Mind Games: Week 1 Influencing the Reptile Mind - Day 7 Trappism

Task: Don't talk to anyone.

It sounds easy enough not to talk, but try it and see.

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Yes I shall, after I've had breakfast. :-)

Meanwhile this exercise reminds me of that Great Silence, an epiphany I encountered around September 1969, 12 years after I got hooked on Zen Buddhism when I chanced upon a book in the air-conditioned school library, a Malayan first in 1957. I was just 12 at the time.

One of the earliest terms I came across that described the experience was 'Cosmic Consciousness' coined by Maurice Bucke.

More evocative perhaps is the Tibetan Buddhist (Vajrayana) Ground Luminosity.

Then there's the Chinese classic: The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao / The name that can be named is not the eternal name...

NTM the many Christian sources.

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Richard Maurice Bucke

Richard Maurice Bucke (18 March 1837 – 19 February 1902), often called Maurice Bucke, was an important Canadian progressive psychiatrist in the late nineteenth century. 

An adventurer in his youth, he went on to study medicine, practice psychiatry in Ontario, and befriend a number of noted men of letters in Canada, the U.S., and England.

In addition to writing and delivering professional papers, Bucke wrote three book-length studies: Man's Moral Nature, Walt Whitman, and – his best known work – Cosmic Consciousness, a classic in the modern study of mystical experience.

Richard Maurice Bucke (Wikipedia)

Here's a link to apparently all 36 chapters from the book, which is still in print:

Cosmic Consciousness by Richard Maurice Bucke

This is an attempted scientific study of illuminated individuals. Bucke provides three dozen very consistent examples of 'cosmic consciousness.' Some of these are the usual suspects, ajavascript:void(0)nd others are contemporary case-histories which Bucke collected. Bucke proposed that these enlightened figures are evolutionary jumps, the predecessor of a more advanced species.

Tao Ching

Tao Classic - Chapters 1 to 37

Ground luminosity (Wyl. gzhi'i 'od gsal) —



Sogyal Rinpoche writes:

In Dzogchen the fundamental, inherent nature of everything is called the "Ground Luminosity" or the "Mother Luminosity." This pervades our whole experience, and is therefore the inherent nature of the thoughts and emotions that arise in our minds as well, although we do not recognize it...

What happens at the moment of death, for everyone, is this: The Ground Luminosity dawns in vast splendor, and with it brings an opportunity for total liberation—if, and only if, you have learned how to recognize it.

Mind Games: Week 1 Influencing the Reptile Mind - Day 6 The Prison of the Self

Task: Attempt to escape

Around the time Descartes made known his famous edict 'I think, therefore I am', ... historians talk(ed) of 'an epidemic' of depression in Europe.

Oliver Cromwell, John Bunyan and John Donne were among its (famous) victims.

Cohen then quotes Death Be Not Proud by John Donne.

Depressed? Now all you need to do is find the cure, he cheerfully exhorts.

...

Cohen's erudite commentary runs all of two pages and compounds the issue, perhaps on purpose. He seems to concentrate on figures of the past, leaving out such famous depressives as Winston Churchill and Buzz Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon.

The UN's WHO (World Health Organization) has reason to predict that depression would be the third largest cause of death by 2020, following heart disease and cancer, since depressed people tend to feel suicidal. (Elsewhere I learned that viral diseases cause the greatest number of deaths worldwide) 

I have been depressed on three separate occasions with varying degrees of severity and recovered from them in different ways. The last time I felt sufficiently unhappy to seek help was in 2003 after which I joined the local Catholic church.

Apparently the sense of isolation that Cohen refers to was a probable cause of my illness, for I have not had a return of the 'melancholy' since.

Mind Games: Week 1 Influencing the Reptile Mind - Day 5 My Three Favorite Animals

Task: Complete an innocuous looking survey using the imagination in order to try to find out a bit about the way our subconscious minds work.

On the face of it, you just have to choose your three favorite animals. But to make the most of the test, use pen and paper and write down a sentence or two explaining your reasons too. 

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And *drum roll* here we are...

My first favorite animal is the human because humans show the widest range of behavior and misbehavior - physical, emotional and mental - not the least being in possession of a great sense of humor WRT the absurdity of finding themselves "alive in some God's great, bright, sad, funny dream" ~ Seth / Jane Roberts.

My second favorite animal is a cat because a cat is quiet and independent if sometimes snooty; unless of course when it's on heat. Then it's time to get it neutered.

My third favorite animal is a dog because a dog is fun and friendly to have around though it can get really noisy and demanding: it all depends on the breed and circumstances I suppose.

Aha! Here's a bit of a trap that Cohen may have set for us, though he did drop a hint above, so I'm not going to reveal what he has to say. 

Run the test yourself and then email me if you want to know what your choices and reasons say about yourself.

Though of course you retain the right to totally disagree with his reasoning.