Yeah, actually, actually part of the part of the reason I'm doing this is I definitely have a hat hair. And so it's a completely narcissistic thing. So anyway, welcome everybody. If you're new to this Thursday gathering. Check out his check out his lenses to see I got, I got to do the lens thing here pretty symbols are awesome and so what we do with these Thursday gatherings is one of my favorite things is just hanging out talking about stuff. We've been doing it for over a year we started with COVID, social gathering we're continuing to do it, because people continue to show up, which is amazing to me. So I do have a couple of comments today. I think last week I didn't have any comments, but I want to share something I was working on this morning, And a couple of brief announcements before we start I we posted the interview with Corrine chattery she's a neurologist Western trained physician, I Vedic practitioner Siddha Medicine Practitioner author of this book called Sound medicine, which I really like, I'm going to try to get her back on because I only had an hour with her. And even though we got into some really cool things about the right view of sound sacred sound mantra, there's so much more to talk about. So I'm going to try to set something up with her a little bit later to talk about actually a tradition in Kashmir Shaivism, called Sponza vibrations, the sponder Kata goes, which is a really super profound non dual Siva Tantra approach to sound the Tibetan Buddhists, by the way would do well to study this, especially those who are interested in mantra. And so doctrine about the vibratory nature that everything in essence is of the nature of vibration which, you know, terms of physics right string theory, things like that so it goes super deep, but anyway so we posted call read. What else have we done lately, Andy. Benjamin bear the neuroscientist we have him up there. Oh, Claire Johnson. I interview her this week. And so she wrote this really killer book, The Art of transforming nightmares. Some of you may know her, I interviewed her almost two years ago she is amazing, I refer to her I endorsed her book is the queen of lucidity, first person to get a PhD, and lucid dreaming, per se. And she's just a rock star, her book is so good, so that won't be posted probably this week. Ian Baker's coming up, he's a really interesting, author, I like him a lot and an expert in a really unique dimension of teachings, the hidden lands bail. He wrote this book called The heart of the world. I knew I met him here in Boulder and then in England, a couple years ago so he's coming up as well. So lots of cool things are happening. Also tomorrow again a few lemonade pitch here tomorrow was the last day to get grandfathered into this, this old pricing schedule because we're for lots of reasons we're having to change our fee structures, so if you're interested in becoming a member. Tomorrow is your last day also. Andy said, we're starting to do some support forums to help people, because the nightclub site is getting more, there's more on there. We're trying to keep it as simple as possible. So he's going to do a kind of, you want to say something about the entity. Yeah, so tomorrow we'll start with
kind of just how to login and navigate the website. So starting with the dashboard, how to access all the events so we'll start with just like a pretty simple tutorial, I'd say, and then answer any questions that people have live. I know quite a few people have had questions about. If you're signed up for your membership. Now, are you going to be grandfathered in. So I'm trying to respond to all those questions via email, but feel free to come tomorrow. It's going to be at 1pm, Eastern Time. It'll be on Zoom, there's a link on the dashboard and send out an email about it. Man, you could ask any of those questions live.
Yeah, it was that cool. And also, my dear friend Joel parrot, he's, he's, this week, Tuesday we did the second week, on his marvelous book. I have it right here because I'm attending it's so good. Walk in the Woods meditations on mindfulness with the Barony improved so Joe and his sister Nancy wrote this book it's such a gem, and they've been doing this kind of tag team tandem thing which is just so fun, and it's it's absolutely meditation in action kind of thing so it's a wonderful kind of supplement to the Monday night thing that we're doing a meditation so you can still join that. I'm really enjoying the beans out of that. And so what I do want to share a little bit today. Before I turn to some of the written questions and I have to say some of the questions that came in today, were among the best I've ever seen. You'll, these are some terrific questions. So I want to get to those ASAP. But I wanted to share a little bit of what I was riffing on this morning with my writing, I'm doing a series of teachings for quite a large community in Korea. I was out there. A couple years ago I love the whole Korean scene there they're amazing people. They're so warm. And I did a really big week thing in console and then I went down to a Zen monastery in South Korea for like seven days to do this fun program. So I'm doing a Maha Mudra set of teachings, and I'm thinking actually today, just, you know, people say can we attend, unfortunately not. For a number of reasons the translation thing, it, it's not available to the general public but I'm so jazzed about the material this is the second weekend I'll be doing with them. That just today I'm thinking oh I got to do this, you know, for my peeps, so stay tuned. Something will be coming up where I want to present this to you and, And I wanted to share a little bit what I was riffing on this morning Mahamudra is climax teachings in the KV tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, the word, the word literally means great seal is in stay up and the approach I'm taking in this program is we're going through what are called the Four pointing outs of all appearances in mind as the first one mind itself is empty. The second one, emptiness is spontaneous presence that's the third one, spontaneous presence of self liberated superficial profound teachings. And so, this morning I was riffing on this thing that I want to share with you. That is a marvelous statement that I discovered from this mahasiddha great awakened masters name is George gamba. Where he said this and I reflected on a lot because if you really sink your teeth into it it's pretty profound. It has to deal with this notion of all appearances our mind. The first one, and this has immediate application to lucid dreaming of Dream Yoga. In fact, it's one of the things that, that we do in Dream Yoga is in fact come to this first and really monumental pointing out this conclusion that all appearances are mind when you're in a dream, and you're looking at that dream from the perspective of the awakened state that's not that hard to see, oh yeah, all appearances in the dream last night are just my mind, that's totally easy to see. Well it's not so easy when you're lost in the dream not lucidly right, because then No, there's not even the slightest sense that all appearances are mind, the appearances in your dream and not lucid dream, are every bit as Bloody real as this. That's what constitutes silence entity so these teachings have direct application to lucid dreaming a dream yoga. And so here's a statement around this that is really, this is worth writing down and really reflecting. So this is from or Gampo appearances are simply, and I'll unpack this a little bit. Appearances are simply the all basis consciousness, manifesting through the five senses. Right, write that down.
Write that down and really think about it, this is a, this is an amazing statement or you got to get a really reflect on it because it's it's it's a Mind Bender, all appearances and we're talking about that, just dream appearances, now we're talking about this, all appearances are simply the eighth consciousness the Alia V kyana The all basis consciousness, manifesting through the five senses. So put your mind around this, you know what it what really asserts is a radical revolution and knowing and being the completely flips the way we see the world. I mean, we tend to assume axiomatically it given that the world is out there, We represent it we take it in through our senses, right representationalism Is what I write about in my book. Well this radical proclamation of the Mahamudra teachings, which is also here, what, what are the other does is he's joining it with the yoga Chara, so I can't explain all these terms, but for the deeper divers, some of you who have read my book and know these terms, this may be of some interest to you. And so this completely flips the normal approach that oh I'm receiving information from the world I'm registering it. No no no, it's the other way around, You're projecting it, you're emanating it. And so, my friend Carl Braun Halsall in para he's one of the really great expositors these days of yoga Chara in a tremendous body of translations that he's presented in one of these and this is in my book, he says this is the end quote. This is again, this is just unpacking what our campuses,
what seem to be external params objects. Internal perenne mind, in the sense faculties, or both, the body, or not so, but just different aspects of the Alia consciousness appearing as if close or far. It's an astounding statement so I'm gonna say it again he's saying the same thing that are gamba said, just giving a little bit of granularity to it was seems to be external, the external world objects. What seems to be internal mind in the sense faculties, or both, the body, not so apparently is not in harmony with reality, these are just different aspects of the mind, the eight consciousness, appearing as if close or far. And so I got one last thing to say about this this I get so excited about this because this is so profound to me. So among the many applications of this and this is why I got to present this to you. All right. I can't just present this to the Koreans I want, I want to share this with you later and of course, so So, stay tuned on that. But what are the implications around this, this really pretty monumental is the Alia, the eight consciousness is the unconscious mind, the deepest bet of the relative self sense the relative nature of reality. And so what this therefore implies is that we often, me included, just assume and wonder, you know, well, There's the unconscious mind and then there's the world. Um. But where exactly is this unconscious mind, right, where exactly is it. Well, what these what these implications are saying, you know, if you want to see your unconscious mind. Look at your external world. Look at the way you structure impute project, your world. And so if you want to see your unconscious mind, it's hiding in plain sight is your manifest reality. And so this is kind of astounding to me that if we really take a close look. And this is incredibly important because one way to look at the entire path is bringing all these unconscious processes into the light of consciousness. So that essentially, and this also ties into dreams. Eventually there's no such thing as an unconscious mind, Literally that's what it means to be awake, like, no unconscious mind. And at that point parenthetically, you're no longer dreaming, because there's nothing left to see or dream. Dreams arise from the unconscious mind, or another way to say the same thing. Is everything becomes a dream in the larger sense of the word dream as manifestation of mind. And so this really, tomates a really powerful way to bring the phenomenal world into this process of bringing unconscious processes into the Light of Consciousness. Just look at your world properly and you will see your own consciousness, constructing reifying imputing projecting this world which you take to be axiomatic a given. It's not a given it's your construct, it's the way you make the damn thing. And so I just find this amazing actually that this therefore is highly empowering and humbling, that you know the world isn't out there, independent of the world is CO created. And one of the questions that came in actually from a physicist I'll address relates to this. And so by looking deeply at the nature of the unconscious mind using these Maxim's from work gamba and Carl, we can gain a profoundly new relationship to our waking reality that it is the unconscious mind on display. But this is what it means to be asleep we don't see it as such we take, we take it as a given axiomatic. And so what this therefore does is, it empowers the immediacy of, of bringing unconscious processes and sort of light of consciousness, you simply have to wake up to this, to see if that this is the case, by studying things like the Mahamudra, pointing out teachings by studying things like yoga Chara, and then doing things like Dream Yoga and lucid dreaming that allow you to see using the example dream of a nighttime dream, this process as it takes place in that arena.
So I'll let that go for now because there oh my gosh there's so much to say, in fact, a whole weekend. But I do want to end with two supporting statements from psychologists, in this case because this is where we can really use the wisdom of the Western psychological tradition to augment this one comes from Carl young, you know the great Swiss psychiatrist where this guy was unbelievable, right, amazing. This is what he says projections, change the world into a replica of one's unknown face. What an amazing statement. Projections change the world into a replica of one's unknown face in other words your unconscious mind. You know the word there's no solid lasting independent world out there it's it's malleable fluid empty, dreamlike empty were the ones that shape it constructed reify it form it in our own image that's our own ones unknown face the unconscious mind, right, it's amazing. And then this other guy, this, his name is fluid for Iraq. He was a German philosopher anthropologist, kind of a bridge between Hegel and Marx. He says the same thing, man or woman, politically incorrect, a man projects his nature into onto the world outside of himself before he finds it in himself. Astounding. I don't know, I find it astounding. So anyway that's my reference today. I got super jazzed when I was working on this stuff, this morning, more to say maybe we can talk about this if you want but that's enough for now. So, I want to go let me break out my bringing up my document these questions that came in. I wish I would have picked these up earlier, because these are among the deepest questions I've seen yet. So I'll do my best to give you my riff on some of these and then like we usually do, we'll open it up, and we can talk about all this stuff. So here's one. The first one is from Jill. Hi Andrew I recently recently took the sleep yoga course with Tenzin Wangyal ricochet. He is a rock star. I love this guy. And met to get I read this thing I was like so inspired, Joe, if you're listening here it'd be funny, to get you on to talk to you about this but I'll read your question I'll give you my riff on it. And then if you want to come on we can talk about it. Thank you, by the way for being so willing to share your story here. This is so cool. So I recently took a sleep yoga course with Ribbit che. And Matt, again, the sleep God is so good to do all that, so she is, I'll throw on some running commentary. Unlike in the Tibetan world of Dream Yoga, which does not have an analogous sleep dakini or sleep deity sleep goddess, the bunk tradition that tons of audio rubbish it represents, they do, and her name is doggy doo doula. She's a really cool gal I know I have a picture but I don't have a picture of her here. She's pretty cool. So back to back to Joe. I met her before but didn't know quite how to make use of her and stuff just as makes me smile. I just love you. I just love this stuff. Now I am more familiar with the use of these entities. So far, It feels like she accompanies me in deep sleep. Sleep feels a bit denser fuller much more healthy. So now I have the drama, there's a couple of things she's tossing out here I can't unpack all these terms. So now I have the drama from the awareness sadhana which I suspect is she will occur right, which I continue to practice even though I've lost the semi with the Sakyong, so I continue to practice the drala from the where Masada, and the Goddess from the bunt tradition so you do Dhamma.
Both are white lights for me and the night end of the day. Could you say something about the use of these enlightened beings entities deities drama. I also suppose lineage could be included here, because they feel like an energy, but I can't put it into words, and would like to understand it better. Okay, well, you're never gonna be able to put it into words. You did a pretty good job. Because this is pretty ineffable territory so first of all, super cool for you just really makes me smile. Thank you for sharing it, it's a wonderful offering and so here's my riff on this. If you can come back out when I'm done with my refund can say more about how you met her and feel comfortable doing that I think we would all be inspired by it, because again this is just really awesome. So a couple of things here, I want level super cool for you because these, these are your peeps. Right, I mean, these are part of the skill set so to speak, the armamentarium that we have we meaning vaudrey on the tantric practitioners as honored at our disposal. And I remember very clearly once a teacher said something that really struck me when, when he said, you know, you guys need to you guys and gals need to realize that you are not alone. You are not alone. And then he went on to riff on exactly this thing you're talking about you have all these good dogs deities Tao Dharma parlors local pilots protectors, This whole array of non human intelligence, many of which are trans samsaric these are enlightened entities, as in fact, this is DACA and takhini are that we can call on you can use them, and you are using them so I'll say a little bit more about how you can use them more. Obviously this is a colossally rich wonderful topic, arguably some scholars have heard 1/3 of all tantric Viana teachings are devoted to this sort of thing. So on one level, you can use these entities energies non human intelligences whatever you want to call them in a number of different ways you can use them as guides and protectors and therefore as external aides, you can establish a relationship as you have to both of these energetics and call on them, which you're doing either directly or indirectly and what is so awesome, is they're responding, right. So that's one way to use them. That is reasonably accessible through supplication through devotion to liturgy and the like. But even deeper Gil and this is where I think it just starts to get super interesting, is you can use these non human intelligences whatever you want to call them as archetypes of your own awakened mind because that's fundamentally what they are. And this of course is what you're doing with with awareness. With the drama, it's also connected to what's called Vietnam or deity yoga practice for those of you who may know what that term is. And this is, oh my gosh there's so much to say here. This is where you actually invoking these energetics. not so much as external aids but as internal archetypal expressions of your own awakened mind. And there are so many incredibly rich intimations applications of this because then what eventually it will lead you to is that what may seem initially to be an external infiltration of your dreaming mind from this agency, whether it's the drama or the dakini at this deeper level, you actually start to realize, you know, you start to actually challenge that duality in other words, the dakini and the.in The, the drala actually start to manifest as expressions of your own mind. So the experience becomes increasingly non dual, and so therefore you can work with them in both those capacities, a more conventional relative approach super powerful. As I mentioned at the outset is external agents agencies that they can, you can invoke just like other traditions do with their prayers when they're calling out for, you know, whatever, angels, whatever commies
and Shintoism whatever tradition you want to talk about, you can you can invoke these energetics into your mind space to help you protect you, guide you, absolutely, positively. But this deeper level as you're doing with wearable already, this is where you're putting rocket fuel to this, and you know the way to understand and augment this is to study and it seems you are in this arena anyway, study as much as you can about generation stage practices, and there's a vast literature here Joel jungla controlador tie his written voluminously on this. I mean so many teachers Trungpa J Campbell River Chase so many teachers are Trongo RBJ in his book on the, on the medicine, but he raised a lot of this. The, anything that has to do with generation stage practice works with this. And so here again there's just so much to say at this level, working with the deity. These energetics. Fundamentally, allows you to transfer your level of identity from this exclusive identification to form to this archetypal energetic expression, and the implications around that, again, there's just so much to say I probably have to pause and let this ride. Just so for purposes of time. But the idea is this is really, really cool stuff in jail if you're here and want to say more, or want to share more about how you met her, as well as she will occur. That would be a great offering so are you here want to say something.
I'll just say sure, and I also have Joe who wanted to add a comment. Oh yeah, totally. Let me bring on Joe
there. Yeah,
both of you. That's amazing.
Hey Joe,
you're still. Are you still in San Diego.
I'm still in San Diego. Yep, I'm still composting with Bougainville Yeah, That's me. This was a great program, I would highly recommend it to anybody.
I listen to fantastic. It's really good. Yeah,
and I think it's the third, maybe the fourth time I've taken it. I think I'm a slow learner. But I, I started thinking perhaps, you know I had a white light before I ever got involved in all of this Buddhist teachings. And I started to think maybe they're all the same thing, and I thought, if I started working with The Goddess that she would sort of morph into she Okar. But that didn't happen, which completely threw me off.
Why would you want to be a guy, right.
I have Lokar as a woman.
No, no, I put a turkey on your chain here I'm totally playing with you but it's like why, why demote yourself to anthem, you know anthropomorphize male deity, when you're already more evolved as a female. So anyway, tongue in cheek, but I
said I, you know, I'll listen to it again, you know, a few times so that I can get all the parts of it from what you just said. Really all I have to do is keep working with them, whatever happens with them, and, and participate fully in it and probably, as most things happen, you know, it will morph into my own thing. Joe, what did you want to say since I've got your attention, the two of yours attention I want to. Well,
I found it really interesting that first that Andrew is including trans in this, the trans samsaric situation, and, and this, this notion of the these energies. We actually talked about last night, and I mean Tuesday night in the, the Winnie the Pooh book and I read some sections from Shambala Sacred Path of the warrior. Because Trump remember shade quotes refers to an a million, the author of the original Winnie the Pooh books poem about a young child, sad that it's raining out, and as his face against Christopher Robin, you know, pay against the windowpane, and decides that there are two raindrops coming down and they're racing. You know, he says one is John and one is James and and and they he has them race. And by, the one that he chose winning because of that the sun comes out. So, in the, I know Ken Wilber talks about this in different cultures in the magic and mystery culture. There's actually a notion that things that we do create, you know, and move the universe, and we think of that as primitive like, how could a rain dance, you know bring bring rain. But what you were saying about everything being a reflection of your own base consciousness is an interesting thing so if there's magic out there but you said there isn't really so much out there, as it is our projection of what's in here mixing without there, it takes us right into the non dual and what Andrew was talking about, of drama, we actually took, I mean we introduced it without saying those words in the in the magic, discovering magic in the world. And, and I also did some research on the Kami, that have all sorts of different kinds of meanings of individuals of spirits of the living energy in the rocks and the trees and all that so the anthropomorphizing of all these things, is a very natural thing to do and a projection of our own consciousness. The idea of you done, is that what we see as ourselves, our shape is a costume on top of our real enlightened nature, but it starts as external, and we see it as external so when you do these visualization and generation stage practices, you start with as as external but you also then find you moving into internal, and I was sharing something that I think people will find interesting, which is the reveal seen in cocoon, the movie cocoon, and if you want to YouTube, it's the pool scene where these aliens come down and take on human form. But when they reveal who they really are they pull back this human and they are beings of light, which is really what we actually are. So, if we're Beings of Light and they're these x seemingly external goddesses, and she will Okar and draw arrows and all of these are external. The whole thing becomes a unified field of experience. When you realize that you're wearing a costume and you're actually more like them, than you think. You know,
it's interesting to think of it that way because I'm using. Do you remember how to say your name sounds gay do doll not in order to pass over into deep sleep, which totally freaks me out. It's a wonderful feeling. It's a great place to be guys try this class. It was a month in my own, my own house in my own bed. But that, that makes them even more interesting and I thank you both for your comments.
Question Joe Yeah, you can use her as a kind of transitional object, which is the way, you know, tensor Ydl recommends it, you're transitioning. We need the mind needs doesn't need but the mind tends to hold on to things as it falls asleep and so it turns on when you're done with her, is instead of holding on to a thought. You want to hold on to light, and she represents that light so in that respect she acts as a transitional object, which also in a larger sense beyond the scope of what we can talk about here. All the deities fundamentally in relationship to the ultimate dream which is death, they actually act as transitional objects into not just dream but death. So really great question and comment. Joel, thank you so much. Great. Here's one from Eris and then, yeah, there's some really good ones here so I'm having several lucid dreams a week, I would like to know how I can stay lucid longer when I fall asleep. What can I do. Ah, you can pray to the dakini actually am I kidding. Even though even though I you know she is not this DMT dakini is not part of the Tibetan arena. You know, they really are cross dressers by mid term at this level, it doesn't matter. And so if you have a connection to any world we've been talking about here, you may want to explore this. This contribution from the burning dream yoga tradition. So that's one thing. What can I do. Also when I am waking up in this in between state, how can I stay there longer. I'm having more challenges with meditation, and then lucidity, obviously you mean the meditation and the dream state, which practices can assist me. Oh my gosh, so many on one kind of entry level, but still very powerful level is just, you know, more stability through good old Shemitah sitting meditation, mindfulness, I often read on this service that when you're in the dream you have what, First of all, what is a dream made of right, well a dream is made of mind. And so, when this is why the moniker of a Dream Yoga is the measure of the path. So, when you look at your dreams and wonder about the stability elector of clarity lack thereof.
Constantly constancy, or lack thereof. Where is that coming from. Well the stability, the stability, clarity lucidity of your mind. And so therefore any practice that you do during the day that cultivates stability, clarity lucidity, it's the same mind expressing itself in two different arenas. So, to work with those to work with stability you do chama to meditations, to work with lucidity you do the deity visualization practices so if you don't have a connection to some of the stuff we've been riffing on, You can still cultivate that muscle of clarity by working with visualization. It's just the Tibetans, and the Broncos and other wisdom traditions do it with tremendous rigor articulation, I mean there's a whole battery array, it's a whole class of meditations, to actually cultivate the lucid quality of your mind. The other thing you can do along these lines I discovered this just in my own explorations. A lot of times what happens when I'm dreaming is yes I follow the classic texts and I do what's there, but often I I'm a little bit of an artist in my dream. Sorry, I wing it. And sometimes I'll go oh geez, let's try this tonight I've done this for decades, something I've never tried before and so I can't remember. Maybe a little over a year ago, just for the heck of it I started doing the following. I recommend you try it. The next time I was loosing in my dream. I took a dream object I think in this case I literally think it was an orange. This orange appeared in my dream and I said okay, hey I want to try this. And what I did was I just completely focused on the orange in my dream. And I just intended, I tried to make the orange is lucid and as brilliant as I could, in other words I tried to infuse as much light energy into the into the orange, and never done that before. I never read it before I said but I want to try it. And so it was awesomely cool so, so I said that this is orange and it was kind of like black and white, orange, and I like you know I did this, like, no gays are focused in on that thing. And I tried to make the orange is bright and vibrant as I possibly could. So you can try doing that and you can try doing that now. So, if you don't, there's always these deities and do all this fancy stuff, don't worry about it, visualize an orange visualize an apple. I mean literally, close your eyes during the day and try to hold your mind on that apple that's the shamoto part. And then using your mind's eye, trying to make that apple or orange, how vibrant can I make this puppy infuse as much life energy into it as you possibly can. You will find that that object becomes literally more luminous and so when I was doing this on the dream it was killer cool, because that dream that really was just my mind and I was just injecting it infusing it with as much light and that's what's in there anyway there's no dream, orange in there that really as Joe was saying, it's just the light of your mind really. So I tried to make that orange light, part of the play a double entendre here is orange and as light as I possibly could and so I post this energy into it. And that thing became like a little sun and it was awesomely fun to do, so I highly recommend you try it. It's fun, it's cool, and it will bring about this clarity aspect. So lucidity clarity stability and anything you want in the dream, you can cultivate that during the day, why same mind, different domain. You can do a classically with the meditations, or once you understand the spirit of what's taking place, you can just do it on your own, and doing what I just said, I think you'll find super helpful. Okay. When I was waking up in between state how can I stay there longer, same thing, you know, your inability to stay anywhere in these liminal or dream states is what is contingent upon your ability and this is the nine stages are shown with your ability to stay longer on any mental object that's what the nine stages are shown to practice are all about. You know you progress through these stages, each, you know, each stages is determined, that's what characterizes the stages by in fact your ability to stay on these objects without moving, longer and longer and longer. So just you know work out during the day and you will find yourself being able to do the same thing at night. Cool. So this next one is awesome this is from Roger. Hi from Barcelona I love the European scene. This is their terrific question So
Roger is a physicist, so he lends some real interesting credibility, I should say authenticity to his question. So, this is a good, good set of questions and comments. I would like to ask a question regarding your latest book James alight, it's about the concept of loose reform. My question is, I'm going to read the whole thing and then I'm going to come back and unpack it because there's a lot here. My question is how can I see the world as illusory if it's not a creation of my mind. I know that the world is a projection of my mind but it's also obvious that it has its own behavior. I mean it's predictable. It has its own precise laws. Yeah, you would know this right you said I'm a physicist. Good for you. The quote unquote real world is not like the dream world, where everything is controlled by my mind. This is because the dream world is obviously my creation in the real world was created by another quote unquote infinite meaning or energy or whatever you want to call it, so inviting me to see the world is illusory isn't enough is a great analogy so inviting me to see the world is illusory is analogous to requesting a dream character to realize that the rest of the dream is also illusory. I can see a dream is illusory because it's my creation but a dream character cannot be conscious of the illusory nature of the dream. In the same way, I cannot be completely conscious of the illusory nature of reality of this reality, the reality, because I'm not its final creator. I'm just the CO creator. What an interesting set of questions, Roger. Okay, well, what's to say here, my friends, so this is what comes to mind. Let's start over. Just about the concept of illusory form my question is, How can I see the world is illusory. If it's not a creation of my mind. Well, this fundamentally has to do with First of all, understanding what it means to use the world, the word illusory, and to see, to see the world as illusion, what does that mean so we have to start with that. I can answer the question rather briefly and then I'll try to unpack it So fundamentally, you see the illusory nature of the world by seeing it's empty nature. And so, what illusion means in this regard is. It doesn't mean that things don't exist, it basically means that the way things appear is not in harmony with the way things actually are, does not mean that things don't exist, we're, what we're doing is we're acknowledging appearance, but we're challenging the status of that appearance. So again what it fundamentally means is that the way things appear is not true. That's the illusion appearance is not in harmony with reality, that's what it means to say it's illusory. So on this level, you're absolutely right when you say it is not a creation of your mind, if you were to assert that it's in fact, you can provisionally say this about a nighttime dream that is all your mind. And by the way I've also softened my stance on that I'll come back to that in a second.
You are right in the in that it's not a creation of your mind because the world is not salep system. It's not ultimate Sufism is, is the nighttime dream can be. I used to think, partly because of this way of Western neuroscience that all dreams were solid cystic it's just my mind and there. I don't abide by that anymore, partly because of experiences I've had like Jill's where I've had experiences in my dream, where there are influences that enter my dream space that are not there, not me. I mean, on one level now realistically there is no me so it is me but I don't want to go there. There are agencies and entities energetics just like Joe saying I've had these experiences as well, where I have, I have these experiences any coming from me. So my view on the south cystic nature of even the nocturnal dream has been, I don't abide by that anymore. Certain provisional levels of entry into the dream state for sure. It's all mine it's all neurological noise or whatever you want to say, but what you're talking about is, this is the challenge of solipsism. So, fundamentally, the world is not solipsistic as you're putting, but it is in fact as you're put asserting Roger it is in fact enacted by your mind is brought forth by your mind. And therefore, you just reified by your mind, that's what I talked about in the book is, is the call. It's then proliferated upon by your mind, that's Propecia. And so all these create this the seeming illusion of reality, you know duality. Duality is the illusion. That's what we're trying to get to. So, to further unpack this and again oh my gosh she could give a whole course on this question. The other, the next thing you have to do here, Roger, is you have to talk about the different dimensions of illusory form right, so there's impure LIS reform, pure loose reform which by the way, that's what we were talking about earlier with Joe's question that's the generation stage practices, that's the visualization thing. But the fruition of all is what's called perfectly pure illusory form, that's what we're really after. And this again boy there's just so much to say here, this is essentially to realize that that actually everything is of the nature of mind. There is no ontology, there isn't. There's only epistemology, there's only this type of knowing the world is made of mind stuff. And you probably know this I mean James jeans right the great physicists talked about this, so many of these kinds of mystical quantum physicists, David Bohm and others talk about the mental aspect of reality. So maybe I'll just go on because there's more to say. And then if you're on, we can talk about a little bit more so I know that the world is the projection of my mind but it's also obvious that it has its own behavior I mean it's predictable, has its own precise laws. Well that's true, isn't that and you know more and more about this than I do but that's to only up to a point right right. I mean, isn't it true Roger that, that's mostly applies to Newtonian levels at atomic levels, does that what you say really hold up this probabilistic nature of a quantum world. So yes, I'm a level at the Newtonian level for sure is predictable at a quantum level, I think you're getting you know more about this than I do because it predictable. The real world is not like the dream world this is back to you, where everything is controlled by mind true. That's absolutely true, but the nature of the real world is still the nature of mind. Somebody you might want to explore here is, is Bernardo Castro, I don't know if you know his work he has a double PhD really clever guy he wrote this rageous book. Why materialism is baloney. What, what a great title right why materialism is baloney. He's a really sharp cookie, if you haven't read him I recommend you look at his work, because he goes at this and in a languaging that may speak to you. That fundamentally materialism is baloney. And he, he espouses using, you know, Western languaging an absolute idealistic way of looking at the world idealism in this case means the world is in fact made of mind. And so then the question becomes my friend again I get so much to say here, the title of mind that we're talking about when we say the world is made up of mind. It's not the neuroscientists version of mind. This is Mind as its described at the tenets of things like clear light mind where mind then becomes the actual nature of reality itself. So I'm going to go into a little bit more than if you hear you can come back on because again there's just so much here, such a great question, and
this is because the dream world is obviously by creation of the real world was created by another infinite being, or energy or whatever you want to call it. Well, yeah. Geez You know the dream world, this world as we know it is a co created co construction by all these mind streams coming together to bring forth this particular reality that is in fact reducible to mind stuff again what that mind stuff is that is a colossally wonderful refined question. Again, I'm trying to give you resources where you can explore this on your own, the place to go here I often mentioned this is the kala chakra Tantra. Chapter Two on the individual, where they talk about the collective creation of these worlds systems, and so from a Buddhist contemplative point of view. That's the text to go to to see about how this world is in fact dreamlike as a collective dream enacted co created using principles of collective karma. The last thing and then I'll pause it if you hear a lot of Come on, that's awesome. So back to you inviting to see inviting me to see the world as illusory is analogous to requesting a dream character realize the rest of the dream is illusory. Well, again, this is a great image but I don't agree with it because underlying this analogy is the tacit assumption that the world is solid cystic in nature which is not. So if you're making the solid cystic basis that, you know, population then what you're saying is true, but bets autism doesn't the by here. So we're talking about about a much more refined version of reality is mine, it doesn't imply solipsism. It implies this much more refined way of looking at things so Roger if you here want to come on and want to play a little tennis with this happy to discuss it, it's such a terrific question. And like some of these really deep questions, it's hard for me to churn out just, you know, a series of soundbite answers that maybe may or may not land with you. So Roger if you there are a lot of Come on, more than welcome. Otherwise, Roger is not here. Oh, Roger dude. It's 11 in Barcelona right now. Oh that's right, that's okay. I wish he was here because it would have been fun to play tennis with this one. What a great set of insights. Okay. All right, so a live chat question let me get a couple of those and then there's a race to answer. We'll get that one from David So Andrew, what does the eighth consciousness. Remind. David, if consciousness comes from the yogacharya teaching. That's one of the great Some scholars say it's the most refined, sophisticated philosophy ever to come out of India. Yoga Chara means derived from yoga, so these are insights in teachings that come from direct experience so not theoretical. This is what great meditators see and so what the eight consciousness is, And again this is a really big topic, it's, it's the bits actually it's a misnomer because it's actually the first consciousness in the sense that it's all the other seven arise from it, so I'm not sure why they call it the eight, it should be the first, but they call it the eighth they also call it the storehouse consciousness. The Alia vigs Nada.
It's the relative bed of reality it is, it is the bat from which it's the ultimate bed of the relative unconscious mind from which all of the confused samsaric world arises we drop into it when we fall asleep and as I was saying earlier, if you open your eyes and look at the world properly you will see the expression of the structures of the eight consciousness, what are called the beaches the seeds. The buck chalk, the habitual propensities the karmic seeds are all stored in there you will see those actually manifest as the entire phenomenal world. So it's the it's the bed of all relative manifest reality. And again, literally entire books have been written about this so for the purposes of time. Next one from David. Another really big one, does the awakened person experience the world as a waking dream. Yes, but then the question is, again, what are we talking about when we use the word dream for me at this level David DREAM IS code word code language for manifestation of mind. So yes, for what you're saying is true. Everything appears as a waking dream, then the question becomes what does that dream, then that comes back to the same thing Roger was asking dream as a manifestation of mind, what what is mind. These are really deep questions that require really deep explanations and explorations, but quick easy answer yes, experiencing the world back to David, experiencing the world through the senses of thoughts, but as a dream, correct as a manifestation of mind as a reflexively aware. My manifestation. In other words, the dream just like the nighttime dream by the way, exactly the same. The world appears as reflexively aware the world is knows itself, just like in a dream. What do they experience that unawakened persons do not. I chocolate because these are just colossal questions. Well it, what do they experience that, that we don't. Oh my gosh, like everything and you go, right, I mean what you're asking here is like what do the awakened ones perceive, I gotta let this one go, my friend because it's just so big and also I have to you know if you're interested, David, I have an entire chapter on my book dreams of life on this. If you really want to go into this my friend read that book, I there's a whole chapter on the consciousness in there. Basically everything you're asking to greater or lesser degrees is addressed in that book beams of light, but because because I wrote about it there because, because the question is so big. I'm going to let that one ride for now so I'm going to take one more, actually no, Let's go, let's get a live one Shantelle.
So I really,
I enjoy. I absolutely love this idea of projection, um, because it really brings me back actually to childhood memories of actually trying to like think of like the ancient man you know looking into the sky, looking at the moon, wishing they could go there one day. And here it was epic this collective consciousness we, we actually, you know, even just to see a plane in the sky like that actually still arrest me, I'm like holy crap, like there's a thing flying in the sky, and it's like we know we know our ancestors thought that, so it's almost like that reality has been born into existence. So what I wanted your thoughts on. I know it's human consciousness right that's like part of the co creation, but for evolution, when you see different animals taking on different form, like, you know camouflaging themselves. Is it because their consciousness is saying hey, if only I could do this only if I could be like this, I could survive another day, and then would that necessarily create that biological change for them to sort of continue on in another form that allows them to survive. So I don't know what your thoughts are on that in terms of like evolution like with other creatures and their consciousness, but that's sort of where my mind was going and I would just love your, your ripped on that.
Yeah, well I think what you said is true but I don't think he can anthropomorphize it, I don't think you can bring this level of intentionality to it. Okay, it's basically responsivity cause and effect so I don't think you can bring that level of intentionality to it. I think it's more just in the end this is where there is resonance with what the Western scientists talk about as evolution. That is just this, you know, there is no. In this view, there is no fundamental driving agency of a Godhead a god figure, a teleological, you know propeller, it's just things manifesting in that light, but what you said, if you extricate that I think what you said is accurate. The rest of what you said, oh lordy, again it's just one of these really compelling questions in here we have to look at it. I think again, within different perspectives and within different contexts because one level. And this is where you know, the scientific community has just a tremendous amount to really contribute. I mean like we wouldn't even know about evolution if it wasn't for Lamarck, who by the way proceeded Darwin, we wouldn't even know about evolution, it seems incredulous though to even think that on what do you mean evolution well before these guys evolution was not articulated as such. And so, the very fact that we have this doctrine, we can attribute that to the genius of the scientist and so I think it's very important to pay homage to the tremendous explanatory power that the scientific community and Western disciplines bring to bear on this, which is why I'm such a deep student of these traditions they have so much to offer. So the question is, until it becomes really doubly complex because now then do we attempt to address this from a more Western Darwinian or Lamarckian point of view, or do we in fact try to recontextualize that within a larger spiritual meal you. That is a colossal issue right, and so what I like to do and this is why I'm a fan of integral approaches is have room for both views. Listen to the extraordinary elegance of the Western disciplines and how they describe it, there's a lot to be said as Roger was intimating with his question about the predictability of the world and the fact that mathematics seems to work with, you know, tremendous power that we can predict things we can do things or science technology work that he can't deny that. But then, you know, in addition to that, and in conjunction with it, replacing it maybe, you know, which has the greatest explanatory power that remains an open question. But then, you know, rephrasing this or looking at it through the lens of the great contemplative traditions, and, and, and the way they explain this you know because therefore, from that view. It's not just a play of frisky dirt. It has this kind of, you know the, As Ken Wilber writes about it the spirit of evolution or the evolution of spirit. That's also what you're juxtaposing with your question that this is just the different ways that spirit plays the different ways that spirit manifests. And so we have to be really careful not to conflate these two approaches because if you do, you get into a hornet's nest of problems. A lot of people do that with the whole physics thing you know physics now explain spirituality, no it doesn't. It just has resonance with certain aspects of it so just because again, this is like, I don't know where it is about today, today is like the day of the enormous questions like, Yeah, I mean he could run with this you know you have to bring scientists and evolutionary psychologists that we name it, to talk about this issue so I think the most important thing for the purposes of time is to honor incorporate respect the different views that come from these traditions, don't try to conflate them leave each other. In fact, when you're doing classic debate, even in the in the Buddhist world of debate. It's a major no though one thing you can't do is jump from one school to the other when you're debating one tradition to the other, so you have to debate within the context of that school. Same thing applies here. We can't just kind of flip flop between them. We can do this kind of comparative thing for sure, but I think the take home message for me is honored the the genius that both traditions bring to it, maybe know some of the parallels melt a tendency to conflate them both a tendency to become absolute turistic and one viewer the other. And therefore, you know, making your explanatory basket, all the science are all in spirituality, we all do that. I mean, that's another real problem. So your question is a fantastic one. But maybe for the purposes of time I'll leave it at that for now, so Okay,
yeah, for sure. Thank
you. Cool. All right, yeah, let's get some easy questions here, man. Okay, here's a comment
from
Lila Laila I never know. I apologize. So this is just a comment from her. My Samoan teacher said, Oh yeah, this is about the consciousness thing. If you want to know what you believe, including unconscious, of course, look at your life. Beautiful. Exactly. So this is just a comment on what I was saying earlier, if you want to see your unconscious mind, look at your so called conscious world car I wonder how generation stage works with open eyes in the dark. You can totally do you can do generation stage car under any circumstance you can do it in the dark, you can do with your eyes open, you can do with your eyes close, because when you're working with generation stage yogas. You're working with visualization. So it doesn't matter. You have the teeth of the tradition even says it doesn't matter if you do it in the dark with your eyes open with your eyes close, because the generation is mental, it's coming from mind itself in fact it's it's recommended. It's harder to do it with eyes open, but it's strongly recommended to stretch your mind to do it with. I'm sorry. It's easier to do it with your eyes closed, but it's strongly recommended to try to do generation stage practice with your eyes open, but you can do it under any circumstance, because you're working with visualization processes, okay. Okay, maybe one or two more there's, I have to say one thing here, there was an absolute terrific question that came in from Eric, I didn't look at this doc, my bad, until just a few minutes before I went on the air, so to speak. And so, Eric, if you're listening here my friend. Your question about running a commentary of the Bhagavad Gita. I have to reflect on this verse so I just want to acknowledge Eric if he's here. And then what I'm going to do is differ is I can reflect on this, I don't I I've read it but I'm not a deep student of the Bhagavad Gita, so I have to reflect on this a little bit but this is what he asked one of my teachers texts of choice as a roadmap for the journey as the Bhagavad Gita. First 116 seems to speak to our area of interest, would you please expound on it from a nocturnal practice perspective. So this is the verse that which is like night to all beings there the self control does awake. And that, in which all beings are awake, it's like night to a seer, a great life. And so my friend, simply because I looked at this, so late. I didn't get a chance to reflect on it, and because I'm not. this is not one of my main texts. I want to I want to spend a little bit of time and just simply tell you what comes to my mind, I can't speak with real authority, I'm not a scholar of this text, but because I find it marvelously cryptic I find it encoded. I find that there's like Twilight language in this, that takes a little bit of unpacking. So, is that honor to you and the depth of this question. I'm going to come back to it next week when I have a chance to sleep and dream on it. Okay. All right, are starting to okay from Tanya. I've got about another 10 minutes and then I need to run for today. Okay, so when we hear Andrews voice sound waves reaching our ears is mute. Yes, true. And the signal from our inner ear to our brain is mute, it depends on how what you mean by mute but I get what you're hearing are saying. So we can ask, where does the sound experience that take place in our awareness. Actually I wouldn't see it tiny. I wouldn't say even in our awareness, I would say as our awareness. Back to you, so as it is our awareness that actually manifests as the sound, and whose voice are we hearing our own, uh, let me finish it and then our own commentary so it is our awareness that manifests the sound. Whether or not it is preceded by a mute sound or mute signal in the brain, this is how I see. Well, yes or no. Whose voice, are we hearing well, you say our own, with a smiley face, yes or no.
I mean it is your own in the sense that that fundamentally it has intercourse with your own awareness but again, someone in with, in connection to Rogers question that I answered in the solid cystic way. You can't say it's your own, because at a deeper level, it's not even yours, you know it's a it's a level of awareness that is beyond identity so the most important thing that I'm deriving from what you're saying is, in fact, this least this one I'm hearing is that, yes, I believe everything is reducible to awareness to some level of mind depending on how you define it and so if that's what you're saying Tanya then fundamentally I agree with that conclusion, if that is in fact the conclusion that you're intimating. But I think we just have to be a little careful. You know, anytime you start talking about these kind of nuanced sort of thingies. We just have to be very careful and I'm speaking about myself here as well as why, like with with Eric's referencing to the Gita, I want to spend time reflecting on it. We just have to be really careful with the words that we use. And, you know, avoid the temptation to just conflate things and so that's what comes to mind with what you're saying. If anybody else has anything to say on that, that's fine and so I am actually I have to run unless there's one last, oh here's one. Okay, from Terrell. When asked about a skill of lucid dreaming. I heard Andrew say a number of times I worked really hard at it. I wonder if you can elaborate a bit more on what this actually means. Oh, it's one of these personal questions. Okay. Oh is abilities inspiring and I hope to be able to achieve that also. Do you think that meditation is the prime factor, oh let's just let's just land on this last one here, Tim, do you think the meditation is the prime factor for developing lucid dreaming ability. Yes, yes for me for sure. And I think you know when I say I work really hard at it. You know it's fundamentally because meditation has been such a central part of my life for so many decades, right. And so, you know, I think the takeaway here Tim is exactly what you're suggesting or asking. Meditation is the prime factor absolutely positively. That's why, again, studies have showed it's like when I interviewed them Baird neuroscientist. He's one of these really cool contemplative scientists who does this sort of thing now. I'm connecting to more and more of these guys and gals, they're so cool that you know his studies have shown and others that meditators have more lucid dreams. It makes total sense. Similar to the question earlier about the orange and working with stability and clarity of your mind, is because What are dreams made of dreams are made of mind. So if you're working with your mind during the day, you'll notice the proficiency naturally extending into the dream state, so you know when I say I worked really hard at it, it's mostly because of decades of meditation, including, you know, like with Joe a three year retreat 10s of 1000s of hours doing that. And then very specifically, you know the specific the specific, specific practices associated with lucid dreaming and Dream Yoga. But fundamentally the take home message and I, I stand on my soapbox on professors, repeatedly, is that meditation is the practice of lucidity. And so therefore, again, to go even beyond meditators, and more lucid dreams in the mind of a meditation master and I am so far from that. All their dreams are lucid, there's no such thing as a non lucid dream. The light of lucidity is always on 24 Seven. How do you turn that light on. By working with it by exercising it by fundamentally meditating, and this is where Dream Yoga. Definitely transcends lucid dreaming lucid dreaming does not have this quality it doesn't, it doesn't really emphasize this sort of thing. So in short, my friend. Meditate really meditate, meditate. Alright, last one from Roger. But this must be a different Roger not the physicists Roger, because the physicists Roger who asked the question that allegedly is not here so this must be a different Roger is the person's voice a projection of what we wanted to be
a
again yes and no. It's not a projection in the sense that there is, there is something taking place that is not yours, you know, again, it's a projection of what you want it to be that tends to slide back into this. The near enemy of pressing the world to be made of mine which again is this major travel solipsism. So, what I could say around this Rogers a person's voice a projection of what we wanted to be. What does come to mind along that is that what we hear is often what we want to hear. Which is why, you know, when politicians say what they do, a Democrat hears this on a Republican here is that, or, you know, the Quran professors this you read it, some person will die and kill for those same words and about a person you know they'll hear something different so in that level, that kind of psychological level, that type of projection, absolutely, is what we want it to be the world is what we hope it to be what we want it to be what we, the word is the callback that we construct it to be. But again, that doesn't mean this new age thing that we create reality that's that's not at all what's being said here so these types of questions again are a little bit more nuanced. And so when you say the really when I work with these questions in detail. As with any type of analysis or deep analytic meditation or even debate. You literally take each word apart and say what do you really mean by this. Are we, are we really even on the same wavelength. So a lot you know it's not wordplay, this is not, you know, trying to be philosophically clever. You're just trying to be really clear in arenas that are inherently somewhat fuzzy messy and articulate, and so I'm not trying to be a philosophical nerd here. I'm just trying to share with you the way I've been trained in, you know, my tradition to be just as clear and insightful and insightful and incisive as you possibly can be with the words you use the language you use and because the minute you put something in words, you've already missed the boat, I mean the minute you use language you're already off. So right there you're dealing with a little bit of a crap show. And so therefore, I'll close with this now for today. That's why there's this classic pedagogical approach that I riff on all the time that comes not just from Buddhism, but also the great other Indian traditions of hearing contemplating meditating. But yeah, we were sitting here we're flapping our lips I'm spewing out all this stuff you guys are asking terrific questions you're spewing out your stuff. It's terrific. But if we just leave it at the level of what we're doing here, that's just philosophy, it's not going to change you. What's really going to change you, is and again like, like whether the next course or Tim's question is, is contemplating it very deeply, and then meditating. And so fundamentally that's where the real answers of so many of these super good questions will be derived. These idle words are just point you in a certain direction. And then the real, real answers come from within. When you make these discoveries for yourself. Okay, so that's a nice place to end. We blah blah blah, all in the vision and purpose of getting us to stop blah blah blah. Get on the cushion and have these experiences directly but thank you everybody, I'm actually the reason I have to go so cool. I have to go for a walk with my dear friend David Loy, one of my favorite guys. So, do we want to try the mute unmute everyone quick to say goodbye. Oh yeah, so we started doing this right, so what we're doing is, everybody turns on their screen gallery view. Everybody unmutes. And in this totally geeky corny way we all say goodbye together.