease
to be our
enemies
the real
reason for
loving enemies
is that one
needs enemies
they are terribly
important to you
for example
I think that
some
of you here
feel that you
belong
to a nice
set of people
it may be
an ordinary
kind of bourgeois
coterie
of pleasant
squares
or it may be
a church group
of some kind
a club
or a special
cult
or
just a group
of friendly
drinkers
but at any
rate you feel
that
by virtue
of membership
in this society
you belong
to a special
in-group
of nice
or saved
people
now
when you consider
what nice
people
talk about
when they sit
around the
dinner table
and have an
opportunity to
nurture their
collective ego
you will find
that the most
fascinating topic
of conversation
is the nasty
people
how awful
they are
what dreadful
things they do
and what is it
all coming
to
and this
very very
satisfactory
condemnatory
conversation
nurtures your
ego
but people
who do that
don't seem
to realize
that they
thereby depend
on the nasty
people
in order to
know that
they're nice
they are as a
matter of fact
highly indebted
to them
on the other
side of the
picture
the nasty
people
nurture their
collective ego
by blasting
the bourgeoisie
the squares
the wasps
the know-nothings
or whoever
they may be
and so
for the collective
ego
of the non-squares
the squares
are extremely
necessary
if they were to
disappear tomorrow
many of us
would lose a
cause
now
the minute you
begin to become
aware of this
it's rather
embarrassing
it's of course
humorous
and I'm glad
that you see
this
because at once
you begin to
realize
how much you
depend on an
enemy
or an outsider
or a group of
damned people
is distinct from
your own group
of saved people
and so you
begin to realize
that if your
collective ego
or yourself
depends on
your being
on the in
but you can only
be on the in
with relation
to something
that is out
and since the in
and the out
are inseparable
if there is to be
any in
or any out
you suddenly
discover that
yourself
is bigger
than you thought
it was
it
includes
the other
and you
can't do
without it
you this
brings about
a fundamental
change
in the
understanding
of the
meaning
and nature
of self
and
there upon
there become
a change
of attitude
to other
people
even if
you
continue
with some
formal
opposition
to them
and
disapproval
of them
when
then
you
are honestly
clear with
yourself
what you
like
and what
you dislike
and then
at the same
time
yourself
begins
more and
more
to include
things
that were
hitherto
defined
as being
not
yourself
your
love
which is
what you
are
begins
to express
itself
quite
naturally
and
unaffectedly
in a
wider
way
now
to trust
oneself
to be
capable
of love
to bring
up love
in other
words
to
function
in a
sociable
way
and in
a creative
way
is to
take a
risk
it's a
gamble
because
you may
not come
through
with it
and in
the same
way
when you
fall
in love
with
somebody
else
or you
form
an
association
with
somebody
else
and you
trust
them
they may
as a
matter
of fact
not
fulfill
your
expectations
but
that
risk
has
to
be
taken
the
alternative
to
taking
that
risk
is
much
worse
than
trusting
and being
deceived
words
to
live
together
you
have
to
take
risks
there
will
be
disappointments
and failures
and disasters
as a result
of taking
these risks
but
in the
long run
it will
work out
my point
is that
if you
don't
take
them
the
results
will
be
so
much
worse
than
any
kind
of
wild
anarchy
that
could
be
conceived
you
see
here
we
are
now
as
a
highly
disciplined
human
race
with
all
kinds
of
rules
and
to
do
blow
ourselves
completely
to
pieces
is
this
was
this
all
a
good
gamble
because
you
see
in
tying
up
love
in
knots
and
becoming
incapable
of it
you
can't
destroy
this
energy
you
turn
it
when
you
won't
love
and
you
won't
let
it
out
the
thing
comes
out
in
the
form
of
loving
yourself
properly
you
will
be
compelled
instead
to
destroy
yourself
because
you
see
in
tying
up
love
in
knots
and
becoming
incapable
of it
you
can't
destroy
this
energy
you
turn
it
when
you
won't
love
and
you
won't
let
it
out
the
thing
comes
out
in
the
you
will
be
compelled
instead
to
destroy
yourself
so
which
would
you
rather
have
would
you
rather
have
a
human
race
which
isn't
always
very
well
controlled
and
sometimes
runs
amok
a
little
bit
but
on
the
whole
continues
to
exist
with
a
good
deal
of
honesty
and
delight
when
delight
is
available
or
would
you
rather
have
the
whole
human
race
blown
to
pieces
and
cleaned
off
the
planet
reducing
the
whole
thing
to
a
nice
scoured
rock
with
no
dirty
disease
on
it
called
life
but
I
repeat
the
point
that
is
necessary
to
understand
this
whole
thing
that
love
is
a
spectrum
there
is
not
as
it
these
are
all
forms
of
the
same
energy
and
you
have
to
take
it
and
let
it
grow
where
you
find
it
if
you
find
that
only
one
of
these
forms
exist
in
you
if
at
least
you
will
water
it
the
rest
of
the
plant
will
blossom
as
well
but
the
essential
prerequisite
from
the
who
as
a
result
of
listening
to
these
talks
was
wondering
if
I
could
help
her
to
regain
an
experience
which
she
had
while
undergoing
a
surgical
operation
as
is
generally
known
anesthetics
sometimes
induce
peculiarly
vivid
and unusual
states
of
specific
and
particular
experience
which
is
of
the
utmost
fascination
it's
the
kind
of
experience
which
I
suppose
we
would
ordinarily
call
mystical
or
spiritual
and
which
while
it
lasts
carries
the
most
powerful
sensation
of
understanding
with
complete
clarity
and
certainty
what
is
the
mystery
and
meaning
of
the
world
this
occurs
sufficiently
often
to
have
been
made
a
subject
of
experimentation
perhaps
you know
the story
of the
investigator
who
took
doses
of
anesthetic
for this
purpose
and
equipped
himself
with
pencil
and
paper
to
record
at the
moment
of
awakening
what
ever
revelation
might have
been
given
to
experience
took
place
and
for
a
brief
period
the
investigator
had
the
vivid
conviction
of
complete
comprehension
of this
universe
of life
and
death
he
regained
waking
consciousness
with the
tail end
of the
sensation
still
upon
him
faded. After several minutes, during which his mind returned to its normal
state, he looked at what he had written, and there upon the paper was the
following immensely profound observation. Everything in this universe is the
smell of burnt almonds. I suppose that all sensible and hard-headed people would
agree that this is just the sort of inanity to which all these mystical
revelations ultimately boiled down. In the clear, cold light of rational
consciousness, the seemingly inspired and utter convincing knowledge of dreams, of
drug delusions, and of mystical experiences comes down to just this sort of
idiotic anticlimax. Masked in the poetic or exotic obscurantism of such phrases as
all is Brahman or the divine unity beneath the multiplicity of the world, it may
sound for a moment as if it meant something. But the essential nonsense of
these feelings and the purely subjective character of the sense of insight which
they involve at once becomes obvious when Brahman or the divine unity is
replaced by the smell of burnt almonds. We might settle for this conclusion if some
of us had not had the same sensation, not under drugs or hypnosis, but when very
wide awake. And I, for one, will not quarrel with the smell of burnt almonds as the key to the mystery.
I like it much better and feel it makes much more sense than Brahman or the divine unity,
for its very banality, its very consequential silliness, brings out the real significance of the
experience in question. For the importance of the mystical revelation does not lie in the precise nature
of what everything in this universe is. It can be God, or Brahman, or burnt almonds, or applesauce,
or anything you like. Its importance lies rather in the simple sensation of wholeness,
in the part of the sentence which runs, everything in this universe is, no matter what. For the conviction
which has come to the experiencer is that his habitual sensation of isolation from his environment,
from the rest of the world, is an illusion, and that as a corollary,
his own deeds and misdeeds, fortunes and misfortunes, are the same process as the changing seasons
and the circling stars, and unreasonable as it may seem. This gives him the sensation that his whole life,
past, present and future, is somehow perfectly natural and in order, and that he himself is not just the mind
enclosed in the skull, but the total process of the world. The significance of this experience
does not, I think, lie in any consequences or conclusions which might be drawn from it. It is not an important
experience in the sense that it is useful for some other purpose. It's simply like playing or listening
to music, which is obviously phony in the very moment that we do it for some ulterior motive such as to appear cultured or
to convey an ideological message. Its significance for human beings is not like that of, say, the second law of
thermodynamics, but like that of the Mozart sonatas or the arabesques on a Persian rug. The significance of useful knowledge,
like the second law of thermodynamics, is precisely that by applying it, human beings may be enabled
to go on experiencing such things as music, or love, or mystical insight. But what could I say to the woman,
who under anaesthetic had once had this experience, and wanted it again more than anything else in the world?
Go and have another operation? Get yourself some ether, or mescaline, or lysergic acid, or take up yoga,
or get thee to a nunnery? There are still other, and much too pat, answers to this question,
as that she is failing to revive the experience by the very act of seeking for it,
as well tell a starving man, that his very hunger is what prevents him from finding food. For once a
person has had an experience of this kind, he is gone. It's easier to get rid of an addiction to
heroin, or to choose something more natural, to get rid of the love of the opposite sex. No, I could better
say something like this. The answer is in the very experience which you have had. Didn't you know then,
for certain, with utter clarity, that your whole life, past, present, and future, was somehow, as you
yourself put it, part and parcel of that universal harmony, which the Chinese call the Tao. I feel
sometimes that phrases like universal harmony are so hackneyed, so almost slushy and sentimental,
that it's terribly difficult to begin to find the right word for this kind of thing without sounding
like Voltaire's Mr Pangloss, without sort of jumping on this best-of-all-possible-worlds business,
because the thing isn't like that at all. It's very, very much stronger than the feeling that this is
the best-of-all-possible-worlds. And the curious thing about it isn't that it glosses over anything,
but it makes the most awful things seem that way too, without at the same time making them cease to
seem terrible. It's very peculiar. Well, she had seen then, for certain, at the time of that experience,
seen with total clarity, that her whole past, present, and future life was in some way part and parcel
of what we are perforce driven to call the universal harmony of the Tao. But what one doesn't seem to
understand, then, is that this still remains true of what one is today. You are in the stream
when seeking for what you have lost and when feeling perfectly ordinary no less than when you were in
ecstasy. You are not feeling the experience, and you are striving to regain it, is, as a matter of fact,
the very future which you saw to be in such perfect accord with the process. Let me remind you of a
celebrated tale that was told by Sri Ramakrishna. The story of one of his disciples, who had learned from
the Master, that all the multiplicity of this world is the illusory outward form of the one eternal, divine,
Brahman, underlying the entire process. And having sat and listened to this exposition, the disciple
got up and went his way, and in passing down a rather narrow street, he saw an elephant coming towards
him, and a mahout riding on top of the elephant. Well, the mahout saw the disciple wandering down the
centre of the road and shouted at him, Hey you, get out of the way! This elephant isn't very nice. But the
disciple thought, Now the Master, Ramakrishna, has told me that I am Brahman, and that everything is Brahman,
and therefore the elephant is Brahman, and therefore it will be perfectly all right if I walk straight
along. The elephant will do me no harm, since I realize this to be true. So he ignored the warning
of the mahout, and approached the elephant, and the elephant swung his trunk and swatted that disciple
hard and threw him into the ditch where he was scratched with the brambles. Well, he was very upset,
and he came crawling back to Sri Ramakrishna, and said, Master, you have deceived me. I understood that
everything is Brahman, that I am Brahman, and all other creatures. Is that not so, Master? And the
Master said, Yes, it is so. Well, he said, I was walking out in the road, and I saw this elephant coming
towards me, and it didn't seem to me to be necessary to get out of the way when the mahout riding the
elephant warned me to do so, because I figured that I was Brahman, and the elephant was Brahman,
and I could come to no harm. You stupid man, said Sri Ramakrishna, you didn't realize that the
voice of the mahout was also Brahman, and you should have heeded that too. So also in this case,
the one who is trying to regain the vision is the disciple, and the vision they are trying to regain
is the elephant. But the way you are actually feeling now, and which you are ignoring because of your
eagerness to feel some other way, that is the voice of the mahout, and that too is Brahman.
Nine times out of ten, an observation of this kind will mean nothing, and will fall as flat as being
told that everything in this universe is the smell of burnt almonds. But the tenth time it will dawn
upon you as a statement of total and luminous clarity. I do not think we need have any fear
that this tenth time will never come, for in other circumstances it has come again and again.
Think back to school days,
think back to school days, when with the utmost care your teacher explained over and over the mysteries
of percentage or sentence structure or daylight saving time,
and you consistently failed to see the point. And then suddenly something clicked in your mind,
and the principle became clear. There is a Chinese poem which says,
words do not make a man understand. It takes the man to understand the words.
Now today, we are living in an age which is quite peculiar. Because in the world of science,
there are no longer any secrets. Because the method of science requires that all scientists be in
communication with each other. And therefore, that every scientist, as soon as he has discovered
something, or got a good idea, he rushes into print. And it is important for him to do so,
because some other scientist somewhere else in the world might be thinking about something on the same
lines and would be stimulated in his work by this man's speculations, even if not by discoveries.
And so the whole scientific world tries to remain in communication. And for this reason,
it was absolutely impossible to keep atomic energy a secret. In former ages, that might have been
managed. Because there were many secrets once upon a time. And people were not admitted to these secrets
unless they were in some way tested and found capable of handling them without running amok.
We live in such a dangerous age because all the secrets are out in the open and anybody can run amok
with them. And that's just the situation we have to face and that is just the situation we have to
handle. It is too late to stop it because that would be, as they say, locking the door after the
horse has bolted. The vice president of an extremely important corporation in the United States, very
progressive and very vital, a few months ago said, there are two major forces operating in the world
today for good or for evil. One is red china, the other is LSD. And there is a certain reason why such a thing as
a certain chemical which is capable of opening people's minds in a certain way should be something extremely
disturbing. Because this particular chemical, in common with a number of others that have been known for
centuries, but have been rather played cool through those centuries, is capable of doing something which
simply cannot be tolerated. That is to say, capable of letting properly prepared individuals or sometimes improperly prepared
individuals in on a secret which is very closely guarded and which is as a matter of fact the deepest and most
fundamental of all our social taboos. I have just finished writing a book which I have had, with a sort of tongue-in-cheek
attitude, had the temerity to call the book. And it is subtitled, the book, you see, on the taboo against
knowing who you are. Because that is really the thing that cannot be let out. Sex is not really a serious taboo in our
culture. If you are initiating a young person into life and you realize that your son or daughter is going
to college and that you ought therefore to have a serious talk with them, they'll laugh at you and say,
all this thing you're telling us about sex we knew years ago and we know more about it than you do.
So that is not a subject for a serious initiation talk to a young person. So we have to think again
and try and find out, think deeply, what is fundamentally taboo in this culture and perhaps in other cultures as well.
What, uh, would, what information, in other words, would really let out, let the cat out of the bag
and give away the show? Quest around a bit. Ask yourself this, for what reason would a person be
considered hopelessly insane. What, uh, sort of claims must a person simply not make? Well, there is one,
and that is, if anybody claims that he is God. That simply isn't done. Certainly not in our culture,
although it's very frequent in India. But in our culture, that is simply, uh, not allowed because
we, uh, most of us from a Christian background and if not that from a Jewish background and there's a
great deal in common. Because both Christians and Jews are deeply concerned about somebody called Jesus
Christ. Both Christians and Jews are in a way followers of Jesus Christ in different ways. He is a
problem to both. Because he was the man who came out and discovered he was God. And, uh, that simply is
impermissible. The Jews handled it in one way. The Christians handled it quite as effectively in another way.
The Christians handled Jesus perfectly, even more tactfully than the Jews, by putting him on a pedestal
and saying, this was the only man who ever was God, and nobody else was really so before, and certainly
nobody can be so afterwards. Stop right there! Put him on the altar, bow down to him, worship him,
so that everything he had to say will be null and void. And it works beautifully. But you see,
the trouble about deep secrets is they can't be repressed indefinitely. Now here's the problem,
you see, that there are certain processes, some of which are what you might call spiritual exercises,
others are simply chemicals, others are just horse scents, whereby one comes to see very clearly indeed,
that black goes with white and self goes with other. And as this becomes clear to you,
you, it's rather shaking. Because look, if what you define as you is inseparable from everything
which you define as not you, just as front is inseparable from back, then you realize that deep
down between self and other, there is some sort of conspiracy. If these things always occur in
combination and look very different from each other and feel quite different, nevertheless,
the feeling of difference between them allows each one to exist. And so underneath the opposition
or the polarity between self and other, or between any other pair of opposites you can think of,
there is something in common, as there is, for example, between figure and background.
You can't see a figure without a background. You can't have an organism without an environment.
Equally, you can't have a background without a figure, or an environment without organisms in it,
or without things in it. You can't have space which is unoccupied by any solid. You cannot have solids
not occupying some space. This is absolutely elementary, and yet we don't realize it.
Because, for example, the average person thinks that space is nothing. It is just a sort of not
there-ness in which there are things. And we are slightly afraid that not there-ness, that nothingness,
that darkness, that the negative poles of all these oppositions will win. That they will eventually
swallow up every kind of being and every kind of there-ness. But when you catch on to the game,
you realize that that won't happen. Because what is called not existing is quite incapable of being
there without the contrast of something called existing. It's like the crest and the trough of a
wave. You can't have a wave that is all trough and no crest, just as you can't have a wave which
is all crest and no trough. Such a thing has never been manifested in the physical universe. They go
together. And that is the secret. There really is no other secret than that. But it is thoroughly
repressed. And therefore we are all educated to feel that we've got to fight for the white
because the black might win. We've got to survive. You must survive. That's the great thing we're all
working under and pounding it out day after day in anxiety. Because this is a description of anxiety.
Anxiety is the fear that one of a pair of opposites might cancel the other. Forever. And if by any
chance, by any means, you find out that that is not so, you have an entirely new attitude to what
human beings are doing, which may be very creative, but which also may be very dangerous. You see through
the game. The game called white must win. Because you know that neither black nor white are going to win
because they belong to each other. So one of the problems of the various chemicals which can change
the human mind in certain ways so that it becomes apparent that inside and outside go together is that
they do rather give the show away. And people who take these chemicals and see through the human game
cannot be trusted. They may decide to be good sports and go back into the game and play it as if it were
for real. Or they may not. And if they don't, what's going to happen? Now, you see, what has led me
to do? Let me speak specifically for a moment. I said the subject of this is LSD. LSD is one such chemical
that does produce this curious effect of making you aware of the polarity of things. It does lots of other
things. It does lots of rather unessential and trivial things. And these, of course, in all the publicity
in the various national magazines about LSD get thoroughly emphasized. In other words, when somebody
says something's real psychedelic, they mean bizarre. And when the national magazines try to illustrate
the effect of these chemicals with various photographs, they come on with blurred photographs of all sorts of
things higgledy-piggledy-piggledy messed together. Naked girls seen through prisms. Well, that's absolutely
nothing to do with it. If you wanted some sort of appropriate illustration for a Life magazine article
on the effects of LSD, you would have one very simple solution. You would publish the most gorgeous
colour reproductions of Persian miniatures and of Moorish arabesques and of the illuminations of
Celtic manuscripts. That would give you the story so far as changes in human sensation are concerned.
But there would be one thing very difficult to put across in pictures because the people who looked at
them, if they didn't get the point of view, wouldn't see it. And that is what I will call
the sensation as well as the intellectual understanding of polarity. That is to say,
that the inside and the outside, the subjective and the objective, the self and the other, go together.
In other words, there is a harmony, an unbreakable harmony. When I'm using the word harmony,
I don't necessarily mean something sweet. I mean absolute concordant relationship
between what goes on inside your skin and what goes on outside your skin. It isn't that what goes
on outside is so powerful that it pushes around and controls what goes on inside, equally so. It isn't
that what goes on inside is so strong that it often succeeds in pushing around what goes on outside.
It is very simply that the two processes, the two behaviors are one. What you do is what the universe
does. And what the universe does is also what you do. Not you in the sense of your superficial ego,
which is a very small little tiny area of your conscious sensitivity, but you in the sense of your total
physical, psycho-physical organism conscious.
Consciousness.
as well as unconscious. This is not something that arrived in the world from somewhere else
altogether, that confronts an alien reality. What you are is the universe, in fact, the
works, what there is, and always has been, and always will be forever and ever, performing
an act called John Doe. And this is such a subversion of common sense. But as a matter
of fact, something, if you stop to think about it, that is completely obvious. Only everything
conspires to prevent you from seeing that obvious thing. Because when you were babies,
practically, all your parents and your teachers and your aunts and uncles and your older brothers
and sisters got together and they told you who you were. They defined you as Johnny, who
is just Johnny. And don't you come on too strong, Johnny, because, no, you've got elders
and betters around here. But you're responsible. You're a free agent. You'd better be.
And so, when you are told, from childhood, that you are expected and commanded to behave
in a way that will be acceptable only if you do it voluntarily. You remain permanently mixed up.
That, if anything, is permanent brain damage. So, but that's the idea, you see, because that's the
game we're playing. You started it. I didn't. See? That's the game we're playing. And we can make
all kinds of complexities out of that. And really, in a way, have enormous fun. But once anybody sees
through that, well, we're frightened. Once you get this sense of polarity, of your inside being the same
process as your outside, and your ego being one and the same process as the whole universe going on,
then we're afraid that people may say, well, good equals bad. And we can do anything we like.
And we didn't in any way be further subject to the ordinary rules of human conduct.
And we can wear what clothes we like or no clothes at all. We can have what sexual life we like.
We can do anything. And we are going to generally, because the world is being rather oppressive
towards us, challenge the whole thing and run amok. And a lot of people are doing just exactly that.
So I want to introduce into this whole problem some ancient wisdom. I have really two things to talk
about. How cultures, which always did know in some way, or among whom a large number of people always
did know this secret, handled it. And then I want to make some observations about how we are trying to
handle it and how it's not going to work. Among the Hindus and among the Buddhists, this view of the
real identity of a human being has always been known, at least by a very influential minority.
The central doctrine of the Hindu way of life, I call it that rather than a religion,
religion, is in Sanskrit, Tatva Masi. You're it. To put it in a kind of colloquial way. You're it.
And it is the witch than which there is no witcher, which they call the Brahman, or the Atman with a
capital A meaning the self. You are only just kidding that you're just poor little me. See, the function of a
guru, that is to say, a spiritual teacher in India, is to give you a funny look in the eye.
Because you come to him and say, Mr. Guru, I have problems. I suffer, and it's a mess, and I can't
control my mind, and I'm miserable and depressed, and so on. And he gives you a funny look. And you
feel a bit nervous about the way he looks at you. Because, you know, he's reading your thoughts.
And this man is a great magician. He can read everything that's in you. He knows right down
into your unconscious, and you know all the dreadful things you've thought, and all the awful
desires you have. And you are rather embarrassed that this man looks right through you and sees them
all. But that's not what he's looking at. He's giving you a funny look for quite another reason
altogether. Because he sees in you the Brahman, the Godhead, just claiming it's poor little me.
And he's going to eventually, by all sorts of subtle techniques that are called in Sanskrit,
Upaya, that in politics means chicanery, and in spiritual education means skillful pedagogy,
He is going to try and kid you back into realizing who you really are. That's why he gives you a funny
look. And why he seems to see right through you. As if to say, Shiva, old boy, don't kid me.
I know who you are, but you're coming on beautifully in this act, that you're somebody else altogether.
And I congratulate you, you're doing a wonderful job playing this part, which you call the person,
my person. You know, a person is a fake. The word means a mask. So if you read books on how to be a
real person, you're reading books on how to be a genuine fake. The word persona, as you know, means
a mask, worn in a Greek or Roman drama. So if you come on to the guru and say, well, he asks you who you
are, Sri Ramana Maharshi. When anybody came to him and they said to him, as people do, who was I in my
last incarnation? Or will I be reincarnated again? He always replied, who's asking the question?
And everybody was irritated because he wouldn't give them answers about what they were in their
former lives. He just said, who are you? And he looked at you. Have you looked at photographs of
this man? I keep a photograph of him, you know, close by because of the humor in his eyes.
They're looking at you with a dancing twinkle, saying, come off it.
Now then, in these Asiatic traditions, it is well recognized that people who get the knowledge that
you're it may very well run amok. And therefore they always couple any method of gaining this,
whether it is yoga, whether it is smoking something or drinking something or whatever is the method,
they always couple it with a discipline. Now I know the word discipline isn't very popular these days.
And I would like to have a new word for it. Because most people who teach disciplines don't
teach them very well. They teach it with a kind of violence, as if a discipline was something that
is going to be extremely unpleasant and that you're going to have to put up with. But that's not the
real secret of discipline. I would prefer to use the word skill. Discipline is a way of expression.
Say you want to express your feelings in stone. Now stone doesn't give way very easily. It's tough stuff.
And so you have to learn the skill or the discipline of the sculptor in order to express yourself in
stone. And so in every other way, whatever you do, you require a skill. And it's enormously important,
especially for American people, to understand that there is absolutely no possibility of having
any pleasure in life at all without skill. Money doesn't buy pleasure, ever. Look, if you want to
get stoned drunk and go out and get a bottle of bourbon and down it, you can't do that except for
people who have practiced the distiller's art. You can't even make love without art. Where I live in
Sausalito, we have a harbor full of ever so many pleasure craft. Motor cruisers, sailing boats,
all kinds of things. And they never leave the dock. All that happens with them is their owners have
cocktail parties there on Saturdays and Sundays. Because they discovered, having bought these things,
that the discipline of sailing is difficult to learn and takes a lot of time. And they didn't have time
for it. So they just bought the thing as a status symbol. So in other words, you can't have pleasure
in life without skill. But it isn't an unpleasant task to learn a skill. If the teacher, in the first
place, gets you fascinated with it. There is immense pleasure in learning how to do anything skillfully.
To make carpentry things, to cook, to write, to calculate, anything you want. It can be immensely
pleasurable to learn the discipline. And it is completely indispensable. Because look, you may be a very
inspired musician. I'm not a musical technologist, you see, and I regret it. But I'm a word technologist.
But I can hear in my head all kinds of symphonies and all kinds of marvelous compositions. But I don't
have the technique to write them down on paper and share them with somebody else. Too bad. Maybe next
time around. But you see, so far as words are concerned, I can express ideas because I have studied
language. And I've worked very hard. Not that I didn't like it. I intensely enjoy the work of
writing a book. Although it is difficult. But it's fascinating. To say what can never possibly be said.
So, you see what's happening. What you have to do, you have inspiration. But then you have to have
technique to incarnate, to express your inspiration. That is to say, to bring Heaven down to Earth.
And to express Heaven in terms of Earth. Of course, they are really one behind the scenes. But there's
no way of pointing it out unless you do something skillful. You see, we are all at the moment,
absolutely in the midst of the beatific vision. We are all one with the Divine or some... I don't
like that sort of wishy-washy language. But we are all there. But we are so much there that we're
like fish in water. They don't know they're in water. Like the birds don't know they're in the air
because it's all around them. And in the same way, we don't know what the color of our eyes is. I don't
mean whether you've got blue or brown eyes, but the color of the lens of your eye. You call that
transparent. No color. See, because you can't see it. But it's basic to being able to see anything.
So in order to find out where you are, there has to be some way of drawing attention to it.
And that involves skill. Upaya in Sanskrit. Skillful means. So, it's all very well. Anybody can have
ecstasy. Anybody, as a matter of fact, can become aware that he is one with the eternal
ground of the universe. But since that's what you are anyway, I'm going to ask, so what?
When a hero goes on an adventure and he leaves his people and is going to a strange land,
he can go away and just hide himself around the corner in an obscure house and then appear a year
later and say, I've been on a heroic journey and tell all sorts of tales. And they say, prove it.
Because they expect him to bring back something. Something which nobody has seen before. Then they
believe, you've been on the journey. And so in the same way exactly, anybody who goes on a spiritual
journey must bring something back. Because if you just say, oh man, it was a gas. Anyone can say that.
Now this is why in the doctrines of Buddhism, there is a differentiation between two kinds of
enlightened beings. They are both forms of Buddha, which is to say, the word Buddha means somebody
who has awakened, who has discovered the secret behind all this. In other words, all this thing
we call life with its frantic concerns is a big act, which you, in your unconscious death,
are deliberately setting up. So you can do one of two things when you discover this.
You can become what's called a Pratyeka Buddha. That means a private Buddha. Doesn't tell anything.
Or you can become a Bodhisattva. A Pratyeka Buddha goes off into his ecstasy and never is seen again.
Bodhisattva is one who comes back and appears in the everyday world and plays the game of the
everyday world by the rules of the everyday world. But he brings with him upaya. He brings with him
some way of showing that he's been on the journey, that he's come back, and he's going to let you in
on the secret too. If you, if, if, if, you'll play it cool and also come back to join in the everyday life
of everyday people. Because this is the rule. If the world is dramatic, if the world, as the Hindus
say, is a big act put on by the divine self, one of the rules of coming on stage is that you don't
come on as yourself. You come on as the part that you're going to play. It's very bad form if an actor
always acts the same way. That's what's called a star as distinct from an actor.
A real actor can become anything. And so, but in private life, well, he's just Mr. Jones. And,
but he doesn't come on the stage that way. So in the same way, if you know that behind the scenes,
in the depths, fundamentally, you are it, you don't come on that way.
It always comes on as something else. That's the rule of the stage. Because without that,
there wouldn't be a play. It would only be reality. No illusion. And the whole point of life is illusion.
From the word Latin, ludery, to play. Showbiz. The show must go on. So don't give it away.
But the truth has a way of leaking. It gets out. But then the important thing is, you see,
when the truth gets out, those who catch hold of it must find a way of staying in contact with what
society calls reality. That is to say, if you have a radio, you don't only need an antenna, you also
need a ground. So what happens in the world of mysticism, of psychedelic visions, and so on,
needs to be grounded. So then, there are always two directions in which such a discipline works.
One, preparatory. In other words, those who taught disciplines for awakening in the Orient were always
careful to screen, first of all to screen those who applied, and then after screening them, to make
them sensible. So that they knew how to handle the game of ordinary human existence and play it by the
ordinary human rules. In other words, that they had strength of character. And were not the sort of
people who would be wiped out because they had no strength of character by an overwhelming experience.
Then they let them in. But there are certain disciplines, such as Zen, where you get into
the essential secret very early on in the discipline. And after that, they are concerned with much more
training in showing you how to use it. How to use the power to use the vision which you have acquired.
And so it is with the current, what we will call, LSD scene that is raging through the United States.
It unfortunately lacks discipline. And I'm not trying to say this in a kind of severe,
authoritarian, paternalistic way. But only that it would be so much more fun if it had it.
In other words, when people try to express what they have seen in this kind of changed state of
consciousness, they show five movies going on at once, projected upon torn bedsheets,
with stroboscopic lights going as fast as possible at the same time, and 11 jazz bands playing.
And they're going to blow their minds, baby. And everybody else who hasn't seen this thing look
around and say, well, it's a mess. I don't like the looks of it. Let's suppose that while you were
very, very high on LSD, you looked into a filthy ashtray, and you saw the beatific vision. Which is,
of course, the case, because wherever you look, if your eyes are open, you will see the face of the
divine. Then you come out of your ecstasy with the dirty ashtray and say to everybody, here it is.
No. There is a possibility, if you are an extraordinarily skillful painter, or even photographer,
of presenting the dirty ashtray so that everybody else will see almost what you saw in it.
But you will have to have a technique which will translate every grain of ash into a jewel,
because that's what you actually saw. But that requires mastery of an art. And I'm afraid people
think that all it's necessary to do is just throw out any old thing, because under that transformed
state of consciousness, any old thing is the works. But nobody else can see it, if they haven't shared
that point of view. So then, this becomes, for us in the United States, an extremely important social
problem. The cat is out of the bag. We are living in a scientific world where secrets cannot be kept.
And anyone, anytime, can pick up something which will short circuit all the ancient religious
techniques, yoga practice, meditation, etc., etc., this is all very embarrassing. But it will happen,
not for everybody, but for a lot of people. And they will see what all those sages and buddhas and yogis
and prophets saw in ancient times. And it will be very clear. So what? So you see, you can say,
look at all these people who haven't seen it. This is a temptation. Look at them all going about their
business, earning money, and grinding it out at the bank or the insurance office or whatever it is
every day, and how serious they look all about it, and they don't really know it's a game.
And you can cultivate a certain contempt for people like that. But it's very, very bad to do that.
Because, of course, don't forget they have a certain contempt for you. You see, always the nice people in town,
who live in the best residences,
they know that they're nice, because there are some people on the other side of the tracks who are not nice.
And so at their cocktail parties, they have a lot to say about the people who are not nice,
because that boosts their collective ego. There would be no other way of doing it. You don't know
that you're a law-abiding citizen, unless there are some people who aren't. And if it's important to
you to congratulate yourself on being law-abiding, you therefore have to have some criminal classes,
outside the pale, of course, of your immediate associates.
On the other hand, the people who are not nice, they have their parties. And they boost their
collective ego by saying that they're the people who are really in. Whereas these poor squares,
who deliver the mail faithfully, and who carry on what you call responsible jobs, they're just dupes.
Or when they earn their money, all they do is buy toy rocket ships with it, and go roaring around,
and so on. And that's, they think that's pleasure. So the people who are not nice boost their collective
ego in that way. Neither of them realizing that they need the other just as much as a flower needs
a bee and a bee needs a flower. So you, when you see the people who you think are not in on the secret,
you, if you really understand, you have to revise your opinion completely and say that the squares
are the people who are really far out. Because they don't even know where they started.
See, an enlightened Hindu or Buddhist looks at the ignorant people of this world
and says, my respects. Because here I see the divine essence, having altogether forgotten what it is,
and playing the most far out game of being completely lost. Congratulations, how far out can you get?
So if you understand that, you don't start a war with people you might say are square.
Don't challenge them. Don't bug them. Don't frighten them. The reason is not because they are
immature. Because they are babies and you mustn't scare babies. It's nothing to do with that. You mustn't
frighten them because they are doing a very far out act. They're walking on a tightrope miles up.
And they've got to do that balancing act. And if you shout, they may lose their nerve.
See, that's what we call the responsible people of the world are doing. It is an act. It's a game,
just like the tightrope walker. But it's a risky one. And you can get ulcers from it. And all sorts of
troubles. But you must respect it. And say, congratulations on being so far out. So now,
this is the whole essence, you see, of seeing, if you really see into the secret that the world
doesn't contain any serious threats in it because it's all the basic you running up behind itself and
saying boo to see if you can get yourself to jump out of your skin. If you see that, be cool.
That's the whole art of Zen, you know, is cool Hinduism.
The Hindus come on a little strong when someone like Sri Ramakrishna or openly, pretty much openly
announces that he's the Godhead. That's a little tough. And when Sri Ramana accepts the puja of all
the followers and Sri Aurobindo sits every day for Darshan, it's coming on a little strong.
Well, the Zen people feel that that's just a bit too much. And the way they come on is they're
ordinary. And they say, when two Zen masters meet each other on the road, they need no introduction.
When thieves meet, they recognize each other instantly. So they don't say anything, don't make
any claims. As a matter of fact, so far from making claims, all good Zen masters say they have not
attained anything, they have nothing to teach. And that's the truth. Because anybody who tells you
that he is some way of leading you to spiritual enlightenment is just like somebody who picks
your pocket and sells you your own watch. Of course, if you didn't know you had a watch,
that might be the only way of getting you to realize it. So then, though the people who do,
by one means or another, prepared or unprepared, disciplined or undisciplined,
get into this kind of interior secret about the nature of the universe,
and they have hitherto been insecure about themselves. And they're going to use this secret
as some way of creating trouble, and of stirring things up, and of boosting their own
inadequate character structure, which is a word I prefer to use instead of ego. Then there's trouble,
because those people who are out there on the tightrope are going to get pretty scared,
and they're going to call in the police and say, this has got to stop. So then we have a situation
right like that now. And I want to make a few comments about it. First of all, the major group,
it seems to me that a crying panic about LSD are psychoanalysts. To them, this sort of thing is
extremely threatening, because psychoanalysis in its theory, whether it be Freudian or whether it be
Jungian, has a theory of the unconscious, which is not unrelated to the general philosophy of science
science of the 19th century, which is that the unconscious, called the libido by the Freudians,
is
Totally uncivilized, blind lust.
For the Jungians, it may be something even more dangerous than that.
Because they have not settled for the idea that it's a sexual unconscious.
It may be much more sinister than that.
Deep down, there is the spider mother.
There are the screaming memes at the bottom of that pit.
And Esther Harding, in her book, Psychic Energy, says that civilization is a mere veneer over the abysmal depths of primeval slime.
In which there are the great serpents and appalling influences, just waiting for a chance to get up there and raise hell.
So, if you are psychoanalytically oriented, you are necessarily terrified of the unconscious.
But you've learned a trick.
Let's say the old-fashioned Christians, they discipline the unconscious with a club.
Bible and birch rod.
See?
And they knocked it down.
The Freudians said, no.
This is a very dangerous creature.
But you've got to train it in a different way.
Like a good horse trainer.
Doesn't use the whip, but lumps of sugar.
But it's still the same animal.
In other words, this whole philosophy of Western man, as it crystallized in the late 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries,
is that what we call humanity, consciousness, spirituality, values, is simply a veneer.
The real thing underneath, the gutsy thing, is a terrible monster.
And watch out for that.
So anything that happens that might let that creature loose is looked upon by psychoanalysis as terrible.
I don't, I'm not going to accuse them of worrying about LSD because they think you're going to be put out of a job.
I don't think that LSD is an automatic psychotherapy at all.
It needs, if you're going to use it for that purpose, you need psychotherapy in the ordinary way along with it.
LSD is simply an exploratory instrument, like a microscope or a telescope, except this one's inside you instead of outside you.
And according to your capacity and knowledge, you can use a microscope or a telescope to advantage.
So in the same way, according to your capacity and your knowledge, you can use an interior instrument to your advantage.
Or just for kicks.
But when these people, you know, really feel threatened by this thing, they start sending around messages and public utterances which sound exactly as if they had taken LSD, had had a bad trip with it, and were coming on paranoid.
And so they are spreading subtle rumors that this substance causes permanent brain damage and utter destruction of the superego.
Now, there is a, there are people in New York, likewise, who are spreading around the idea that, you see, once this thing has touched you, you are as if you've had a prefrontal lobotomy.
You are somebody who ought to be put in a concentration camp because you've lost your conscience.
You're out of order.
Nothing more can be done about it.
Now, do you see how alarming that could be in our day and age?
Think that your brother, your aunt, has got permanent brain damage?
He took some LSD.
You see, the situation is exactly parallel.
You know, the thing that we learn from history is nobody ever learns from history.
Consider, just go back a few hundred years to the days of the Inquisition and realize that the theologians of the church were in those days accorded the same kind of respect that we now accord to the professor of pathology at the University of California Medical School.
Or to the professor of physics at Caltech.
We think those people are real authorities.
They know.
It works.
They've experimented.
They have knowledge.
They're the wisest people in our society.
All right.
A few hundred years ago, so were the theologians.
And they had the same sense of responsibility towards the community that our great scientists and physicians have today.
And they knew there was a thing called heresy going around.
That was not only capable, once you caught heresy, of making you damned to hell forever and ever and ever to the most unimaginable tortures that would go on without end, but that it was infectious.
And one heretic would soon make other heretics.
So those entirely humanitarian and merciful church fathers got together and said, what are we going to do to stop this?
Well, now they knew there is an eternal life beyond the grave.
And so perhaps, just in the same way as if you've got a cancer, and that's something terrible because it might spread and destroy the whole body, cut it out.
Even burn it out if you have to.
And a little pain on the part of the patient in several months on the end of tubes won't be too bad if you get rid of it.
So they said, we've got to torture these people.
Because they might, in the middle of this extreme experience, recant.
And if they won't recant, we'll burn them.
Because there's just the chance that in the agony of burning at the stake, they will say at the end, oh God, forgive me for my sins and it'll be alright.
Now realize the absolutely merciful intent behind the inquisitors.
Perfectly responsible, acting on the best knowledge that they had in their day.
Don't you see how that can happen again anytime?
Permanent brain damage.
People lost their sense of social responsibility, utterly destroyed by taking the wrong kind of drug.
Now, dear friends, there is absolutely no evidence for this kind of thing whatsoever.
The only brain damage that is, I've just checked this out with the most eminent authorities in this area on the subject,
that the only permanent damage that's been perpetrated, and even that wasn't permanent, was on some cats
who were given doses that would be equivalent to a human being to over 2,000 micrograms of LSD.
The normal dosage for a human being being about 1 to 200.
But give a cat the equivalent for a human being of 2,000 micrograms.
There will be synaptic defects that are called acute, as distinct from chronic.
That means they will disappear after a little while.
Now this has been worked out carefully.
And there is no evidence whatsoever of any serious neurological damage to a human being,
except in cases where, A, they may have taken an absurdly large dose,
or, B, taken it in conjunction with some other form of drug,
an amphetamine, a barbiturate, or something like methadone, a narcotic,
which did indeed cut off the oxygen supply to the brain and therefore cause some damage.
So, this scare talk is simply without foundation.
But nevertheless, there are certain reasons to be cautious and for those who understand the operation of these chemicals
to issue certain clear warnings.
And this I want to talk about, quite seriously.
Now, this class of psychotropic chemicals, which includes LSD, mescaline,
and its original form, peyote, psilocybin, cannabis, and so on,
which is a very mild psychotropic,
these do not, in moderation and proper use, in any way, harm the physical organism,
nor form such habits that you can't get rid of them without unpleasant withdrawal symptoms.
If you take them in absurdly large doses, you are in for trouble.
I knew a Methodist minister who was a very violent tea totalitarian
and became extremely sick from drinking too much milk.
So, after all, if you sit down and you buy a bottle of whiskey,
which you can get at any store, anywhere,
perfectly legit,
and you consume the one quart of whiskey in one hour,
you can expect trouble.
So, in the same way, if you've got LSD,
or something of that kind,
and you take a thousand micrograms,
because some friend of yours took five hundred,
and you want to one-up him,
watch out, you're being just stupid.
Furthermore, you're being rather stupid
if you buy the kind of LSD
that is currently being circulated in the black market,
because, for two reasons,
you don't know what else is in it,
and you don't know how much is in it.
There are two sorts of producers of LSD on the black market.
One is the enthusiastic graduate student in chemistry
who wants to turn the whole world on.
And his product is apt to be pretty good,
but excessive in dosage.
And what says a hundred micrograms may well be three hundred.
There is another kind of producer
who wants to make a good thing out of it,
or who wants to give you a big jazz,
but he'll mix it with amphetamines.
There's another more sinister kind of producer
who'll either cut the amount,
or mix it with heroin,
or anything, any other substance,
maybe, again, amphetamines, or whatever,
who'll get you hooked on it.
So there is no control of the quality
of what is being circulated.
None whatever.
And you just don't know what you're getting.
Now this situation
is the result
of the fact that the United States
never learns from history.
It is the same old story of prohibition.
To think the naive notion
that you can control
something that might turn into a social evil
by handing it over to the police.
Now after all,
who pays the police?
You do.
And if you can't control yourself,
the police won't control you either.
But in lieu of controlling you,
they can suppress you.
Now in all conscience,
the police have enough to do.
Not only to control the traffic,
which gets worse every day
by virtue of Parkinson's law,
but also all the possibilities
of robbery, violence, murder,
and so on and so forth,
which is a full-time job.
But to ask the police
to go and look for people
who have LSD or marijuana
or heroin or opium or whatever,
or who are living irregular sex lives
or who have a gambling joint
or a whorehouse,
this is to ask the police
to act as officers of the state
in service of the church,
uniformed ministers.
And that's not their job.
And when the police are asked to do that,
they are put by lawmakers
into a position
which brings them into public disrespect
as it did in the days of prohibition.
It is not fair to the police
because if you send the police
to hunt out LSD,
it is a far more tough job
than looking for a needle
in a haystack.
LSD can be disguised
as anything whatsoever.
It can be mixed with gum
and put on an envelope.
It can be entirely absorbed,
vast quantities of it,
into a piece of Kleenex.
The alcoholic base
is then allowed to evaporate
and nobody would know it
from any other dirty piece of Kleenex
that somebody stuck away
in his pocket.
It can then be reactivated.
It can be made into lacquer
to coat pins with.
Anything.
It can be disguised
as peanut butter,
orange juice,
aspirin,
just sugar,
anything you want.
And it's very difficult
indeed to detect.
So when you try to suppress
that sort of thing by law,
you leave the gates wide open
for every kind of blackmail.
You want to get rid of your wife
or your unfortunate
business competitor?
Just slip them some
and then arrange
by a roundabout way
to tip off the cops.
The senator you don't like?
Political rival?
You see,
any law of this nature,
any law which in a way
tries to enforce
by the power of the state
private morals
or your own business
in looking after
your own nervous system,
is in effect
an unenforceable law.
And all unenforceable laws
lead to blackmail
and to public demoralization.
The only way to handle
a thing of this kind
is to bring it all
out into the open.
Nothing can be controlled
when it's driven underground.
It ought to be controlled.
Just in the same way
as we have learned
how to control automobiles,
we license people
to drive them.
So in the same way,
we don't sell
liquor to minors.
We expect them
to have some kind
of education
and grown-up responsibility
before they go
boozing around.
So in exactly the same way,
society has got to face
the fact
that it's going to have
to license people
for certain
spiritual adventures
or perhaps
just plain pleasures,
if that's what
you want to call it.
After all,
you can't even join
some churches
without,
you can't join
the Catholic Church
without taking
a course of instruction.
That takes a few weeks
and then they put you
through an initiation.
And you may say
when you get through that,
well,
what was all that
preparation for?
I didn't feel anything.
But so in exactly
the same way with this,
it is completely urgent,
in other words,
that we prevent
the occurrence
of a very serious,
socially destructive,
criminal situation
created by law.
You've heard of
iatrogenic diseases.
That means diseases
caused by physicians.
There are
nomogenic diseases,
or shall we say
nomogenic crimes.
Like somebody said,
the only serious
side effect of marijuana
is that you may
go to jail.
This is a
nomogenic crime.
In other words,
it is a ritual crime.
In exactly the same way
that when the early
Christians refused
to burn incense
in front of the Roman gods,
in whom the Romans
themselves didn't believe,
they were guilty
of a crime.
It was a ritual crime.
And they refused.
A reasonable man
like the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius
said to the Christians,
now come off it.
Really?
Do you have to
refuse to burn incense?
They said, yes.
We're serious about it.
So these are
ritual crimes.
And so in the same way,
various ritual crimes exist,
and our police,
poor devils,
are supposed to enforce it.
And if they don't,
they're going to get it
from the politicians.
Because the politicians
have made all the old ladies,
up in Glendale,
scared in Pasadena,
and so on,
they're all just terrified
about this.
And so the politician
gets the votes
of those old ladies.
And the police
have to do
what the politician
tells them to do.
And you know,
the police,
they're just people.
It's a terrible thing
to put the police
in a position
where they're going
to earn public disrespect
by enforcing
or trying to enforce
unenforceable laws.
So I would say,
in general,
to sum up,
substances like LSD
which give away
a secret
about
the nature
of the social game,
the human game,
and what underlies it.
Potentially dangerous,
of course.
Like any good thing is,
electricity is dangerous,
fire is dangerous,
cars are dangerous,
planes are dangerous,
but not so dangerous
as driving on the freeway.
The only way
to handle danger
is to face it.
If you start
getting frightened of it,
then you make it worse.
Because you project onto it
all kinds of bogeys
and threats
which don't exist
in it at all.
So this is also a rule.
And please,
anybody here
who's a psychotherapist,
if he doesn't know this already,
take note.
If you get someone
thrown on your hands
who,
as a result of taking
any psychotropic drug,
is in a psychotic state,
don't be frightened.
Because the moment
you're afraid,
your patient
will pick up your fear
by a kind of osmosis
and get worse.
The rule
about all terrors,
going back
to where I started from,
the dweller
on the threshold,
the rule
for all terrors
is head straight
into them.
When you are
sailing in a storm,
you don't let a wave
hit your boat
on the side.
You go
bow into the wave
and ride it.
So in the same way,
old folklore says,
this is an old wife's tale
with a lot of truth in it,
whenever you meet a ghost,
don't run away.
Because the ghost
will capture
the substance
of your fear
and materialize itself
out of your own substance
and will kill you eventually
because it will take over
all your own vitality.
So then,
whenever confronted
with a ghost,
walk straight into it
and it will disappear.
And so in the same way,
when people
stir up the depths
of the unconscious
and are confronted
with their own monster,
or with the terrors
of discovering
that they're in
a relativistic world
where black implies white
and white implies black
so who's in charge.
You know,
grandfather's dead,
father's dead too,
this leaves me.
Ooh,
who's the authority?
See?
When you get that,
that sense of terror,
go right at it.
Don't run away.
Explore,
feel fear
as completely
as you can feel it.
Head straight into it.
And just,
it so happens
that these things
give you the property
and the opportunity,
let me put it that way,
the opportunity
to go into
some of your
very, very
most closely kept
skeletons.
and the result
of that
is invariably
beneficial.
Thank you.