D. Carse: Another similar analogy which hasn’t been
around as long is the hologram. A hologram is really only an illusion created
by projecting a beam of coherent light. Yet a very sophisticated hologram would
have the potential to look and sound and otherwise seem very ‘real,’ as real as
physical reality, so that you could interact with a hologram of a person as if
there were a ‘real’ person there, which of course there wouldn’t be.
Q: Yes, but a hologram wouldn’t really seem real,
because it isn’t substantial; you could but your hand through it or walk
through it, for example. But that’s why I say I don’t see how it applies; I
don’t think you or that wall are dreams or holograms, because they are very
substantial; I can’t walk through you.
D. Carse: Exactly. So I ask you, under what
circumstances would a hologram seem very substantial? Or put it another way, to
whom would a hologram appear solid?
Q: Another hologram...
D. Carse: Exactly.
Q: I... (long pause)...
D. Carse: Take your time.
Q: The... (pause)
I’m sorry, I seem to have lost my train of thought.
D. Carse: Just stay with that for a while. Relax, don’t
try to struggle with it, just be still for a minute... (pause) Can you tell me
what we were talking about?
Q: I’m afraid I’ve sort of blanked out here.
D. Carse: What was the last thing that was said before
you lost your train of thought?
Q: I’m afraid I’ve sort of blanked out here.
D. Carse: That’s fine. A little disoriented?
Q: Yeah. I’m okay, but that was definitely strange.
D. Carse: “Then as a stranger, bid it welcome!” Just
stay with that disorientation a little before it slips away. Savor it, get the
feel of it. This is very beautiful. This is actually what you are looking for,
without realizing it.
The last thing that you said before blanking out was to
recognize the possibility that all of this seems real only because “you’
yourself aren’t real either. You said that only another hologram would see
holograms as substantial or ‘real.’ The idea occurred to you that maybe ‘you’
are only a hologram.
Q: Oh, yeah.
D. Carse: Now, if you didn’t really take that as a
serious possi¬ bility, that would have seemed like just an interesting idea and
you would have breezed through.it without any problem. But because of what’s
happening here, the ego, that constructed, built-up sense of an individual
self, was faced with the real possibility that what you have always thought of
as ‘you,’ this mind/body apparatus operating in the world, does not exist in
any true sense as anything real but only as a hologram, a projection, a dream;
and the ego is not able to deal with that, so it checks out.
This is the difference between the intellectual under¬
standing, in which these ideas are tossed around and argued about, and the
Understanding going deeper; it goes to another level, where the ego, the sense
of individual self, gets exploded, annihilated. No doubt that would be expe¬
rienced as a bit disorienting, yes? The ego sense of self spends all its time
trying to stay in control, and that means trying to keep you away from these
moments of disorienta¬ tion when the bottom drops out and it doesn’t know what
to do.
This is so beautiful. This is what I mean when I talk
about asking the dangerous question, the question that may end your life. This
idea that this ‘you’ is not real, is only a thought, a projection, stopped you.
That’s why I said to savor that feeling of disorientation. Get to know it, to
not fear it, to welcome it. You’ll be back there again. That place where the
ego is completely disoriented is what you’re looking for. The Zen practice of
meditating on unsolvable koans, for example, is designed to get the ego/mind to
that place where it can’t cope, and blanks out. One day, instead of bouncing
back from it, going back there to the familiar, you won’t. You’ll stay here,
fall deeper, break through to the other side. Then you won’t go back. Then you
won’t be there anymore. It’ll be perfectly obvious that there isn’t any mind,
isn’t any self, isn’t any ‘you.’ isn’t any this side or other side, anything to
go back to. That’s what’s called awakening. Of course, please don’t go around
trying to disorient your¬ self. There’s the prescriptive/descriptive fallacy
again. This is just describing what happens, not something you can do. You
can’t cause it. Just welcome it when it comes.
Q: It sounds a little scary, actually, like I might lose
my mind.
D. Carse: You don’t have a mind to lose. You’ll just
lose the mistaken idea that you have one. But scary, yes. That’s the ego, the
sense of being an individual self, reasserting itself and not wanting to go
where it isn’t in charge any more. That’s why I say sometimes that left to our
own devices, no one would choose this. The ego can’t choose its own
annihilation. Fortunately, it’s not up to you. We’ve all been conditioned to
get scared at this point and worry about going insane. When you step beyond the
boundaries of the almost universally accepted parameters of the dream, of
consensus reality, and thoughts happen that are really ‘outside the box,’
outside of Plato’s cave, then it is quite possible there may be some experience
of psycho¬ logical pain or turbulence. And also, everyone else still in the
dream is going to think you are pretty weird. But trust me, the place that is
really insane is where you are now, believing you are separate; not knowing your
own true nature, thinking you are this thing…
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