I never would have thought of putting this book in this collection of books, but today I was listening to a lecture by yoga teacher (and former Harvard psychology professor) Ram Dass called "Karma and Reincarnation" and this description came up that reminded me VERY much of the explanation of "The Remembering (High the Memory)" in the liner notes to Topographic Oceans. However, it shouldn't have surprised me that much because this book was hugely influential in the psychedelic 60s. John Lennon even lifted words right from it for the lyrics to "Tomorrow Never Knows." That in itself would have turned it into virtual gospel for budding hippie spiritualists. Anyway, after hearing these words in the lecture, I googled them and this book came up by Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Ram Dass (who was then named Richard Alpert.) He was quoting a Buddhist teacher, Lama Anagarika Govinda, and I would guess that these words influenced Jon Anderson or whoever helped Jon Anderson write the liner notes for Topographic Oceans:
===It may be argued that nobody can talk about death with authority who has not died; and since nobody, apparently, has ever returned from death, how
can anybody know what death is, or what happens after it?
The Tibetan will answer: "There is not one person, indeed, not one living being, that has not returned from death. In fact, we all have died many
deaths, before we came into this incarnation. And what we call birth is merely the reverse side of death, like one of the two sides of a coin, or like
a door which we call "entrance" from outside and "exit" from inside a room."
The lama then goes on to make a second poetic comment about the potentialities of the nervous system, the complexity of the human cortical
computer.
It is much more astonishing that not everybody remembers his or her previous death; and, because of this lack of remembering, most persons do not believe there was a previous death. But, likewise, they do not remember
their recent birth - and yet they do not doubt that they were recently born.
They forget that active memory is only a small part of our normal consciousness, and that our subconscious memory registers and preserves
every past impression and experience which our waking mind fails to recall.
The lama then proceeds to slice directly to the esoteric meaning of the Bardo Thodol - that core meaning which Jung and indeed most European
Orientalists have failed to grasp.
For this reason, the Bardo Thodol, the Tibetan book vouchsafing liberation from the intermediate state between life and re-birth,- which state men
call death,- has been couched in symbolical language. It is a book which is sealed with the seven seals of silence,- not because its knowledge would be misunderstood, and, therefore, would tend to mislead and harm those who are unfitted to receive it. But the time has come to break the seals of silence; for the human race has come to the juncture where it must decide whether to be content with the subjugation of the material world, or to strive after the conquest of the spiritual world, by subjugating selfish
desires and transcending self-imposed limitations.
The lama next describes the effects of consciousness-expansion techniques.
He is talking here about the method he knows-the Yogic-but his words are equally applicable to psychedelic experience.
There are those who, in virtue of concentration and other yogic practices, are able to bring the subconscious into the realm of discriminative
consciousness and, thereby, to draw upon the unrestricted treasury of subconscious memory, wherein are stored the records not only of our past
lives but the records of the past of our race, the past of humanity, and of all pre-human forms of life, if not of the very consciousness that makes life possible in this universe.===
===It may be argued that nobody can talk about death with authority who has not died; and since nobody, apparently, has ever returned from death, how
can anybody know what death is, or what happens after it?
The Tibetan will answer: "There is not one person, indeed, not one living being, that has not returned from death. In fact, we all have died many
deaths, before we came into this incarnation. And what we call birth is merely the reverse side of death, like one of the two sides of a coin, or like
a door which we call "entrance" from outside and "exit" from inside a room."
The lama then goes on to make a second poetic comment about the potentialities of the nervous system, the complexity of the human cortical
computer.
It is much more astonishing that not everybody remembers his or her previous death; and, because of this lack of remembering, most persons do not believe there was a previous death. But, likewise, they do not remember
their recent birth - and yet they do not doubt that they were recently born.
They forget that active memory is only a small part of our normal consciousness, and that our subconscious memory registers and preserves
every past impression and experience which our waking mind fails to recall.
The lama then proceeds to slice directly to the esoteric meaning of the Bardo Thodol - that core meaning which Jung and indeed most European
Orientalists have failed to grasp.
For this reason, the Bardo Thodol, the Tibetan book vouchsafing liberation from the intermediate state between life and re-birth,- which state men
call death,- has been couched in symbolical language. It is a book which is sealed with the seven seals of silence,- not because its knowledge would be misunderstood, and, therefore, would tend to mislead and harm those who are unfitted to receive it. But the time has come to break the seals of silence; for the human race has come to the juncture where it must decide whether to be content with the subjugation of the material world, or to strive after the conquest of the spiritual world, by subjugating selfish
desires and transcending self-imposed limitations.
The lama next describes the effects of consciousness-expansion techniques.
He is talking here about the method he knows-the Yogic-but his words are equally applicable to psychedelic experience.
There are those who, in virtue of concentration and other yogic practices, are able to bring the subconscious into the realm of discriminative
consciousness and, thereby, to draw upon the unrestricted treasury of subconscious memory, wherein are stored the records not only of our past
lives but the records of the past of our race, the past of humanity, and of all pre-human forms of life, if not of the very consciousness that makes life possible in this universe.===
See Less
— at The Mind's Eye II.
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3You, Rick Messina and Gary Handler
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- Nick Smiththe wiki page for the book. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Psychedelic_Experience
The Psychedelic Experience - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaEN.WIKIPEDIA.ORGThe Psychedelic Experience - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia2- Like
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- Nick SmithThis page is where the text is from. http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/tib/psydead.htmPsychedelic Tibetan Book of the DeadSACRED-TEXTS.COMPsychedelic Tibetan Book of the Dead2
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- Nick Smiththe full photo album: BOOKS AND TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/...2
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- Nick SmithHere's a trailer for a new film about two of the authors of The Psychedelic Experience, Timothy Leary and Ram Dass. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUPpypqWNgM
Dying to Know: Ram Dass & Timothy Leary - Official Trailer #1YOUTUBE.COMDying to Know: Ram Dass & Timothy Leary - Official Trailer #1- Like
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