NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/drugs/20235

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At this point, it is necessary to inject a word of benign warning. Reading
this manual is extremely useful, but no words can communicate experience.
You are going to be surprised, startled and delighted. A person may have
heard a detailed description of the art of swimming and yet never had the
chance to swim. Suddenly diving into the water, he finds himself unable to
swim. So with those who have tried to learn the theory of how to experience
ego-loss, and have never applied it. They cannot maintain unbroken
continuity of consciousness, they grow bewildered at the changed condition;
they fail to maintain the mystical ecstasy; they fail to take advantage of
the opportunity unless upheld and directed by a guide. Even with all that a
guide can do, they ordinarily, because of bad karma (heavy ego games) fail to
recognize the liberation. But this is no cause for worry. At the worst, they
just slip back to shore. No one has drowned, and most of those who have
taken the voyage have been eager to try again.

Even those who have familiarized themselves with the road maps and who
previously have had illumination, may find themselves in settings where
heavy game behavior on the part of others forces them into contact with
external reality. If this happens, recall the instructions. The person who
masters this principle can block out the external. The one who has mastered
control of consciousness is independent of setting.

Again there are those, who although previously successful, may have
brought ego games into the session with them. They may want to provide
someone else with a particular type of experience. They may be promoting
some self goal. They may be nurturing negative or competitive or seductive
feelings towards someone in the session. If this happens, recall the
instructions. Remember the unity of all beings. One to me is shame and fame.
One to me is loss or gain. Jettison your ego program and float back to the
radiant bliss of at-one-ness.

If you reach the Clear Light immediately and maintain it, that is best. But if
not, if you have slipped down to reality concerns, by remembering these
instructions you should be able to regain what the Tibetans call the
Secondary Clear Light.

While on this secondary level, an interesting dialogue occurs between pure
transcendence and the awareness that this ecstatic vision is happening to
oneself. The first radiance knows no self, no concepts. The secondary
experience involves a certain state of conceptual lucidity. The knowing self
hovers within that transcendent terrain from which it is usually barred. If
the instructions are remembered, external reality will not intrude. But the
flashing in and out between pure ego-less unity, and lucid, non-game
selfhood, produces an intellectual ecstasy and understanding that defies
description. Previous philosophic reading will suddenly take on living
meaning.

Thus in this secondary stage of the First Bardo, there is possible both the
mystic non-self and the mystic self experience.

After you have experienced these two states, you may wish to pursue this
distinction intellectually. We are confronted here with one of the oldest
debates in Eastern philosophy. Is it better to be part of the sugar or to taste
the sugar? Theological controversies and their dualities are far removed
from experience. Thanks to the experimental mysticism made possible by
consciousness-expanding drugs, you may have been lucky enough to have
experienced the flashing back and forth between the two states. You may be
lucky enough to know what the academic monks could only think about.

                                       Here ends the First Bardo,
                        The Period of Ego-loss or Non-Game Ecstasy


                                              SECOND BARDO:

                                THE PERIOD OF HALLUCINATIONS
                                              (Chonyid Bardo)

                                                 Introduction

If the Primary Clear Light is not recognized, there remains the possibility of
maintaining the Secondary Clear Light. If that is lost, then comes the
Chonyid Bardo, the period of karmic illusions or intense hallucinatory
mixtures of game reality. It is very important that the instructions be
remembered - they can have great influence and effect.

During this period, the flow of consciousness, microscopically clear and
intense, is interrupted by fleeting attempts to rationalize and interpret. But
the normal game-playing ego is not functioning effectively. There exist,
therefore, unlimited possibilities for, on the one hand, delightful sensuous,
intellectual and emotional novelties if one floats with the current; and, on
the other hand, fearful ambuscades of confusion and terror if one tries to
impose his will on the experience.

The purpose of this part of the manual is to prepare the person for the
choice points which arise during this stage. Strange sounds, weird sights
and disturbed visions may occur. These can awe, frighten and terrify unless
one is prepared.

The experienced person will be able to maintain the recognition that all
perceptions come from within and will be able to sit quietly, controlling his
expanded awareness like a phantasmagoric multi-dimensional television set:
the most acute and sensitive hallucinations - visual, auditory, touch, smell,
physical and bodily; the most exquisite reactions, compassionate insight
into the self, the world. The key is inaction: passive integration with all
that occurs around you. If you try to impose your will, use your mind,
rationalize, seek explanations, you will get caught in hallucinatory
whirlpools. The motto: peace, acceptance. It is all an ever-changing
panorama. You are temporarily removed from the world of game. Enjoy it.

The inexperienced and those to who ego control is important may find this
passivity impossible. If you cannot remain inactive and subdue your will,
then the one certain activity which can reduce panic and pull you out of
hallucinatory mind-games is physical contact with another person. Go to the
guide or to another participant and put your head on his lap or chest; put
your face next to his and concentrate on the movement and sound of his
inspiration. Breathe deeply and feel the air rush in and the sighing release.
This is the oldest form of living communication; the brotherhood of breath.
The guide's hand on your forehead may add to the relaxation.

Contact with another participant may be misunderstood and provoke sexual
hallucinations. For this reason, helping contact should be made explicit by
prearrangement. Unprepared participants may impose sexual fears or
fantasies on the contact. Turn them off; they are karmic illusory
productions.

The tender, gentle, supportive huddling together of participants is a natural
development during the second phase. Do not try to rationalize this contact.
Human beings and, for that matter, most all mobile terrestrial creatures
have been huddling together during long, dark confused nights for several
hundred thousand years.

Breathe in and breathe out with you companions. We are all one! That's what
your breath is telling you.


                                  Explanation of the Second Bardo

The underlying problem of the Second Bardo is that any and every shape -
human, divine, diabolical, heroic, evil, animal, thing - which the human brain
conjures up or the past life recalls, can present itself to consciousness:
shapes and forms and sounds whirling by endlessly.

The underlying solution - repeated again and again - is to recognize that
your brain is producing the visions. They do not exist. Nothing exists except
as your consciousness gives it life.

You are standing on the threshold of recognizing the truth: there is no reality
behind any of the phenomena of the ego-loss state, save the illusions stored
up in your own mind either as accretions from game (Sangsaric) experience
or as gifts from organic physical nature and its billion-year old past
history. Recognition of this truth gives liberation.

There is, of course, no way of classifying the infinite permutations and
combinations of visionary elements. The cortex contains file-cards for
billions of images from the history of the person, of the race, and of living
forms. Any of these, at the rate of a hundred million per second (according
to neuro-physiologists), can flood into awareness. Bobbing around in this
brilliant, symphonic sea of imagery is the remnant of the conceptual mind.
On the endless watery turbulence of the Pacific Ocean bobs a tiny open
mouth shouting (between saline mouthfuls), "Order! System! Explain all this!"

One cannot predict what visions will occur, nor their sequence. One can only
urge the participants to shut the mouth, breathe through the nose, and turn
off the fidgety, rationalizing mind. But only the experienced person of
mystical bent can do this (and thus remain in serene enlightenment). The
unprepared person will be confused or, worse, panicky: the intellectual
struggle to control the ocean.

In order to guide the person, to help him organize his visions into explicable
units, the Chonyid Bardo was written. There are two sections:
(1) Seven Peaceful Deities with their symmetrically opposed ego traps.
(2) Eight Wrathful Deities who can be joyfully accepted as visionary
productions, or fled from in terror.

Each of the Seven Peaceful Deities (bisexual Father-Mother figures) are
accompanied by consorts, attendants, lesser deities, saints, angels, heroes.
Each of the Wrathful Deities is similarly accompanied. Lights, symbolic
objects, beautiful, horrid, threatening, seething, are likewise seen.

If read literally, The Tibetan Book of the Dead would have you expect the
"Master of All Visible Shapes" (or his opposite, the fondness for stupidity)
on the first day; the "Immovable Deity of Happiness" and his consort,
attendants and opposite on the second, etc. The manual should, of course, not
be used rigidly, exoterically, but should be taken in its esoteric, allegorical
form.

Read from this perspective, we see that the lamas have listed or named a
thousand images which can boil up in the ever-changing jeweled mosaic of
the retina (that multi-layered swamp of billions of rods and cones,
infiltrated, like a Persian rug or a Mayan carving, with countless multi-
colored capillaries). By preparatory reading of the manual and by its
repetition during the experience, the novice is led via suggestion to
recognize this fantastic retinal kaleidoscope.

Most important, he is told that they come from within. All deities and
demons, all heavens and hells are internal.

The student with a particular interest in Tibetan or Tantric Buddhism should
steep himself in the text of the Chonyid Bardo. He should obtain colored
plates of the fourteen dramas of the Bardo, and he should arrange to have
the guide lead him through the prescribed sequence during the drug session.
This will provide an unforgettable series of liberations and will permit the
devotee to emerge from the experience "reincarnated" in the lamaist
tradition.

The aim of this manual is to make available the general outline of the
Tibetan Book and to translate it into psychedelic English. For this reason we
shall not present the detailed sequence of lamaist hallucinations but,
rather, list some apparitions commonly reported by Westerners.

Following the Tibetan Thodo, we have classified Second Bardo visions into
seven types:

1. The Source or Creator Vision
2. The Internal Flow of Archetypal Processes
3. The Fire-Flow of Internal Unity
4. The Wave-Vibration Structure of External Forms
5. The Vibratory Waves of External Unity
6. "The Retinal Circus"
7. "The Magic Theatre" [We owe the phrase "retinal circus" to Henri Michaux
(Miserable Miracle), and the term "magic theatre" to Hermann Hesse
(Steppenwolf).

Visions 2 and 3 involve closed eyes and no contact with external stimuli. In
Vision 2 the internal imagery is primarily conceptual. The experience can
range from revelation and insight to confusion and chaos, but the cognitive,
intellectual meaning is paramount. In Vision 3 the internal imagery is
primarily emotional. The experience can range from love and ecstatic unity
to fear, distrust and isolation.

Visions 4 and 5 involve open eyes and rapt attention to external stimuli,
such as sounds, lights, touch, etc. In Vision 4 the external imagery is
primarily conceptual and in Vision 5 emotional factors predominate.

The sevenfold table just defined bears some similarity to the mandalic
schema of the Peaceful Deities listed for the Second Bardo in The Tibetan
Book of the Dead.


                                       THE PEACEFUL VISIONS

                     Vision 1: The Source [The first Peaceful Deity
listed by the Bardo Thodol is the Bhagavan Vairochana who occupies the
center of the mandala of the five Dhyani-Buddhas. His attributes of source-
power have been translated into those of the monotheistic creator of
Western religions.]
                             (Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored)

The White Light, or First Bardo energy, may be interpreted as God the
Creator. The Spreader of the Seed. The Power which makes all shapes
visible. Seed of all that is. Sovereign Power. The All-Powerful. The Central
Sun. The One Truth. The Source of all Organic Life. The Divine Mother. The
Female Creative Principle. Mother of the Space of Heaven. Radiant Father-
Mother. Magnificent revelations, both spiritual and philosophic, can occur at
this point making the highest union of experience and intellect. But, because
of bad karma (usually religious beliefs of a monotheistic or punitive nature),
the glorious light of the seed wisdom it can produce awe and terror. The
person will wish to flee and will beget a fondness for the dull white light
symbolizing stupidity.

Persons from a Judaeo-Christian background conceive of an enormous gulf
between divinity (which is "up there") and the self ("down here"). Christian
mystics' claims to unity with divine radiance has always posed problems for
theologians who are committed to the cosmological subject-object
distinction. Most Westerners, therefore, find it difficult to attain unity with
the source-light.

If the guide ascertains that the voyager is struggling with thoughts or
feelings about the creative source energy, he can read the appropriate
instructions. ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 1: THE SOURCE


                  Vision 2: The Internal Flow of Archetypal Processes
              (Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored; intellectual aspects)

If the undifferentiated light of the First Bardo or of the Source Energy is
lost, luminous waves of differentiated forms can flood through the
consciousness. The person's mind begins to identify these figures, that is, to
label them and experience revelations about the life process. [Lama Govinda
tells us that Amoghasiddhi represents ". . . the mysterious activity of
spiritual forces, which work removed from the senses, invisible and
imperceptible, with the aim of guiding the individual (or, more properly: all
living beings) towards the maturity of knowledge and liberation. The yellow
light of an (inner) sun invisible to human eyes . . . (in which the
unfathomable space of the universe seems to open itself) for the serene
mystic green of Amoghasiddhi. . . . On the elementary plane this all-
pervading power corresponds to the element of air - the principle of
movement and extension, of life and breath (prana)." Lama Govinda:
Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism. Lodon: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1959, p.120.

The fifth day of the Baro Thodol confronts the deceased with the Bhagavan
Buddha Amoghasiddhi, Almighty Conqueror, from the green Norther realm
of Successful Performance of Best Actions, attended by a Divine Mother, and
two Bodhisattvas representing the mental functions of "equilibrium,
immutability, and almighty power" and "clearer of obscurations."]

Specifically, the subject is caught up in an endless flow of colored forms,
microbiological shapes, cellular acrobatics, capillary whirling. The cortex is
turned in on molecular processes which are completely new and strange: a
Niagara of abstract designs; the life-stream flowing, flowing.

These visions might perhaps be described as pure sensations of cellular and
sub-cellular processes. It is uncertain whether they involve the retina
and/or the visual cortex, or whether they are flashes of direct, molecular
sensation in other areas of the central nervous system. They are
subjectively described as internal visions.

Another class of internal process images involves sound. Again we do not
know whether these sensations originate in the auditory apparatus and/or in
the auditory cortex, or whether they are flashes of direct, molecular
sensations in other areas. They are subjectively described as internal
sounds: clicking, thudding, clashing, soughing, ringing, tapping, moaning,
shrill whistles. [ The Tibetan Book includes a brilliant discussion of internal
process noises. ". . . innumerable (other) kinds of musical instruments,
filling (with music) the whole world-systems and causing them to vibrate,
to quake and tremble with sounds so mighty as to daze one's brain. . . ."

"Tibetan lamas, in chanting their rituals, employ seven (or eight) sorts of
musical instruments: big drums, cymbals (commonly brass), conch shells,
bells (like the handbells used in the Christian Mass Service), timbrels, small
clarionets (sounding like Highland bagpipes), big trumpets, and human
thighbone trumpets. Although the combined sounds of these instruments are
far from being melodious, the lamas maintain that they psychically produce
in the devotee an attitude of deep veneration and faith, because they are the
counterparts of the natural sounds which one's own body is heard producing
when the fingers are put in the ears to shut out external sounds. Stopping
the ears thus, there are heard a thudding sound, like that of a big drum
being beaten; a clashing sound, as of cymbals; a soughing sound, as of a wind
moving through a forest - as when a conch-shell is bone; a ringing as of
bells; a sharp tapping sound, as when a timbrel is used; a moaning sound,
like that of a clarionet; a bass moaning sound, as if made with a big
trumpet; and a shriller sound, as of a thigh-bone trumpet."

"Not only is this interesting as a theory of Tibetan sacred music, but it
gives the clue to the esoteric interpretation of the symbolical natural
sounds of Truth (referred to in the second paragraph following,  and
elsewhere in our text), which are said to be, or to proceed from, the
intellectual faculties within the human mentality." - (Evans-Wentz, p. 128)]
These noises, like the visions, are direct sensations unencumbered by
mental concepts. Raw, molecular, dancing units of energy.

The minds sweeps in and out of this evolutionary stream, creating
cosmological revelations. Dozens of mythical and Darwinian insights flash
into awareness. The person is allowed to glance back down the flow of time
and to perceive how the life energy continually manifests itself in forms,
transient, alwasy changing, reforming. Microscopic forms merge with primal
creative myths. The mirror of consciousness is held up to the life stream.

As long as the person floats with the current, he is exposed to a billion-year
lesson in cosmology. But the drag of the mind is always present. The
tendency to impose arbitrary, isolating order on the organic process.

Sometimes the voyager feels he should report back his vision. He converts
the life flow into a cosmic ink-blot test - attempts to label each form. "Now
I see a peacock's tail. Now Muslim knights in colored armor. Oh, now a
waterfall of jewels. Now, Chinese music. Now, gem-like serpents, etc."
Verbalizations of this sort dull the light, stop the flow and should not be
encouraged.

Another trap is that of imposing a sexual interpretation. The dancing,
playful flow of life is, in the most reverant sense, sexual. Forms merging,
spinning together, reproducing. Eros in its countless manifestations. The
Tibetans refer to the female Bodhisattvas Pushpema, personification of
blossoms, and Lasema, the "Belle", depicted holding a mirror in a coquettish
attitude. Keep the pure, spontaneous awareness of the Mirror-like Wisdom.
Laugh joyously at the tricks of the life process, forever decking out forms in
seductive, enticing patterns to keep the dance going. If the voyager
interprets the visions of Eros in terms of his personal sexual game model,
and attempts to think or plan - "what should I do? what role should I play?"
- he is likely to slip down into the Thrid Bardo. Sexual plots dominate his
awareness, the flow fades, the mirror tarnishes, and he is rudely reborn as a
confused, thinking being.

Still another impasse is the imposition of physical symptom games upon the
biological flow. The new somatic sensations may be interpreted as
symptoms. If it is new, it must be bad. Any organ of the body may be
selected as the focus of the "illness." People whose primary expectation
when taking a psychedelic substance is medical, are particularly likely to
fall into this trap. Medical doctors are, in fact, extremely prone and can
imagine colorful diseases and fatal attacks.

In the case of the most widely-used psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, etc.), it
is safe to say that such bodily effects are virtually never the direct effect
of the drug. The drug acts only on the brain and activates central neural
patterns. All physical symptoms are created by the mind. Bodily sickness is
a sign that the ego is fighting to maintain or regain its hold over an
outpouring of feeling, over a dissolution of emotional boundaries.

If the person complains of physical symptoms such as nausea or pain, the
guide should read him the  ==|==>> INSTRUCTIONS FOR PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS.

The negative, wrathful counterpart to this vision occurs if the voyager
reacts with fear to the powerful flow of life forms. Such a reaction is
attributable to the cumulated result of game playing (karma) dominated by
anger or stupidity. A nightmarish hell-world may ensue. The visual forms
appear like a confusing chaos of cheap, ugly dime-store objects, brassy,
vulgar and useless. The person may become terrified at the prospect of being
engulfed by them. The awesome sounds may be heard as hideous, clashing,
oppressive, grating noises. The person will attempt to escape from these
perceptions into restless external activity (talking, moving around, etc.) or
into conceptual, analytic, mental activity.

The experience is the same, the intellectual interpretation is different.
Instead of revelation, there is confusion; instead of calm joy, there is fear.
The guide, recognizing the voyager to be in such a state, can help him get
free, by reading the ==|==>> Instructions for Vision 2.


                        Vision 3: The Fire-Flow of Internal Unity
              (Eyes closed, external stimuli ignored, emotional aspects)

The First Bardo instructions should keep you face-to-face with the void-
ecstasy. Yet there are classes of men who, having carried over karmic
conflict about feeling-inhibition, prove unable to hold the pure experience
beyond all feelings, and slip into emotionally toned visions. The
undifferentiated energy of the First Bardo is woven into visionary games in
the form of intense feelings. Exquisite, intense, pulsating sensations of
unity and love will be felt; the negative counterpart is feelings of
attachment, greed, isolation and bodily concerns.

It comes about this way: the pure flow of energy loses its white void quality
and becomes sensed as intense feelings. An emotional game is imposed.
Incredible new physical sensations pulse through the body. The glow of life
is felt flooding along veins. One merges into a unitive ocean of orgastic,
fluid electricity, [The Peaceful Deity of the Bardo Thodol personifying this
vision is the Buddha Amitabbha, the all-discriminating wisdom and feeling,
boundless light, representing life eternal. Lama Govinda writes that "The
deep red light of discriminating inner vision shines forth from his heart . . .
fire corresponds to him and thus, according to the ancient traditional
symbolism, the eye and the function of seeing." (Govinda, op. cit., p. 120.)
With the Bhagavan Amitabbha comes the Bodhisattva Chenrazee, embodiment
of mercy or compassion, the great pitier ever on the lookout to discover
distress and to succour the troubled. He is joined by the Bodhisattva
"Glorious Gentle-voiced One," and the femal incarnates "song" and "light."]
the endless flow of shared-life, of love.

Visions related to the circulatory system are common. The subject tumbles
down through his own arterial network. The motor of the heart reverberates
as one with the pulsing of all life. The heart then breaks, and red fire bleeds
out to merge with all living beings. All living organisms are throbbing
together. One is joyfully aware of the two-billion-year-old electric sexual
dance; one is at last divested of robot clothes and limbs and undulates in the
endless chain of living forms.

Dominating this ecstatic state is the feeling of intense love. You are a
joyful part of all life. The memory of former delusions of self-hood and
differentiation invokes exultant laughter.

All the harsh, dry, brittle angularity of game life is melted. You drift off -
soft, rounded, moist, warm. Merged with all life. You may feel yourself
floating out and down into a warm sea. Your individuality and autonomy of
movement are moistly disappearing. Your control is surrendered to the total
organism. Blissful passivity. Ecstatic, orgiastic, undulating unity. All
worries and concerns wash away. All is gained as everything is given up.
There is organic revelation. Every cell in your body is singing its song of
freedom - the entire biological universe is in harmony, liberated from the
censorship and control of you and your restricted ambitions.

But wait! You, You, are disappearing into the unity. You are being swallowed
up by the ecstatic undulation. Your ego, that one tiny remaining strand of
self, screams STOP! You are terrified by the pull of the glorious, dazzling,
transparent, radiant red light. You wrench yourself out of the life-flow,
drawn by your intense attachment to your old desires. There is a terrible
rending as your roots tear out of the life matrix - a ripping of your fibres
and veins away from the greater body to which you were attached. And
when you have cut yourself off from the fire-flow of life the throbbing
stops, the ecstasy ceases, your limbs harden and stiffen into angular forms,
your plastic doll body has regained its orientation. There you sit, isolated
from the stream of life, impotent master of your desires and appetites,
miserable.

While you are floating down the evolutionary river, there comes a sense of
limitless self-less power. The delight of flowing cosmic belongingness. The
astounding discovery that consciousness can tune in to an infinite number of
organic levels. There are billions of cellular processes in your body, each
with its universe of experience - an endless variety of ecstasies. The simple
joys and pains and burdens of your ego represent one set of experiences - a
repetitious, dusty set. As you slip into the fire-flow of biological energy,
series after series of experiential sets flash by. You are no longer
encapsulated in the structure of ego and tribe.

But through panic and a desire to latch on to the familiar, you shut off the
flow, open your eyes; then the flowingness is lost. The potentiality to move
from one level of consciousness to another is gone. Your fear and desire to
control have driven you to settle for one static site of consciousness. To use
the Eastern or genetic metaphor, you have frozen the dance of energy and
committed yourself to one incarnation, and you have done it out of fear.

When this happens, there are several steps which can take you back to the
biological flow (and from there to the First Bardo). First, close your eyes.
Lie on you stomach and let you body sink through the floor, merge with the
surroundings. Feel the hard, square edges of your body soften and start to
move in the bloodstream. Let the rhythm of breathing become tide flow.
Bodily contact is probably the most effective method of softening hardened
surfaces. No movement. No body games. Close physical contact with another
invariably brings about the unity of fire-flow. Your blood begins to flow into
the other's body. His breathing pours into your lungs. You both drift down
the capillary river.

Another form of life process images is the flow of auditory sensations. The
endless series of abstract sounds (described in the preceding vision) bounce
through awareness. The emotional reaction to these can be neutral or can
involve intense feelings of unity, or of annoyed fear.

The positive reaction occurs when the subject merges with the sound flow.
The thudding drum of the heart is sensed as the basic anthem of humanity.
The whooshing sough of the breath as the rushing river of all life.
Overwhelming feelings of love, gratitude and oneness funnel into the
moment of sound, into each note of the biological concerto.

But, as always, the voyager may intrude his personality with its wants and
opinions. He may not "like" the noise. His judgmental ego may be
aesthetically offended by the sounds of life. The heart thud is, after all,
monotonous; the natural music of the inner ear, with its clicks and hums and
whistles, lacks the romantic symmetries of Beethoven. The terrible
separation of "me" from my body occurs. Horrible. Out of my control. Turn it
off.

The trained guide can usually sense when ego-attachment threatens to pull
the person out of the unitive flow. At this time he can guide the voyager by
reading the ==|==>> Instructions for Vision 3.


             Vision 4:  The Wave-Vibration Structure of External Forms
 (Eyes open or rapt involvement with external stimuli; intellectual aspects)

The pure, content-free light of the First Bardo probably involves basic
electrical wave energy. This is nameless, indescribable, because it is far
beyond any concepts which we now possess. Some future atomic physicist
may be able to classify this energy. Perhaps it will always be ineffable for a
nervous system such as that of homo sapiens. Can an organic system
"comprehend" the vastly more efficient inorganic? At any event, most
persons, even the most illuminated, find it impossible to maintain
experiential contact with this void-light and slip back to imposing mental
structures, hallucinatory and revelatory, upon the flow.

Thus we are brought to another frequent vision which involves intense, rapt,
unitive awareness of external stimuli. If the eyes are open, this super-
reality effect can be visual. The penetrating impact of other stimuli can
also set off revelatory imagery.

It comes about this way. The subject's awareness is suddenly invaded by an
outside stimulus. His attention is captured, but his old conceptual mind is
not functioning. But other sensitivities are engaged. He experiences direct
sensation. The raw "is-ness." He sees, not objects, but patterns of light
waves. He hears, not "music" or "meaningful" sound, but acoustic waves. He
is struck with the sudden revelation that all sensation and perception are
based on wave vibrations. That the world around him which heretofore had
an illusory solidity, is nothing more than a play of physical waves. That he
is involved in a cosmic television show which has no more substantiality
than the images on his TV picture tube. [The Peaceful Deity of the Thodol
personifying this vision is Akshobhya. According to Lama Govinda, "In the
light of the Mirror-like Wisdom . . . things are freed from their "thingness,"
their isolation, without being deprived of their form; they are divested of
their materiality, without being dissolved, because the creative principle of
the mind, which is at the bottom of all form and materiality, is recognized
as the active side of the universal Store Consciousness (alaya-vijnana), on
the surface of which forms arise and pass away, like the waves on the
surface of the ocean. . . ." (Govinda, op. cit., p. 119.)

The atomic structure of matter is, of course, known to us intellectually, but
never experienced by the adult except in states of intense altered
consciousness. Learning from a physics textbook about the wave structure of
matter is one thing. Experiencing it - being in it - with the old, familiar,
gross, hallucinatory comfort of "solid" things gone and unavailable, is quite
another matter.

If these super-real visions involve wave phenomena, then the external
world takes on a radiance and a revelation that is staggeringly clear. The
experienced insight that the world of phenomena exists in the form of
waves, electronic images, can produce a sense of illuminated power.
Everything is experienced as consciousness.

These exultant radiations should be recognized as productions of your own
internal processes. You should not attempt to control or conceptualize. This
can come later. There is the danger of hallucinatory freezing. The subject
rushes back (sometimes literally) to the three-dimensional reality,
convinced of the fixed "truth" of one experienced revelation. Many misguided
mystics and many persons called insane have fallen into this ambuscade.
This is like making a still photograph of a television pattern and shouting
that one has finally seized the truth. All is ecstatic electric Maya, the two-
billion-year dance of waves. No one part of it is more real than another.
Everything at all moments is shimmering with all the meaning.

So far we have considered the positive radiance of clarity; but there are
fearful negative aspects of the fourth vision. When the subject senses that
his "world" is fragmenting into waves, he may become terrified. "He," "me,"
"I" are dissolving! The world around me is supposed to sit, static and dead,
quietly awaiting my manipulation. But these passive things have changed
into a shimmering dance of living energy! The Maya nature of phenomena
creates panic. Where is the solid base? Every thing, every concept, every
form upon which one rests one's mind collapses into electrical vibrations
lacking solidity.

The face of the guide or of one's beloved friend becomes a dancing mosaic of
impulses on one's cortex. "My consciousness" has created everything of
which I am conscious. I have kinescoped my world, my loved ones, myself.
All are just shimmering energy patterns. Instead of clarity and exultant
power, there is confusion. The subject staggers around, grasping at
electron-patterns, striving to freeze them back into the familiar robot
forms.

All solidity is gone. All phenomena are paper images pasted on the glass
screen of consciousness. For the unprepared, or for the person whose karmic
residue stresses control, the discovery of the wave-nature of all structure,
the Maya revelation, is a disastrous web of uncertainty.

We have discussed only the visual aspects of the fourth vision. Auditory
phenomena are of equal importance. Here the solid, labelled nature of
auditory patterns  is lost, and the mechanical impact of sound hitting the
eardrum is registered. In some cases, sound becomes converted into pure
sensation, and synesthesia (mixture of sense modalities) occurs. Sounds are
experienced as colors. External sensations hitting the cortex are recorded as
molecular events, ineffable.

The most dramatic auditory visions occur with music. Just as any object
radiates a pattern of electrons and can become the essense of all energy, so
can any note of music be sensed as naked energy trembling in space,
timeless. The movement of notes, like the shuttling of oscillograph beams.
Each capturing all energy, the electric core of the universe. Nothing existing
except the needle-clear resonance on the tympanic membrane. Unforgettable
revelations about the nature of reality occur at these moments.

But the hellish interpretation is also possible. As the learned structure of
sound collapses, the direct impact of waves can be sensed as noise. For one
who is compelled to institute order, his order, on the world around him, it is
at least annoying and often disturbing to have the raw tattoo of sound
resonating in consciousness.

Noise! What an irreverent concept. Is not everything noise; all sensation the
divine pattern of wave energy, meaningless only to those who insist on
imposing their own meaning?

Preparation is the key to a serene passage through this visionary territory.
The subject who has studied this manual will be able, when face to face
with the phenomenon, to recognize and flow with it.

The sensitive guide will be ready to pick up, on any cue, that the subject is
wandering in the fourth vision. If the voyager's eyes are open (indicating
visual reactions), he can read the ==|==>> Instructions for Vision 4.

If the guide senses that the voyager is experiencing the fragmentation of
external sound into wave vibrations, he can amend the instructions
appropriately (changing the visuaol references to auditory).


                    Vision 5:  The Vibratory Waves of External Unity
  (Eyes open, or rapt involvement with external stimuli; emotional aspects)

As the learned perceptions disappear and the structure of the external world
disintegrates into direct wave phenomena, the aim is to amintain a pure,
conten-free awareness (First Bardo). Despite the preparations, one is likely
to be led backwards by one's own mental inclinations into two hallucinatory
or revelatory interpretations of reality. One reaction leads to the
intellectual clarity or frightened confusion of the fourth vision (just
described). Another interpretation is the emotional reaction to the
fragmentation of differentiated forms. One can be engulfed in ecstatic unity,
or one can slip into isolated egotism. The Bardol Thodol calls the former the
"Wisdom of Equality" and the latter the "quagmire of worldly existence
accruing from violent egotism." [The Peaceful Deity of the fifth vision
comes in the form of the Bhagavan Ratnasambhava, born of a jewel. He is
embraced by the Divine Mother, She of the Buddha Eyes, and accompanied by
the Bodhisattvas, womb of the sky, All-good, and those holding incense and
rosary. "On the elementary plane Ratnasambhava corresponds to the earth,
which carries and nourishes all beings with the equanimity and patience of a
mother, in whose eyes all beings, borne by her, are equal." (Govinda, op. cit.,
p. 119.)] In the state of radiant unity, one senses that there is only one
network of energy in the universe and that all things and all sentient beings
are momentary manifestations of the single pattern. When egotistic
interpretations are imposed on the fifth vision, the "plastic doll" phenomena
are experienced. Differentiated forms are seen as inorganic, dull, mass-
produced, shabby, plastic, and all persons (including self) are seen as
lifeless mannequins isolated from the vibrant dance of energy, which has
been lost.

The experiential data of this vision are similar to that of the fourth vision.
All artifactual learned structure collapses back to energy vibrations. The
awareness is dominated not by revelatory clarity but by shimmering unity.
The subject is entranced by the silent, whirling play of forces. Exquisite
forms dance by him, all surrounding objects radiate energy, brilliant
emanations. His own body is seen as a play of forces. If he looks in a mirror,
he sees a shining mosaic of particles. The sense of his own wave structure
becomes stronger. A feeling of melting, floating off. The body is no longer a
separate unit but a cluster of vibrations sending and receiving energy - a
phase of the dance of energy which has been going on for millennia.

A sense of profound one-ness, a feeling of the unity of all energy.
Superficial differences of role, cast, status, sex, species, form, power, size,
beauty, even the distinctions between inorganic and living energy, disappear
before the ecstatic union of all in one. All gestures, words, acts and events
are equivalent in value - all are manifestations of the one consciousness
which pervades everything. "You," "I" and "he" are gone, "my" thoughts are
"ours," "your" feelings are "mine." Communication is unnecessary, since
complete communion exists. A person can sense another's feeling and mood
directly, as if they were his own. By a glance, whole lifetimes and words
can be transmitted. If all are at peace, the vibrations are "in phase." If there
is discord, "out of phase" vibrations will be set up which will be felt like
discordant music. Bodies melt into waves. Objects in the environment -
lights, tree, plants, flowers - seem to open and welcome you: they are part
of you. You are both simply different pulses of the same vibrations. A pure
feeling of ecstatic harmony with all beings is the keynote of this vision.

But as before, terrors can occur. Unity requires ecstatic self-sacrifice. Loss
of ego brings fright to the unprepared. The fragmentation of form into waves
can bring the most terrible fear known to man: the ultimate epistemological
revelation.

The fact of the matter is that all apparent forms of matter and body are
momentary clusters of energy. We are little more than flickers on a
multidimensional television screen. This realization directly experienced
can be delightful. You suddenly wake up from the delusion of separate form
and hook up to the cosmic dance. Consciousness slides along the wave
matrices, silently at the speed of light.

The terror comes with the discovery of transience. Nothing is fixed, no form
solid. Everything you can experience is "nothing but" electrical waves. You
feel ultimately tricked. A victim of the great television producer. Distrust.
The people around you are lifeless television robots. The world around you is
a facade, a stage set. You are a helpless marionette, a plastic doll in a
plastic world.

If others attempt to help, they are seen as wooden, waxen, feelingless, cold,
grotesque, maniacal, space-fiction monsters. You are unable to feel. "I am
dead. I will never live and feel again." In wild panic you may attempt to
force feeling back - by action, by shouting. You will then enter the Third
Bardo stage and be reborn in an unpleasant way.

The best method to escape from fifth vision terrors is to remember this
manual, relax, and swing with the wave dance. Or to communicate to the
guide that you are in a plastic doll phase, and he will guide you back.

Another solution is to move to the internal biological flow. Follow the
instructions given in the third vision: close your eyes, lie prone, seek bodily
contact, float down into your bodily stream. In so doing, you are
recapitulating the evolutionary sequence. For billions of years, inorganic
energy danced the cosmic round before the biological rhythm began. Don't
rush it.

If the guide senses that the person is experiencing plastic doll visions or is
afraid of the uncontrollability of his own feeling, he should read to him the
==|==>> Instructions for Vision 5.


                                   Vision 6:  "The Retinal Circus"

Each of the Second Bardo visions thus far described was one aspect of the
"experiencing of reality." The inner fire or outer waves, apprehended
intellectually or emotionally - each vision with its correspondent traps.
Each of the "Peaceful Deities" appears with its attendant "Wrathful Deities."
To maintain any of these visions for any length of time requires a certain
degree of concentration or "one-pointedness" of mind, as well as the ability
to recognize them and not to be afraid. Thus, for most persons, the
experience may pass through one or more of these phases without the
voyager being able to hold them or stay with them. He may open and close
his eyes, he may become alternately absorbed in internal sensations and
external forms. The experience may be chaotic, beautiful, thrilling,
incomprehensible, magical, ever-changing. [In the Bardo Thodol, on the sixth
day appear the radiant lights of the combined Five Wisdoms of the Dhyani-
Buddhas, the protective deities (gatekeepers of the mandala) and the
Buddhas of the Six Realms of game-existence. According to Lama Govinda:
"The Inner Way of Vajra-Sattva, consists in the combination of the rays of
the Wisdoms of the four Dhyani-Buddhas and their absorption within one's
own heart - in other words, in the recognition that all these radiances are
the emanations of one's own mind in a state of perfect tranquility and
serenity, a state in which the mind reveals its true universal nature."
(Govinda, op., cit., p. 262.)]

He will travel freely through many worlds or experience - from direct
contact with life-process forms and images, he may pass to visions of
human game-forms. He may see and understand with unimagined clarity and
brilliance various social and self-games that he and others play. His own
struggles in karmic (game) existence will appear pitiful and laughable.
Ecstatic freedom of consciousness is the keynote of this vision. Exploration
of unimagined realms. Theatrical adventures. Plays within plays within
plays. Symbols change into things symbolized and vice versa. Words become
things, thoughts are music, music is smelled, sounds are touched, complete
interchangeability of the senses.

All things are possible. All feelings are possible. A person may "try on"
various moods like so many pieces of clothing. Subjects and objects whirl,
transform, change into each other, merge, fuse, disperse again. External
objects dance and sing. The mind plays upon them as upon a musical
instrument. They assume any form, significance or quality upon command.
They are admired, adored, analyzed, examined, changed, made beautiful or
ugly, large or small, important or trivial, useful, dangerous, magical or
incomprehensible. They may be reacted to with wonder, amazement, humor,
veneration, love, disgust, fascination, horror, delight, fear, ecstasy.

Like a computer with unlimited access to any programs, the mind roams
freely. Personal and racial memories bubble up to the surface of
consciousness, inter-play with fantasies, wishes, dreams and external
objects. A present event becomes charged with profound emotional
significance, a cosmic phenomenon becomes identical with some personal
quirk. Metaphysical problems are juggled and bounced around. Pure "primary
process," spontaneous outopouring of association, opposites merging, images
fusing, condensing, shifting, collapsing, expanding, merging, connecting.

This kaleidoscopic vision of game-reality may be frightening and confusing
to an ill-prepared subject. Instead of exquisite clarity of many-levelled
perception, he will experience a confused chaos of uncontrollable,
meaningless forms. Instead of delight at the playful acrobatics of the free
intellect, there will be anxious clinging to an elusive order. Morbid and
scatological hallucinations may occur, evoking disgust and shame.

As before, this negative vision occurs only if the person attempts to control
or rationalize the magic panorama. Relax and accept whatever comes.
Remember that all visions are created by your mind, the happy and the
unhappy, the beautiful and the ugly, the delightful and the horrifying. Your
consciousness is creator, performer and spectator of the "retinal circus."

If the guide senses that the voyager is in or seems to be in the "retinal
circus" vision, he may read to him the appropriate instructions ==|==>>
INSTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 6:  "THE RETINAL CIRCUS".


                                  Vision 7:  "The Magic Theatre"

If the voyager was unable to maintain the passive serenity necessary for the
contemplation of the previous visions (the peaceful deities), he moves now
into a more dramatic and active phase. The play of forms and things
becomes the play of heroic figures, superhuman spirits and demigods. [In the
Tibetan Handbook, this is described as the vision of the five "Knowledge-
Holding Deities," arranged in a mandala form, each embraced by Dakinis, in
an ecstatic dance. The Knowledge-holding Deities symbolize "the highest
level of individual or humanly conceivable knowledge, as attained in the
consciousness of great Yogis, inspired thinkers or similar heroes of the
spirit. They represent the last step before the "breaking-through" towards
the universal consciousness - or the first on the return from there to the
plane of human knowledge." (Govinda, op. cit., p. 202.) The Dakinis are female
embodiments of knowledge, representing the inspirational impluses of
consciousness leading to break-through. The other four Knowledge-Holders,
besides the central Lord of Dance, are: the Knowledge-holder abiding in the
earth, the Knowledge-holder who has power over the duration of life, the
Knowledge-holder of the Great Symbol, and the Knowledge-holder of
Spontaneous Realization.] You may see radiating figures in human forms. The
"Lotus Lord of Dance": the supreme image of a demi-god who perceives the
effects of all actions. The prince of movement, dancing in an ecstatic
embrace with his female counterpart. Heroes, heroines, celestial warriors,
male and female demi-gods, angels, fairies - the exact form of these figures
will depend on the person's background and tradition. Archetypal figures in
the forms of characters from Greek, Egyptian, Nordic, Celtic, Aztec, Persian,
Indian, Chinese mythology. The shapes differ, the source is the same: they
are the concrete embodiments of aspects of the person's own psyche.
Archetypal forces below verbal awareness and expressible only in symbolic
form. The figures are often extremely colorful and accompanied by a variety
of awe-inspiring sounds. If the voyager is prepared and in a relaxed,
detached frame of mind, he is exposed to a fascinating and dazzling display
of dramatic creativity. The Cosmic Theatre. The Divine Comedy. If his eyes
are open, he may visualize the other voyagers as representing these figures.
The face of a friend may turn into that of a young boy, a baby, the child-god;
into a heroic stature, a wise old man; a woman, animal, goddess, sea-
mother, young girl, nymph, elf, goblin, leprechaun. Images of the great
painters arise as the familiar representations of these spirits. The images
are inexhaustible and manifold. An illuminating voyage into the areas where
the personal consciousness merges with the supr-individual.

The danger is that the voyager becomes frightened by or unduly attracted to
these powerful figures. The forces represented by them may be more
intense than he was prepared for. Inability or unwillingness to recognize
them as products of one's mind, leads to escape into animalistic pursuits.
The person may become involved in the pursuit of power, lust, wealth and
descend into Third Bardo rebirth struggles.

If the guide senses that the voyager is caught in this trap, the appropriate
instructions may be used ==|==>> INTRUCTIONS FOR VISION 7:  "THE MAGIC
THEATRE".


                                      THE WRATHFUL VISIONS
                                     (Second Bardo Nightmares)

Seven Second Bardo visions have been described. At each one of them, the
voyager could recognize what he saw and be liberated. Multitudes will be
liberated by that recognition; and although multitudes obtain liberation in
that manner, the number of sentient beings being great, evil karma
powerful, obscurations dense, propensities of too long standing, the Wheel
of Ignorance and Illusion becomes neither exhausted nor accelerated. Despite
the confrontations, there is a vast preponderance of those who wander
downwards unliberated.

Thus, in the Tibetan Thodo, after the seven peaceful deities, there come
seven visions of wrathful deities, fifty-eight in number, male and female,
"flame-enhaloed, wrathful, blood-drinking." These Herukas as they are
called, will not be described in detail, especially since Westerners are
liable to experience the wrathful deities in different forms. Instead of
many-headed fierce mythological demons, they are more likely to be
engulfed and ground by impersonal machinery, manipulated by scientific,
torturing control-devices and other space-fiction horrors. [Some general
remarks about the Tibetan interpretation of these visions. The Wrathful
Deities are regarded as "only the former Peaceful Deities in changed aspect."
Lama Govinda writes: "The peaceful forms of Dhyani-Buddhas represent the
highest ideal of Buddhahood in its completed, final, static condition of
ultimate attainment or perfection, seen retrospectively as it were, as a
state of complete rest and harmony. The Herukas, on the other hand, which
are described as "blood-drinking," angry or "terrifying" deities - are merely
the dynamic aspect of enlightenment, the process of becoming a Buddha, of
attaining illumination, as symbolized by the Buddha's struggle with the
Hosts of Mara. . . . The ecstatic figures, heroic and terrifying, express the
act of breaking through towards the unthinkable, the intellectually
"Unattainable." They represent the leap over the chasm, which yawns
between an intellectual surface consciousness and the intuitive supra-
personal depth-consciousness." (Govinda, op. cit., pp. 198, 202.)]

The Tibetans regard the nightmare visions as primarily intellectual
products. They assign them to the Brain chakra, whereas the peaceful deities
are assigned to the Heart chakra and the Knowledge-Holding deities to the
intermediate Throat chakra. They are the reactions of the mind to the
process of consciousness-expansion. They represent the attempts of the
intellect to maintain its threatened boundaries. They symbolize the struggle
of breaking through to ego-loss understanding and awareness.

Because of the terror and awe they produce, recognition is difficult. Yet in a
way it is also easier in that, since these negative hallucinations command
all attention, the mind is alert and therefore through trying to escape from
fear and terror, people get involved in psychotic states and suffer. But with
the aid of this manual and the presence of a guide, the voyager will
recognize these hell visions as soon as he sees them, and welcome them like
old friends.

Again, when psychologists, philosophers, and psychiatrists, who do not know
these teachings, experience ego-loss - however assiduously they may have
devoted themselves to academic study and however clever they may have
been in expounding intellectual theories - none of the higher phenomena will
appear. This is because they are unable to recognize the visions occurring in
these psychedelic experiences. Suddenly seeing something they had never
seen before and possessing no intellectual concepts, they view it as
inimical; and, antagonistic feelings arising, they pass into miserable states.
Thus, if one has not had practical experience with these teachings, the
radiances and lights will not appear.

Those who believe in these doctrines even though they may seem to be
unrefined, irregular in performance of duties, inelegant in habits, and
perhaps even unable to practice the doctrine successfully - let no one doubt
them or be disrespectful towards them, but pay reverence to their mystic
faith. That alone will enable them to attain liberation. Elegance and
efficiency of devotional practice are not necessary - just acquaintance with
and trust in these teachings.

Well-prepared persons need not experience Second Bardo hell visions at all.
Right from the beginning they can pass into paradisiacal states led by
heroes, heroines, angels and super-spirits. "They will merge into rainbow
radiance; there will be sun-showers, sweet scent of incense in the air,
music in the skies, radiances."

This manual is indispensable to those students who are unprepared. Those
proficient in meditation will recognize the Clear Light at the moment of
ego-loss and will enter the Blissful Void (Dharma-Kaya). They will also
recognize the positive and negative visions of the Second Bardo and obtain
illumination (Sambhogha-Kaya); and being reborn on a higher level will
become inspired saints or teachers (Nirmana-Kaya). The study and pursuit of
enlightenment can always be taken up again at the point where it was broken
by the last ego-loss, thus ensuring continuity of karma.

by the use of this manual, enlightenment can be obtained without
meditation, through hearing alone. It can liberate even very heavy ego-game
players. The distinction between those who know it and those who do not
becomes very clear. Enlightenment follows instantly. Those who have been
reached by it cannot have prolonged negative experiences.

The teaching concerning the hell-visions is the same as before; recognize
them to be your own thought-forms, relax, float downstream. The ==|==>>
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE WRATHFUL VISIONS may be read. If, after this,
recognition is still impossible and liberation is not obtained, then the
voyager will descend into the Third Bardo, the Period of Re-Entry.


                                CONCLUSION OF SECOND BARDO

However much experience one may have had, there is always the possibility
of delusions occurring in these psychedelic states. Those with practice in
meditation recognize the truth as soon as the experience begins. Reading
this manual beforehand is important. Having some degree of self-knowledge
is helpful at the moment of ego-death.

Meditation on the various positive and negative archetypal forms is very
important for Second Bardo phases. Therefore, read this manual, keep it,
remember it, bear it in mind, read it regularly; let the words and meanings
be very clear; they should not be forgotten, even under extreme duress. It is
called "The Great Liberation by Hearing" because even those with selfish
deeds on their conscience can be liberated if they hear it. If heard only once,
it can be efficacious because even though not understood, it will be
remembered during the psychedelic state, since the mind is more lucid then.
It should be proclaimed to all living persons; it should be read over the
pillows of ill persons; it should be read to dying persons; it should be
broadcast.

Those who meet this doctrine are fortunate. It is not easy to encounter. Even
when read, it is difficult to comprehend. Liberation will be won simply
through not disbelieving it upon hearing it.

                                    Here ends the Second Bardo
                                    the Period of Hallucinations
[End of part 2/4]
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