INTRODUCTION
A metapsychiatric principle states the following: "If you know what, you know
how." In order to answer the challenging even provocative question, What does God
want?, we have to first explore what God is. We could begin by a process of eliminating
all the invalid -concepts of God from ancient times until today.
In the book "Beyond the Dream," there is a chapter which deals with the changing
concepts of God. Unenlightened man has of necessity a limited concept of God. As
man’s consciousness evolves, so does his concept of God.
There seems to be a desire in man to turn to a power beyond himself, because
he doubts his own capacity to deal with the various crises in his life. Many so-called
primitive cultures give evidence of this yearning by building idols of gold or other
materials and worshipping them. The children of Israel worshipped a golden calf,
the Incas and other nations believed the sun to be a superior power worthy of worship,
etc. In our time God is still considered by many to be a kind of "superman," living
in the skies or in outer space, watching the goings on down on earth and

rewarding or punishing men as he deems fit A Russian cosmonaut, upon returning from
a space flight, held a press conference at which he said that he was looking for
God in outer space but could not find him. Therefore he concluded that God does not
exist
Such ignorant ideas of God lead to ritualism and superstitious repetition of
words without meaning. When our concept of God is anthropomorphic, that is, if we
think of God as a magnified human, our prayers will be petitionary. We will ask God
to give us something, to do something for us, etc. We will think that God is here
for us, that he is our servant, and we may use various ploys to influence him. We
may try to "butter him up" with emotional outbursts of praise, we may try to bribe
him by making contributions to a church, or we may try to influence him by being
beneficent persons doing good deeds. In all these attempts there is always an ulterior
motive — to have our wants satisfied and to be rewarded.
Jesus frequently referred to God as the "Father which is in heaven." But we must
remember that he was addressing people whose spiritual awareness was as yet totally
unawakened. Therefore, he consciously and deliberately chose words appropriate to
their level of

development; otherwise his communications would have fallen on deaf ears arid could
not have been comprehended. He taught in parables and with the aid of symbols. "Father"
is a symbol of a loving, caring, guiding authority.
In Metapsychiatry we say, "God is not a merit system." We have outgrown the childish
notion that God will reward us for reciting words. We endeavor instead to understand
the perfect, divine Reality. Our perspective on God and His creation has become clearer,
and this has a healing effect Our understanding of God is that of a spiritual principle,
the creative Mind of the universe. We also call God "LoveIntelligence." This is a
step beyond the apostle John’s declaration that God is love. Love and intelligence
go hand in hand. There is no unintelligent love. Genuine love is intelligent because
it is non personal, nonconditional benevolence.
WHAT DOES MAN WANT?
Can one petition Love-Intelligence to give us material goodies, such as automobiles,
houses, status, recognition, personal mind power? In Metapsychiatry we have come
to understand that all suffering is due to the universal tendency of man to want
and not want.

Every want is willful and arrogant, therefore invalid.
God is infinite Mind and is not the possessor of anything material What God gives
us is an abundance of intelligent, spiritual ideas and when we become receptive to
them, they provide us with the means to meet every legitimate need. Jesus addressed
this issue in the following statement: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt. 6:33). In other
words, if our first priority is to be interested in what God wants — and this is
the only valid and healthy motivation — everything. needed for harmonious, fulfilling
living will come our way.
The nagging, persistent thought that we are not the independent, autonomous individuals
we appear to be, leads to existential anxiety which we then struggle to repress or
seek means of overcoming. This results in self-confirmatory ideation. Self-confirmation
— or the confirming of one’s self — is accomplished through sensualism, emotionalism,
materialism, intellectualism and personalism. We call these "the five gates of hell."
They are very seductive and, if indulged in, result in many problems, including physical
ones. The sensualist is main-

ly interested in sensations, in exciting experiences. The emotionalist’s main preoccupation
is with feelings; the materialist cherishes ‘possessions. In intellectualism the
main interest centers on being known as knowing —this is essentially mental vanity.
In personalism individuals are concerned with interactions with others.
People frequently say when involved in some interaction controversy, "I can’t
help it, that’s the way I feel" Feelings are thoughts. When we believe that we are
victims of feelings, this is a "cop-out," a disclaimer of responsibility for judgmental
or unloving thoughts. It is a psychological trap which implies that there is nothing
one can do about the situation. But if we understand that feelings ‘are thoughts,
we can take responsibility for these thoughts and shift our perspective. This can
result in healing. We always learn a lesson when we take responsibility for our experiences.
The common denominator in all these categories of self-confirmatory ideation
is, as stated earlier, the desire to repress existential anxiety. Even the avowed
atheist believes in and relies on something outside himself, be it science, ideology,
economic or philosophical systems of thought. etc. This drives man to always

want and not want something. He may reason that it is legitimate to have a good income,
good shelter, good health, etc., and devote a great deal of energy toward achieving
this goal. Wanting is self-defeating, because we always suffer when we approach things
with the attitude of "I want" Instead, we can be grateful, we can be interested.
Interest is love.
FULFILLMENT
Recently a well-known tennis champion was interviewed on television. She recounted
all of her accomplishments — fame, recognition, money, several beautiful homes, a
good marriage — and then, after the elation over the last victory wore off and the
trophies were put on the shelf, she exclaimed: "Is that all there is to life?" This
brings to mind a passage from the book of Ecclesiastes: "Then I looked on all the
works that my hands had wrought, and all the labour that I had laboured to do: and,
behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the
sun" (Ecci 2:11).
When we are alert to observe our thoughts we will find that most of the time
we are preoccupied with one "want" or another. Even wanting to be healthy and happy
is a want
Health and happiness are fruits of a commitment to and an abiding interest in
what God wants. This commitment offers a glorious freedom from the tyranny of wants.
It will free us not only from our wants but we will not be tempted to join others
around us who are catering to their wants.
Real fulfillment cannot be found through self-confirmatory means. Only the awareness
of one’s spiritual status as an inseparable aspect of divine Love can lead to PAGL,
which is an acronym for peace, assurance, gratitude and love. These spiritual qualities
derived from Love-Intelligence, together with joy, harmony and freedom, are the constituent
elements of divine Reality. They are also the standard by which progress on the spiritual
path can be measured. When through consistent study and meditation we reach PAGL
(a state of harmony), at that moment fear and anxiety disappear and we gain a realization
that God indeed exists and is a governing, guiding harmonizing presence in our lives.
This realization does not happen all at once, and once and for all. It is a continuous
process, and we must be alert not to allow ourselves to slide back into the "sea
of mental garbage."
A human being can never find fulfillment in

Health and happiness are fruits of a commitment to and an abiding interest in
what God wants. This commitment offers a glorious freedom from the tyranny of wants.
It will free us not only from our wants but we will not be tempted to join others
around us who are catering to their wants.
Real fulfillment cannot be found through self-confirmatory means. Only the awareness
of one’s spiritual status as an inseparable aspect of divine Love can lead to PAGL,
which is an acronym for peace, assurance, gratitude and love. These spiritual qualities
derived from Love-Intelligence, together with joy, harmony and freedom, are the constituent
elements of divine Reality. They are also the standard by which progress on the spiritual
path can be measured. When through consistent study and meditation we reach PAGL
(a state of harmony), at that moment fear and anxiety disappear and we gain a realization
that God indeed exists and is a governing guiding harmonizing presence in our lives.
This realization does not happen all at once, and once and for all. It is a continuous
process, and we must be alert not to allow ourselves to slide back into the "sea
of mental garbage."
A human being can never find fulfillment in

life, he can only seek it as a spiritual being. The human condition is a dream, and
fulfillment requires us to wake up to the realization that we are spiritual beings,
living Souls. Through conscious at-one-ment with omniactive Love-Intelligence, we
find fulfillment.
ANXIETY
As mentioned earlier, we suffer only from what we want and don’t want, from what
we cherish, what we hate, and what we fear. We classify fear and anxiety as thoughts.
To illustrate: a very bright young lady recently went for a job interview with a
large, well-known company. The interview was successful and she got the job on the
spot. During the interview she experienced no fear whatsoever, but afterwards, instead
of being joyful and happy, she was seized with anxiety, which she couldn’t understand.
In exploring the meaning of this phenomenon, it became apparent that she was afraid
of sharing the good news with her parents, anticipating their disapproval. This new
position represented a progressive step in her career, and it appeared that her parents
would prefer her to be less successful in the business world and instead stay at
home and eventually

get married. So the problem was that she didn’t want her parents to disapprove of
her. This occasioned the anxiety.
In order for this young lady to resolve the conflict with her parents, she will
have to learn to view them with transcendent regard, which means rising above the
human perspective on life to the spiritual viewpoint. Transcendent regard respects
another’s right to be wrong or to have a different idea of what is good and useful,
and this erases the basis for arguments and disagreements.
The meaning of anxiety is that we want something. But it must be pointed out
that there is a difference between anxiety which is coupled with fear and worry,
and anxiety which is a heightened sense of alertness. The difference lies in the
degree of anxiousness. If we want something too intensely, anxiety becomes disruptive
and incapacitating, and this is obviously and undesirable condition. But if we are
interested in something, we are eager to• get to it, and so we could say that in
such a case anxiety is something that makes us more alert. The quality of interest
and motivation determines the degree of anxiety.
Anxiety about speaking in public, called "stage fright," is quite universal It is another

example of the tendency to want and not want If the motivation to address an audience
is to impress, to appear knowledgeable or talented, there will be anxiety. But if
the speaker realizes that his task is just to communicate ideas on a certain specific
topic, he will not be tempted to confirm himself. His interest and motivation will
shift from self to a more valid direction, and there will be no anxiety.
PRIORITIES
The first metapsychiatric principle brings to light man’s need to order his priorities.
It states:
"Thou shalt have no other interests before the good of God, which is spiritual"
The question is frequently asked by students on the spiritual path, "How can I become
truly interested in the good of God when the world is offering so many enticements
and the spiritual good seems so abstract?" While spiritual good cannot be touched,
tasted or experienced, it is very real and can be known. In fact, only what is real-
can be known. What is imagined, fantasized about, experienced, has form or is formless,
is no part of Reality but belongs to the world of phenomena On the other hand, spiritual
qualities and values, such as love, joy,

harmony, freedom, assurance and intelligence, are real; they can be realized. Reality
is spiritual, and the spiritual qualities which are cherished determine character.
Thus we are conscious spiritual beings whose lives are characterized by spiritual
qualities and values.
There are only two ways to become interested in what God wants and in the spiritual
good which results from this interest It is either through suffering or wisdom. Life
entered through the five gates of hell leads to a great many problems, but the entrance
to heaven —harmonious existence—is only possible through the straight and narrow
road of sincere interest in spiritual ideas, spiritual values and spiritual qualities
put into practice in daily life. When we have suffered sufficiently by living with
invalid interests, we may be willing to abandon them and turn to the valid and intelligent
ones. We can be spared the suffering on "the broad road that leadeth to destruction"
by consistent study, meditation, and by seeking spiritual guidance.
We cannot hope to go through life without experiencing problems at one time or
another. "Problems are lessons designed for our edification" is another basic principle
of Metapsychiatry. If we can become receptive to the lessons

inherent in problems and discern their meanings we cannot only resolve them but we
may also rise higher on the spiritual path. A problem can thus become a teacher,
so to speak, and we can learn not to be afraid of it.
Sometimes the question is asked, Isn’t it natural to want to be successful in
life,- or to want to be loved? Of course it is natural, but we are not natural —
animals are natural. We are neither natural nor unnatural nor supernatural —we are
spiritual. We can only prosper harmoniously in life if we understand what it means
to be a spiritual being rather than a natural person.
Once we become students of Metapsychiatry we are no longer "natural man," but
are transformed into a spiritually receptive consciousness. Natural man lacks this
receptivity. The apostle Paul writes in I Corinthians 2:14: "Natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him:
neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
Is human love a legitimate need? Infants seem to need the nurturing, protecting
love of parents. Maturing individuals need to be guided to a recognition that God,
Love-Intelligence, is the only source of true love and that man is

the recipient of this love, provided he under- stands his oneness with and inseparability
from it. Human love is always conditional, therefore precarious and unreliable. It
always has strings attached to it. It may communicate: "I’ll love you if you comply
with my wishes, my demands, etc.," while spiritual love, derived from Love-Intelligence,
is nonconditional, nonpersonal benevolence. It is the love of being loving, with
no strings attached, just for the sake of being what God wants us to be. When we
are loving in this sense, we are manifesting God’s love, or we may say, God’s love
is expressing itself through us. Then we no longer worry about whether we are being
loved because we are not seeking to be loved.’ When we become sincerely interested
in the spiritual good of God and endeavor to be- come committed to it, we may initially
experience some anxiety. This anxiety may be occasioned by the belief that we are
required to give up something of value and are not yet fully convinced that what
we gain in return is more substantial and better. But we soon learn that what we
are giving up is illusion. It never had any reality and was the source of much suffering.
What is abandoned on the spiritual

journey is a false sense of personhood with its pleasures and pains, and what is
gained is a valid sense of identity as a living Soul This realization carries with
it the assurance that we are inseparable from the divine Mind. This is comforting.
RECEPTIVITY
One sure way of becoming interested in the spiritual dimension of life is through
suffering. Under the pressure of suffering we may be willing to re-examine our mode
of being-in-the-world and recognize our mistaken ideas. We then become increasingly
receptive to spiritual values and begin to appreciate them.
A student related how she opened the book "Beyond the Dream" at random and a
paragraph jumped off the page, giving her the answer to a troublesome problem. This
is not an isolated occurrence; it happens quite frequently and there is no mystery
about it The secret is receptivity. The Bible says: "As many as received him, to
them gave he the power to become the sons of God" (John 1:12). To be the son or daughter
of God means to be in communication with God. The real need in any situation is for
the right idea, no matter what

the problem may be. If there is receptivity to spiritual truth, our needs are frequently
met through this channel
If the same book were read by someone who is not a student of Metapsychiatry,
he or she might find it boring and discard it Another may become violently angry
because every line in the book would be showing him how ignorant he had been all
his life about what is valid and what is not. The question may be asked, Which reader
is better off, the bored one or the upset one? The answer is, the upset one. The
apostle Paul was very upset by the teachings of Jesus, so much so that he severely
persecuted the followers of Jesus. Then one day, in a very dramatic way, he suddenly
realized that these teachings were valid, whereas everything else he had considered
true up to that point in his life, was invalid. Receptivity to and appreciation of
spiritual truth is not something that can be done. It happens, or "obtains" in consciousness
through divine grace and in response to sincere interested in the good of God.
An enlightened individual understands that God is the only doer, therefore he
is never engaged in "doing" anything in an operational sense. He is a responder rather
than a doer, which means that he continually responds to

manifest needs which life brings to his attention. He is in harmony with divine Love-Intelligence,
from which he derives inspired, intelligent ideas and these prompt him to respond
in a beneficial way to all situations. In electronics there is a term called "transponder."
A speaker phone, for example, is a transponder which receives signals and changes
them into sound. Enlightened man could be called a spiritual transponder.
When a student begins the study of Metapsychiatry, he is receiving information
about the spiritual dimension of life. Suffering, perhaps an existential crisis,
has led him to become interested in this dimension. A metapsychiatric therapist is
a teacher of the healing truth and he encourages and facilitates receptivity to it
in the student. He does not heal anyone personally, he is not producing a redemptive
realization, but he can help the student become increasingly receptive to the truth,
and the truth understood brings about the healing. Truth is really the therapist,
and the teacher is preparing the way of the Lord. "Prepare ye the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God" (Isaiah 40:3).
The truth obtained in consciousness will transform the student and he will become aware of

his spiritual status as a living Soul. From that moment on he will be governed by
Love-Intelligence rather than by what he wants and does not want, or what others
want, and he will be freed from all interests in self-confirmatory ideation. He will
be redeemed by the emergence of the truth in his consciousness.
THE PURPOSE OF UNDERSTANDING MEANING
The transforming, redemptive truth is available to everyone, but few people are
interested in it until they get into an existential crisis, when suffering becomes
unbearable. All suffering is due to ignorance — entertaining invalid thoughts in
general, and thoughts about divine Reality in particular. God knows nothing about
our ignorance. It is revealed to us through a process called phenomenological perceptivity,
which means we can become aware of thoughts underlying our physical and mental suffering.
The purpose of revealing the nature of our ignorance is to become more receptive
to the truth. To facilitate this process, we ask in Metapsychiatry "two intelligent
questions." They are intelligent because they are inspired and lead to solutions.
They are the foundation of Meta

psychiatry. First we ask, What is the meaning of what seems to be? When we have discerned
the meaning, we ask the second question, What is what really is? The answer to the
first question invariably reveals an invalid idea, and understanding the meaning
or the mental equivalent of the problem, enhances the receptivity to what really
is, what the truth is.
To illustrate: an individual reported suffering from a condition called Tinnitus,
which is a constant, day and night ringing in the ears. When the first intelligent
question was asked, the underlying thought or mental equivalent of the symptom was
revealed as an interaction thought about a discordant relationship with an individual,
and this happened to be a constant irritation. So this was the meaning of what seemed
to be: "I have a disturbed relationship and a disturbing experience and I cannot
stop thinking about it." If we cannot stop thinking about a relationship, it means
that we have a strong desire to either punish the individual or prove him wrong.
In order to be healed of this symptom, one has to be able to forgive the individual
in question. One has to let go of the thoughts which are ringing in one’s ears. When
this is understood, one becomes receptive to the truth an-

swered by the second question, What is what really is? What really is is the truth
that there is no irritating person, only impersonal ignorance. Realizing this truth
makes it possible to forgive and to have compassion. which is the understanding of
a lack of understanding. Interaction involvements are healed through compassion,
which enables us to view individuals in the context of God as living Souls rather
than human persons. If we are able to view others with transcendent regard, compassion
will be spontaneous because we will not deal with persons but issues.
The issue is not to refrain from judging others but to be free of the desire
— or want — to judge. If we attempt to repress the desire to be judgmental, we are
still judging because judging or not judging is the same. For example, we may find
ourselves in the company of some rather self-righteous people and can observe how
they are endeavoring not to judge us, yet we are keenly aware that, in fact, they
are judging us.
The question is often asked, What is the right course to take by a student on
the spiritual path if he or she finds himself in the company of people who like to
gossip or talk about their illnesses? It is understandable that students of

Metapsychiatry avoid conversation about illnesses, operations, etc., because such
accounts fascinate the curiosity of the personal mind and can actually lead to mental
contagion that can be externalized in some form of physical symptom. Therefore it
is legitimate for a student to avoid the company of people who enjoy talking about
these things, describing them in great detail, etc., until such time as he has reached
such depth of understanding as to be able to say, "none of these things move me anymore."
Then the student will have overcome’ the world because the world is made up of interaction
thoughts. Problems are psychological, solutions are spiritual
There is only one way to become liberated from the ego or personal sense and
that is to lose interest in it If we try to willfully get rid of it or wrestle with
it, we are still preoccupied with it and therefore cannot be freed of it When we
lose interest in it, it dies of neglect
An individual related experiencing aching joints and burning eyes. When she examined
her thinking and uncovered that she wanted something from a friend, she proceeded
wanting to not want, and this of course was equally troublesome. We cannot want or
not want anything, but we can turn our attention and interest

to what God wants. That will set us free. Wanting what God wants is still a want
and is existentially invalid as well. It is arrogant. Can we want two and two to
be four? The only valid way is to be interested in being here for God and aspiring
to live in accordance with His will
All human wanting is actually very childish. Children are trained from an early
age to want things. "What do you want for Christmas?," "What do you want for your
birthday?," "What do you want to be when you grow up?," are some of the questions
children are constantly asked. The apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians:
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a
child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things" (I Cor. 13:11).
So we, too, must put away our childish ways of wanting and not wanting, and so
become free of the ego. "I want" is the essence of the ego, or the sense of personhood.
What we place our attention on constitutes our identity. Turning to spiritual values
facilitates the understanding of our true spiritual identity. We are individual manifestations
of God’s being.
In the parable of the prodigal son, the Father reassured his elder son, who was
jealous of his returning brother, in these words: Son, thou art

ever with me, and all that I have is thine" (Luke 15:31). God is not a possessor
of material goodies with which to reward us. God Is and we are manifestations of
this Is-ness. Therefore we translate this saying the following way: "Son, thou art
ever with me (inseparable from me), and all that I am, thou art."
HUMILITY AND GRATITUDE
Humility and gratitude are important spiritual qualities and students on the
spiritual path need to cultivate them. But we need to understand that they are not
behavior, and therefore cannot be "done." They can be faked but that. of course,
is only an appearance of humility and gratitude.~
True humility is a beautiful attribute of an enlightened consciousness and is
one of the main pillars of mental health. A humble individual has lost interest in
ego gratification. He is not driven by irrational wants and desires. He approaches
life situations in an intelligent, rational way. This is mental health.
Humility can never be humiliated, only the ego can experience humiliation. Most
people live in fear of being humiliated and they constantly feel hurt by other people’s
thoughts

about them. But humility frees us of that fear and gives us peace, poise and a sense
of assurance. It is an awareness that we are the sons and daughters of the living
God.
Humiliation leads to hurt pride, vengeance, resentment, depression. The more
humiliation we experience, the more egotistical we become. It was a custom in early
religious practices to wear an itchy "hair shirt" in order to become humble. But
what does the wearer of a hair shirt think about? Himself. It could only aggravate
the problem of self-confirmatory ideation and sensualism. A willingness to be embarrassed
which is an open admission of having a problem, or of having made a mistake, can
lead to humility.
The Bible says: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength" (Isaiah
40:31). This implies that we are required to be patient Is patience an existentially
valid quality? One can be patient in a willful way by forcing oneself to be patient
Being impatient is, of course, equally willful. But being humble and expecting the
truth to dawn on our consciousness requires reverence and gratitude. Being humble
means we know that of our own selves we can do nothing, and being grateful is the
acknowledgement that God is good. Gratitude and humility

often result in new insights, because God can reveal Himself to us more clearly than
when we are willfully impatient, grinding our teeth in frustration. In Metapsychiatry
we understand that God is not here for us, but we are here for God.
The love of God and the acknowledgement of His good expresses gratitude. Gratitude,
in turn, tends to increase our receptivity to spiritual good and thus potentiates
it in our lives. Good is that which is life-enhancing, uplifting, healing, harmonizing
— and the more gratitude we express the more we are able to partake of this good.
BEING HERE FOR GOD
We talk frequently about the need to be here for God rather than for our personal
wants and interests. What does it actually mean to be here for God? Can we realize
being here for God, or are we just thinking about it? Most of the time we cannot
go beyond thinking about being here for God. So the question really is, How do we
move from thinking about God to actually being here for God?
What is required is discovering that the thoughts we think are not our own thoughts.


We are aware of thoughts, we do not produce them. When we discover the difference
between thinking thoughts and being aware of thoughts, we have separated ourselves
from the thinker, the illusion, and we become an entity which is aware of the illusion
of the thinker thinking thoughts. And this entity, capable of being aware, is our
real self. The living Soul is aware of the fact that all right ideas come from the
divine Mind, not from the human brain, and therefore he is spontaneously here for
God. And he doesn’t think about being here for God, he actually is here for God because
God’s thoughts govern his life; they constitute his true being.
Awareness is neither a feeling, nor a thought, nor a sensation; it is an extracorporeal
quality of consciousness.
WHAT DOES GOD WANT?
We said at the outset that God is the creative, harmonizing principle of the
universe, called Love-Intelligence. Therefore, to ask what God wants is somewhat
misleading, because it anthropomorphizes God. A spiritual principle cannot be conceived
of as wanting anything the way we think of human wants.
Our language is as yet inadequate to express

spiritual terms. As spiritual consciousness expands more universally, so will language.
Until such time, we will have to transcend the limitations of present-day language.
Metapsychiatry has already coined certain terms in order to better describe its pioneering
spiritual concepts in their true meaning. For example, it calls God "Love-Intelligence";
love is "nonpersonal, non-conditional benevolence"; enlightened or realized man is
"a beneficial presence in the world."
We may ask, What does intelligence want? What does love want? What does life
want? What does a flower want? To manifest to the fullest its essential quality.
For thousands of years people have been trying to discern just what God wants.
Theologians say that the will of God is very mysterious and difficult to fathom.
Metapsychiatry has discovered that God’s will is neither mysterious nor difficult
to know. In fact, it is quite simple, because God — Love-Intelligence — wants only
one thing. To be known, understood and manifested in the universe through His image
and likeness, man. God is an Is system, which means that God is rather than has,
and this system’s built-in intentionality requires itself to manifest its qualities
in the universe.
The Bible contains many clues as to what

God wants. For instance: "This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth
my praise" (Is. 43:21). "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom
I have chosen" (Is. 43:10). "Therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that
I am God" (Is. 43:12). "For they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the
greatest of them, saith the Lord" (Jer. 31:34; Heb. 8:11). "The earth shall be full
of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea (Is. 11:9).
So man is an instrument of God, whose purpose in life is to be a witness, a manifestation
of the qualities and attributes of God. Jesus said:
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify
your Father which is in heaven" (Matt 5:11).
When we are committed to being manifestations of God’s qualities, we fulfill
our destiny by glowing for God as beneficial presences in the world.



Student: I have a general, kind of vague comment that I cannot pin down to one particular question.
A few weeks ago I spoke to my cousin. She is a widow, raising 4 boys, the eldest being about 30,
and she was with him on Mother?s Day. He has a boat and he took her out on the boat
and to a restaurant
and so on and so forth. Anyway, being a widow she has over the years been looking
for a second husband
and usually when we meet, what comes up in the conversation is, ?Do you meet guys?
Do you meet girls??
Anyway, this went on for a little bit, and then she said, ?I feel as if life is passing
me by.? And she asked,
?Do you feel the same way?? It troubled me and I think I said, ?Yes.? Now what does
this mean, this phrase,
because I find that often this comes up.
Dr. Hora: Yes. That is a very beautiful question, a philosophical question. You hear it very
often and perhaps most people have the thought that life is passing them by. I'm getting
older, and I am still not married and I still don?t have a million dollars or a Jaguar,
and I still don?t have friends, or whatever life is supposed to have for me. This is
called existential frustration. Life is passing me by. Well, on the face of it, if you
cannot catch a man, if you don?t get married, you miss out on life. If


you don't have certain things you are failing. You are getting older and perhaps sickly
and you have no sense of fulfillment. In earlier days they didn?t speak about life passing
you by, but how could I find fulfillment. Even in biblical times people were concerned
about fulfillment. Fulfillment means living so that we do not have life passing us by.
How could we really live life the way it should be lived? Right? And people do all kinds
of things trying to prevent life from passing them by. They jump out of planes with
parachutes. They try to have a lot of sex or money or power. Everybody clamors for a
solution so that they wouldn?t feel that they are missing out on life, and it is a great
mystery. How can we live life in such a way as to not have this gnawing sense that life is
passing us by? It is a very important philosophical question, something to ponder for
everyone.
Most people will say there is no solution to this question. Anybody who would
say that he is living life
to the fullest is lying. Have you ever met somebody who would claim that he is living
life to the full?
Nobody. Apparently some people asked Jesus about this. You know that Jesus had an
answer to every possible thing.
There is no such question for which Jesus didn?t have an answer. What was his answer?
People asked him about this problem.
Student: ?Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will
be filled? (Matt. 5:4).
Dr. Hora: Exactly. Did you know this? He always came up with a very simple answer to the most
complicated question. ?Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness:
for they shall be fulfilled? (Matt 5:4). What does this mean? Let us look at this simple statement.
In other words, if we


would want to experience life in its fullness, a fully meaningful life, where we wouldn?t have
this fear of it passing us by, we wouldn?t be afraid of dying prematurely or being sick or
losing out on anything good that is rightfully ours, what is required? You have to hunger
and thirst after righteousness. What the heck does that mean?
Student: Right seeing? Right usefulness?
Dr. Hora: Any other ideas, anybody?
Student: Well, right thinking.
Dr. Hora: Right thinking? Could you explain that?
Student: If our thoughts are valid, we are in a place of right being, right thinking.
Dr. Hora: Not quite.
Student: Righteousness is a very difficult word. It is a religious word.
Dr. Hora: You bet. That?s why we are trying to understand it.
Student: Well, right thinking is holding in consciousness right values and right qualities and
discerning spiritually that which is the good of God.
Dr. Hora: You see life is passing us by because we are not seeking what is existentially valid.
We are preoccupied with trivial pursuits (laughter) ... therefore we don?t get it.
Student: Some people seem to get it. Dr. Hora: Who is that?


Student: Well, I?ll tell you. A few weeks ago I was on a hike with this woman. She
was very verbal. You couldn?t miss her.
Dr. Hora: Sounds like a liberated woman.
Student: She has a job as a VP with Chase Manhattan Bank. She is in charge of 50 people.
She just got back from a month long trip to Europe where she combined it with business
meetings and sightseeing.
She has two houses, one in the country. She skis. She?s a woman who speaks very clearly,
has a sense of balance
and she can talk on any number of subjects. And the way she handles herself made
me say to myself, ?Gees, this to me
is a woman who seems to have made it.?
Dr. Hora: So, if you could become such a woman (laughter), that would give meaning
to your life and you wouldn?t have
this awful sense of life passing you by. Is this so?
Student: It wouldn?t mean anything.
Other Student: But what I think you are saying is that these things do not seem like
trivial pursuits.
Dr. Hora: Yes. Fifty people under you, two houses,
skiing. You see, Jesus didn?t know about these things. All
he said was that you just have to desire the right things.
You have to be interested in the right things. Otherwise
we all have the sense of lack because we are pursuing
existentially irrelevant values. See, if you have two houses,
or three, or five, this isn?t going to prolong your life
or even give you PAGL (peace, assurance, gratitude and love);
chances are it will give you more of a headache.


Student: Let me ask you this. If this woman who we could consider successful, if
she were honest would she say that she too feels that life is passing her by?
Dr. Hora: Definitely. Or if she would deny it then she doesn?t realize that life
is passing her by. (laughter) What is life? What is it?
Student: We call it consciousness. Dr. Hora: What is that?
Student: It is awareness and can be filled with either unreality or reality.
Dr. Hora: Yes. Well, simply, life is God. And God is life and if we are interested in life
then we have to be interested in God. And if we are really interested in God, then life
cannot pass us by because we are completely immersed in this life and the sayings of Jesus
simply reiterate in different words the first principle of Metapsychiatry. Would you
believe that? If you are primarily and wholeheartedly and unequivocally and absolutely
interested in the first principle, which is the good of God, you will know life as
spiritual blessedness and nothing in the world can give you a feeling of life passing you
by. Because you are inseparably part of that life as long as you are aware of spiritual
blessedness. This is life. As the Bible says, This is life eternal, that they may know thee,
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent. (John 17:3). So now life can be
found in the first principle. You cannot sink your teeth into it, but that's life.
Whatever is not spiritual blessedness is not life.
It is the illusion of life. So when we hunger and thirst after righteousness we are interested
in the good of God


because that?s the only reality. All the other things that we are interested in are
not realities; they are just
human values. Now what is wrong with human values? There?s nothing wrong with being
a VP and having two houses and
skiing, and being well spoken. But human values can never give you a sense of fulfillment.
How is that? Did you ever
think of this? Human values can never give you a sense of fulfillment.
Student: Because you are really a spiritual being and you cannot look to another
dimension or the human level. You cannot find your fulfillment as a spiritual being
on the material level.
Dr. Hora: That?s right exactly. And people are just clamoring for an endless variety
of human experiences and that?s
not life; that is the dream of life in matter. The dream of life in the body, in
clothes, in relationships, in
interaction, in business, in a profession, all this is life in the material world.
The material world is not real
life.
Student: Dr. Hora, why are we not satisfied with what we have in the material world?
Dr. Hora: Why is one of the 6 dumb questions, right? And suppose you would be a new
Jesus and say life is passing you
by because you are not satisfied with your human values and all you need is to get
somebody to make you satisfied,
and then you have it made.
Student: Human values are always accompanied by interaction and that always involves
comparison thinking. So how can we ever be satisfied when someone is always going
to have more than we have of other things?


Dr. Hora: Well suppose you recognize that interaction is a human value and you can
never find satisfaction with that.
So you decide, as others have, to become a hermit and avoid contact with other people.
Will that solve your problem?
No. So a human being can never be free of this gnawing experience of life passing
us by, because on the human plane
we are all mortals and as long as we see ourselves as scheduled to die, how can anything
make any sense?
Human beings have a terminal disease. We are all scheduled to die. So life is not
only a bore and a lousy drag,
but it is also very short and dirty.
Student: And unfair.
Dr. Hora: So Jesus didn?t say how a human being can find fulfillment. There is no
such human experience that could
lead to fulfillment. But spiritual blessedness is not a human experience. Did you
ever think of that? And it is
not unavailable. It?s available.
Student: Evidently we have to hunger and thirst for it. Dr. Hora: Yes, how do we do that?
Student: Recognize that we are not fulfilled.
Dr. Hora: Yes, so?
Student: We need to understand righteousness. We need to know what we need.
Dr. Hora: We need to know what is the right thing to long for, to be interested in.
Student: Hunger is longing. Is that correct?


Dr. Hora: Longing is a transitional thing. Longing can become very demanding or willful
or aggressive.
So we prefer the word interest. When we are hungry we are interested in food. When
we are thirsty we are interested
in beer. (laughter) But Jesus said, when we hunger and thirst after righteousness,
we are interested in knowing
the truth of life, which is synonymous with the good of God. The good of God is real
life and the first principle
can get us there, and to the extent that we learn spiritual blessedness we see the
trivialness of everything else
on the human scene, because nothing else can compare with that. So it is not an impossible
thing to find fulfillment.
But this fulfillment is spiritual.
Student: Dr. Hora, there is another passage in the bible that says not to take thought
for all of these things but ...
Dr. Hora: ?Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things
shall be added unto you?
(Matt. 6:33). But you see we are not really going to waste time speculating about
these other things, because
we can very quickly be sidetracked. There are so many things on the human plane,
and we can become mentally
fixated on human values, like Marilyn Monroe or sex or money. If you then get hung
up on these things, you
completely lose sight of real value, of the real life. But on the real road to fulfillment
you lose the sense
that life is passing you by. There is no other way to be free of this thought that
life is passing us by,
except with an intimate acquaintance with the first principle and its blessing. Spiritual
blessedness is the
true sense of reality and it is absolutely good and it lifts us up to a higher level
of appreciation of life
that does not pass us by. The Bible also says, ?When this mortal shall have put on
immortality, then shall it


come to pass, as it is written, death is swallowed up in victory? (1 Cor. 15:54).
Student: And this real life is spiritual.
Dr. Hora: That?s exactly right, and with the help of the first principle, we can
discover that as spiritual beings
we are immortal; and when we catch a glimpse of this truth that real life can never
die, that when the belief of
mortality is replaced with the knowledge of immortality, then you see that life cannot
pass us by. It ain?t going anywhere. It?s right there for ever. We are really immortal
but we do not know it. We are convinced that we are mortals and the clock is ticking
away toward the time when we will all die. But that dying is the dream of life on
the human plane; that?s material life.
Student: Can we talk about what it means to live in God?s spiritual blessedness?
What kind of thought is with you living in the spiritual world?
Dr. Hora: That?s a good question. Can anybody understand this?
Student: That we are blessed spiritually, which means we are blessed with the ideas
needed to live life harmoniously.
Dr. Hora: Yes, that we are at one with that life which is God. ?I and my Father are
one? (John 10:30). ?I am in the
Father and the Father is in me? (John 14:10). In spiritual blessedness this is clear.
We are aware of it. This is so.
There are not two things ? God and man. There is only God as man, and man as an individualized
aspect of God.
But most people do not stop to think about it. They say, ?Let?s have fun.? Who will
bother with these philosophical
speculations? And then what


did Jesus know anyway? He didn?t even have a credit card. (laughter)
Student: I thought he was the first guy with unlimited credit. (more laughter)
Student: Dr. Hora, it is a little unclear to me what actually gets us there. There
is a requirement that there be a sincere interest in God, and at our level, that
seems to take the form of monitoring our thoughts and becoming aware of invalid thoughts
and then either discarding them or allowing valid thoughts to enter consciousness.
Is that the same thing as being sincerely interested or is that something that we
are required to do because we seem to be human and then we become interested? What
comes first? The interest or this process that we are required to go through?
Dr. Hora: This is not a process we are talking about now. We are talking about an
opening that is available to everybody,
an opening into enlightenment and immortality. You know Sartre?s play, ?No Exit.?
He didn?t think that there was an exit
from the human condition, and most people don?t. But we must not let that stop us.
There is an exit at hand, available to
everybody ever since Jesus Christ walked on the earth, and Metapsychiatry was inspired
with the Eleven Principles. So we
are not hopeless cases stuck in the human condition. There is an exit door and it
is called the First Principle of
Metapsychiatry. So it is not a process; it?s just facing up to the meaning of this
principle. When we do we discover that
all of these tremendous philosophical problems that philosophers for thousands of
years have been agonizing over have
resolved themselves into a very simple crack in reality. And


Jesus Christ gave the world a very simple statement. ?Blessed are they who hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they
shall find fulfillment.? And we say that if we are truly, and above all else, interested
in the good of God, we discover
spiritual blessedness and we can see that this is qualitatively entirely different
from everything the world considers
good and of value. There is no material element in it. It is pure spiritual realization.
And if we get acquainted with
this truth, the good of God, we don?t have to live in fear of dying. We will know
that the phenomena of death are just
phenomena. In phenomenology there are two factors: appearance and disappearance.
The phenomenal life, which we consider is
passing us by, is just appearance and disappearance. Now what happens when an appearance
disappears?
Student: Our seeing improves.
Dr. Hora: You know what happens? Nothing. (laughter) Student: Because it never was.
Dr. Hora: Right. So if there is a phenomenon, then it is part of the phenomenon where
we are appearing to be and then
we are not appearing to be. Nothing has changed. Life is unaffected. God hasn?t changed.
Reality is still there and
we are in it. So life cannot pass us by. We can have the impression that life is
passing us by, but nobody can
actually miss out on life. When we wake up to the first principle it is like an awakening.
?This is life eternal that
they may know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent? (John 17:3).
Student: So what is the meaning of appearing and disappearing?


Dr. Hora: That?s a phenomenon. A phenomenon is an observable something where we can
see thoughts taking on shape and losing shape.
Student: But, a tree is not a thought, is it?
Dr. Hora: Sure it is. What else is a tree it but a thought? Student: Whose thought?
Dr. Hora: Everybody who looks at it. The material world is called the phenomenal
world. Everything is made of thoughts; trees are made of thoughts, animals are made
of thoughts, people are made of thoughts, and they are forever appearing and disappearing.
That?s what mortality is, the disappearance of appearances.
Student: So that?s mortality?
Dr. Hora: Well, it?s a human illusion, an impression, here today and gone tomorrow. (laughter)
Student: Where is the spirituality in the phenomena? Dr. Hora: There is no spirituality
in the phenomena.
Student: Then where is it? What is it? If we appear and disappear with thoughts manifesting
and not manifesting, so where is the spiritual then?
Dr. Hora: Right there! Spiritual reality is all encompassing. Divine Mind fills the
whole universe, right there where the phenomena are.
Student: Even with the phenomena?


Dr. Hora: Phenomena don?t take up space. They just seem to take up space. In divine
reality there is plenty of parking space. There is no crowding whatsoever. (laughter)
Time and space do not exist. These are mind-boggling ideas, but you can get used
to them. Just don?t tell anybody. (laughter)
Student: It?s interesting that in physics, first the direction was that everything
was solid and then they taught us that there are atoms in constant motion.
Dr. Hora: Yes, it?s vibrations. It?s waves. It?s particles turning into waves and
waves turning into particles. It is nothing solid. The only solid thing is love.
Divine love fills the whole universe. It is infinite omnipresence. It is so solid
you could cut it with a knife if you had a spiritual knife.
Something needs to be clarified. What is the practical value of contemplating
what we were talking about now? Suppose our friend here should go on a hike next
week and this woman should tell you all of her accomplishments. Would you be impressed
the same way as you were?
Student: Well I might be, but I would have foreknowledge.
Dr. Hora: Yes. You see, if we have some idea of the first principle and divine reality,
then we cannot become so frustrated about all the things that other people seem to
have and we don?t have. Right? Nowadays envy has become so blatant. The culture is
so filled with envy and jealousy and rivalry that people are tremendously eager to
find fulfillment in life. So men undergo sex change operations because they want
to have what women have. Have you noticed how many men wear ponytails and earrings,
lately, and all kinds of things? Culturally, people envy each other, and they try
to be what


somebody else is, and it is a very disquieting life that most people live, because
wherever you look you see somebody that has something that you don?t have, and you
are forever looking for it. For example, if I would only have bigger breasts then
I would be fulfilled with a fullness of the bosom. (laughter) So many women rush
to the surgeons and have implants put into their breasts with sometimes disastrous
consequences. This is what you brought up today. Life is very disquieting and we
are troubled because we are unfulfilled and have the sense that we are missing out
on something and this leads to rivalries and all kinds of problems. Nobody is at
peace, and nobody is satisfied. Nobody is happy; nobody is really joyous. Even when
you go on a hike you have to listen to a woman tell you all the things that she has.
Student: Bragging.
Dr. Hora: Bragging, showing off, self-confirmation, interaction, rivalry: that?s
the human condition, various kinds of distortions, existentially invalid interests
that lead to trouble. But if you really understand what fulfillment is, and how you
can get there, you will be more peaceful and you will not suffer so much from all
the things you do not have. And you won?t get such a kick out of what you have, but
you won?t suffer for not having.
Student: I would be interested in hearing more about right seeing. You said, ?The
way you see the tree.? And someone, a Buddhist monk, posited this the other night,
that President Bush [the elder] is the embodiment of the consciousness of America,
and that until the consciousness of the people changes, where there is more right
seeing of that which peace


really is, there will not be peace. Now, the tree, when you look at the tree, everything
is embodied in the tree, and you had a koan once that the tree is in the leaf, and
I would like you to help me see spiritually.
Dr. Hora: Well you brought up certain things, like the Buddhist Monk. Where shall
we start? Shall we start with the President? Is Bush the embodiment of the consciousness
of America? No. Only the Republican Party. (laughter) And what is the consciousness
of America? More and more goodies, here and there some political freedom and also
Christian values permeating the culture. But you cannot make a sweeping statement
that Bush is the consciousness of America. That is a simplification. He is the President
of the United States. He is a Republican and his thoughts and values are imbued by
everything America stands for and what the Republican Party stands for, etc. Now
when we look at a tree, what do we see?
Student: What we think we see in the tree.
Dr. Hora: That?s right. We see our own thoughts about the trees, and they can be
as varied as people vary. There is a spiritual interpretation of nature, which includes
trees, and also people and animals, that everything on the planet earth is a symbolic
structure pointing towards God-except a rotten tree. Anything healthy, anything beautiful,
anything that uplifts the spirit is a symbolic structure pointing toward God. Now
you asked about seeing or the question of eyesight?
Student: Well, there are thoughts about eyesight with me, but also about right seeing.
That was where we started in the beginning, and I need to learn about right seeing.


Dr. Hora: We have the prayer of right seeing: ?Everything and everyone is here for
God whether they know it or not.?
What is everything? Trees, art, monuments, houses, dogs and cats, life forms, all
kinds of values. Everything is
here for God in a symbolic way. Now what Metapsychiatry teaches is a direct awareness
of God and of ourselves in the
context of God. This is where fulfillment can be found, when we find that we are
all individual aspects of infinite mind,
which is God; and to the extent that we can understand this, we have transcended
the world. Because God is life and life
never dies and anyone who knows himself as being an inseparable aspect of infinite
mind also knows that he can never die.
And that reminds us of what Jesus said, ?I am the resurrection and the life; he that
believeth in me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die? (John
11:25). So that?s it. As far as having
good eyesight, it is very important to see clearly what life is and what life isn?t
and that helps the eyesight.
In studying Metapsychiatry, some students discover that their eyesight improves to
such a point that they are able to
discard their glasses. Many miraculous things happen here; yet nobody brags about
it. But every time we become a little
more grateful or humble, a little more spiritually minded, something good happens. It is amazing.


Student: Dr. Hora, this past year there has been a lot of destruction when it comes
to weather. Now the floods in Mississippi and you know the whole Midwest and earlier
storms during the winter and in thinking about it, you watch one disastrous news
thing after another and you can?t help but wonder. I mean it seems like we go from
one disaster to another and it?s affecting so many. And it?s devastating for those
that are ...
Dr. Hora: How could we improve this situation?
Student: It has got to be that some kind of mental climate has to change.
Dr. Hora: Right. What did Jesus say about the weather bureau? (laughter) He said
the Kingdom of God will come when the inside will be outside and the outside will
be inside. (From, I think, the Gospel According to Thomas, The Gnostic Sayings of
Jesus) That?s when the Kingdom of God will be here. And everything will be permanently
harmonious. Do you believe that? What did he mean by saying, ?When the inside will
be outside and the outside will be inside??


Student: Does it mean, when a man realizes that what he experiences is a
consequence of his thoughts.
Dr. Hora: Right. It is not just a consequence; it is the thoughts. For it says when
we experience storms it means that we are involved with thoughts, stormy thoughts,
conflict, fears, aggression, hatred, jealousy, right? And everything we experience
is according to our thoughts, individually and collectively.
Student: I am not clear about that. In a city racked with tornados, or a major storm
like a hurricane, I assume that not everybody in the city is in a mental state of
turmoil. Yet everybody in the city is affected by the storm. How does that work?
Are innocent people affected as well?
Dr. Hora: Sure. Do you remember the story of Noah? What does the story of Noah tell
us about the weather, or floods? What does it say? Do you know the story of Noah?
(Gen. 6?9).
Student: I guess a little bit.
Dr. Hora: Tell us what you do know.
Student: I just know that he was told to build a boat.
Dr. Hora: You already have the boat and in the Mississippi there are floods. So you
didn?t fix it. Do you think these are irrelevant stories in the Bible, or do they
have some actual relevancy to daily experience?
Student: I thought that you were going to tell us the story about the ten righteous
men. I don?t recall the specifics of the

story. Something about the city was saved or would be saved if you could
find one righteous man (Eccles. 9:15).
Dr. Hora: Yes. Did they find him? Student: I think so.
Dr. Hora: In Noah?s time there was a lot of pornography and prostitution and killings
and murders and sexual excesses. The whole community was demoralized and they turned
away from the truth of God. And the result was that the whole area was completely
flooded and everybody died. Only Noah?s family survived and some of the animals that
he took into the boat survived. Now this tells us something. The mental climate was
corrupt and people were self righteous and aggressive and cursing and crime prevailed
and disaster followed. Because what is outside is inside and what is inside is outside.
Now we cannot do very much with what is outside but we can improve what is inside.
How is that? You see when 2 and 2 is 4 then 2 million and 2 million will be ... can
you calculate?
Student: Without a computer?
Dr. Hora: Four million. So it is very important to work on behalf of God, which means
to help the world individually and in small groups or larger groups to realize the
importance of right understanding of God. We are not just helplessly sitting by.
It is possible to improve the situation by focusing our attention on infinite mind.
As Einstein told us, the divine mind is the harmonizing principle of the universe.
We start out with our individual problems, and as we grow in understanding we become
beneficial presences in the world in proportion to how well we have learned to assume
responsibility for our thoughts.

People usually ask, ?What can we do?? What should we do? What is to be done?
There are tremendous problems in the world. In Tokyo they are having problems and
in The Bronx. But Jesus put it very simply. He had a way of putting it right on the
line. What is inside is outside and what is outside is inside.
Student: So, when we see these reports ... but I don?t see how... if the news constantly
creates more fear by ?oh they expect another swelling of water and more rain,? people
can?t help but be in a panic. We can see it in our consciousness and we can come
to realize that it is a manifestation of invalid thoughts.
Dr. Hora: Yes.
Student: And that is all that we can do.
Dr. Hora: Yes. I know a man who had to go to a doctor for an insurance physical exam.
During the examination the doctor took his blood pressure and said it is alarming
how high your blood pressure is. Your blood pressure is alarmingly high. So what
happened? He got alarmed. He got so alarmed that his blood pressure continued to
shoot up. And then the doctor said, ?Well, this is what we are going to do about
it. I?ll give you a blood pressure machine and twice a day you are going to measure
your blood pressure and write it down on a piece of paper and then you will bring
it to me after a few weeks.?
Student: Torture.
Dr. Hora: And we will see how the blood pressure is affecting you and what we can
do. And certainly every time he measured his blood pressure it was worse and worse
and worse and

he was living with fear all this time. I don?t know what happened later on. He was
probably given some drugs. And the drugs say this ? all drugs are listening to St. Paul?s
principle. What is St. Paul?s principle? ?The good which I would I do not; but the evil
which I would not, that I do? (Rom. 7:19). This is St. Paul?s principle. And that?s how
things work on an individual basis and on a collective basis and with the great blessings
of technological progress with which we can communicate with millions of people
instantaneously. We don?t have to go from community to community in Mississippi and scare
people by saying, ?Listen, there will be a flood,? because it?s time already to have a flood.
So everybody gets the bad news right away. We have the great privilege through the blessings of
technological progress to get alarmed collectively at the same time. That?s the way it works.
Alarmed. We have to be alarmed. I understand that goes with everything. The stock
market goes up and
people get enthusiastic. The next day it goes down and people get alarmed. They run here and they
run there investing and disinvesting. I like to listen to these financial advisors; no matter what
the situation, they always end up saying but it?s a good time to buy stocks. Right? Invariably
they wind up recommending stocks to buy. This is a good opportunity to buy and people buy and
then they sell. That?s the way it is. And everyone lives in fear that doesn?t understand
the teachings of
Jesus. Whether you?re a financier or whatever you are, if you do not understand,
then you live in fear.
And the Bible says, ?Fear not little flock, for it is your Father?s good pleasure
to give you the kingdom?
(Luke 12:32). Would you believe this? Would anyone believe it that God is giving
us the kingdom? What
is this kingdom? In the kingdom of God, nobody has to be afraid. There is

peace, assurance, gratitude and love. ?For the earth shall be full of the
knowledge of the Lord,
as the waters cover the sea? (Isa. 11:9).
Student: What does that mean?
Dr. Hora: Well, when the truth of God?s reality will be known throughout the world
then there will be peace and freedom. There will be no fear and no gnashing of teeth.
Somewhere in the Bible there is this phrase ?gnashing of the teeth? (Matt. 8:12).
But don?t tell it to a dentist because he will say you need implants right away,
or root canal.
There are some of these pharmaceutical advertisements that are fantastic. There
are two young, beautiful, healthy, teenage girls and one says, ?I have a headache.?
The other says right away, ?Take two, take two.? What two? Two Anacin tablets, two,
right away. She was all prepared with medical advice. She knows what to do if you
have a headache. Nobody asks the question what is this headache all about. No, the
remedy is quickly to take two. There are many such advertisements, which are very,
very funny. Except when they are disgusting because they intimidate people.
There is a funny thing going on now. We have heard a great deal about the shortage
of doctors. There is a shortage of doctors. People are standing in line to get an
appointment and they live in fear they will not be able to get medical help. And
you open the papers and especially the professional papers and it is full of advertisements
about doctors in groups, which have wonderful new equipment and they can help you
right away. Now there is a surplus of available medical help because they expect
that changes will take place throughout the health care systems and they want to
get in on the bonanza. The

bonanza consists of the people who will be rushing to sign up with doctors
and get insurance in case there will
be a shortage. The public is being intimidated about the shortage of doctors and
the doctors are constantly being
encouraged to advertise. How do these doctors advertise? They advertise, ?We have
a new machine for hemorrhoids.
Immediate help is available.? Also there is laser surgery and all kinds of things.
As a medical man, I have never heard
of these diseases they come up with that they are advertising as instantly available.
You can have miracle cures with all
kinds of technological things. Today I saw an advertisement that says, ?I am a noninvasive
surgical specialist.
I specialize in noninvasive surgery. You don?t have to be afraid. You just come to
me and I will fix it.? What?s
going on? They know that people are afraid of the invasive manner in which they are
making tests and here is a guy
who is asking for more patients, more business and advertising himself as a noninvasive
surgeon. And the New York Times
has an article that for a long time people went to a doctor and the doctor wanted
to help the patient out of the
goodness of his heart. And then there came a time when the doctors wanted to show
their diagnostic abilities, that they
could find the most fantastic diseases that nobody ever thought of. So first it was
the patient who was the focus.
Then the sickness was the issue. But now we have made so much progress that neither
the patient nor the sickness matters.
What matters now is procedure. Doctors are interested in procedures. What does that
mean? They want to do something to
you because that?s where the insurance money comes from. Diagnosis doesn?t matter.
The human being doesn?t matter.
The opportunity for procedures is what is important. So you go to a doctor and he
wants to figure out how could I
find a way to

justify my eagerness to make a procedure because that?s where the money is.
It?s a terrible, terrible situation and I don?t know how this is going to end up.
But people are very upset, very fearful and justifiably so. You have the ethical
standing of doctors now on the level of used car salesmen.
One of our friends here went on a vacation and said, ?Before I go on my vacation
I am going to have a check up.? Smart people recommend this. An intelligent person,
before he goes on vacation goes to the doctor for a check up just in case something
is wrong, right? Reasonable. So she went to a doctor who found nothing. But he said,
?Now let?s try a blood test.? He takes her blood, looks under a microscope and says,
?There is something strange about the platelets in the blood.? Do you know what platelets
are? They are really insignificant. They are for clotting; they?re responsible for
clotting. And he said, ?Well, when you come back from the vacation we will have to
look into these platelets.? The patient started to be worried about these platelets
and I was hearing about these platelets for weeks on end and her endless worrying.
So she got another test, another examination about the platelets in her blood. And
so, again, they found nothing wrong with her platelets. And then something went wrong
with her pocketbook. $300 for a visit to the platelets specialist who discovered
that there was nothing wrong with the patient. By this time she was probably glad
to pay the $300 and make an end to the platelets business. That?s the way things
are done today. So next time you go for a check up leave your platelets at home.
(laughter) Every time I hear people tell me they went for a check up they come back
with something. There is a man who went for a check up and they couldn?t find anything
and

they kept reassuring him, ?Don?t worry, we?ll find something.? (laughter)
Student: How do we know when we?ve reached the point where we don?t have to go for a checkup?
Dr. Hora: Is there anything in the American constitution, by the founding fathers
of the United States of America that
we have to go for a check up? If in Czechoslovakia people go for checkups, I would
be surprised. But you cannot say to
somebody go or don?t go. Nobody can say that. We have to assume responsibility for
having an open mind and trying to
understand our situation in life and making our decisions on the information we gather
somehow. So when we speak about
this, we don?t say don?t go to the doctor; neither do we say go to the doctor. We
say, ask your advisor. Who is our
advisor? Divine love is our advisor. Divine love always tells us what we need to
know provided we have learned to hear
its voice. If we have not learned to hear its voice, we have to listen to all kinds
of other advice and that can be
frightening sometimes. ?He that hath an ear, let him hear... ? (Rev.2:7). This is
such a mystical saying, isn?t it?
How are the platelets?
Maybe I didn?t tell you the whole quotation. ?The kingdom of God will come when
the inside will be outside and the outside will be inside and the two shall be one?
(The Gnostic Gospel According to Thomas, Log 22).
Student: So we come to realize that we are divine consciousness.
Dr. Hora: Exactly.
Student: So we are not invalid or valid, but divine.

Dr. Hora: Yes. What does it mean that the two shall be one?
Student: Rather than being separate, rather than our experiences in our life being
separate from our thoughts; our thoughts determine our experiences; they are our
experiences. They are not independent entities that occur without each other.
Dr. Hora: Well, if we look at ourselves and at others from a human standpoint, according
to appearances, we see that everyone is a bag made of skin. And in this bag there
are all kinds of junk and this bag contains all kinds of thoughts and these thoughts
can be expressed outwardly. See? We have the impression that we are thinking inside
and we are expressing these self-generated thoughts from the inside to the outside
and this is our life. If you are successful in expressing your insides on the outside
and you manage your life somehow to work, then you say, ?Well, my thoughts have helped
me to manage my life in a certain way due to my expressing to the outside what is
inside.? Now of course Jesus says that?s not really so. It just seems that way. Actually
all is one. The Bible says, ?Hear oh Israel: The Lord our God is one God? (Deut.
6:4). What does that mean? It means that all there is anywhere in the universe is
the divine mind, infinite mind, consciousness. There is no inside, no outside. There
is wisdom, there is love, there is beauty, there is goodness, there is freedom, there
is joy and there are cats and dogs. But all is one. Consciousness is all there is.
And our lives seem to be oriented towards becoming acquainted with the reality of
consciousness. So all will be one. We just have to learn to be aware of God as the
harmonizing principle of the universe.

Student: This reminds me of the comment from Zen: form is formlessness and
formlessness is form. Isn?t that the same idea?
Dr. Hora: Yes.
Student: Because at that point, it?s non-dimensional. What you?re saying is that all is one.
Dr. Hora: Jesus said that. Imagine if everybody could understand this. Here comes
the teacher upon the world scene and he gives us this information. The inside is
outside, the outside is inside, and all is one. And then he says, ?I am come that
they may have life and that they might have it more abundantly? (John 10:10). So
if we listen to his teachings and gain some understanding there will be abundance
of good in the world. And many of these sayings are oriented to help the human race
to find goodness in life and health and freedom and wisdom. But this teacher was
a unique teacher. He didn?t waste one word ever in his teaching. Whenever he said
something, it was an utterance. No ifs and buts. He just uttered the truth appropriate
to the occasion. That?s a unique teacher, an existential teacher who doesn?t talk
too much. At one point he said, ?Love not the world, neither the things that are
in the world for he that loveth the world, the love of the Father is not in him?
(1 John 2:15).
That reminds me, I was watching television a few days ago and on one of these
talk shows they had two rabbis. Hassidic rabbis. They were sitting in black hats
and there were parents there, and they all were having troubles with their children.
They asked these rabbis what about your children and they said, ?Our children have
no problems; they have no contact with the world. We have no television. They don?t
listen to the

radio. They just live in the context of our religion and laws of our religion.
And the children are happy and very healthy and the families have no problems.? They
are so-called ?observant Jews.? The parents asked them if they missed the television,
the radio, rock and roll. Don?t they want these things? Oddly enough, those children
are not interested in these things and they are never sick; they have no family crises.
And, standing out in the group of families who were all having all kinds of problems
with their children were these two guys in their black hats, who come up and say
we haven?t had any problems with our children.
So, what is one to think about this? They have an ethical code which is five thousand
years old and has not been perverted or contaminated by technological problems. Of
course these are the rabbis and they have a value system that has worked through
the ages. To us they seem to be sort of obscure and outdated but nevertheless in
the context of their community it works by the sheer avoidance of the world. So Jesus
said, ?Love not the world or the things that are in the world. For he that loveth
the world, the love of the Father is not in him? (1 John 2:15). It was a very strange
saying. Jesus said, ?Don?t love the world.? Here the great lover says don?t love
the world. It really means don?t swallow any kind of value the world is throwing
at you. But the world says you have to keep up with the Joneses and you have to be
hip; if you are not in you are out, yes? You have to conform to the world; otherwise
you are a failure. And then the Bible says, ?Be not conformed to this world, but
be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good,
and acceptable, and perfect, will of God? (Rom. 12:2).

Student: Dr. Hora, in that other passage it says we are in the world but not
of it. Is it even possible for us to leave the world?
Dr. Hora: We don?t leave the world; we just refuse to buy it. Student: Because we are in it.
Dr. Hora: No, if you go to Bloomingdale?s, do you have to buy everything they are
selling? No. Do you have to go gaga over the lingerie or whatever? We are in the
world but not of it. And even if something is very popular you don?t have to buy
it. You can see it and you can be aware of the fact that many of the values that
are being offered to us in very clever ways are existentially invalid. We don?t have
to buy it. Now suppose there is a famous psychotherapist in California and he has
come up with an ingenious way of helping his patients by arranging for them to have
their group sessions in a swimming pool naked. It sounds very exciting, no? You don?t
have to buy it, right? They are actually doing this in California.
The famous guru Ragneesh started his work in this country in Oregon. He had special
groups where people were raping, beating, and fighting with each other. And he recommended
that people go through the experience of being abused psychologically and physically
and sexually. And they even photographed it. And Ragneesh said this is good. You
have to go through this experience. But there were many people who got very excited,
thinking that this would be an interesting experience. Even one of our friends was
initially very tempted to go there and be exposed to these carnal kinds of orgies
that he had there. I think later on they stopped it because it was such a dangerous
temptation. But you see that when you are in the world and you love the world, you
long

for what?s in this world and you can really go very far on the road to self-destruction.
So don?t be surprised when Jesus said, ?Love not the world or the things that are
in the world.?
Student: Is that what it means that you can?t serve two masters? Is that the idea,
that if we love the world then that is a kind of master to us. Then we are not loving
God, which is the real master? There is a biblical passage that says we can?t serve
two masters because if we serve one then we hate the other. I was trying to understand
it.
Dr. Hora: Well, it is very clear that you can?t worship two gods. But this is more
than that. You can say, well, I don?t worship two gods, I only worship one and that
is pornography or something like that. Now, do you think God is squeamish and He
doesn?t like it if you are engaged in certain value systems? It?s not that God is
not interested; it means that God?s value system, the spiritual system of existentially
valid values cannot help you because you are interested in what is not valid. So
the good of God is not available to you because you are ignoring it. It?s always
available if you sincerely turn to those values and rearrange your life to conform
to what is healthy and intelligent. But this is not a matter of competition between
God and man. It?s just that if we are distracted we don?t benefit from the presence
of God because we are turning our backs on God.
Student: Dr. Hora, is there any kind of healthy interaction if interaction is two
people sitting and talking to each other?
Dr. Hora: There is neither healthy nor unhealthy interaction. It just ain?t. It?s
an emotion. It doesn?t exist. There is only omni-action, which means God is the only
activating power

of all that is real and good in the whole universe. It?s the grid. Do you
remember the grid? Einstein came up with this idea that the grid indicates the curvature
of the universe. Which is just another way of saying God governs. The whole universe
is under divine control and power. Of course normally we don?t see it. He was able
to make a statement about it because he had figured it out mathematically with paper
and pencil. That this grid is responsible for what we see as gravitation. Now I was
always, from childhood on secretly hoping that someone would figure out a way of
eliminating gravity and we could float and fly and get around like Jesus did. You
know, he could transport himself instantaneously from one place to another. Well,
this far Einstein has not yet come. We have to be satisfied with a phone line.
Student: Did Jesus actually transport himself?
Dr. Hora: I was watching him do it. (laughter) Well, look here. Today we have television
and instantaneously we can see what is happening in Tokyo. Isn?t that fantastic?
Not that this is spiritual, but the idea of the possibility of overcoming time and
space is indicative of the direction in which humanity is moving.
Student: But is the idea that enabled television to do what it does, a spiritual idea?
Dr. Hora: The ideas come from the divine Mind and the human tendency is to destroy
it and to pervert it. Every good idea that comes to us from the divine Mind sooner
or later gets perverted to serve the devil.

Student: So how do you keep it pure so that it doesn?t get perverted?
Dr. Hora: Well, we have a teacher sent from God. His name was Jesus Christ. He told
us what is pure, what is good and what is true. In Metapsychiatry, we speak of what
is existentially valid.
Student: When two people are having an argument we say it looks as if it?s interaction.
And you say there is no interaction. What is going on here?
Dr. Hora: Nothing, absolutely nothing. There are two people participating in an illusion
of personal mind power. And there is no such thing. All action is derived from the
divine Mind. And all wisdom and truth and love and energy come from the divine mind.
So when we say there is only omni-action everywhere we make a statement about the
nature of divine reality. Infinite mind, which Einstein called the grid, governs
everything that really is. Human perceptions are inaccurate, twisted, and pervert
everything that is from God and good because we don?t perceive the truth with our
sensory equipment and with our intellect. We are unable to perceive God and God?s
universe. It is only through cultivating another faculty that God is available to
us if we are interested. Anybody who is interested can cultivate this faculty of
spiritual awareness. And this is the avenue through which we can know the truth of
God and the wisdom and the love that God is. So we always focus attention on what
is, rather than on what should be or what shouldn?t be, or what (what is the name
of that Sufi comedian?) Nasrudin said. Do you all know of Nasrudin? He is a very
interesting fellow. But we will have to talk about him another time.


Student: Dr. Hora, before I came to see you on Sunday I was going to use a different
car to drive to your house and the battery was dead. So I used the other car and
I came and saw you, and then I went home and later on that day I went outside and
there was a dead mouse.
Dr. Hora: A dead mouse. Not a dead bird but a dead mouse.
Student: Then I started thinking to myself, ?Well, the battery is dead, and the mouse
is dead, and I really don?t know what the meaning of it is.? I do know that I spoke
to my mother (laughter) on Sunday before I saw the dead mouse. I am just saying it
this way because I think it might help to understand the meaning. The moment I heard
her voice I knew that she was desperate for consolation. I guess that would be the
right word. You know she is still very upset about her car accident and she is afraid
to drive, and I guess she wants me to worry about her. That?s what she wants, but
I didn?t think that I was worrying. I was aware that she was very needy, and I listened
and I tried to pray. So I don?t know if that is related to the needing. I really
don?t know what the meaning is.
Dr. Hora: Does anybody know? Do you know?


Student: The only thing that comes to mind is what you told me before when I described
an incident where I saw a dead bird but it was someone else?s meaning. You said it
was based on interaction thinking. So I guess it has to be the same. It is some kind
of interactive thought that must be taking place between her and her mother. I am
not sure what that thought is but the battery went dead before she spoke to her mother.
(laughter) Mother is always with us, right?
Student: Is it the idea that if she lets go of her mother there is a sense of death
for one of them? Somehow it has to be connected with the idea that one of them has
to die.
Dr. Hora: What do you think (addressing the original questioner) ?
Student: These people use the expression: ?You are killing me.? It?s an expression.
Student: It does seem that as long as the attachment between my mother and I exists,
I have no freedom, and in that sense, I feel dead.
Dr. Hora: You feel dead?
Student: Many times I have said to you, ?There is somebody here.? It is as if I don?t
know who I am, and there is somebody who wants to break free, but it just doesn?t
seem possible.
Dr. Hora: To break free is not possible?
Student: Right. And to that extent, I am dead. Dr. Hora: Yes.


Student: When one individual is under the domination of another?s thoughts, there
is no freedom at all. There can?t be. It?s impossible. When we are attached to something,
I guess we can cherish it, hate it and fear it at the same time. There has to be
a turning of attention over to God so that we can get closer to God and sort of get
further away from our attachment. I guess there is no other solution than that.
Student: When I first came to you, Dr. Hora, many years ago, I could not leave my
family, my mother and father. I was sure they would die if I left. There was no doubt
in my mind that?s what would happen and I could not leave them, and then I did and
my mother and father got along much better. (laughter) It was such a shock to point
out that they were really happier when I left, and there was less arguing between
them, but it took me a long, long time to leave. I think that death thing is always
there. If you think you are keeping someone alive by being attached to them, then
you are sure they are going to die if you detach yourself.
Dr. Hora: So then the problem is this: When we see this phenomenon, we know that
phenomena are thoughts, and they come to us when we find coexistence as robbing us
of our lives, our freedom. Life is freedom and interestingly, many people have these
experiences where they see somebody die, or somebody is about to die, or somebody
is escaping from some accident. So the precariousness of life always comes into focus
in one way or another, and Freud believed that there is a force of death called Thanatos.
It?s a Greek word for the God of death. A preoccupation with death can have a disguised
form in terms of all kinds of thoughts, like dead car batteries or dead birds. People
are involved in symptoms of


hatred. Inexplicable thoughts of hatefulness all leave signs, but the best way to
think of it is that we have a thought that we are not really free and we don?t know
that freedom is possible as long as certain people are in our proximity or we are
involved in interacting with people. As an example, one of our members in the group
went through a period of about four weeks of severe pain in the body. All these things
are discordant thoughts revolving around the issue of freedom. So people who love
each other and want to be close to each other also feel that situation as an enslavement
of some kind and we are robbed of our freedom.
Freud spoke about the death wish: the wish to be dead for oneself or for somebody
else. So when you love somebody, you also hate them, and you may be preoccupied mentally
with such aggressively hostile thoughts, and then you don?t want to know about it
because it is not nice, right? It is important not to be afraid of it and confront
it because it is altogether human. For unenlightened people it is impossible to love
somebody without hating them and the more passionately we love somebody, the more
we are inclined to hate them, and we are not aware of it emotionally. We can become
aware of it in terms of symbolic images which occur mostly when we are asleep. In
our sleep we can hate people, because we can say I don?t have this dream. This is
not my dream. I don?t hate anybody. I love my mother, my sister, my father. I love
everybody, just like the Bible says we have to, right? So the recommendation here
is, don?t be afraid of the truth. Don?t deny it. Don?t brag about it. Face it. It
is a human condition. It is really nothing. In the final analysis, it is nothing
because only God is reality and these symptoms


are just dreams. Suppose you are dreaming that your loved one is dying, or is dead
or is going to die? What if you would like him to die? It is really nothing. It is
just something that you have come to believe, and that it is not nice. It is not
nice to have such thoughts and people are afraid of them and they don?t dare to face
them. Consequently, you remain enslaved to the idea that you are a vitally important
person who must maintain the status quo. If you hate somebody in the family, you
have to convince yourself it is not true and that you really love them. So people
struggle with all kinds of symptoms. Every night there is another ache and pain here
and there. You are just struggling against Thanatos, the death wish towards someone
you are supposed to love.
This is particularly clear when a loved one has died and you are left mourning
and grieving and the grief has to be deep and public and noticeable because the measure
of your love is in terms of the intensity of your grief. When somebody is grieving,
people say how he loved her or how she loved him, how much love there was in this
marriage. But the fact is that besides God, there is nothing, and we have to face
the fact that on the human level we cannot love, because we want too much for ourselves.
How can we love somebody if we want something from them? So, don?t be afraid to face
the truth that the human being is completely corrupt, and that is how you can set
yourself on the path of liberation. We hear so much between husband and wife, friends
and enemies. People develop these negative involvements where they claim that they
are loving and actually find in their dreams that they are wishing them to drop dead.
So nobody loves anybody. God is Love and that is sufficient. St. Paul complained


to God that he had a thorn in his side and it wasn?t going away, that it wasn?t getting
healed. He said, ?What should I do?? and God said: Nothing, ?my grace is sufficient
for thee? (2 Cor. 12:9). So we are left with the reality of God?s infinite, loving
presence and everything then disappears. We can sleep better at night. It took me
two years to sleep through a night. It is inevitable. Everybody gets it sooner or
later. But if you know that this is nothing to be ashamed of, neither to be proud
of, nor be afraid of, then you look at it face to face and see that this is not reality.
This is self-preoccupation. It doesn?t have to be. We have to let go of it to recapture
our freedom.
Student: On the human level, if we love someone, we enslave them.
Dr. Hora: Sure.
Student: I spoke to a mother last year who told me at a parent conference how much
she loved her children. She went on and on about how she devoted herself to them.
They are her whole life. She loves them and then she says ?but every summer I send
them to California because I need some freedom.? (laughter) That sounded so ridiculous,
but now it really makes sense.
Dr. Hora: You get hooked on this idea that we can love humanly in an unadulterated
fashion, and we are responsible for being loving all the time even toward our enemies.
?Love thine enemies,? says the Bible. Bless them that curse you, do good to them
that hate you, and blame yourself for whatever happens. (laughter)


Student: What does that mean to love your enemies? I guess it means what you said
before that the only love there is is that God is Love.
Dr. Hora: In the final analysis, God says that 2,000 years from now you will find
out that there is no interaction anywhere; there is only omni-action everywhere.
If you understand this principle, it will shorten the period of mourning.
Student: Everything you said sounds very much like compassion. You are saying you
don?t judge and you don?t blame. But how is one to work with this idea? I know it?s
only a thought, this phenomenon, this emotion. It seems that that is what ties people
in. The emotion seems to be the logical compassion, yet then you might be feeling
that it?s not me. But I am feeling her pain, her suffering, her loneliness and I
know I go through this too. In other words, how do you cut that off because you feel
like you?re responsible and it?s very tricky?
Dr. Hora: Just because you feel something is no proof of its reality. So don?t kid
yourself. Many people think that because I feel this and I feel that then that?s
for real. Fortunately we understand that feelings and emotions are just thoughts.
Thoughts can come to us on the level of feelings, emotions and insights. It is all
in the domain of feelings because nothing is really real except the truth. Truth
is not an emotion. It is a thought and we have to learn not to be afraid of thoughts
and not to exaggerate their importance. There is just the deceptive human consciousness.
So we must not overestimate the importance of thoughts or feelings and emotions.
Thoughts are the all important factor in life, and if we understand thoughts, we
do not become enslaved by emotions. I feel. We always talk


about how somebody makes us feel, or how an event made me feel so bad. I felt so
bad. We like to talk about our feelings, and it is just self-confirmatory ideation,
as you know. You cannot be free as long as you are enslaved by your emotions or feelings
or memories. We take notice that we had this dream, this horrible dream about two
birds dying on the rooftop. You didn?t create these birds and you are not responsible
for their lives. We don?t have to make a federal case out of these dreams or somebody
else crying. If we are truth oriented, then we cannot deceive ourselves.
Student: On the other hand, as a parent, it appears as if we are responsible for
the suffering or whatever of our children. I don?t know whether I stifle thoughts
of remorse over the mistakes I have made in the past; when these thoughts come up
I don?t know whether I am stifling these thoughts or healing these thoughts.
Dr. Hora: You are celebrating in a negative way. If we exaggerate the importance
of our feelings and emotions we are only celebrating ourselves.
Student: Would that be the same as confirming ourselves? Dr. Hora: Yes.
Student: I can?t seem to go beyond the idea that if somehow I were healthier early
on, that perhaps the children would not have to go through unnecessary difficulties.
Dr. Hora: You are a healthy parent. You are helping your children to cope with this
crazy life better than without you. Through ignorance we get involved in unnecessary
suffering.


Student: He is not responsible. Every parent does the best he or she can at the level
that they are at. The children still have to grow up in the human world. They still
have to go through the problems. There is very little a parent can do or so it seems.
Dr. Hora: Can you stop the birds from flying over your head?
Student: Children have to experience those things so that they can grow up.
Dr. Hora: It is not necessary but inevitable, right? If you take your emotions seriously,
you are going to be enslaved the rest of your life to the thoughts which gave rise
to those experiences. Now are we intending to be ruthless and callous? Don?t you
feel sorry for those little birds? (laughter)
Student: The thought that helps many times is that everything is here to teach us
something. We are here to constantly learn so whether it?s a dead bird or a dead
mouse or mistakes we made with our children or parents, these are all lessons for
us to transcend in a spiritual way.
Dr. Hora: We are here for our edification.
Student: And it seems that if we are willing to give up this self-confirmatory element
of feeling badly, then somehow something good seems to happen, right? With the example
I gave you over the weekend, it seemed had I accepted the thoughts that were present,
I would have been stuck with all that. But by being able to turn away, I said there
has got to be something better. This can?t possibly be my context because there is
something else. I was freed of that and it seemed it could have only happened if
there was somewhere else to go.


We have some place else to go. So the issue is everything is here for us to learn from.
Dr. Hora: There is a story about Suzuki. He is not a bicyclist. He was a Zen master,
a Zen teacher. There were many people dying such as now in the Bosnian involvement,
and people were asking him, ?What does Zen have to offer us to cope with this horrendous
war criminal situation?? It was a terrible situation and he didn?t show the slightest
concern. He may have said it is regrettable, but he wasn?t getting involved in the
hysteria of the concern for the tragedies that were happening in every direction.
As for the Nazis in World War II, they couldn?t say he was an anti-Semite because
he wasn?t. He was a very healthy individual. More than that, he was an enlightened
man. They couldn?t get him to join the feelings of sorrow that had affected practically
everybody around the globe for what the Germans were doing. People didn?t understand
how an enlightened man can be so callous. Perhaps the Japanese have a national policy
of unconcern with the Jews in Germany, but he tried to explain that these personal
reactions are not part of the enlightened life based on reality. How could you explain
this to somebody who is involved, right? It is a difficult situation, and it took
a long time for students of Zen to understand that emotional reactions are dreams
and not reality, and they are not in any way an indication of being virtuous, of
being a good man or a bad man or a Nazi or a non-Nazi. He was not involved with the
emotionalism and the personal-ism of most people in those days, which was difficult
to understand. And slowly, slowly after a few years, we began to see that this is
a completely fruitless way of reacting to the situation. Nobody would benefit from
the tears of a


Nazi victim. Nothing is beneficial about it, and similarly after a while you can
see that everything is a dream no matter how much it hurts, no matter how terrible
it is for a human person to see this. It doesn?t help, and it is not a virtue to
be emotionally affected. We think in terms of emotionalism and we judge people by
the depth of their sorrow, and no matter how deep our sorrow is, it has absolutely
no value. In psychoanalysis, contrariwise, it was believed that the more sorrow you
can feel, the more deeply you can feel the tragedies of human experience, the healthier
you are. But unfortunately it doesn?t really work that way. Nobody gets enlightened
from being sorry or being involved with grief. As a matter of fact, in psychoanalysis
they exalted the idea of grief, because the more you experience grief, the idea is
that you get healed or you become a better human person because you can cry.
Student: Is regret different?
Dr. Hora: No, nothing personal is desirable. Student: Regret is also personal?
Dr. Hora: Yes. You neither regret nor not regret. You are living in reality, which
is a spiritual universe where there is no messing around with emotions. There is
no virtue in that. If you can do something about it, do it.
There was a time when Zen was new and we were reading about these Zen swordsmen,
the Samurai. We even saw a movie about them. They would kill each other, these Samurai,
at the drop of a hat. They would cut off somebody?s head without batting an eyelash.
We were all horrified. We asked ?How can that be?? After all, Zen is a very noble,
spiritual discipline. How can we look at this and say this is right, that


these Samurai are right in their activities? So, he said that a Samurai, an authentic
Samurai, may have killed a dozen people but he didn?t kill them personally. He said
that the nature of the Samurai swordsman is that he allows the opponent to impale
himself on his sword. Every time it happens, it is a suicide. They had a movie where
a Japanese peasant was provoked to dueling with another peasant but the one that
was provoked was a Samurai and the other was just a braggart who wanted to show off
in the village and he kept nagging him and nagging him and provoked him to come to
duel with him and this guy didn?t want to duel because he was afraid that this will
be the end of this braggart and he tried to explain to him, don?t ask me to do that
because I don?t want you to die. Well this guy showed up in the village and he insisted
that they should duel. It took such a long time that the Samurai had to chop wood,
and finally he said, ?All right, if you insist, but I am warning you, I am a well-trained
Samurai.? The other guy didn?t believe. He was like a braggart. So they got out and
faced up against each other and within two seconds the provocateur was dead and this
guy didn?t do anything. He just held his sword up and he said this is the way that
Samurai kill people. They let them impale themselves on the sword. It is unbelievable
but that is how it was. So that is the Japanese form of compassion. They allow you
to kill yourself.
Student: It sounds like evil destroys itself. You are even watching evil destroy itself.
Dr. Hora: Exactly. That is the whole idea. That is the philosophy of the Zen dualism
and the Samurai. But when the Japanese were provoking us in the United States, we
took


out a longer sword. It was an atomic sword and they got it bad, but that is the way
human existence is and that explains the Samurai. Then there were the kamikaze Samurai
who believed in committing suicide by piloting the planes directly into a ship. There
are various attitudes toward death. So if we see two little birds dead and the mouse
and a car battery, we don?t have to feel sorry. We just have to understand that these
are phenomena, which means they are appearances in which certain thought processes
are translated into events. We see the events with our eyes and we take it seriously
and we get sick because we don?t know how to cope with it.
Student: Is there such a thing as karma?
Dr. Hora: There are millions of Hindus who believe in karma but we are not involved
with that. We do not need to speculate about it, because unfortunately there are
different theories about it.
Student: Some people are born to be on suicide missions and others are happily living quiet lives.
Dr. Hora: There are those that are living quiet lives? The saying is ?lives of quiet
desperation.? (laughter)
Student: I can see how most of my life has been wasted, worrying or being sad.
Dr. Hora: You are a norm. (laughter)
Student: I can see clearly how we waste our life on worrying about a dead bird or
what somebody said to us and it kills all our joy. Seeing that is not enough of a
lesson. You forget


this lesson and go back to doing the same thing over and over again.
Dr. Hora: If you don?t understand what is happening to you that?s an unfortunate situation.
Student: I seem to mourn the appearance of a wasted life. How do we really look at
that within the context of reality?
Dr. Hora: Every day that we live in ignorance is a wasted life; therefore, we have
to hurry up (laughter) and become enlightened and that is what we are working on.
One of our friends has gone through about four weeks now of excruciating physical
pains in her body and this happened a few years ago to her in the same way. There
were excruciating pains in her body, and she was just complaining and complaining
and thinking that Metapsychiatry had let her down. Sometimes we go through periods
of severe pains until the meaning is clearly understood, and when the meaning has
been clearly understood, it sometimes makes us feel that we have been so naive that
we are embarrassed to admit it. Yet we cannot get healed until we face up to it openly,
quietly, and when it is clearly understood what the issues are, the problem disappears.
It can happen to all of us if we are careful about understanding the meaning of our
experience.
Student: If we are interested in true freedom, we have to purify our thought processes
regarding loved ones. Because if we are humanly in love, then the aspects of hate
are inevitable. and if you think that is going to keep you from freedom, it is inevitable
to have a death wish. That is all part of that whole context, right?


Dr. Hora: Right.
Student: So if we are truly interested in freedom, in the context of human love,
we are not responsible for the other individual. We just have to know that God is
available to them as God is available to us when we are moving away from them. So
whatever phenomena happen during that process, it is still just a phenomenon in that
context. We don?t have to be afraid of it. We can see a dead bird. We can see a dead
mouse. We can see a dead car. None of that really matters. The only real issue taking
place is that we are required to know that we are involved in the human context of
love and we need to move to the idea that God?s grace is sufficient.
Dr. Hora: Yes. There is a couple in Connecticut and the husband goes from one problem
to another-all kinds of problems-financial, emotional and physical and he has a nefarious
habit. He would nag his wife all the time, saying: ?If only you would change.? (laughter)
And no matter how many times this occurred, it went on and on and he wouldn?t listen
to the meanings. He wouldn?t consider the possibility of meanings, but insisted that
?if only you would change.?
Student: You said at the beginning of group that we all seem to have this notion
that we can have this unadulterated love affair and we can get it right. Therefore
we are involved in operationalism. There is a personal sense in there. Whether it
involves a parent or a brother, you have got to get it perfect. We seem to keep working
on it, working on it, working on it for years and it doesn?t improve. It just has
its own life, it seems. So to drop that it?s just a question of being


loving as you said. Being responsive, that?s the best way to be, understanding that
love is not something we can do.
Dr. Hora: Love is something we must be careful about. It is very easy to believe
that we love somebody, and we are nice people and good and all you have to do is
to get the other party to change and then you will be all right. So we suffer from
loving people. (laughter) Did you ever consider the fact that human love is an interaction
process, so actually it is dangerous to love somebody?
Student: What is a valid way to look at our spouse? (laughter) Dr. Hora: The best way is gratitude.
Student: For their presence, for their existence.
Dr. Hora: Right. If you can be grateful, then your love is genuine. If it is emotional,
it is very dangerous.
Student: How could I tell? What does that mean ? emotional?
Dr. Hora: If you are emotional, then you are thinking about how you feel about him
or her. It is a feeling issue.
Student: And the idea of gratitude is just appreciative of their existence.
Dr. Hora: You are praising the world for knowing such an individual that can share
life. Just praise the Lord.
Student: A sentence jumped out at me from a book I was just ruffling through which
said the more cheerfully we can hate our spouse, the better off we are. (laughter)
I thought it was very funny because what it said was that we take hatred as


well as love so very seriously, and if we can just be cheerful about it and watch
it go by, we are better off.
Dr. Hora: And where are we?
Student: Well, we are just not serious about emotions.
Dr. Hora: Seriousness of course is always dangerous. Somebody tells you I am in love.
You say to them, get out of here. (laughter)
Student: So is it valid to tell your spouse you love him if you appreciate him? (laughter)
Dr. Hora: It is not recommended. (laughter) Student: You sound like Dr. Ruth. (laughter)
Student: But hatred particularly has such as emotional impact. Just the word is very
frightening to people.
Dr. Hora: Many people are filled with hatred. Of course many people get sick over
this. It is not recommended. Neither to love nor hate but to be grateful and remember
that God is the only lover. God is the only love. So if we are grateful then love
is not personal or impersonal; it?s an awareness of God?s good and actually that
is really freedom.
Student: You are grateful for your parents?
Dr. Hora: You are grateful for whatever good comes to you in your experience, what
makes sense, what is intelligent, what is liberating. If we are conscious of being
grateful, we have no problems. Grateful people are free people. They don?t enslave
anybody; neither can they be enslaved by anybody and that is about the best.


Dr. Hora: Everybody has a chair with his name on it. (laughter) Isn?t that something?
What is attachment?
Student: Comfort.
Dr. Hora: It?s comfort? Student: Seemingly.
Student: Is that why we sit in the same chair every week, because we are attached to it?
Dr. Hora: You don?t ask why.
Student: I thought it was the fear of change, wanting everything to be the same, all the time.
Dr. Hora: Yes, Okay. So it?s the same. We get attached to persons, places, things
and ideas, right. You see that. That?s her chair. (laughter)
Student: We laughed at Archie Bunker. No one was allowed to sit in his chair, ever.
Dr. Hora: Then Meathead came along and put down the right stuff, the right shoe.
He broke the rules. This is attachment.
The Buddhists are very much afraid of attachment. They warn people not to
get attached to anything ever. What happens when we are attached? You see that it
is so widespread. Almost everybody has a tendency to form attachments as if we were
made of glue or flypaper or something.
Student: Attachment seems to be a form of wanting and being fearful of not being
associated with what we are involved with. Attachment is the fear of loss of that
to which we are attached.
Dr. Hora: We are afraid of freedom. Would you believe that? So we are always talking
about how great it is to be free. It?s a free country. We celebrate the idea of freedom,
but when it comes to living freely, it is not so easy. What makes us so fearful of
freedom?
Student: I think it means that you would have to be alone. As an individual, you
would have to stay solitary in order to be free.
Dr.: Hora: So?
Student: Going back to freedom. It sounds good on paper but it can be very scary
to have to be solitary. You know it sounds very nice when you read about it in booklets
and stuff.
Student: Do we know what freedom is?
Dr. Hora: Well we could ask the rabbi.
Student: Fear of the unknown?
Dr. Hora: It could be. On the other hand, it could not be.
Student: But isn?t it our idea of what we are? Because of the attachment that makes
us into what we think we are.

Dr. Hora: Like for instance, what?
Student: Like being president of a board and feeling that gives you a lot of personal
satisfaction. So that is an attachment.
Dr. Hora: An attachment to the board? Student: To the board, to that work.
Dr. Hora: Can we get attached to a board?
Student: Yes, because it gives you personal acclaim and it makes you feel good. Then
you are attached to it. At least I feel that I am attached to it.
Dr. Hora: You are just repeating words now. Put it this way. Who needs freedom? What
is the big deal about being free? We are so scared of it. Nobody really keeps it
in mind. Everybody always goes back to the same spot, to the same thing. We don?t
want to be free. On the other hand, if we are not free, we complain. Isn?t that so?
Student: It seems to have something to do with being able to let go. When you are
attached, you are hanging onto something, and if you can let it go you are free.
Dr. Hora: Is that so? There is a story about a philosopher who was a friend of a
king and they went on a walk in the garden, and they were talking about this thing
that we are talking about now. The king said, ?I have no problem with attachments.?
The philosopher at that point suddenly jumped up into a tree and climbed into the
branches and sat there, and the king became annoyed and said, ?Come on. Let?s continue
our lovely walk,? and the philosopher said, ?I cannot go. The tree won?t let me.?
He got attached to the tree, and he blamed

the tree for his being immobilized and imprisoned. We often complain about
people who enslave us or force us to stay here and not go there, right? Or they make
us eat with the left hand and not the right hand or insist that we have these habits
or that we be attached to all kinds of things in every direction. Every one of you
is sitting today in the same place that you have been sitting for ages, and there
is no freedom to sit somewhere else. Anybody who complains of not being free is ridiculous.
Nobody really wants to be free. Everybody wants to be imprisoned by habits.
Student: I don?t think they want to be imprisoned by habits. I think we just become
like a slave to the habit and the issue is safety. I don?t know if it?s so much that
I want it that way but that I feel scared to do it another way. It frightens me.
Dr. Hora: Yes, okay, so what are you saying? Just because you are scared, then it
is all right to be immobilized and to be attached? That?s how you explained it.
Student: You said we want to be.
Dr. Hora: Nobody is forcing you to sit there. Nobody is forcing everybody to sit
in the same place. But if you say people are scared, what do you mean?
Student: The habit feels safe and it?s scary to take another seat.
Dr. Hora: Okay, then it?s all right. Then it?s all right to be attached in life,
because if we are attached in the small things, then it is all right to get attached
in big things also. In existential situations, we are attached to a person, to a
thing, to a place, or to an idea. Are we attached because we are afraid to be free,
or are we afraid to be free because we are attached? Is

there anybody in the world who is free? Have you ever known anybody who was free?
There was a TV show. I think it was a Star Trek show where they had a man there
who was half white and half black. He was a very interesting fellow, but then after
a while another man appeared and he was also half white and half black. People thought
these are just brothers or something, but these two guys hated each other with a
violent passion and just wanted to murder each other. They couldn?t live on the same
boat. They would be asked how it is that they hate each other so much because one
is half white and half black and the other is half white and half black. ?Yes,? one
explained, ?but he is white on the wrong side.? That was disturbing for him. Then
we have these racial problems, these ethnic problems, wars and fights and all kinds
of difficulties in living, and it leaves no flexibility. It?s rigidity when we are
attached. Everything has to be the same, all the time. If you want to pick your nose,
you have to use the same finger. You don?t have the freedom to use another finger.
It can be absurd. It can go on and on, this human inclination toward forming attachments.
Now the enlightened Buddhist teachers knew about this curse on mankind. They warned
their students to be very alert not to fall into the trap of getting attached to
anything. It is not easy, but it is important. Why is it important? Sometimes we
are attached and we don?t realize it, and sometimes we are attached and we think
we are not attached. We just love somebody. Attachment can masquerade as love. I
love to be close. I love this individual. I love that house. I love this country.
We use the word love to cover up the fact that we

got ourselves imprisoned through a mental habit of attachment, and we are
afraid to be free. Can?t you be free while you are attached? There is nothing wrong
with the way we are sitting tonight. It is comfortable. We don?t realize that we
are in a state of attachment right now because we don?t have the flexibility to participate
in a situation with the slightest change.
Student: Does that mean that we are asleep and wouldn?t allow a new idea to come
in? Does our survival depend on us being free? Is it that crucial? I mean our actual
survival. If we don?t learn what freedom is and we don?t learn to be free of attachments,
is it really dangerous?
Dr. Hora: There are all kinds of dangers. Suppose an event occurs where you are forced
to change position or to separate yourself from something that you are attached to?
There are all kinds of things happening-political wars, natural disasters. People
sometimes have to flee from their homes, right? There are volcanic eruptions, families
are broken up, and people have to leave their habitual ways of living. Certain radical
changes are forced upon us, and we then are more or less incapable of coping with
them, and it is very painful. Whereas, if we would understand freedom, we would not
be so incapable. We would be able to cope much better in such situations.
It reminds me of a saying Jesus uttered, ?Foxes have holes, birds have nests,
but the son of man has no place to lay his head? (Luke 9:58). What did he mean? He
wasn?t complaining. It sounds like he was complaining. He never really complained.
He was always teaching, right? The teacher cannot complain. He has to teach. He is
attached to teaching.

Even animals get attached. Three or four deer always come to the same place
to graze near our house. There is nothing to graze. They don?t go to another place.
They always come back. They are attached to that particular spot.
Student: How can we live without attachment?
Dr. Hora: That is a good question. Somewhat premature, but first we have to understand
the meaning of attachment and then we can ask that question, right?
Student: It seems to me that if the things I am attached to weren?t there I would
have a great sense of void. That scares me. That void just seems like
Dr. Hora: Suppose you were attached to a habit of smoking and suddenly you cannot
smoke. It is forbidden. Did you see what compulsions, what suffering people go through
when their attachment to such a silly little thing, a piece of paper, tobacco and
blowing smoke, is taken away? (laughter) They cannot live without it, right? That
is attachment. Whatever we attach to is our God. The Bible warns us all the time
against idolatry. What is an idol? It is something that becomes unduly important
to us, giving us the illusion that our life depends on it, that we couldn?t survive
without it. Now I ask you, if you would change seats, would you survive a group session?
(laughter) We can contemplate the meaning of the human inclination to form attachments.
Student: Some attachments seem more innocuous than others.
Dr. Hora: That?s right. You are correct. But we can contemplate exploring the meaning
of the human inclination to form attachments.

Student: But it is also like what we cherish, what we hate and what we fear.
Many attachments are things that we hate.
Dr. Hora: Sure. A man says I hate this woman tremendously, but I couldn?t live without
her. (laughter) It is true more often than not. Have you ever heard of this? (laughter)
Student: It seems like our whole identity is based on our attachments. Our whole
sense of being and presence is what we are attached to. How can we easily give that
up?
Dr. Hora: Nobody is asking you to give it up. All that we are trying to do is understand
that we are too religious. The problem is that we are too religious. For some people,
religion is another word for an attachment to an idea and to a ritual, to a belief
system, to a superstitious preoccupation. We get attached, and to give up an attachment
is like dying. So Jesus said again, ?Whosoever would lose his life for my sake shall
find it? (Matt. 16:25). Freedom he defined as knowing the truth. The truth is God.
But I mean the real God, the God above the god, as the saying goes. We can only find
freedom when we understand that we are totally, inexplicably, individualized aspects
of infinite, divine life. Then our attachment to the real God, not the religious
system, but to God, makes it possible to be free. St. Paul said, ?I am the prisoner
of the Lord? (Eph. 3:1). If we understand what he meant, we would also be free. Because
if you understand God, then there is no more need for attachments; you are solidly,
securely positioned in reality. ?Commit thy ways unto the Lord, and thou shall be
established in true freedom? (Prov. 16:3). If we don?t understand God, if we don?t
understand who we are, and what we are and where we are, and what our purpose is,
then at

best we could become religious, and at worst become fanatical over some nonsense.
There are all kinds of groups of people who get attached to an idea, to a system,
to a ritual, to a superstition. It can be political or economic or all kinds of things.
Whenever you are attached to something, this something becomes your god, and it?s
always a false god. The real God you cannot get attached to. Isn?t that interesting?
You can get attached to almost anything in the world ?even to the wind. Your own
wind or somebody else?s. (laughter) You can get attached to that, but it is not possible
to get attached to the real God. How is that?
Student: This God is not something we can imagine. It is not dimensional.
Dr. Hora: You could imagine, but it is just imagination.
Student: It still isn?t so clear what the meaning is of the inclination to form attachments.
Dr. Hora: The meaning is that we judge by appearances. If we judge by appearances,
it would seem to be very important to cling to something, or someone, or some system,
or a place or an ideology. Who can live alone? Man cannot survive alone. He has to
be integrated with something viable. If we don?t understand God in an existentially
valid way, then we have no other choice but to reach out to cling to something that
is more tangible, something that we can see and feel, touch and fight with.
Student: This could get tricky because in society the world is based on order. So
what would be a guideline to check up on yourself? I mean compared with knowing that
what one

is doing essentially throughout his or her whole life is staying in the same
apartment and the same job. You know this type of routine that we set up. How do
you know when you are being orderly or when you might be fooling yourself? You can
say that this is just the system and I know what I am doing. But how do you wake
yourself up?
Dr. Hora: It would seem that if we are not attached to some system, then there would
be anarchy and chaos, right? In different periods of time, there are certain trends
in our culture where ignorant ideas take hold of people?s imagination, and they grab
hold of it and wind up in anarchy and chaos. We saw this with the flower children,
with all kinds of trends when people were reaching out. There were these cults, religious
cults and groupies that always wound up by breaking up and produced a lot of misery,
because you cannot replace God. You may have an illusion that there is order. Suppose
you are in the Army where there is terrific order-right? It doesn?t work, because
there is always something going wrong. On the other hand, if you are enlightened
about yourself in the context of the valid God, then your order is based on aesthetics
and love-intelligence, right usefulness, and everything you do is orderly, intelligent,
peaceful, harmonious and beneficial. An enlightened individual doesn?t have to be
controlled. He has an inner discipline derived from direct awareness of God as infinite
Love-Intelligence and that is freedom, and that is peace, and that is spiritual blessedness.
It?s a whole ?nother smoke.
Student: It seems as though attachment is a form of self-confirmation.

Dr. Hora: It feels like self-preservation. Sure. Freedom is precious, but
it is not easily realized.
Student: Let?s say you are working on a computer and you are very slow and it?s to
your advantage to work on a faster computer. The work would get done faster.
Dr. Hora: Because you are in a hurry. Student: I am always in a hurry.
Dr. Hora: Then you are attached to speed.
Student: Say you are paid by the hour and so they get you a new computer and it?s
fast and the work gets done much faster. But what has happened is that you get attached.
Dr. Hora: Yes, and after a while you seem very slow. (laughter)
Student: It seems to be better than the old system. It?s faster and the work is getting
done faster, but yet there is this attachment that has formed.
Dr. Hora: True. It?s like getting attached to a girl. She is wonderful, but not for
long. (laughter) She seems to be very slow. (laughter) That is what happens with
all these attachments. They don?t really work.
Student: Can you justify something in terms of it being supposedly more productive?
Dr. Hora: We appreciate productivity, and intelligent efficiency as long as we are
not attached to it. As long as our awareness of life and all there is in it, its
functions, is based and anchored in God. Because, after all, God is the supreme creative
principle of the universe, and whatever there is that

is beautiful, good, intelligent, useful, and harmonious is God manifesting
in this universe. We can appreciate that, but we do have to know that freedom is
a very precious commodity not easily attained and not easily preserved. We can lose
it. It is important to appreciate it in its true sense because very often freedom
deteriorates into license. For instance, say you want to be free to smoke in the
elevator, and you do it and you enjoy it. People are coughing and you enjoy it-right?
But how long will that go on? Then you are not fighting for freedom; you are fighting
for license, and everywhere we see that people who think they want to be free are
really not freedom fighters; they are license seekers. The politician said yes, we
will give you freedom for a certain fee. If you pay taxes, this kind of taxes, and
that kind of taxes, and social security-we live in a free country. We are hamstrung
with a thousand kinds of taxes they use.
About half a year ago they said, ?Yes, you have the freedom to practice as a doctor
provided you pay us $335 for the license and you spend a certain number of hours
in a certain hospital attending a course in child abuse.? I have had the freedom
for 47 years to be a doctor and now in order to preserve my freedom, I had to go
and attend certain stupid lectures about child abuse. (laughter) What did I learn
there? I learned that if I agree to having some suspicion that somebody is abusing
a child and if I say nothing about it to the police, I can be arrested and put into
jail. Isn?t that some freedom? You see how freedom can be perverted in a thousand
ways. Just like love. Now freedom is spiritual. There is no other kind of freedom.
There are just different arrangements, and licenses. You have to pay to get a license.
You have to do certain things. Human beings don?t know freedom. Only

spiritual beings know freedom. Fortunately we are all spiritual beings, and
all that is needed is to wake up to this fact and then everything changes.
Student: What was the meaning of man not having a place to lay his head?
Dr. Hora: He doesn?t need a place to lay his head. He doesn?t have to be somehow
implanted in a rigid situation. An animal keeps coming back to the same place, just
like people, but the spiritual consciousness doesn?t need to be attached to a place.
It is free, more free than a bird. Where would Jesus sit if he were in this group?
He said when two or three are gathered in MY name, I shall be among them. Of course
we are more than two or three. Where is he? Where is Jesus Christ, since he promised
he will be here? Now the question is, is Jesus here? Can you see him? No. Well does
anybody see Jesus?
Student: To the extent we can see the truth we can see.
Dr. Hora: Right, it is not a person. It is a quality of consciousness. That is the
Christ. For the second coming he won?t need transportation, and he won?t need a white
horse to come in on triumphantly. It is the advent of the realization of the truth
and freedom that is the Christ?s second coming, and third coming, and fourth coming.
He keeps coming but nobody notices the coming of Jesus because it is not a person
but a quality of consciousness, and it keeps coming and it is always there. It is
always available for everybody to see and become free, truly free.
Student: Is open mindedness helpful to know freedom?

Dr. Hora: Open mindedness can perceive the true nature of freedom. If we don?t
have an open mind, we cannot understand freedom because we are not free. The mind
is also enslaved. What is the mind attached to? It is attached to thinking, opinions,
systems, computers. (laughter) Whenever we have mental attachments, we are not open-minded
and we are not free, and we don?t learn anything. It is the saddest part of attachments
that somebody is attached to certain schools of thoughts or philosophies, or religious
dogma. Then he doesn?t have the open mind that would enable him to understand reality
from a spiritual standpoint and understand freedom. An open mind is very important.
Student: I showed you a cartoon from a Buddhist magazine. It said Zen vacuum cleaner.
No attachments. (laughter)
Dr. Hora: Very good.
Student: I raised some of these points in the past about certain morals. For the
first five years when I would go in and have some conversations with a teacher, I
would get the impression that everyone came from the same kind of moral background
so that when I spoke, there was a context that everybody kind of knew. There was
an understanding that you didn?t have to explain. Now, if you make a simple statement
about condoms, or morals, or God, you don?t know where the objections are going to
come from. There is this looseness, this indefinable
Dr. Hora: People don?t know what it is.
Student: When I say what I say, I feel like I am not in step with the times. I am
some kind of an old fogy that still believes in whatever you want to call it, superstition
or whatever. It

has me kind of doubting, or wondering if I could look for something to sort of lean on.
Dr. Hora: Be attached to.
Student: Maybe that is what it is. Moral looseness, how would this apply to ...
Dr. Hora: It would help to know what morality means. What is morality?
Student: A kind of a norm that society has set.
Dr. Hora: No that is ethics. Ethics is a psychological standard of behavior. Morality
is a religious standard of behavior. We are neither moral nor immoral, but enlightened.
We are under the influence of spiritual values and they don?t deal with behavior;
they deal with seeing. When you see spiritual values as existentially valid, then
you will be ethical, and moral, and loving and free and you don?t have to worry about
what people will think, whether you are an old fogy, or a young fogy. You know what?s
what. If you ask people, what is this morality? or what is ethics? or what do people
talk about? they really don?t know. Most people don?t know what morality is. Moral
values are derived from the Ten Commandments. Ethical values are psychological standards
that evolved from social habits in a certain culture. You are not supposed to stab
people in the back. That is an ethical value. Ethics and morality are important for
unenlightened people to survive in a certain culture and to function. But we transcend
these values and this type of thought and we seek to realize spiritual values that
give us a transcendent view of life, not on a psychological level, and not on a religious
level but in a divine context. That makes us

free. Jesus said, ?And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free? (John 8:32). If you are moral, that is nice but that is not freedom. You get
constantly pressured. You?re ethical. Of course, it?s nice from a social standpoint,
but that is not freedom. So we have to go higher (99th floor). (laughter)
Student: Is it ethical to cheat on your income tax? Student: Only if you can get
away with it. (laughter)
Dr. Hora: Ethics and morality have no relevance to freedom. They are relevant to
more or less harmonious functioning of individuals within a certain social structure.
Morality will not give you freedom. Ethics will not give you freedom. They take away
your freedom. You have to sacrifice. You have to sacrifice to pay taxes. You have
to sacrifice not to lie and not to cheat, not to manipulate, not to hurt people,
and not to gossip about people. That is immoral. But freedom and truth and peace
and bliss consciousness come to us from an entirely different system of values that
we call spiritual values.


Student: I have a question about being confronted by panhandlers. Sometimes I give
them money; sometimes I don?t. In either case, I feel, very often, uncomfortable;
if I give them money, I am not really benefiting them and if I don?t give them money,
I am not really benefited. It?s not clear how to understand the situation.
Dr. Hora: This question has been raised a few times already, right? What did we say about it?
Student: I remember it was said not to see the person as lacking or imperfect, because
we then confirm their apparent infirmity. But it?s not that clear to me what would
be beneficial. It?s not the behavior toward the individual that counts, but how one
views them that counts. Yet it seems very difficult not to see them as impaired.
Dr. Hora: Yes. So there is a dilemma. Could Metapsychiatry have something to say
about this problem from the standpoint of the individual? The wider problem, of course,
is political, social, and economic, but from the standpoint of the individual who
is a student of Metapsychiatry, there must be something that one can contribute.
As you said, if you give
74


them money, it is not necessarily good, but if you don?t give them money, it is not
necessarily good either, right? Now, what?s the solution? Is there something that
a student of Metapsychiatry can give that nobody else can give? What is there?
Student: The way you see the individual. Dr. Hora: Right.
Student: And if you see this individual, not as a poor, dirty, homeless person, but
as a living soul, here for God, just as he is, then it doesn?t matter if we give
or not give him anything; it?s nice to be generous ...
Dr. Hora: Okay, we have to see. Metapsychiatry is mostly about seeing. We are learning
to see God and God?s universe, the universe of mind where there is abundance of love,
of wisdom, of everything good. There is abundance. As Jesus said, ?I am come that
ye might have life and have it more abundantly? (John 10:10). What did he mean? More
money, more cars, more girls, more sex? No, the abundance of divine good is all there
is. So if you happen to have small change or small bills, you can say, ?Thank God,
I have this and I can give this,? as much as is suitable in the situation. But primarily
what we give is a blessing. What is so blessing about what we give. As you said correctly,
we acknowledge that everything and everyone is here for God whether they know it
or not. This acknowledgement is for us. It reminds us that these individuals are
not what they seem to be, that in reality they are perfect, even as the creator is
perfect. Now this is difficult, because what we see (with our eyes) has a powerful
impact on our thoughts. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding


and irregardless (laughter), we have to make an effort to see them in the context
of divine mind. And every time we pass by, and something objectionable hits us in
the visual field we must immediately remind ourselves of the truth of divine reality,
and this thought can have very far reaching consequences. You never know what can
happen to any particular individual whom you behold in the light of the truth. So,
give whenever you can, money or food, but above all know that the greatest gift that
we can bestow on each other is the Prayer of Right Seeing. We all have learned about
the Prayer of Right Seeing which was given to us in Hawaii, right? Did you know that?
Student: No.
Dr. Hora: We had a conference in Hawaii; this prayer occurred to us during the conference,
and ever since then, individuals all over the world are blessed by students of Metapsychiatry
who invariably remind themselves of the Prayer of Right Seeing. Isn?t that nice?
We can be grateful to these people that they keep us on our toes, and instead of
criticizing them, and blaming them, or blaming Mayor Dinkins or Bush or this or that,
we give them of our treasure because to understand some of the truth of God and to
share it with others is a great gift that we can bestow, and we are not depriving
ourselves of anything. On the contrary, we are blessed by blessing. We get blessed
by blessing, right? And we get cursed by cursing. Did you know that? So we don?t
curse, we don?t criticize, we don?t judge, we don?t blame, we just keep blessing
and wind up being blessed ourselves.
Student: I have a question regarding this. I was telling Dr. Hora, earlier in private
session that about a year ago I saw a film of


the life of the tenor Jose Carreras on television. He had just come out of the hospital
after a long battle with leukemia, and right on this film, I saw him as ill, or as
having been ill and I was struggling the whole time, as Dr. Hora just described.
I was going back and forth with this battle in my mind. Then I saw the film again
this weekend, and I was very surprised that I was not battling anymore; I just saw
that individual as being perfect. Now the first time, I knew what was required but
I just couldn?t do it and I felt bad. This time, there wasn?t any struggle, and what
happens when you are in a position like that where the suggestions of the world take
hold of your consciousness and you cannot get rid of them and then at another time,
you see correctly without trying to? And I was really happy that I could see that
this time. But if you are in a position that you can?t, it is something of a mystery.
Dr. Hora: What does it take? That is your question. You have to know that you are
the richest girl in the whole world; that your father is infinitely wealthy and you
have these treasures to give away. Do we understand this treasure? The truth of being
in the context of Divine Reality is a treasure which can bless everyone that we look
at. Now, unfortunately, people do not know about this. It is a well kept secret.
And what do unenlightened people do? They criticize, they find fault, they condemn,
they run away.
Student: They feel sorry.
Student: ... or they give because it makes them feel good or they are bribing God.
Dr. Hora: Yes, there are many ways of going wrong, if we don?t understand the great
treasure of the prayer of Right Seeing.


We are in a dilemma. We don?t know how to be a beneficial presence in the world.
As you say, you give them $100.00 and they could go straight into the liquor store
and buy a bottle or the drug addicts could get a fix. There are all kinds of people
in this condition and it is not really helpful. The material solutions are no solution.
But we can give of our spiritual treasures and it will never diminish. There is a
story in the bible that occurred at a time when there was a famine in the land. There
was a woman who had two sons and they were so poor that she had to sell her sons
for a certain amount of food so that they could survive. She sold them into bondage
and she was desperate. And as it happens, a rabbi named Elisha was passing by. He
stopped at this woman?s house and said, ?I would like you to make me a little cake,
so that I could eat, because I haven?t eaten for a long time.? And the woman said,
?Are you kidding? I am at the bottom of the vessel scraping up some leftover flour
to eat myself and give it to my two sons, so that then we could die.? They were so
poor. And the rabbi said, nevertheless, and notwithstanding and irregardless I want
you to make me a piece of bread. And she said, ?What should I do?? So she was willing
and then she said, ?All my vessels are empty; I don?t have a drop of oil, nothing.?
And the rabbi said, ?I?ll tell you what I?m going to do. You take all your empty
vessels that you have, and borrow some more empty vessels from the neighbors, and
take one empty vessel in which you have just a few drops of oil in it and start pouring
out from this little thing into the empty vessels.? So this woman said, ?What shall
I do with this crazy rabbi? But I?ll do it.? And she took this vessel and started
pouring and as she was pouring the more oil there was and was filling


up all the vessels that were in the household. Pretty soon, it was like a river of
oil. She sold this oil and that broke the whole spell of hypnotism of starvation.
This whole problem was healed. This is in the Bible (2 Kings 4:1?7) I didn?t invent
it. But it?s very interesting because everything from the Bible is an appropriate
lesson recorded for our edification. Now what is the lesson in this story? It says
that if a crazy rabbi shows up at your door, don?t chase him away. No, the rabbi
had a spiritual solution. What is the spiritual remedy to lack?
Student: Abundance.
Dr. Hora: Abundance, of course. You see, lack can only exist in the material world.
But if you elevate consciousness into the spiritual realm of spiritual divine Love-Intelligence,
that lack, which was so impressive to the eyes and to the material viewpoint, disappears
and what you have is a condition that gets healed spiritually, and that?s the story.
He insisted that this woman learn spiritual generosity by making the rabbi a piece
of bread. He didn?t need the bread, but he was teaching her how to be generous until
it hurts. And that?s the lesson, that whenever we see lack, homelessness, sickness,
misery, we have to replace this picture with a conscious acknowledgement of the truth
of divine reality. And if we are sincere and we have studied and learned the Prayer
of Right Seeing, solutions occur. And that?s the healing. St. Paul says, ?We look
not upon the things that are seen? (2 Cor. 4:18) or do appear, but we look at the
things that are not seen, you see, and when we are able to look at the things that
are not seen, surprising things can and do happen in proportion to our ability to
pray in this fashion.


Student: I wanted to ask a question regarding the issue of giving to people. There
is a story in the Bible of the apostles, where a man is asking for money, and he
says, ?Silver and gold I have none, but such as I have I give to thee? (Acts 3:6)
and he heals him. But nowadays when we are not at that spiritual level, when you
say to behold somebody in the context of love, I notice sometimes that a hidden thought
of doubt remains, and I wonder if it is doing any good because you see people in
very desperate shape, even within the family. I must say I have some doubts because
I am not able to transform the situation like the apostles did.
Dr. Hora: Well, this reminds me of the lesson that Jesus gave to some of his students.
He said that anything can happen with prayer; for instance, if you pray believing
that all is possible to God and you will say to this mountain, ?Get thee hence and
move into the midst of the sea or into yonder place? (Matt. 17:20), as the Bible
says, and if you pray believing that this is possible, it will happen. So there was
a guy among his disciples and he said, ?All right I am going to pray hard,? and all
night he prayed about this mountain because it was blocking his view and he wanted
this mountain to move away and he prayed and prayed all night and in the morning
he looked out and the mountain was still there, and he said, ?I knew it, I knew it
wouldn?t work.? That?s the problem with doubt. Now, what is the lesson in this? After
all, it is normal to doubt. Of course, Jesus made a mistake in this lesson. He told
the people that what they have to do is to believe. If you believe in God, in the
truth, in what we are saying here, it won?t help at all. What is needed is right
knowing, and that takes a little time and work. Because when you believe


something, you doubt. It is not possible to believe without doubting. So this whole
thing is a mistake. Many formal religions are constantly encouraging people to believe:
believe in God, believe in Jesus Christ, believe in this, believe in that and the
more you believe the more you doubt. You cannot have a coin with only one side. What
is needed is, knowing based on spiritual realization. So we study, we read, we meditate,
and little by little we begin to realize that there is such a thing as spiritual
reality. So when we pray we endeavor to acknowledge spiritual reality. We don?t work
on believing in spiritual reality. We don?t believe in God. We don?t believe in Jesus
Christ. The hopelessness of formal religions, where people are trying to believe,
is getting them nowhere. What is needed is the knowledge that is based on progressive
spiritual realization and then good things can happen. There is a tremendous difference.
Student: But between believing where there is doubt and really knowing, what can
we do to gain that understanding?
Dr. Hora: You must be interested in realizing this truth. So you don?t piddle around
with maybe I will see. Let?s try this or that. No, you work. This is called contemplative
meditation where a certain truth is presented to you either from the Bible or a teacher
or from the Daily News, and you take this truth and contemplate it with a sincere
desire to realize it, to understand it, and it will happen. Little by little, here
a little, there a little, we will realize more and more of the truth of divine reality
in which we live and move and have our being. And that?s the way to go. Everything
else is conditional and God says, ?You cannot piddle around with me. I need total
commitment.? And that is what is required.


Student: If you give, wanting to help, it?s no good. It won?t work because wanting
is personal. In other words, if you say there is this homeless person and if I give
him money I?m going to help him or maybe I?m not going to help him...
Dr. Hora: No, we are discouraged here from wanting or not wanting, but we are encouraged
to be interested in progressively realizing divine reality and its power to help
us see that what we ordinarily see is not so. Only the unseen is real. The seen is
phenomenal; it is a phenomenon. So we are infinitely rich and we don?t know it. Imagine
you had a million dollars in the Chemical Bank down the street and you didn?t know
about it. You could be among the homeless, starving on the street, just because you
didn?t know. That?s the way it is with enlightenment. We don?t know and we always
suffer from not knowing. And every little bit of knowing helps.
Student: Is commitment a progressive interest also? It is not just a one instant happening?
Dr. Hora: Well it is a constant attitude, a desirable attitude where we are interested
in realizing the truth of being, of divine reality. And the more often we see that
certain healings happen, certain good things happen, the more encouraged we become
and the more sincere our commitment becomes, and little by little, we get there.
Student: So commitment, in a way, is being drawn?
Dr. Hora: Well let us put it this way, in being sincerely interested.


Student: When we are asked for something or we are asked to be helpful, do we need
to recognize it as not a personal thing that we?re doing, but what God wants?
Dr. Hora: Not necessarily. Suppose your children ask, ?Let?s go to JB Schwartz (laughter
as he is corrected to FAO Schwartz) or to the mall.? (laughter)
Student: In a helpful sense, what I was talking about earlier, about people in Russia
needing food, the helpfulness comes through in right seeing more than it does in
the physical manifestation. The coin or the money or the food is just a physical
manifestation of what God...
Dr. Hora: Yes, and it is just temporary. It quickly fizzles out and it is not very
helpful. It is better than nothing, but we have the great blessing of knowing how
to give of our secret treasures. And these secret treasures are spiritual. What makes
them secret? The Bible says, ?It?s hid with Christ in God? (Col. 3:1). That which
is hidden is a secret, right? What makes it secret? We have secret treasures and
we can give them away. What is not known but knowable is a secret. Yes, ?He that
dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the
almighty? (Ps. 91:1). The Bible speaks about secrets, but not about secretiveness.
It?s all right to know that there are secrets that must be known but secretiveness
is an extremely selfish attitude and it is not helpful. Suppose you are a student
who says, ?Well, I know the Prayer of Right Seeing and I know that it is very helpful,
but I don?t want to give it away. I?ll keep it to myself. I won?t let anybody in
on it, right?? Or, ?I have this book titled Beyond the Dream. It?s a nice book. I
won?t let anybody see it.? There are such


people. Or I don?t want anybody to see it, because they may think I am crazy for
reading such a book. There are all kinds of possibilities. In the spiritual realm,
the more we treasure something, the more we are willing to give it away. It is easy
to be generous, because the more you give it away the more you have it.
Student: Dr. Hora, I don?t understand the point about the secret place of the most
high. Why is it necessary that the place be secret?
Dr. Hora: Because nobody knows it. And then, of course, let?s take the Prayer of
Right Seeing. You have to pray it in secret. If you would tell somebody, I?m going
to tell you something. I will pray this prayer for you. ?Everything and everyone
is here for God whether they know it or not.? You gave away the secret. There is
no secret anymore and the recipient rejects it. You cannot give it away openly. It
has to be conveyed on another channel. And that is the value of the secret place
of the most high. Where is this place?
Student: In consciousness.
Dr. Hora: In consciousness, right. Who knows about consciousness? What the heck is it?
Student: Could it be awareness?
Dr. Hora: Awareness is the function of consciousness. But certain truths cannot be
communicated verbally or openly; they are communicated secretly. Not because we are
secretive, but because speaking openly about it is not appreciated. It sounds trite.


Student: And it loses its impact. Dr. Hora: Yes, sure.
Student: Sometimes, when I am sitting quietly, someone will come to mind, like my
mother. It?s not that she called on the telephone but a thought of her comes to mind,
and it occurs to me, as a blessing. Now is that unsolicited? I mean, is that appropriate?
Dr. Hora: It is appropriate for a daughter to bless her mother every time that she
asks for it. And if the thought comes to you, most likely she is asking you to pray
for her. It?s like an outstretched hand.
Student: Would someone like Jesus have seen everybody the same way though? Would
he have had the dimension of thoughts of individuals coming to him or was he on a
level where he was a non-personal blessing and it would depend more on his receptivity
than on his thought?
Dr. Hora: Well, let?s put it this way. Your question is not sufficiently clear.
Student: Well, when the student asked about her mother, you said that we reach a
point where we do not think of persons anymore. So when we reach a level of enlightenment
would persons come to your consciousness anymore?
Dr. Hora: It is important to lose interest in seeing persons, in being persons, in
talking about persons, in greeting persons, and acting as if there really were persons
in the world. They seem to be, but we don?t have to accept that. We have to know
that there are only individual divine consciousnesses. Now


every individual divine consciousness is unique, with unique endowments, talent,
and gifts and possibilities because God is infinite mind and infinite creator. He
creates an infinite variety of reflections of himself. Think of a maple tree in full
leaf. It has millions of leaves and every leaf is a maple leaf but every maple leaf
is different from every other maple leaf. Isn?t that amazing? Now, there?s a meaning
to this, right? There must be. The Bible says, ?And the leaves of the tree are for
the healing of the Nations? (Rev. 22:2). What does that mean?
Student: No interaction between them.
Dr. Hora: No interaction between them. Student: They all receive their life from the tree.
Dr. Hora: Yes, right. In other words, you don?t just take the leaves and take it
to the pharmacist and have him make a powder out of it to take it in. That?s not
what is meant, right? Now there are primitive cultures where they use leaves as boons.
They believe that this will facilitate the healing, but that?s not what the Bible
is talking about. The right understanding of the symbolic message in the leaves of
a tree says that, just like there is an infinite variety of leaves, there is also
an infinite variety of divine ideas and the understanding of this has a healing effect
on your way of seeing life. The leaves on a tree co-exist harmoniously. They have
no relationship with each other. Did you know that? And that?s nice. So we learn
from every little thing that comes up. We can learn more and more to know divine
reality. The leaves of the tree are for the healing of nations. Nations could live
peacefully together and harmoniously if the message about the leaves of the tree
is understood. There would be no wars, neither crime, nor


revolutions, nor any kind of complications. As Jesus put it, ?If thine eye be single,
thy whole body shall be full of light? (Matt. 6:22). What did he mean by that?
Student: A focus on the awareness of right seeing?
Dr. Hora: Right seeing, yes. If thy eye is single, it means that in your viewpoint
on life there is no interaction thinking, because in order for interaction thinking
to happen there has to be double vision. There has to be self and other. So the leaves
on the tree do not interact. They just co-exist harmoniously with each other. So
the leaves have the single eye. We can have the single eye too, by understanding
these symbolic messages from the Bible. Now what happens to relationships between
boys and girls if there is no interaction? How is that possible? Would an enlightened
boy have a girlfriend? Or would an enlightened girlfriend have a boyfriend? How can
one be in such a situation without interaction? How can there be sex without interaction?
That?s an interesting question. After all, the sexual act in itself appears to be
eminently interactive. The boy is doing something to the girl. And the girl calls
the police and says ... (laughter) ?sexual harassment.? Consider all these complications
of life, nowadays particularly, between men and women. All the difficulties which
go on are based on the assumption that there is no possibility of living without
interaction; neither between friends, nor between the sexes, nor in families. It
is incomprehensible. How can one have sex without interaction thinking? How do the
leaves have sex? (laughter) What do the words ?harmonious co-existence? mean? It
means that nobody is doing anything to anybody and yet there must be sex. How can
there be sex without somebody doing something to somebody?


Student: Artificial insemination? (laughter)
Dr. Hora: Doctors are doing something. Now some years ago, I read a treatise about
the Buddha?s idea of ideal sex: the method of sexual intercourse in Buddhism, notably
enlightened Buddhism. First of all, the surprising thing was that it isn?t happening
in bed. It happens on the floor where a man and a woman sit cross-legged facing each
other and they are very good at sitting cross-legged. (laughter) We cannot do this
very well, but they can do it, and gradually they come together. And in this process
there is a complete joining at the genitals. The man doesn?t do it. The woman doesn?t
do it. Spontaneously the sexual urge does it. So you cannot say that the man does
something to the woman or that the woman is doing something to the man. It happens
in a most harmonious, gentle and loving way. It is a coming together on both parts,
spontaneously, and peacefully and according to the description, most satisfactorily.
But it is not a situation where somebody is doing something to someone. And the two
are not interacting; they are jointly participating in love. Love is expressing itself
in this kind of joining. I thought then that it was extremely beautiful and I still
think so. It is the possibility of sexual intercourse without interaction. But you
have to learn how to sit (laughter) cross-legged comfortably, without effort, and
let it take place by itself, because the power of love will express itself in a joint
participation in the good of God. You remember that this is our definition of marriage.
This is an interesting aside.


Student: Dr. Hora, a while ago you mentioned that there is no man without God and
no God without man. I?ve been reading a lot of physics and archaeological things.
What is man? It?s not the person or the specific people. Historically there was a
time where there was not man. There was the cosmos, and there were dinosaurs but
there was no man. Is there something erroneous here, because if there is no man,
then there is no God in that environment or is that too much science? (laughter)
Dr. Hora: Ordinarily when we speak about man we have an image of a three-dimensional
object moving in space. This is the common view of man; so we are used to thinking
this way. But if you enter into a deeper understanding of reality, of life, then
you see that this is a fiction. There is no such thing as three-dimensional reality.
Man is a divine consciousness, a quality. He is not the way he seems to be. The Zen
master says ?Nothing is the way it seems to be, but neither is it otherwise.?
Student: So everything that seems to be, whether it is dinosaurs or appearances,
is a projection of...

Dr. Hora: They appear and they disappear. Right? The real man never disappears
once he has appeared. Anyone who has seen the real man knows that this man is immortal
and immutable. So we are what God is. Nobody has seen God either. And we are the
image and likeness of something that nobody has seen. Moses claimed that he saw God.
The problem is that we judge by appearances and out of that we arrive at all kinds
of mistaken ideas about ourselves and about others. So if we are heading towards
enlightenment, we have to learn to see that there is nothing to see. Man is a divine
consciousness. That?s what the real man is. He is a spiritual being and the visible
things of this universe are symbolic structures indicating in what direction our
cognition has to evolve. If you observe life from the standpoint of educational levels,
you can see that the more primitive we are, the more unenlightened we are, the more
we cherish and hold on to and imagine the tangible, the material, the mortal, the
things that have form or are formless. The Zen master issued this interesting saying:
?Form is formlessness and formlessness is form.? Everybody is puzzled about that.
What in the world could that mean?
Student: Well, that which we see that has form is really nonexistent; what we don?t
see is what really is ...
Dr. Hora: Not so. Just because we cannot see something doesn?t qualify it as real.
There is such a thing as error. The human individual is given the difficult task
of coming to know himself or herself the right way. There was a famous rabbi, a Talmudist,
and he said to his disciples, ?I was going to write a book about man, but then I
changed my mind. I thought it better if I don?t.? He could have gotten crucified
in those days. He was a wise rabbi.

Student: You say the visible is a symbolic structure, like, let?s say, going
to work. You see people, their external, seemingly three-dimensional images. How
are those symbolic?
Dr. Hora: Well have you ever seen God going to work? The Bible says, ?The Father
worketh hitherto and I work? (John 5:17). and, ?The Father that dwelleth in me, he
doeth the works? (John 14:10). Then, man is a symbolic structure pointing in the
direction of a certain existence that has the quality of working. So we are symbolic
structures for God. We are what God is. And the Zen Master says, ?The finger is not
the moon,? and the menu is not the food. (chuckle) And the dimensional appearance
called man is not God; it is a symbolic pointer in the direction of God. Now people
ask, why do we need people? Why does God need people? He?s omnipotent, ever present,
and knows everything. Why do we need people?
Student: It?s lonely at the top.
Dr. Hora: Theologians say that God was lonely so he made Adam and Eve and a snake
to have entertainment. That?s looking from the wrong end of the binoculars. No. We
know God through understanding man. If we understand ourselves in a valid way we
come to know God. So God needs us. ?This is Life eternal that they may know thee
the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent? (John 17:3). God seems to
want to be known, and man serves that purpose.
Student: And we see each other until we don?t need to see anymore, is that it?
Dr. Hora: We see God in each one of us. We are each a symbolic structure for God
and the right seeing reveals God to

us. And apparently it is very important to God that he may be understood and
may be seen correctly. Indeed, we can say wonderful things can happen to anyone who
approaches this correctly and gains a more precise and valid understanding of what
God is.
Student: Dr. Hora, is that similar to the Yen Hui story?
Dr. Hora: Yes. Do you all know the Yen Hui story? No? Now we will ask the student
to explain the Yen Hui story.
Student: There was a man by the name of Yen Hui. He was asked to become an advisor
by an Emperor who had a bad habit of chopping off the heads of his hired help if
they gave wrong advice. Thus he was very afraid of doing that job. So he went to
the Zen master and he told him about his dilemma. And the Zen master said, ?You will
have to practice mind fasting for three years.?
Dr. Hora: A short course in Metapsychiatry.
Student: So he said, this is the part I was trying to recall, ?If you see with your eyes... ?
Dr. Hora: He asked his teacher, ?What is this mind fasting that you are telling me
about?? He proceeded to explain what it is. Go ahead.
Student: ?If you see with your eyes, don?t look with your eyes; if you hear with
your ears, don?t listen with your ears; if you think or understand with your mind,
don?t think or understand with your mind, but learn to see, hear and understand with
the Spirit.?
Dr. Hora: Isn?t that simple?

Student: No. So he practiced that and ...
Dr. Hora: He practiced that for three years and then he came back to his teacher
and said, ?Master, I think I have become enlightened.? So the Master said, ?Prove
it to me.? So what did he say?
Student: He said, ?Before I practiced mind fasting I knew that I was Yen Hui, but
now that I have practiced mind fasting, I know there never was a Yen Hui.?
Dr. Hora: So what happened to Yen Hui?
Student: Well, maybe that?s what we were talking about, that he realized who he really
was and then there was no more person.
Dr. Hora: Right. Did you all hear this? He discovered his true identity. Previously
he thought he was just an ordinary guy, a highly educated mind, a philosopher who
was appointed to the court of the Emperor. He was afraid to accept the job, and when,
after practicing mind fasting he said this to the teacher the teacher said, ?Yes,
you have attained enlightenment and you can safely assume this position.? What made
it safe?
Student: He didn?t exist.
Dr. Hora: He didn?t say he didn?t exist. No. He knew the truth of his being. Therefore,
he would not provoke the Emperor to be mad at him or be jealous of him or to argue
with him. The Emperor would appreciate the wisdom coming from his enlightened consciousness,
and that?s the way to be safe, not only in China, but also in New York, even though
it is a little more difficult here. You just call a taxi and start a conversation

with a taxi driver and pretty soon you get your head chopped off. Yes. Yen
Hui is a beautiful story of what happens to someone who becomes enlightened and how
it is that someone gets enlightened. You have to learn not to hear with your ears,
not to see with your eyes, and not to understand with your mind or intellect. What
is that? There is the great void.
Student: Collectively, these things are saying, ?Don?t judge by appearances.?
Dr. Hora: Yes, and don?t imagine that you can think, and that you have a mind of
your own. The Bible says, ?It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth
nothing? (John 6:63). When we are unenlightened, we are used to judging by appearances,
imagining that we are hearing something that nobody said, or we are seeing something
or figuring something out. None of these things are really happening. It is the spirit
that is life and the spirit is in us, and then we are alive and then there is wisdom
and freedom and harmony and beauty and PAGL (peace, assurance, gratitude, love).
Everybody longs for it. People study spirituality in many forms everywhere throughout
the world, and it has always been that way. But somehow it never hits the mark. It?s
all there, and people study in every language, in every tradition, in every religion.
People seek enlightenment.
Student: What?s the meaning of the fact that we never hit the mark?
Dr. Hora: We are usually too attached to our husbands or spouses. And they mislead
us ... with cockamamie ideas. (laughter)

Student: It?s a beautiful thought that that?s what we are all looking for
? God. Is everybody looking for God?
Dr. Hora: Everybody without exception is looking for God; there is nothing else to look for.
Student: They just don?t know where to look. I was talking to an individual this
week, who is very talented and very creative, but is constantly looking and doing
things without any fulfillment. You can see the searching and doing many wonderful
individual works and briefly enjoying a pleasure filled life. But always a sense
of emptiness comes through. It occurred to me that this individual is really looking.
Dr. Hora: Sure.
Student: Dr. Hora, most people seem to think they are empty; yet we?re told here
that they are fulfilled already. What?s the mistake? Are we supposed to meditate
on the fact that we are already fulfilled in God, and don?t have to look for something.
It seems to be a big mistake, this looking for something. Yet we?re being told it?s
already present. Is that all it takes ...
Dr. Hora: Who told you that we are already fulfilled? Student: I thought we said
we are already the sons of God.
Dr. Hora: Yes, but we don?t know that. Jesus said, ?Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst after righteousness [right understanding] for they shall be filled? (Matt.
5:6). So we are not fulfilled until we have reached the right understanding. You
hear some people in religious circles saying that we are already enlightened. There
is nothing to do, so let?s go have a pastrami sandwich. Now, we live in ignorance,
and we suffer

the consequences continuously. This is purgatory. This life is purgatory.
Do you know what purgatory is?
Student: Hell. It?s between heaven and hell.
Dr. Hora: You know the geography? The word purgatory ? where does it come from?
Student: To purge.
Dr. Hora: Yes. What are we purging? Student: Ignorance.
Dr. Hora: Ignorance. We are full of ignorant ideas and we share them generously.
Wherever you look, people share their ignorance with each other, having a good time
about it.
Student: This story of Yen Hui puzzles me. If you are unenlightened and you haven?t
studied any spiritual teaching, you just see people as they appear to be. Then we?re
told that instead of seeing the person, the physical manifestation, we must look
to see spiritual qualities in the individual and that we can practice seeing spiritual
qualities. But that doesn?t seem to be anywhere near what Yen Hui discovered. Is
it possible to tell anyone what it was that he really saw other than to say?
Dr. Hora: You could ask, ?What is it about mind fasting that would precipitate you
into enlightenment?? Isn?t that what you want to know? What is it about mind fasting
that would bring about your enlightenment?
Student: Basically, I don?t know the answer, but last week we talked about making
a radical stand against fantasies. We could start with that. And every time that
tape starts spinning,

the ignorant tape, we can see it, and we have the God given ability to turn
to a valid principle. And if that?s mind fasting then perhaps that is how we discover
the void or what is that we?re turning to. If we continue with that, maybe we break
through to something.
Dr. Hora: What we have said about Yen Hui and the practice of mind fasting was not
all we could say on the subject. Yen Hui was a long time student of this famous Chinese
teacher called Chuang Tsu. When he came to Chuang Tsu, he was already recognized
as a great philosopher and was known among the intelligentsia, so he was better able
to make use of this discipline of mind fasting than anybody else. He was so sincere
that he withdrew from the world for three years and studied day and night. I suppose
he started something like this. Every morning he would wake up and say, ?I am not
this body. I am not this person. I am not what people call me, Yen Hui. Everything
I see and everything I was told about myself seems true, but it is not true.?
It is very helpful to deny the appearance world, and work from the negative up
to the positive. And in the process, when you hear a bird singing, ask yourself,
do I hear this, or is my ear hearing this? If you see a snake coming toward you,
you say am I seeing this or am I just imagining this? You question every thing about
yourself that you have always taken for granted. Gradually you reach a point where
you annihilate your sense of self and you are more and more in the void that they
call emptiness. Then gradually you begin to see that you are something other than
what you have believed yourself to be. So when you hear with your ears, don?t think
that it is the ears that hear. Beethoven could hear a symphony while

he was deaf. So with this discipline, with great understanding Yen Hui reached
a point where he could say that he always thought that he was Yen Hui, but now he
could see that there never was a Yen Hui. So then you ask him, ?If there never was
a Yen Hui, what was there? Can you touch him? Can you punch him? Can you kill him?
Can you love him??
What is this great mystery of identity? So he took a trip to Texas and they explained
to him that ?You ain?t never was nothing? and that brought a big laugh. But he became
free; we call it, liberated. So next time you?re getting a haircut, and the barber
asks, ?Mister, are you something?? you will know what to say. That?s what we get
from Metapsychiatry. There is an interesting theory that is occurring now. We ask
how come some people have a sense of humor and some people don?t. What is this great
gift? No other life form has it except us. It seems that in order to be able to laugh,
we have to be able to endure the idea of our own nothingness. Because if you see
an individual who has no sense of humor, what do you see right away? He takes himself
seriously. He has no sense of humor. What does it mean if we take ourselves seriously?
It means that we think that we are somebody, right? At that point we are dead, because
an individual who cannot laugh is really dead. Maybe comedians are closer to enlightenment
than they realize. I remember Jack Benny. He was always laughing at himself in a
sort of charming way. He was a wonderful comedian.
Student: There was Bob Hope with his wonderful longevity.
Dr. Hora: Yes. If you see a serious man keep away from him. I remember as a young
professional I would attend yearly conferences of the psychoanalytic society and
what struck me was

that nobody had a sense of humor there. Everybody walked around with an air
of great importance and thought that they all were very serious people who imagined
that they had more knowledge in their heads than anybody else in the world. It was
so boring. I wasted those years studying their stuff and looking up at the imposters,
ignoramuses and very serious people. ?For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge
of the Lord as the waters cover the sea? (Isa. 11:9). This is the good future.
Student: I always wondered why I like the sea so much. Now I know.
Dr. Hora: Yes, you have described how much you like the ocean, the water.
Student: Dr. Hora, how can we not take mind fasting seriously?
Dr. Hora: If you take mind fasting seriously, you will never accomplish it. It?s
a gift of God. It?s a gift of self-transcendence. It?s from God. We are able to rise
above our customary ways of thinking. So you say, I am not this body and I am not
this brain. I am not this intelligence: I am not my eyes or my ears. All are symbolic
structures pointing beyond themselves. And then you can laugh. Don?t take yourself
seriously, for heaven?s sake.
Student: Actually, that sounds very liberating. Dr. Hora: Sure, sure.
Student: It reminds me of what I read by the writer William Faulkner. In his fiction,
one of his techniques consists of saying it?s not this, it?s not that, and so on
and so on until finally

saying what it is: some quality or affect of character. He goes through all
these negatives to reach a positive.
Dr. Hora: This is called via negativa, the negative approach to the study of reality.
It?s very good.
Student: So, it isn?t possible to really understand something unless we go through
this negative process so that we can see what it is that is not. Is that right?
Dr. Hora: Well, you cannot jump at Faulkner?s idea and that of a few other people
as a foolproof technique of attaining enlightenment. It is just interesting to hear
how some people seek to understand more of the truth. So it?s not bad for you to
wake up in the morning and to look around and to ask yourself, ?Who is this person
in bed, now; is he my husband or is it a stranger?? (laughter) So you start by asking,
?Is this me, etc?? And if this seems too simple for you, you can ask, ?Who are you?
Who is he??
Student: I was thinking about what you said about symbolic structure. I find myself
wanting and thinking about having a dog again and I can almost fantasize a dog, whether
it would be right to get one?
Dr. Hora: Dogs are highly recommended, except the rabbis don?t like dogs. I once
lived in another building on Central Park West and in that building was a great rabbi
of a nearby synagogue. I had a dog at that time, a beautiful white poodle. The rabbi
seemed to abhor him. He said, ?Don?t come close with him; this is a kelev.? You know
what a kelev is? That?s a Hebrew name for a dog. He had an aversion to dogs. And
that dog was so sweet, so bright, so full of life. I loved him very

much. So don?t worry. If you can get a dog and are able to care for him,
by all means do so. They are wonderful companions, and they bring out all the love
in you, whatever is left yet. (laughter)
Student: But I?m thinking, though, that maybe I am trying to substitute something.
Dr. Hora: Well, it is worthwhile. You?ve had dogs before, so you know how it is to
have a dog. You have to take him out. (laughter) It is a great urinary responsibility.
(laughter)
Student: Well we had a different life style then. So I guess what I get concerned
about is that part of it, the affection, is just something about it that seems loving.
But it?s questionable, as you say, if I?m ready to undertake the responsibility.
Do I get involved like that again with the caring?
Dr. Hora: First you have to buy him a license and then you have to buy him a country
estate, surrounded with a fence, so it will be easy to take care of him. If he wants
to go out, you just let him go. That?s a nice way to have a dog. But if you have
to take him in the city, and let him smell everything, you can get tired of that.
And then there?s the pooper scooper (laughter), the law of the city, right?
Student: I heard a wonderful comment about people who have an urge to have dogs.
On my way to work, I walk past a pet store and it?s enough to break your heart. Every
time you want them all. And someone said, well there are two phenomena: one is getting
the dog and that?s where you pick out the animal and there is all that great excitement
and you bring it home and have all the initial enthusiasm, and then there?s having

the dog, and having the dog is three walks a day, seven days a week for the
foreseeable future.
Dr. Hora: It?s important to have the space.
Student: I was trying to understand if I was trying to substitute something. By wanting
or having this urge for a dog, I wondered if it was really about something else.
I am trying to substitute with a dimensional thing as opposed to maybe there is something
else that needs to be ...
Dr. Hora: There was an American poet who lived in Paris who said, ?A rose is a rose
is a rose.? And we can say a dog is a dog is not a substitute is a dog. And they
are all adorable, wonderful creatures. So don?t speculate that it is a substitute
for mother or for somebody else. It?s a dog. You love a dog because it is very affectionate.
So if you can manage to care for a dog it is wonderful to have one. It?s the same
with baby children, you know, but you cannot return the child to the store.
Student: Is what we are talking about, loving to be loving? I mean, that?s the challenge
for a love object, and taking care of it. Think we ought to get a dog? (laughter)
Student: I found that when we had an opportunity to purchase a dog that was already
trained, I didn?t do it. But when I let it go and didn?t follow through, I felt heart-broken.
But again I noticed that emotionalism, and what was that all about? Feeling that
way about feeling something ... may not be kosher.
Dr. Hora: Well, it is human affection; it is always good and bad. Attachments develop.

Student: It was as if I was becoming attached to the entity of it.
Dr. Hora: I saw a film where a middle-aged man came to a prostitute and they were talking
it over, and he said, ?My wife treats me like a dog.? And the prostitute said, ?Well, I
can do that to you anytime.? So they made an arrangement that once a week he would visit
her. And she said, ?I even have a choking collar. And we can start by learning to heel.?
So they made an agreement, but this man was so accustomed from childhood on to be treated
as a dog, that he longed to have this experience. Many of the perversions that people
display are just desires to relive certain abusive experiences from childhood. What was
interesting was that in this film the director understood the dynamics of the situation.
It was a very helpful prostitute; I can do this for you right away, treat you like a dog.
There are people who have a desire to be maltreated because in their childhood they were
mistreated. It is a very tragic aspect of the human condition that we can desire pain and
humiliation and abuse, because somewhere in the memory bank there is a remembrance of the
experience, which was extremely self-confirmatory. You see, when a child is abused, beaten,
tortured, or humiliated, he feels pain, but he also feels important. Nothing is worse
than being ignored. So if you have no choice you choose abuse; it?s better than being
ignored. This is the dynamic of the tragedy we hear about, of so many women, children, and
people who are abused in their childhood. The trouble with that is that you fall in love
with the experience and then you attract it to yourself. Nothing comes into experience
uninvited. So we can invite disasters, sicknesses, maltreatments, abuses, all kinds of
what are called perversions in order to re-experience that

childhood experience. And the rationalization is that maybe such repetition
would help you to overcome it. But you never overcome it. The only way to overcome
it is to know that we are not that person. When you understand the Yen Hui story,
then all the invalid ideas of abuse of the past are erased, because you are not that
individual. You are free of that conditioning. It is very sad when a child gets abused,
because he is being conditioned for that experience.


Student: Yesterday we were talking with you about the parable of the shepherd who
had 100 sheep and one was lost. He left the 99 to go out and find the one that was
lost. I wondered if you would discuss that some more. I pondered it today and I don?t
believe I know the full implications of that parable.
Dr. Hora: Who knows the parable of the lost sheep? (Matt. 18:12?14).
Student: Jesus described how if there is a flock of 100 sheep and one of them gets
lost, the shepherd will leave the 99 and find the one that is lost.
Dr. Hora: This was on television yesterday and we were watching it. A man who was
a member of the church told the story that the shepherd went after the one sheep
that was lost to look for him. The man said this was very stupid to do because in
the meanwhile he could have lost the 99 other sheep, right? That would be logical
and reasonable for a human shepherd. How can he take care of all the 99 sheep and
go after the one that was lost? The Bible says that he did that and he

found the sheep, put him on his shoulder and he brought him back to the flock
and there was great rejoicing, right? So what good is such a stupid parable? If you
are a normal, human person you will say, ?This is a stupid story.? It has no relevancy
to anything. Now, does the Bible have stupid stories? Well, there are all kinds of
stories, but it is good to understand them. Does anybody understand this story? Nobody
dares to understand it?
Student: Is this where the misconception came, that from the religious point of view
we are supposed to go out and save the one that is lost?
Dr. Hora: Yes, of course. So is the Bible teaching us how to be a stupid shepherd?
It doesn?t make sense if you have 99 sheep, to turn your back on them and go after
the one that was lost.
Student: Wasn?t the implication that the 99 were safe?
Dr. Hora: No, he didn?t say that. They didn?t run away. It?s a mystery why they didn?t
because if it is a stupid story then they would probably get scattered.
Student: I think it?s wonderful imagery in the sense that if we recognize God as
our shepherd, our director, and if we are lost, meaning that we are separated from
God, reality is such that we will be found, that we will eventually be directed back
to
Dr. Hora: How do you know that? Isn?t that just a theory? There are these 99 sheep
and he goes off looking for the 100th.
Student: In reality none of us are separated from God. It just appears that way.

Dr. Hora: In reality. What do you mean?
Student: In reality there is no such thing as being separated. Dr. Hora: Your little
doggie. Suppose he runs away.
Student: He did, by the way. Dr. Hora: He did?
Student: A couple of days ago and there was a reason for it. Dr. Hora: Did he come back?
Student: Yes, wagging his tail.
Dr. Hora: That?s an enlightened dog. Student: He was hungry. (laughter)
Dr. Hora: There were two professors of theology. They were talking about this parable
and they were giving each other very complicated explanations and the more they talked
about it, the clearer it became that they didn?t understand it at all. Theology will
not help us to understand the Bible. It is very interesting.
Student: When you hear two people talking like that or some of the comments that
were made here, how do you know what the parable is really about?
Dr. Hora: That?s a good question.
Student: That happens all the time. There are so many different things that we can
point to and then you can wonder, what is the real meaning of it, and how come it?s
this and it

isn?t that and how do we know that this is the meaning and other things aren?t the meaning?
Dr. Hora: Do you have any answers?
Student: To that question, no.
Dr. Hora: Anybody?
Student: Would it helpful to give an example of this problem? Dr. Hora: Yes.
Student: We had a business situation where we found out yesterday that we were being
sued because a man fell off a scaffold at the job site where we have construction
supervisors. He is suing everyone involved ? all contractors involved ? and since
we decided to go out of business about a year ago, our insurance is in question.
I am not sure whether we didn?t renew it at the same rate, or if we didn?t renew
it at all and therefore we do not have the proper coverage. He is suing for millions
of dollars and it is a frightening thing when you consider it in human terms where
you could be faced with the loss of everything. So when I presented it to Dr. Hora,
he repeated this parable that we just heard and in this context what I understood
was that in divine reality these astronomical numbers don?t really exist because
there are no 99 sheep and there is no one sheep that was lost. In divine reality
you don?t quantify. There is only the harmonizing principle of God and infinite omni-action
and good and that?s all that really is there. What is in divine reality is not what
we customarily think of in our daily lives. If we could come to see this, then we
could transcend all of these fearful thoughts about these

fantastic numbers and the question of no insurance or of how much insurance.
Dr. Hora: And how many sheep? Are they cheap or are they expensive?
Student: There are these numbers that you can get caught up in and frightened by.
But since they don?t really exist I did understand what you are saying to a large
extent. It?s still hard for me to understand how if we live in this world, which
is governed by human laws and by human practices and human requirements for insurance,
it is still difficult for me to see how it doesn?t figure into the mix but I am going
to try to understand it.
Dr. Hora: How will you do it?
Student: Well, it seems that in the past and even now when I contemplate the things
that I am taught here, I don?t know how, but they just seem to sink in and they become
real to me, little by little. That?s how we?ll do it.
Dr. Hora: Who among you can remember that piece of stone, which an archeologist found
in Egypt, and with the help of that stone he could read the hieroglyphs? The Rosetta
stone. For thousands of years nobody could decipher the hieroglyphs on the tombstones
or the pyramids and all the writings in Egypt. Nobody could understand what it meant
and this researcher happened to find a solitary stone and on that stone were certain
writings, which suddenly helped him to understand. With the help of the Rosetta stone,
he could read everything that was written on the pyramids and the tombs in Egypt
and ever since then, it is all open knowledge. Anybody

who has studied it can read the complicated, fantastic carvings on these
Egyptian monuments. It is an interesting side issue, because if you understand something
crucial and of central importance, it opens up to you a whole world, which prior
to that was a mystery. Nobody, for thousands of years, could understand what is written
in those hieroglyphs. That man found this stone, the Rosetta stone, and that stone
opened it up for everybody to read. Isn?t that a fantastic story? Now there is such
a Rosetta stone in Metapsychiatry. What is this Rosetta stone? It is not a stone.
It is a discovery of the meaning of all koans. Zen masters were working for thousands
of years with the help of koans. What does a koan tell us? It?s a great secret, but
if you understand the meaning and purpose of the koan, you can understand all the
koans that were ever invented by the Zen masters for purposes of this teaching. If
you understand this one koan, you can become enlightened every time you face up to
a koan. So has this ever been explained to you?
Student: No.
Dr. Hora: It?s very simple. Ask yourself. What is the purpose of a koan? What is
the mystification that these Zen masters are always throwing at their students? They
struggle for years and years in trying to figure them out and they never manage to
figure them out. They get so disgusted and so frustrated that it makes the whole
study of Zen very mysterious and arduous. It is simply this. The purpose of a koan
is to help us to understand divine reality. There are thousands of koans that the
Zen masters throw at new students and they all have one purpose. It?s like the Rosetta
stone. The purpose of the koan is to help us to get closer to God, and when we get
closer

to God, the more we understand divine reality. Without this Rosetta stone
of Metapsychiatry, all the professors and religious teachers and leaders of the world
are wracking their brains to understand what it is all about.
What was the mission of Christ? The mission of Jesus Christ was to help people
understand God. The purpose of the Rosetta stone is to help people understand Egyptian
history. Anytime somebody throws a koan at you, and life does it all the time, you
can just start out by saying, ?This is a message from God, coming to us from Jesus
Christ in order that we might understand divine reality.? So, if you keep that in
mind as you approach a koan, you will become enlightened because what is enlightenment?
Enlightenment, simply is understanding the nature of divine reality, the truth of
being. You remember that we pray contemplatively, seeking to understand the truth
of being. Now here is a koan, which says there were these 99 sheep and one sheep
strayed away and the shepherd went and retrieved this sheep and there was great rejoicing.
Whenever we understand a koan, there is a great sense of peace and gratitude because
an incomprehensible mystery has revealed itself as the glory of God. Now what is
the glory of God in connection with this particular sheep story? Once you understand
the meaning of this parable, you will understand the nature of divine reality. So
you are, to some extent, getting enlightened because you have understood the mystery
of God. What is this mystery?
Student: Reality is perfect but seems imperfect because human beings have the tendency to think?
Dr. Hora: This story tells us we have to see reality in the context of divine mind,
which is infinite Love-Intelligence. There

are no partial divine minds. Everything is one, infinite, God, good, omnipotence,
omnipresence, omniscience, love. So we are not going to particularize divine reality.
Nothing can ever get lost in the kingdom of God because God does not lose his flock.
Everything is one. You have heard me speak of the non-dual nature of divine reality.
This particular koan says, ?Don?t worry about the insurance company.? There are no
insurance companies in God?s kingdom. There is only perfection. There is infinity.
There is harmony. There is the good of God. This is an important insight into the
nature of divine reality. Once you understand divine reality, you are not going to
speculate about one sheep or 500 sheep. There is no particularization. There are
only sheep. We don?t have to worry about the one that got lost. He did not get lost.
You remember several times I told you stories where something got lost, I lost a
little piece of metal and the way to find it is to stop looking for it and to acknowledge
that in divine reality nothing ever gets lost. Everything is where it is and God
can reveal to us where it is, provided we are not looking for it. What happens when
we are looking for it?
Student: We can?t find it. Dr. Hora: Okay.
Student: We are thinking of it all the time and we are trying to figure out where it is.
Dr. Hora: We are losing sight of reality because in reality, everything is already
there. It comes to us. It reveals itself and then we don?t see just a piece of screw
or something. We see that God knows everything that needs to be known all the time.

Student: This would apply to a sickness too.
Dr. Hora: A sickness, of course, yes, particularly the stock market. So just remember
there is a Metapsychiatric Rosetta stone. The Rosetta stone of Metapsychiatry is
that the Zen masters were trying to do the same work that Jesus was doing. He was
constantly revealing the true nature of God and his creation. That is the work of
the Zen masters, too. We are called upon to be here for God. So is anyone who pays
attention to the meaning of everything. We want to become enlightened. That is enlightenment
when you find a little piece of screw in the forest. The light has shined in your
consciousness for a moment and there it is. We live in the expectancy of a perfect
universe gradually revealing itself to us until we know and see everything as it
really is.
Student: So in answer to the question of how do you come to know this?
Dr. Hora: You ask somebody, and he tells you that there are two intelligent questions.
You don?t start wracking your brains about how do you find 40 million dollars to
pay to the insurance company for insurance. Then you could ask well how could God
fix it for me, right? God is not worried about the insurance company. You need to
understand that the purpose of these parables is that they lead us toward an understanding
of God.
Student: If a problem seems unsolvable to us, the problem is a koan.
Dr. Hora: All problems are koans and they have a purpose. If you remember the Rosetta
stone, you will understand the

purpose of the koans, and the koans will reveal themselves to you in the
form of ?aha.? Problems are lessons designed for our edification, and the more koans
we can understand, the more enlightened we become, and certain miraculous events
keep happening in our lives. So the Zen masters do not pray the way we pray. They
do not recite words. They meditate, and meditation is focusing attention on the message,
which the particular koan contains, and when this message reveals itself to us, we
have made a step forward in the direction of the light. Otherwise the light shineth
in darkness and darkness comprehended it not. The whole world suffers from a lack
of comprehension. Even professors of theology at various universities have all kinds
of rationalizations but they really don?t understand.
Student: As soon as we look at something in particular, I mean whether it?s a lost
screw or a sheep or a problem, we have separated that out from reality.
Dr. Hora: Yes, we lost touch with reality.
Student: Last week we talked about interest and cultivating interest in Metapsychiatry.
Could you make a parallel here between the growth of interest? Interest doesn?t seem
to be something that just comes all at once. As you say you take one step toward
the light. Could you make a parallel with the fact that our interest grows slowly
a little at a time?
Dr. Hora: Can you remember what was said here about the Rosetta stone? What was said?
Now when you start out with a problem, this becomes a koan. Every problem is a koan.
You remember that every problem is an interaction thought. That too is another form
of the Rosetta stone. We have this

Rosetta stone. It is a little piece of stone, which you can hold in your hand.
Student: It's very big, the stone. It's huge.
Dr. Hora: I got the impression from the description. Well, the size doesn?t matter.
The purpose of it matters. Without this Rosetta stone, all Egyptian history would
be in darkness. Nobody would know but those hieroglyphs are saved. Without Metapsychiatry,
God remains largely unknown. There are all kinds of theological explanations of God,
but they do not shed any light. If you are really interested in being enlightened,
you start out by saying, ?Dr. Hora said that every problem is a koan.? It is a Jewish
problem. (laughter) So, if nothing else works, try scratching your head. Maybe that
will work.
Dr. Hora: Any questions?
Student: I know that it is important to try to meditate and pray so that some amount
of understanding is allowed to come into consciousness. That is what I try to do
and I find myself saying words, I guess, about things that I have learned here. That
is the same as if I didn?t see this program that you were watching; however, I have
seen other programs where certain issues are being discussed where there is no communication
or any kind of understanding and you come away from watching this blank. There is
nothing helpful there, just a lot of words that sound very intelligent but have no
context. So that seems to be what happens to me when I just listen. The only reason
I know it is that I can see that when in the context of this parable and what you
were saying here in group, something happens where peace descends on me. Sometimes
there is a sense of assurance that is very different from when I am by

myself. So the question is, where do you look or do you just have to keep
asking questions all the time hoping that some day you will really understand?
Dr. Hora: Well you just heard what particular question one has to ask. What is the
message in the koan?
Student: Let?s say I am home and I ask that question. It?s different when I am home
than when I am here.
Dr. Hora: Well you are probably scared at home because everybody else is scared,
but you don?t have to be scared if you remember that the mystery is in your hand.
You have the Rosetta stone and that will reveal to you everything you need to know.
The doors of paradise will open up. It?s a marvelous thing.
Student: There is a passage in the Bible that goes, "I shall open a door for you
that no man will shut? (Rev. 3:8).
Dr. Hora: Right. Exactly. Student: It?s really beautiful.
Dr. Hora: You open it and no man will shut it. That?s it. Again, you have to understand
the purpose of the koan, of the mystery. You have to ask, ?What is this trying to
teach me?? Jesus was appointed by God to teach the whole world about divine reality.
If you become a sincere seeker of the truth, you have the Rosetta stone in your hand
and this will open to you the light and you will become an enlightened lady and no
more will you have to speculate about religious teachings.
Student: When the meaning is not clear, is it appropriate to do nothing, be patient
and keep mindful in trying to understand?

Dr. Hora: If the meaning is not clear, then the question is not being properly asked.
Student: Or sincerity or interest in wanting to know is not there.
Dr. Hora: Exactly. That?s what I just said. That?s what it means. Many times we are
so insincere that we formulate the question in such a way as to avoid understanding,
because we just love to lie.
Student: If we are scared, it?s really hard to ask the question.
Dr. Hora: After being present tonight, you will never be scared because you know
that the secret is in your hand.
Student: It?s there. It?s there.
Student: What if we are angry? What if we are mad?
Dr. Hora: Then we haven?t understood this lecture because if this lecture is understood,
you will be rejoicing over the lost lamb.
Student: So what is the meaning of the rejoicing? The rejoicing
is...
Dr. Hora: It is gratitude. It is God who gave us this tremendous gift of seeing the
light. We don?t have to walk in darkness. ?I am the light of the world; he that followeth
me shall not walk in darkness but he will have the light of life? (John 8:12).
Student: Just to continue with the parable with the rejoicing of the lost sheep.
The lost sheep might be this koan that has presented itself and that the rejoicing
comes like, ?Thanks, I needed that.? You are just grateful. You have the ability
to

find gratitude for the fact that this lost sheep is exactly what is required.
Dr. Hora: When I was confronted with losing this screw assembly, I described it and
I found it. It has no meaning to me, the screw assembly. But the fact that I was
able to find it, that was the gift of God and that was a great joy. Not the value,
the price of the thing. The fact that there you are in the forest, among all the
leaves on the ground, and you say God knows where this screw assembly is and He will
surely reveal it to me and I turn around and there it is.
Student: What is even more remarkable is creation?s remarkable quality. But I mentioned
to you a couple of weeks ago that I had not known that I had lost my keys when visiting
you in Bedford Village. They had dropped out of my pocket and in leaving I just looked
down and there were the keys amongst the pachysandra. If I had known they were lost
I never would have found them. But even before I lost them I found them. (laughter)
Dr. Hora: The Rosetta stone itself must have been a tremendous joy for the Egyptologists,
who had been wracking their brains over the many messages all over the monuments
that nobody knew how to read. Here is this piece of stone and suddenly somebody could
understand.
Student: We had the experience several months ago in London when visiting a British
museum of being shown the Rosetta stone by a historian. She just described it again
and again with excitement in her voice. She showed how the hieroglyphics were discovered
through reading what was on this stone because it literally led them very logically
to the discovery of

what those hieroglyphics meant. She had such enthusiasm and such excitement
in her voice in showing us this.
Dr. Hora: Yes, it is a great gift of God to this generation.
Student: You mentioned the issue of not being able to find the meaning and that there
is not enough sincerity because we like to lie to ourselves. I can think of so many
times that I have come for a meeting with you with what seemed like a problem to
me and you have instantly seen that what I saw as a problem as I presented the circumstances
wasn?t a problem at all. I don?t believe that I would ever have come to that awareness.
Is that always lack of sincerity or is it simply lack of growth and understanding?
Is the truth always available to all of us all of the time?
Dr. Hora: God does not discriminate. (laughter) Student: Is it at every moment a
question of sincerity? Dr. Hora: Yes.
Student: I am trying to see the difference between the need to be sincerely interested
in understanding and what actually leads to understanding. You are saying that God
is not a punishment and reward system, meaning that if you don?t understand you are
not going to be punished. Or are you saying that if you do understand you won?t be
punished and if you don?t understand you will suffer?
Dr. Hora: It is just a fact of reality that if you are sincere, you will find what you need.
Student: We can?t be insincerely sincere; in other words we can?t manufacture sincerity.
We can?t...

Dr. Hora: Oh yes, some people can be sincerely insincere.
Student: And get away with it, you mean?
Dr. Hora: No. You don?t get away with it. The motivations can be widely varied. There
are people who go for years to psychotherapy and get nothing out of it because what
they want to get is not valid. Most of the time they want power over other people.
This isn?t going to work ? to acquire something that somebody else has or to impress
somebody or to confirm oneself or to brag. There are millions of invalid motivations,
which people seek in life and when you are obsessed with something invalid, you will
never find the truth. That is why sincerity is so very important; otherwise, you
are just wasting your efforts.
Student: Where I think I have encountered my insincerity is that when a problem presents
itself, I had a thought of what is the solution to this problem. I was looking for
the outcome, what I considered to be a healing of the problem. I am so set on that
outcome that I am trying to find meaning there or whatever will logically lead there.
The thing that I think has been most remarkable in my studies in Metapsychiatry is
that outcomes really don?t matter.
Dr. Hora: Right. Sincere seeking of the light is the right motivation. We are truth
seekers. You know the first principle. Thou shalt have no other interest before the
good of God, which is spiritual blessedness. If you are interested in something else
that is not existentially valid, it cannot help. It hinders. Somebody said, ?Why
should I bother looking for the light when I am interested in money.? But then all
your

attention is focused on making money. How will you find the light if you
are looking in the wrong places? Let?s face it, most people are preoccupied with
invalid goals, those that are existentially not valid. The world will say, ?If you
are smart you will invest in real estate and they don?t make it any more so you better
buy.? Then you put your mind to that and you are just misdirected. Seek and ye shall
find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. Ask and you shall receive (Matt. 7:7).
All these Biblical sayings admonish us to make sure that we are focusing our attention
in an existentially valid direction.
It reminds me of a broker who once tried to study Meta-psychiatry and right at
the first session he said, ?I want to tell you what I want. I want sex and I want
money.? I told him you can?t find it here. (laughter) That was the end of his study.


Student: Sometimes we react to situations, or sometimes we respond to situations.
Sometimes we calculate and think about situations beforehand. We have spoken about
spontaneity before. It seems that if we?re spontaneous we?re not calculating. But
then when we react, we?re not calculating either. We reflect later and realize that
we said something that was invalid. So what?s a good way to be beneficial and aware
of being a valid presence and, therefore neither calculating nor reacting, but being
reflective and spontaneous?
Dr. Hora: It would be very helpful to admit that we don?t know what this word means.
Most everybody assumes they know what it means to be spontaneous. Hardly anybody
knows, even after twenty years, after explaining over and over again, people don?t
know. It?s a mystery, or, as it says in ?The King and I,? ?it is a puzzlement.? What
is this word spontaneous? It?s not calculative, it?s not unreflective, it?s not reactive;
none of these things are spontaneous. If you step on a nail and you say ?ouch,? is
the ?ouch? spontaneous?
Student: It?s probably a reaction.

Dr. Hora: Of course, it has nothing to do with spontaneity. It?s a very interesting
word. When you have an experience and you try to figure out how to deal with it,
that?s not spontaneity. That?s calculative reasoning, isn?t it? If you have an experience
and you react to it, that?s not spontaneity. That?s reaction. So you cannot think
and you cannot not think in order to be spontaneous. There is no human quality or
faculty that can explain it. It?s a total mystery. Smart people are not spontaneous.
Stupid people are also not spontaneous.
Student: It seems that when we respond, that it comes through the grace of God; that
no human or personal thing is happening.
Dr. Hora: Right. Now what is this grace of God that you are talking about?
Student: I can?t explain it; it?s just something that is. I used to think there were
miracles; now I realize they?re not miracles.
Dr. Hora: There are miracles everyday, all the time; nobody notices it.
Student: What is a miracle?
Dr. Hora: After we have explained this so many times! (laughter) Now what do you
think of the response that out of left field comes a question and the response is
appropriately present. What happened?
Student: Spontaneity.
Dr. Hora: So what happened? How is it that there is suddenly spontaneity in this
room? How did it come in? Through the door? A human person cannot have spontaneity.
There


is just one quality of consciousness that can respond spontaneously, and it is a
great mystery. It is the miracle of life and it is called love. Have you ever heard
of this word, love? Love can respond with spontaneity. How is that? We know that
fearful people cannot be spontaneous; angry people cannot be spontaneous; jealous
people cannot be spontaneous; envious people cannot be spontaneous; rivalrous people
cannot be spontaneous; ambitious people cannot be spontaneous. None of these behavioral
human factors can manifest spontaneity. Love alone can reveal what spontaneity is.
Do we all follow this?
Student: What is the definition of spontaneity?
Dr. Hora: It comes from the Latin, sponte tua, out of the will of God. When love
is in our consciousness, God is there in the form of love and intelligence and that
manifests itself as spontaneous responsiveness. It?s non-personal and non-conditional
and it is always benevolent. It?s like a breath of fresh air, clarifying all the
smog that normal human interaction generates. Next week I will ask you again, ?What
is spontaneity?? I bet you won?t be able to answer. It?s a difficult question to
answer.
Student: So many times after various situations in life, you look back and say what
might have been, what would have been more valid. ?I shouldn?t have said that.? That?s
not even valid, but you wish it had been more valid.
Dr. Hora: A human person cannot respond spontaneously. Only love can do it. Now how
is it that love can manifest itself as spontaneity?


Student: Because it is selfless. It is not a personal self.
Dr. Hora: Yes, because it is intelligent and it is spiritual and divine. If anybody
doubted the existence of God, if this individual understood spontaneity, he would
automatically acknowledge the reality of God. And certainly people who are agnostics
or anti-God or not fully accepting the fact of God?s existence have no way of being
spontaneous. No way. It?s always the human mind messing things up.
Throughout the history of art, there were great works produced. Who produced them?
If we just judge by appearances, we see that Michelangelo was a man, maybe even homosexual.
Yet he created all kinds of great works of art, of music and painting and sculpture,
and we marvel how a human person could have this in him to produce such marvelous
works. If we think that it comes out of a human person then we don?t understand anything.
A truly creative individual will tell you, ?I don?t remember having done this. It
just happened.? Something within the consciousness of the creative individual expresses
itself in a certain way of beauty, honesty, goodness, and love; this is spontaneity.
Great art always came about spontaneously. The great artists developed the ability
of letting God work through them. They were very leery of accepting credit. Money,
yes (laughter) but credit, no. All credit goes to God, infinite love-intelligence.
It is the creative principle of the universe and is responsible for everything that
is beautiful, good, intelligent and worthwhile in life. So whoever understands spontaneity
understands God in action. There is a patient in Connecticut who has been suffering
from being hard of hearing. He has gone to all kinds of doctors with his ears; he
took his ears with him, and the doctors examined the


ears and found nothing. And then we asked the right question: ?What is the meaning
of your difficulty in hearing what people are saying?? It turned out that he is a
calculative speculator who isn?t interested in hearing what people say, so he cannot
hear. As the Bible says, ?He that hath an ear let him hear? (Rev. 2:7).
Student: Dr. Hora, suppose you adhere to a certain value system, let?s say, of honesty.
Then, when there is a temptation to be dishonest, and you immediately reject that
because you cherish the value of honesty in your consciousness, is that spontaneity?
Dr. Hora: No. That?s commitment to the truth of being or the quality of character.
It is mostly educationally derived, the result of the right kind of education.
Student: So it?s a human trait?
Dr. Hora: No, it is a divine quality. The truth, as expressed through human behavior,
is not an area of spontaneity. Spontaneity is closely associated with creativity
and responsiveness to inspiration from God. You don?t have to be a creative individual
to be truthful or honest under all circumstances. Of course, if you are clear about
spontaneity, you could never be dishonest or a liar. It would be impossible. That?s
part and parcel of the whole perception of reality. If we are dishonest or lying
and deceiving ourselves, and others, then we are adulterating reality. So Jesus said,
don?t be an adulterer. Don?t adulterate the truth of God. Cherish the truth and realize
that all good comes from being here for God. We are here for God. We?re spontaneous.
We have inspired wisdom and we


are non-conditionally benevolent. If we?re not benevolent, everything is off. It?s
good to be good, right?
Student: In life, there are thousands of different situations that we encounter,
so we?d like to respond appropriately. And they are all different and we can?t know
what?s going to come and we can?t know how to respond. If we meditate and understand
what it is to have a loving consciousness, then that?s what?s going to make those
situations just fine. We would be responding in a healthy way, in a beneficial way,
and that love is what we practice.
Dr. Hora: Well, there are people who take courses in conversation and how to socialize,
how to bullshit, how to sell, how to buy, how to deal with people. As Dale Carnegie
wrote, ?How to Win Friends and Influence People.? These are artificial means of trying
to approximate spontaneity and truthfulness. But it?s artificial; it?s nothing.
Student: Those things seem to be inauthentic. But if we accept the principle that
?Nothing comes into experience uninvited,? then the things that we encounter that
the other student was speaking of, all those myriad experiences are being invited
by our consciousness. So we really need to pay attention.
Dr. Hora: Yes. Our educational system is geared to what is called by a strange technical
name: relationships. If you watch television or listen to the radio you will find
this word ?relationship? innumerable times. They are always talking and thinking
in terms of relationships, which means interaction between individuals and others.
And you go to school and learn psychology, sociology, good manners, street smarts
and this smart and that smart and this is really an endeavor to sort


of deal with the world on the basis of personal mind. And the harder you try, the
more you study the more trouble you get into. All the marriages and the group experiences
that people have invariably disintegrate because it is not possible to sustain harmonious
communication on the basis of psychology. It is well known that, out of the entire
population, psychiatrists and psychologists have the worst kind of marriages of all.
And the more an individual is trained in psychology the more impossible it is for
him to live and communicate harmoniously; because when he or she is positive it leaves
an unpleasant aftertaste and when he or she is negative it results in conflict. There
is no way that you can function in life on the basis of calculative thinking. That?s
what these things are and what they breed are politics and politicians. Calculative
thinking drains their minds and they learn all kinds of things ? selling themselves
and selling things; it is full of suffering. It cannot be done. But if we understand
spontaneity as a manifestation of divine love in human encounters, then we don?t
have to learn how to communicate. It is spontaneously there. And it?s good and harmonious.
It?s free; it?s effortless, reverent, and loving, based on awareness of the truth
in all situations. We don?t have to learn how to handle people. You see on television
all kinds of schemes that people have devised to influence people, to sell, to convince,
to seduce, to lure away, to pressure; all this goes on due to ignorance. People try
to manage how they get along in this world.
Now if a hostess gives a party or has visitors, after the party there comes the
reckoning. What I should have said, and didn?t say! How should I have made this?
Did I do it right? What did I say? What are you thinking now about what I was thinking?
Was I right? Did I make a mistake? And then


there are headaches and the inability to find peace. But true spontaneity is timeless,
mindful, effortless, loving, and non-conditional. It?s all forgiving, because God
is infinite love and mercy. As human beings we can slip out of the spontaneity of
timelessness, and mistakes may occur. But there don?t have to be worries about it
because it never really was. You made a mistake? No, it never was. The only thing
that really is, is the presence of God, as infinite love-intelligence, and that?s
genuine spontaneity. You cannot take a course in spontaneity.
Student: Isn?t this a course?
Dr. Hora: No, this is an iconoclastic course of everything else that isn?t God. We
are here to destroy the world totally, so that the presence of God may become clear.
In this world you shall have tribulations, no matter what you do, no matter what
courses you take, no matter how many psychology books you have read. It cannot be
done. You just have to surrender to perfect love. In perfect love there are no persons.
So it?s no use trying to use your mind, or what you have learned or read in a book.
In perfect love there is non-conditional benevolence. This includes compassion, forgiveness,
peace, assurance, gratitude, freedom, etc. It?s a whole ?nother smoke. People suffer
so much anxiety when it comes to meeting somebody, friend or foe. Will I behave and
handle this situation in the right way? Yes, spontaneity is a tremendous miracle
of God in the human domain. So if we would like to function in the world we have
to meditate on the question of what is spontaneity? If you meditate on this issue
you may come to the point where it is tangibly present in your awareness and you
function spontaneously in any situation, and that?s good. And you understand that
you don?t worry whether you are liked, or


appreciated, made an enemy, or criticized, or maligned in any way; it doesn?t touch
you. There is no reality to it whatsoever. Now what was your question?
Student: What is a miracle?
Dr. Hora: Spontaneity is a miracle. (laughter) A miracle is an observable event,
which defies all customary ways of reacting or dealing with it; it?s totally surprising
and always good. All the healings of Jesus were miraculous. Now if someone understands
something here or anywhere else, that?s a miracle, because nobody can do it. Every
time we understand a little bit, that?s a miracle. If you understand a lot you are
very happy, and blessed. The more we understand the truth of being, the more miracles
will appear in our lives.
Student: It is difficult to know, if you are maligned, that it?s not real. How does
it come to the awareness that it is not real?
Dr. Hora: Well, does anybody know the answer to the problem of malicious thoughts?
Student: If you hear someone talking maliciously about someone else, or someone has
been talking about your ideas, those kinds of thoughts seem hard to know that they
are not real. You said that we can get to a point where we understand that they are
not real and cannot touch us, but how do we know that and how do we come to understand
that, beyond just believing the words?
Dr. Hora: Well it requires first a belief and then a conviction and then an understanding
that God is infinite good and it is good to be good, and if someone is not good,
but is malicious, then he or she is hurting himself or herself. And we don?t


have to do anything. We just have to be conscious of the fact that here is a phenomenon
that falsifies reality.
Student: Einstein?s remark is also relevant. Dr. Hora: Yes?
Student: He said, ?Arrows of hate have been shot at me many times, but they never
touched me because they came from a world with which I have nothing in common.?
Dr. Hora: Yes. What did he mean by that? They came from a world with which he had
nothing in common.
Student: Well it is a world of interaction, and a world of personal-ism.
Dr. Hora: If you have learned this and have understood and you come across someone
who is malicious, gossipy, and full of ill will, you have compassion for the guy
because he is just hurting himself. He cannot touch you if your consciousness is
not of this world but of omni-action. As long as we cherish relationships and interactions,
either in families or business, we will be vulnerable to these things. That?s why
Jesus said that in this world we?ll have tribulations. We have to transcend the world
by knowing that these things are mistakes. People make mistakes and suffer from them
and we don?t have to suffer from them if we understand reality. We constantly pray
and work and meditate and study to know reality. And here, this student asked this
beautiful question about spontaneity and she tried to answer it and ran into an impenetrable,
invisible wall of the truth. We all have to face the fact that nobody knew the answer.
Was there anyone of you who understood spontaneity? If you were to ask a thousand
people in church


and out of church, in synagogue and in mosque, nobody would understand what it is.
It is a miracle, a mystery. Spontaneity is a word, a beautiful word. Everyone believes
that they know what it means. It would be a great blessing to know. But if we deceive
ourselves, if we like to say, ?I am right,? we will just suffer. It is very important
to know that if we understand spontaneity we understand God. What could be more important
than that?
Student: It is interesting that the word ?spontaneity? originates with God, and yet
that component of its meaning or its origin is lost. If we look in the dictionary,
this meaning would appear as a minor usage.
Dr. Hora: The interesting thing about this word is that no matter how many times
we have spoken about it here, when it comes up again, nobody remembers, nobody knows,
nobody has really attained understanding of it. It is easy to lose it. But if you
don?t use it you lose it. How do we use spontaneity in our daily lives? How do we
use it, now that it has been explained to us?
(To a student) In your next party, visitors will come and may have all kinds of
unloving fantasies. How will you use it? The way to use it is to cling to it tooth
and nail. You have to cling to the understanding of what it is and pray that it works
in you. ?But the father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works? (John 14:10). When
our interest in perfect love is greater than personal success and power and influence
and defensiveness, then it is there and we don?t have to worry about it; it will
be there. We are oriented toward letting it work in us. We cannot do it. But if we
are imbued with the understanding of what it is, it works. It does its own work


because God is God. ?It is the Father in you who doeth the works.?
Student: That?s really helpful because that?s the problem. We get distracted all
the time. But if we just stay with that...
Dr. Hora: Sure, sure. Of course it is easier if we don?t have to go to parties (chuckle),
but some of us are forever going to parties and trying to like it, trying to make
it a pleasant experience. But I think it is seldom so; parties always leave an unpleasant
aftertaste because of the interactions which take place. You cannot make it otherwise.
Student: How is spontaneity different from PAGL? It seems as if aspects of it are
in line with PAGL and compassion and forgiveness.
Dr. Hora: PAGL is the fruit of spontaneity. Or, as the medical establishment says,
it?s the side effect. (laughter) Isn?t it interesting that everything that doctors
do has side effects. ?The good that I would I do not; but the evil that I would not,
that I do? (Rom. 7:19). That?s the godless experience of godlessness.
Student: I think I?ve lost spontaneity. I have to admit that I?ve forgotten what you said.
Dr. Hora: What? Already? You didn?t wait until you got to the subway.
Student: Well, part of it is clear, that it is perfect love.
Dr. Hora: Right. And you know perfect love, so you have to practice, practice.


Student: So it?s not different from perfect love?
Dr. Hora: It?s a precondition to it; perfect love makes it possible. It brings into
manifestation this highly desirable state of consciousness, called spontaneity. Practicing
perfect love is really the easiest and the most wonderful discipline that we can
apply for ourselves, except that you have to approach every day and every moment
contemplating the importance of perfect love. It helps if you remind yourself that
it is good to be good. You will become more and more spontaneous.
Student: It?s good that you speak of a good that is good, that only comes through
the grace of God. Because we are taught to be good and that is not good. And that?s
something we can do, but we cannot do the good that you speak of.
Dr. Hora: Well nobody said here that we have to do the good.
Student: No, what I meant was that the good that is beneficial just seems to come spontaneously.
Dr. Hora: So if we say, ?It?s good to be good,? we are not talking about how to do
it. We are making a statement about a mental orientation in life.
Student: I understand. This seems to also be something that just is another miracle;
it?s something that?s a response. It comes from God only.
Dr. Hora: Anybody can be interested in being good. It doesn?t mean that he has to
produce this goodness.
Student: It?s spiritual.


Dr. Hora: We have to be interested in goodness and if we?re sincerely interested, it appears.
Student: A miracle.
Dr. Hora: Yes. Now St. Paul tried to do it and the result was this famous statement,
?The good which I would I do not [he approached it operationally], but the evil which
I would not that I do [again operational].? We?re not talking about operationalism;
it?s a dirty word here. Yes, it?s almost as dirty as relationships. In watching television,
you listen carefully, and you can take a pad and make statistical studies of how
many times within a span of half an hour or so you will hear the word ?relationship.?
Student: And also interaction.
Dr. Hora: Not so much, because it?s fancier. But ?relationship? almost anybody can
use. It has become an epidemic ever since psychology became popularized and everybody
forever talks about relationships. And the idea is that if you can handle relationships
you?ll be all right; so people are trying, but it doesn?t seem to work.

Man suffers from insufficient understanding of Reality. Enlightened man views life
as a dream from which he has awakened. While others around him are still involved
in the dream, he himself is just a nonparticipating observer. Or, let us put it this
way: enlightened man is like someone who sits in a movie and, while others around
him are fully absorbed in experiencing the actions on the screen, he himself remains
unaffected by the plot or by the behavior of others around him. He is just a nonparticipating
observing presence. He can walk out of the cinema at any time, whereas unenlightened
man gets sucked into the movie and experiences the scenes on the screen as if they
were happening to him. Enlightened man is not interested in entertainment; he is
unimpressed by the lure of personal experiencing.
Unenlightened life is just a movie. Everyone is dreaming the dream of life as personal
selfhood. We are all dreaming that we are physical personalities interacting with
one another, positively or negatively. And we are very serious about this because
we do not know that we are dreaming, and so our experiences are very important to
us.
The Bible says: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for
they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14). There is a great chasm between natural man and enlightened
man. Natural man thinks that enlightened individuals are foolish, that they are missing
out on all the fun in life, and he has some difficulty in understanding what it is
all about.
The good of enlightened life is not based on experiences,


but on pure bliss. Bliss is blessedness, which is happiness. But the happiness of
the enlightened man is not the same as that of the dreamer. The dreamer seeks happiness
in excitement, in physical sensations, and frictions. Enlightened man finds happiness
in beauty, harmony, peace, perfection, joy, freedom, love, creative intelligence,
inspired wisdom. The Lord’s Prayer says: "Give us this day our daily bread." To the
enlightened man this means: The good of God is realized daily in inspired wisdom,
peace, assurance, gratitude, and love.
We are making a point here about the difference between experiencing and realizing.
Even a so-called "religious experience" is but a dream about becoming enlightened.
Therefore, it is a form of self-deception. Reality cannot be experienced. It can,
however, be realized.
On the road to understanding Love-Intelligence as the light of the Christ, we come
face to face with the belief that the essence of life inheres in experiencing. The
love of darkness could be interpreted in present-day understanding as the love of
feeling good and the love of having pleasurable experiences. As a matter of fact,
we love experiencing so much that we can even enjoy pain.
Man is attached to the dream of experiential living, pleasurable as well as painful.
Life seems to be synonymous with experiencing. Experiencing means sensual, emotional,
and intellectual stimulation. The darkness we are attached to is the idea of experiencing
and doing. Doing is also a form of experiencing; we call it operationalism. We consider
real living or being alive as consisting of activities and experiences in the world.
This is the great stumbling block.
The ninth principle of Metapsychiatry states: "Reality cannot be experienced or
imagined; it can, however, be realized." Many sincere seekers after the truth and
the light fail to reach it because they live in the expectancy of religious and spiritual
experiences. Experiencing is not a proof of life and of truth. Just because we are
experiencing something does not prove that it really exists. For instance, through
hypnotism man can be induced to experience whatever a hypnotist may


suggest. This is a simple proof of the illusory nature of human experiences. As a
matter of fact, experiences are but dreams, or illusions. They are perceptualized
thoughts. The Buddhists and Hindus speak of samsara or maya, meaning illusion.
Real life cannot be experienced. Therefore, not many people are really conscious
or awake, nor are they interested in being awake. Just like drug addicts — admittedly
an extreme example — we too are most interested in dreaming a better dream. Drug
addiction is but a socially unacceptable way of dreaming. Most of us appear to be
hypnotized most of the time, even without drugs, until we wake up. When we wake up,
we discover that life and being consist of Love-Intelligence.
This book deals with the convergence of Metapsychiatry and spiritual guidance.
Metapsychiatry is a scientific discipline based on a metaphysical concept of man
and the universe. The healing method in Metapsychiatry is found in a special mode
of communication centered around a process of hermeneutic clarification of existentially
valid principles. This, in turn, brings about qualitative changes in consciousness
and results in improved cognitive faculties.
The aim of Metapsychiatry is to heal man of his afflictions by elevating his consciousness
to the recognition of his identity as an image and likeness of God, a spiritual being
capable of transcendence.
Spiritual guidance endeavors to help man realize his own divinity and life in the
context of God. Man is seen as a "place" where God’s presence reveals itself as omniactive
Love-Intelligence. We are led to "overcome the world" by discovering in practical
ways how to be "in this world" and yet "not of it" (2 Corinthians 10:3). This level
of realization is referred to in the apocalyptic passage which speaks of a "new heaven
and a new earth" (Revelation 21:1).
Enlightened man has a different perception of reality. He has attained a spiritual
level of cognitive integration. As Meister Eckhart put it: "God sees me with the
same eye as I see God."







Metapsychiatry transcends psychiatry. It asks a fundamental question, namely, What
is man? It does not ask, What is wrong with man? but What is man? If we ask this
simple question, we run into a complicated situation. There are many ways of perceiving
man. Medical science simply assumes that man is a physical organism, and that his
basic issues are the physiological processes taking place within the organism.
However, there is much more to man than that. Man is a psyche, an individualized
consciousness, even though he may appear to be a collection of physiological systems.
Thus, the very simple question, What is man? elicits complex and confusing answers.
And so today there are many definitions of man, such as: man is a social animal,
a socio-biological phenomenon, a molecular structure, a biochemical process, a product
of interpersonal relationships, a conditioned reflex system, etc. These various assumptions
about man lead to a variety of schools of thought and many forms of therapeutic methods,
which are forever changing. This clearly indicates that they cannot be valid because
Truth is immutable; it does not change. Whatever is mutable and transitory cannot
possibly be the correct idea.
Now, we can be forgiven if we accept incorrect ideas because we don’t know any
better. But if we don’t know that we don’t know, then difficulties arise. The philosopher
Heidegger compares this situation to a blind man who does not know that he is blind.
Such a man is in great danger; he may



hurt himself. But if a blind man knows that he is blind, then he can proceed wisely
and cautiously, actually begin to see in certain ways, and be safe. So then, first
we have to come to know that we really don’t know and then we must seek to know as
much as possible. Metapsychiatry, having recognized the tragic insufficiency of knowledge
about man, has been led to seek out a definition of man which has endured over the
ages. This knowledge is the pearl of great price which has been neglected, skimmed
over, and not taken seriously by the scientific world. It has been accepted on the
basis of pure belief by the religious world, namely, that man is an "image" and "likeness"
of God. Everyone is familiar with this; it is a religious cliché. Religious people
believe it. Scientists disdain it, since it cannot be proven. Nevertheless, it is
exactly this definition of man that Metapsychiatry takes as a basic premise for its
entire structure.
In order for something to be a basic premise of a scientific system it must be
understood, not only believed in; it must be actually realized, otherwise the whole
structure is built on shifting sand. In order to understand the definition of man
as an image and likeness of God, two things are requisite. First of all, man must
be seen in the context of God. It would be impossible to understand an image and
likeness of God apart from God. Therefore, all endeavors which try to study man apart
from God, as a thing in itself, must be inadequate because there is no such thing
as man in and of himself. Attempts to understand man as if he were a self-existent
entity are based on erroneous impressions. We can study cadavers, do autopsies, we
can study anatomy, physiology, and psychology; we can study group behavior, we can
study man in his relationships to his fellow man, to nature, to animals, and we can
bring together everything in a holistic way, but it is impossible to understand man
apart from God, his Creator. Once we have considered the possibility that perhaps
the biblical definition of man might be valid, we are impelled to study man in the
context of God. But how can we study man in the context of God unless we already
know what God is? So this definition



presents us with an additional dilemma: not only don’t we know what man is, but now
we have to find out what God is, and do it scientifically!
For this, we must define science in broader terms. The traditional concept of science
is that whatever we are studying must be accessible to quantification, measurements,
and experimental validation. That limits the scientific approach a great deal to
things which are tangible, which have dimensions, which have weight, etc. But science
has already reached levels of understanding where we can study things which are not
measurable, not quantifiable, and not accessible to sensory perception. So Metapsychiatry
takes for its fundamental premise the biblical definition of man as the image and
likeness of God and proceeds to ask the questions: What is God? What is Life? How
can an infinite power, a creative Intelligence, have an image and a likeness? How
can an invisible nonquantifiable force be imaged and reflected and manifested through
individuals? What a dilemma! How can we reach sufficient understanding of this elusive
Reality? Well this is where existentialism comes in.
Existentialism is a philosophical inquiry into the nature of existence and the
context in which it manifests itself. What is existence? Existence is that which
exists. Surprisingly, there are many things which seem to be but do not exist. Existence
is that which exists in contrast to that which only seems to exist. Let us explore
the meaning of the word "exist." The derivation of the word "exist" is a combination
of the Greek and Latin: ek — meaning outside; sistere or stare — to stand, to stand
out, to be; ek-sistere means to stand out, to stand apart. Existence is a quality
of consciousness which is capable of observing itself, or of being aware of itself.
So there is something about an existent (an individual who is capable of standing
apart) who is aware of what he is doing and thinking. We are given this faculty of
conscious awareness of self. This is an interesting discovery in that, under normal
circumstances, there seem to be two levels upon which our lives are taking place.
Animals don’t seem to have this faculty at all, or only to a limited degree. But
man



seems to have this faculty and he can develop it even further. He can discover the
"transcendent observer" within himself.
Now the question arises, What is healthy man? In Metapsychiatry we define healthy
man as a "beneficial presence" in the world. In contrast to this, religion requires
us to be beneficent persons in the world. What is the difference? One is being; the
other is doing. The Chinese sage speaks of "actionless action" and "the way to do
is to be." In our culture, however, we are what we do. When we emphasize being in
contrast to doing, we do not say that being precludes doing because then we would
be dead. But our minds are so conditioned to think in dualistic terms that whenever
we say black, we think of white; whenever we say white, it is assumed it is not black.
This tendency toward dualistic thinking must also be transcended. We juxtapose operationalism
with existentialism. We do not imply that a beneficial presence will be passive,
but the quality of his actions will be entirely different from that of the one whose
view on life is primarily operational.
The word "beneficent" is derived from the Latin bonum facere, to do good. A beneficent
person is a do-gooder, and we know that this is fraught with problems. It brings
to mind St. Paul’s phrase: "The good which I would I do not; but the evil which I
would not, that I do" (Romans 7:19). This is a common dilemma in all areas of life.
When we have an operational approach, there will always be good and bad in what we
do. Take, for instance, the tremendous accomplishments in medical science. Much progress
has been made in pharmacotherapy and in surgery, but how much damage is being inflicted
upon the recipients of these blessings at the same time? It is a terrible tragedy
that the more progress is being made, the more damage is being done. There is no
way of separating the good from the evil. We speak of "side effects," but the consequences
are due to the dualistic trap of operationalism.
Let us consider the meaning of a beneficial presence in the world. Beneficence
is an activity, while beneficial is a quality. A person is someone who thinks of
himself as self-existent, selfmotivated, self-energized, self-propelled. What is
the difference




between a person and a presence? A "beneficial presence" is a quality of consciousness.
It may be difficult to conceive of an individual who can be a great blessing to a
situation just by the quality of his consciousness. Some people have the best intentions
to be helpful, and yet things go sour in their presence. Sometimes we may hear someone
exclaim in exasperation, Please, don’t help me! This is the opposite of what we call
a beneficial presence. It may be easier to understand certain concepts in juxtaposition
to their opposites.
In the presence of a beneficial presence — which is a loving consciousness — things
have a tendency to work together for good in an almost mysterious way.
Anyone who really wants to attain an understanding of God beyond that of a religious
symbol or of a theological abstraction will be greatly helped by understanding those
aspects of life which cannot be done. The great confusion in which we live stems
from the assumption and erroneous impression that we can do everything and that everything
entails doing something like, for instance, "making love." The other day someone
said: "I realize that I don’t have love. I wonder where I could get it and how I
could get it." Around the issue of love there is a great deal of confusion stemming
from the operational bias with which we view life. We cannot get love. We cannot
make love. We cannot give love. If we try, we turn out to be inauthentic, consciously
or unconsciously. At Christmas time and other holidays, families come together and
the members make a supreme effort to express love toward each other. They try to
do it and the result is that after these holidays people tend to run into various
problems (side effects).
Love can only be realized. What does it mean to realize something? It means to
become conscious of the reality of something. When we realize love, we discover that
love really is, and that which is does not have to be produced since it already is.
And when we are conscious of what really is, then that which really is becomes manifest
in our experience. We say: Love expresses itself through man. We become aware of
it by the quality of our presence. Such presence has a healing,




harmonizing, enlightening impact on whatever situation we happen to be participating
in. The right understanding of those aspects of life which cannot be done leads us
to an understanding of God because they are the constituent attributes of God. Thus
God becomes a Reality and we do not have to believe in God, or disbelieve in God,
or intellectualize about God; God is then a tangible Reality to us, and we live and
move and have our being in Him.
We may ask, What is the difference between creation and creativity? Creation is
the emergence of the visible universe with all the phenomena of life. We can speak
of creativity as the manifestation of inspired wisdom expressing itself through human
consciousness. God is the source of all creative intelligence, and a creative individual
is one who is receptive to inspired creative ideas coming from that great source
and expressing itself in multifarious ways. There is an analogy here concerning what
we said about love: the love of God expresses itself through man in individual ways.
Similarly, the creative power of God reaches human consciousness in the form of creative
ideas which man can then express. These qualities of God flow through man, who is
the image and likeness of God. When we speak of an image and likeness of God — to
come back to our definition of man — we are not talking about form, we are talking
about the formless in the process of taking shape. Man gives expression to divine
qualities in form. The Zen Master says: "Form is formlessness and formlessness is
form."
I am reminded here of the Metapsychiatric definition of marriage. Conventional
psychological thinking assumes that marriage is a relationship between husband and
wife. Of course, when we are relating one to another there is a lot of friction,
often resulting in a stalemate, and quite often there is parting. If our concept
of marriage is based on conventional thinking, we are in trouble, and we know that
in our culture marriages are frequently troubled. The more psychologically minded
one is about marriage, the more troublesome it tends to be. Metapsychiatry conceives
of marriage not as a relationship




but as joint participation in the good of God. Of course, many people do not want
this. We can say that most suffering is the result of pursuing invalid ideas of what
is good. The valid idea about marriage as a joint participation in the good of God
will result in harmony and blessings. We call this existential validation. It is
a process whereby an idea can validate itself as harmony, peace, assurance, gratitude,
and love.
In Metapsychiatry we are not satisfied with assumptions; we seek realizations,
and in the search for realizing the nature of God we have come to understand what
evil is. Realizations come about through a process of juxtaposing Reality and illusion,
good and evil, what is divine and what is not, what is true and what is false. We
seek to attain the realization of the true nature of God, and one of our main methods
of realizing the nature of God is by continuously increasing our awareness of those
aspects of life which cannot be done. Gradually we come to understand God as the
harmonizing creative principle of the universe. The Bible says of God that He is
of purer eyes than to behold evil ("Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and
canst not look on iniquity," Habakkuk 1:13), and that "God is light and in Him is
no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5).
In juxtaposition to God as the principle of all good, we are led to consider the
nature of evil. In juxtaposition to evil, the good of God becomes more clearly outlined
in our awareness. In our pursuit of understanding Reality we have a method based
on "two intelligent questions." In all our work in Metapsychiatry we ask two questions:
(1) What is the meaning of what seems to be? and (2) What is what really is? With
the aid of these two questions we are able to separate the real from the seeming,
the good from the evil.




Ice is water in crystalized form; vapor is a gas. Vapor can change into liquid
and liquid into crystalline form. Gas is evanescent, intangible, with the property
of expansiveness. Water is liquid and ice is solid. We see that the same substance
can take on three radically different appearances. Phenomena are thoughts in visible
form. It is remarkable to consider that, analogously, thoughts can undergo transmutative
processes and appear either as language, or as emotion, or as behavior, or as illness,
or as health.
We also speak of gaseous substances as having energy; they have the energy which
we can measure through the power of the expanding pressure they exert. Similarly,
thought is energy, mental energy. It has the power to manifest itself in various
forms. And so it is that we speak of phenomena as thoughts having become accessible
to sensory perception.
The science which studies phenomena is called "phenomenology." The philosopher
Heidegger called himself not so much a philosopher as a phenomenological anthropologist,
which means that he used the phenomenological method to study the nature of man.
Phenomenological anthropology is the study of man as a phenomenon. Teilhard de Chardin
wrote a book titled The Phenomenon of Man. Clearly, he considers the totality of
man as a phenomenon. Thus we may say that man is a thought, having become transmuted
into visible form. This




may sound startling at first, but as we consider the basic nature of all phenomena
we see that they have the tendency to appear and to disappear. And man, also, can
be thought of as appearing on the scene and disappearing from it.
To better understand phenomenology, we propose to consider a most simple case of
erythrophobia in order to demonstrate the clinical relevancy of phenomenological
investigation. We aim to demonstrate that this is not just an esoteric philosophy
about highly speculative theories; phenomenological perceptivity and understanding
are practical issues, relevant to daily clinical work. Erythrophobia means a fear
of blushing. Interestingly enough, the more fearful one is of blushing, the more
prone one will be to blushing. The Bible says, "For the thing which I greatly feared
is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me" (Job 3:25).
From what has been said until now, it is possible to understand that what we are
afraid of tends to become an experience. Since fear is a thought present in consciousness,
it tends to express itself as a symptom. There are three main categories of thoughts
which have particular clinical relevancy. These are: (1) What we cherish, (2) What
we hate, and (3) What we fear. These three types of thoughts tend to have clinical
consequences. The question may be asked, What is so special about these three types
of thoughts? These are highly charged thoughts, just as some gases have a higher
expanding energy value than others. Furthermore, the more a gas is compressed, the
more expansive energy it will contain. What we cherish, what we hate, and what we
fear are highly charged thoughts carrying a powerful energy level in the direction
of manifesting themselves in visible form. Of course, other thoughts also have a
tendency to manifest themselves clinically, but not as powerfully as these three.
Sometimes hate and fear are referred to as emotions rather than thoughts. Here
we must understand that emotions are thoughts transmuted into neurovegetative reactions.
The important thing to realize is that the basic stuff of life is thought, just as
the basic stuff of matter is energy. Emotions are




thoughts transmuted to the first stage. This differs from the psychological assumption
which claims that first we feel and then we think. We believe thought to be primary.
It is the fundamental energy form of existence. When God said: "Let there be light,"
He did not have a feeling that there should be light. He had an idea, a thought:
"Let there be light: and there was light" (Genesis 1:3). The thought of God is the
creative impetus which is the beginning of all that really is. "Creatio ex nihilo"
means that God created the universe apparently out of nothing. Actually the universe
is an idea of God, and the basic stuff of the universe is that mental energy which
we call thought or idea. "Idios Cosmos" (Heraclitus) means the universe of ideas.
Heraclitus also said: "Sine ratione nihil est," which means nothing can exist without
thought. The universe is mental. "So God created man in his own image" (Genesis 1:27).
He created us by thinking us; we are God’s invention.
Similarly, man too is an inventor, with a tendency to invent many thoughts. The
thoughts which man invents also seem to have creative power; alas, man is a miscreator.
What we invent is often a miscreation. But we can be instruments of healthy creativity.
The right kind of creativity is not an invention; it is a discovery. A discovery
is the uncovering of something that God has already invented.
Let us now return to erythrophobia, which provides an elementary clinical example
of phenomenology. A man thinks that he might blush in a social situation facing others,
and indeed he does. If someone comes to us with the symptom of blushing, we are not
going to try to find out why he is blushing, or who is to blame for it, or what he
should do about it. In Metapsychiatry we understand that cause-and-effect reasoning
has no therapeutic value; as a matter of fact, it tends to be therapeutically counterproductive.
Furthermore, this realization has been substantiated by research in atomic physics
where the study of the behavior of subatomic particles revealed that there is no
such thing as cause and effect (Heisenberg uncertainty principle). What do we mean
by therapeutically counterproductive? Suppose we figure out why




someone is blushing. What will happen? This will not help him to stop blushing. Quite
to the contrary, it will provide him with an excuse and a justification of his problem.
"Why?" is a reason, and whenever we seek reasons, all we find is excuses.
Thus, if someone comes to us with the problem, say, of blushing, we are not going
to try to find out why he is blushing, but we shall try to discern the meaning of
his blushing. In order to find the meaning of a phenomenon, we must develop a certain
faculty which we all have but which is rather dormant in most people. This faculty
is called "phenomenological perceptivity"; this means discerning the patient’s main
mental preoccupation. This can reveal itself to us in the course of conversation,
or just while being with someone for a while. Let us take, for instance, a gentleman
who has such a problem. While being with him, it became clear that he was preoccupied
with his baldness. Uppermost in his mind was the thought of whether women will like
him, find him acceptable or not. This became clear right from the beginning. Essentially,
it was a problem of vanity. Rejection by women would be intolerably embarrassing.
Thus the meaning of this clinical syndrome became clear right away. In other words,
the man was suffering from an invalid idea about what is important. So we see that
underlying this clinical syndrome was a set of erroneous ideas. The therapeutic process
would involve here clarifying to the patient, first of all, what the meaning of his
blushing is, and illuminating to him the error of his reasoning. This process is
called in Metapsychiatry hermeneutics, which means shedding light on the mental processes
which underlie certain problems, thus leading the patient out of his troublesome
way of reasoning to a more intelligent, mature, constructive way of seeing himself
and the world. This therapeutic process is called "hermeneutic elucidation."
The question can be asked whether a patient would be willing to give up his faulty
way of reasoning. It is not necessary for him to give up anything. This therapy is
not operational. When a problem and its solution are sufficiently clarified, the
power which brings about a change lies not in the patient, nor




in the therapist, but in the realization of the truth. Through hermeneutics the patient
comes to understand something; he comes to see that there are more valid ways of
thinking about the situation. He may realize that whether he has hair or doesn’t
have hair is not an essential issue. The essential issue for each of us is to be
a beneficial presence in the world. This points up how valuable it is for a therapist
to have a valid and clear concept of mental health. Without a valid concept of mental
health we would be at a loss as to what to tell this man; we would have nothing positive
to offer. Since we do have a valid concept of mental health, we can help the patient
realize that he can be just as beneficial a man in the world without hair as with
it.
How do we know that the Metapsychiatric definition of mental health is really valid?
Do we have to study all the previous theories about mental health, like, for instance,
genital primacy, social adaptation, ego strength, emotional maturity, etc. in order
to understand the validity of this definition? Or is there a way of understanding
it independently of anything that preceded? The truth of an existential concept validates
itself in individual experience. In other words, it bears good fruit. Jesus said:
" ... by their fruits ye shall know them" (Matthew 7:20). We base our sense of direction
on the principle of existential validation.





There has been a controversy in the field of psychology for some time now about
what is primary — thought or feeling. This controversy has not been out in the open
very much because of the prevalence of authoritative writings which are in favor
of the assumption that first we feel and then we think. Paracelsus said: "Nihil est
in intellectu quod primum non fuerit in sensu," which means, "Nothing is in the mind
that has not been first in the senses."
It is true that in human experience everything begins with sensory perception;
in other words, our five senses provide us with information about what seems to be.
Therefore, it is natural to come to the conclusion that first we perceive, or feel,
or sense, and then we think.
What has been said until now would seemingly settle the whole controversy right
at this point. However, let us not jump to premature conclusions. Things are not
as simple as they appear. We must realize that there is more to human consciousness
than just sensory input. If man were just under the influence of sensory perceptions,
he would be nothing more than a computer. But there is much more to man. For instance,
we mentioned phenomenological perception. Sensory perceptions give us information
only about the material world, our apparent environment. But they cannot discern
thoughts and affective states. However, phenomenological perceptivity goes beyond
the five senses and makes it possible for us to be aware of qualities of thought
and the mental climate which




surrounds us. Even with closed eyes we can know if someone loves us; we can be aware
of a loving presence. Similarly, we can be aware of envy, jealousy, competitiveness,
tension, hatred. There is a deeper sense of awareness which we are capable of and
which computers don’t have. There is, then, more to us than just sensory information.
Going beyond phenomenology, there is a whole universe of inspiration, inspired
thought, creative intelligence, which comes into consciousness through suprasensory
channels. For example, a teacher may be with a class of students and not know what
to talk about. But pretty soon an idea may appear in his awareness in response to
subliminally perceived needs. We speak of ideas obtaining in consciousness. The word
"obtain" has special interest for us, for it indicates a process of receptivity.
Creative ideas are received into consciousness from a transcendent source. We speak
of God as Cosmic Mind, the infinite source of creative ideas.
Metapsychiatry goes beyond traditional psychological thinking about man as a stimulus-response
organism. The oriental religions speak of the process of opening the "third eye,"
dharma, prajna, paramita, etc., which corresponds to our concept of the process of
awakening to spiritual consciousness which makes man available to inspired wisdom,
creative intelligence.
Wisdom is not intellectual. Education cannot provide man with wisdom. A well-educated
man may be well-informed, but he is not yet a wise man. He can become a wise man
only if his consciousness is spiritualized. This makes him a different man, a man
who is tuned in on a source of higher intelligence which is God. And the more he
is tuned in on this intelligence, the more creative, the more loving, the more harmonious
and healthy he becomes. Interestingly enough, he becomes healthier not only emotionally
and mentally, but also physically, and this is very important. Otherwise Metapsychiatry
would have no justification for its existence.
Now let us come back to the question as to what is primary — thought or feeling?
As stated before, sensory perceptions




occur as a result of external stimuli. In psychiatry they are called exteroceptive
stimuli in contrast to enteroceptive or proprioceptive stimuli, which refer to internal
perception. While it is true that in the human experience everything starts with
sensory perceptions, it is quite different with feelings,
emotions, and moods. Feelings are byproducts of thought processes.
Feelings, emotions, and moods arise as a result of our interpretations of sensory
data. For instance, let us imagine two people walking in the forest. Suddenly one
of them stops, breaks out in a cold sweat, starts trembling, and points with his
finger at an object in front of him, being frightened and speechless. The other man
standing beside him is peaceful, unafraid, and smiling. He looks at his friend, then
moves over to the object in front of them, reaches down and picks up a dried piece
of wood. Now what happened here? Two people received the same sensory stimulus but
one of them interpreted it as a snake, and the other as a twig. The feelings, emotions,
and psychological reactions which followed were clearly manifestations of thought
processes which expressed the particular way the sensory stimulus was interpreted.
So we say that there is a difference between feelings, emotions, and sensory perceptions.
This process is analogous to the process of digestion. Just as bowel movements
are byproducts of digestive processes, feelings and emotions are byproducts of thought
processes. There are some people who become very involved with and unduly interested
in their excrements. And there are many who become unduly concerned with their feelings
and emotions. Individuals who are unduly concerned about their bowel movements are
in danger of developing intestinal dysfunctions; individuals who are unduly preoccupied
with their feelings and emotions tend to become emotionally disturbed. We can say,
"Where a man’s ‘treasure’ lies, there shall his problems be also." In order to be
healthy, we must treasure spiritual values, such as love, harmony, beauty, goodness,
intelligence, generosity, peace, assurance, gratitude, etc.
Let us consider what happens if in psychotherapy a patient




is led to study his feelings and emotions. The therapist is repeatedly inquiring
about how the patient feels, helping him to observe the minutiae of his affective
states. Such a patient is being unwittingly indoctrinated and mentally anchored in
a self-concern. This is not going to be very helpful to him.
In Metapsychiatry there is a technical term for this kind of mental preoccupation;
it is called "self-confirmatory ideation," which means thoughts are constantly reverting
to the self, and seeking to find a certain sense of security in self-awareness. Self-confirmatory
ideation is the essential basis of all pathology. This is a universal human inclination
out of which proceed endless forms of problems, illnesses and suffering. Therefore,
in Metapsychiatry we seek to save man from this proclivity by helping him to discover
transcendence.
Transcendence can be defined essentially as rising above self-confirmatory ideation.
In traditional psychological thinking it has been observed quite early that self-confirmatory
ideation is not conducive to health. Freud called it narcissistic thinking. Narcissism
is, of course, one of the most blatant forms of self-confirmatory ideation. Consequently,
the assumption was that the remedy would be to help the patient to become concerned
with others instead of with himself. The idea was to guide the patient to establish
meaningful relationships with others. However, this is just another pitfall and exercise
in futility, for another is just another self. Selfconfirmatory ideation is interest
in self, in one’s own self. In meaningful relationships we become additionally interested
in the self of another. The result is a compounding of self-confirmatory ideation.
We can only be unselfish for selfish reasons. To be selfish or to be unselfish is
the same.
Orthodox psychoanalysis focuses attention on the self and calls it the study of
intrapsychic processes. Reformed psychoanalysis focuses attention on interpersonal
relationships, which is an extension of the interest in the self and is still mired
in futile preoccupations with the mystery of the self. So the extent of this reasoning
is shallow, primitive, and horizontal.




Horizontal thinking means thinking in terms of self and other, or self and society,
or self and environment. The existential psychotherapist Binswanger speaks of Eigenwelt,
Mitwelt, and Umwelt, which mean the world of self, the world of relationships with
others, and the world of relationships with the environment. But this is still horizontal
thinking. As long as our thinking is horizontal, we have not attained a realization
of the Transcendent.
In transcendence we rise and expand our conscious awareness into the full-dimensional
mode of thinking, and the context of our reasoning includes God, Love-Intelligence,
the Source of all energy, wisdom, love, power, freedom, and creativity. Once we attain
a transcendent perspective on reality, everything changes, just as when we climb
up on a mountain, the view is entirely different than it was in the valley. As man
attains the realization of his full potential, the various concepts which previously
were considered very scientific and important lose their validity, and life is seen
entirely differently. For instance, the concepts of interpersonal relationships and
marital relationships disappear, and in their place there emerges a discovery of
joint participation in the good of God, which makes harmonious coexistence possible.





Thought is fundamental to life. Essentially, thought is energy which has the tendency
to transmute itself into phenomena. Invalid thoughts will transmute themselves into
invalid phenomena, which means that invalid thoughts are harmful, while valid thoughts
are health promoting. It is not a mystery that it is not a desirable condition of
mind to entertain unloving thoughts. As we grow in the understanding of this basic
principle of the transmutation of thought energy, we will become very careful about
what we are thinking. We may develop a discipline of mind where we do not indulge
ourselves any more in negative and existentially invalid thought processes.
What are fantasies? Fantasies are pictorial thought processes. As we said previously,
thoughts constitute mental energy, and this mental energy, like all energies, has
the quality of transmutability into other forms of energy. The first transmutation
of thought energy tends to be image making. Thought is at first conceptual, second
pictorial, and third behavioral or somatic.
For example, let us suppose someone envies another for owning a beautiful automobile,
and suppose he allows himself the luxury of indulging in thoughts of envy. There
develops a certain cathexis, which means an emotional charge in connection with that
envy. Then, pretty soon, he may find himself fantasizing about something happening
to that automobile, an accident, or it being stolen or damaged through




some malicious mischief. Already the idea of envy begins to transmute itself into
pictorial form. He is already producing a movie in his mind. This is called imagination,
which is synonymous with fantasizing. Imagination is image making in consciousness.
There is a movement here from concept to image. This may progress into behavior
if there is a desire to act out the fantasies. This is the third stage of transmutation
of energy from idea to action, which is behavior. Behavior can be verbal or physical.
But suppose one is too civilized to act out his fantasies and does not permit himself
this form of energy transmutation, in which case he may have to find another form
of transmutation. Instead of physical action, this energy is then channeled into
the body. It becomes transmuted into a physical symptom. This is called somatization.
Every time this individual may see the automobile, he may get a migraine headache,
or his blood pressure may go up, and he may hate the car or the owner. So the original
thought has now become psychosomatic pathology.
Let us repeat then: first there is the idea, then the concept, then the image,
then behavior, then somatization. After that follows the rationalization of the somatization,
which means trying to cope with it by explaining it away, or developing a defense
mechanism of denial and "reaction formation." For instance, "I don’t hate the owner
of this car: I am not interested in this car; as a matter of fact, I love him." There
is an attempt to transmute the original energy from envy to love. This mechanism
is frequently encountered also in homosexuality, lesbianism, and other forms of carnal
interaction.
To cope with existentially invalid thoughts in this manner is very burdensome,
complicated, and makes life miserable. Therefore, we must learn the discipline of
thinking and seeing life in the context of existentially valid ideas. If our outlook
on life is existentially valid, then we are not subject anymore to these troublesome
ideas; we do not envy, we are not jealous, we are not competitive, hostile, afraid,
irrationally ambitious. None of these things moves us anymore. We are imbued with




the right perspective, which is the spiritual outlook on life. We are involved with
spiritual values. The thoughts which obtain in our consciousness are determined by
the perspective which we have on life.
There are five invalid perspectives on life which are prolific sources of existentially
troublesome thinking, and an endless variety of problems flow from them. As will
be seen later, these are the "five gates of hell," namely: sensualism, emotionalism,
intellectualism, materialism, and personalism. A perspective on life based on any
one of these five categories of thought is a source of many difficulties.
Sometimes we encounter a certain category of thought which is referred to as religious
scruples. Scrupulosity is viewed in psychiatry as obsessive-compulsive neurosis.
The trouble with religious prohibitions and intimidations is that people are not
given a chance to understand the dynamism of the transmutations of mental energy.
Dogmatic religion says: "Thou shalt not.... " If we forbid someone to think certain
thoughts, like for instance, "thou shalt not covet," which means you should not envy,
this may result in an intrapsychic conflict where the religious man tries to suppress
his covetous thoughts. He is prohibited from entertaining certain thoughts; consequently
he develops defense mechanisms against these thoughts. Obsessive ideas and compulsive
symbolic acts are ways of attempting to repress the forbidden thoughts. This is the
meaning of scrupulosity.
Arbitrary prohibitions without understanding lead to complications. Religion, which
Jesus hoped would liberate man, can actually enslave him, and instead of healing
him can make him sick. Consequently, some people have a fear of religion and an aversion
to the Bible. This, of course, is tragic because Jesus was the greatest healer who
ever lived and his teachings can really set us free, provided they are understood
in an existentially valid way based on sound epistemology.
The right understanding of Jesus’ teachings is not repressive but liberating because
they do not say what we should think or should not think; they tell us what really
is. "The




law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). Jesus
reveals to us what is existentially valid; he turns us away from the five invalid
perspectives on life and gives us a new perspective, the spiritual perspective, in
the context of which all thoughts which obtain in consciousness are health promoting,
harmonizing, and existentially valid.
Now then, if our thoughts transcend the "five gates of hell," it stands to reason
that when these thoughts transmute themselves, the result will be peace, harmony,
assurance, healing, freedom, love, intelligence, creativity, harmony, and joy. And
this is health.
There is another thought form which in psychoanalysis is referred to as "free association."
It consists of revealing the random thoughts coming to mind in connection with some
dream, or childhood experience, etc. The thoughts which obtain in consciousness at
any moment are determined by the perspective within which we view life. Therefore,
if our perspective on life is any one of the previously mentioned five invalid categories,
then the thoughts which occur to us in the course of free association will also be
determined by that particular context. Therefore, the issue is not so much the thoughts
which come up in the course of free association but the context which gives rise
to these thoughts.
Suppose someone had a dream of having a pleasurable encounter with Gina Lollobrigida.
It stands to reason then that all his thoughts in the course of free association
will have the character of sensualism, because Gina Lollobrigida, as portrayed in
her movies, is a symbol of sensualism. So we can say that free association is not
really free, but is circumscribed by the context in which our perspective is focused
at a particular time.
In order for therapy to be effective and valid, we must help our patients to transcend
the "five gates of hell" and find that perspective which is the fountainhead of existentially
valid thoughts. These, in turn, through the process of transmutation of energy, manifest
themselves as healing. And that is how




health comes into being. The Bible puts it very simply: "As he [man] thinketh in
his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7).
To be healthy, happy, effective, and successful we need to learn to think right.
Right thinking must not be confused with positive thinking. For while right thinking
is always positive, positive thinking is not always right. Right thinking is existentially
valid thinking.
Other phenomena worthy of consideration are witchcraft, voodoo, black magic, hypnotism,
cursing, and so on. Since all thoughts — valid and invalid ones — seem to represent
energy, they can transmute themselves and create phenomena. For instance, voodoo
is perhaps the best known system where, in the context of religious superstition,
certain destructive thoughts are suggested to individuals, or expressed about individuals
either in their presence or their absence. These thoughts often manifest themselves
in some tragedy concerning those individuals. There have been cases reported in medical
literature where certain individuals, upon whom a voodoo curse had been pinned, actually
died, in spite of efforts of physicians in a hospital trying to save them. They just
died and no one could explain it medically, so powerful is a voodoo curse upon those
who believe in it.
Voodoo, cursing, witchcraft, and hypnotism each have power and impact on people
as long as they believe in it, or on people who disbelieve it. If we believe that
a curse has power, we are vulnerable. But if we disbelieve it, we are vulnerable
as well. To believe or to disbelieve is the same. In both instances we are involved
in struggling against a power. When we disbelieve in something, we are fighting against
believing in it; therefore we are honoring it as a power. There are two interesting
relevant lines in the Bible which say: "But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil"
(Matthew 5:39) ... "but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21), which means if we
are resisting evil, we are honoring it as a power. But if we understand that only
the good of God is real and has power, then we do not get involved with evil either
in a positive or a negative way.





The habit of thinking in terms of what should be or what should not be tends to
make us willful and tyrannical. Many a tyrannical parent is an involuntary victim
of this semantic trap. However, we need not be victims of habits of thought. With
a little attention and discipline we can abandon such arbitrary and coercive language
and attain "shouldlessness." Shouldlessness is a most attractive and desirable quality
of mind. In the Beatitudes Jesus speaks about it as meekness: "Blessed are the meek:
for they shall inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5). We can consider shouldlessness as
synonymous with meekness.
Interestingly enough, when we become shouldless, our lives become simple and efficient
(fuss-less). For instance, there is a case of a young mother who had a great deal
of trouble with her four-year-old child at feeding time. The child would refuse to
feed herself and would demand to be fed. The mother kept insisting that a four-year-old
child should be able to feed herself. Consequently, every meal became a "battle royal"
with a great deal of fuss. The mother did not realize that she had a tyrannical approach
to the whole process of feeding. Only when she heard herself say, "You should feed
yourself," did she awaken to the realization that what is needed is a "shouldless"
mentality.
Tyrannical words produce tyrannical attitudes and these in turn provoke tyrannical
and rebellious reactions. The life of a tyrannical individual is very difficult because
he encounters




many types of resistance. The word "should" tends to trigger negative reactions.
Absolute shouldlessness can only be attained when the following principle is understood:
"Yes is good, but no is also good" (the fourth principle of Metapsychiatry). Whenever
this principle is first mentioned, there are always some misinterpretations voiced.
For instance, some may say this principle is fatalistic philosophy, meaning that
man is a victim of circumstances. The second misinterpretation believes this principle
to recommend Pollyannaism, which is a form of self-deception. And the third misinterpretation
calls it a principle of nihilism, meaning that nothing matters. None of these, however,
constitutes the right understanding, for this principle refers to a cognitive realization
of the nondual nature of Divine Reality, where everything is harmonious, intelligent,
and "very good." Whenever we understandingly affirm this principle, we have placed
our problems into the hands of God, and from then on, things tend to work out in
a most favorable way, for God is the harmonizing power of the universe and is omniactive
Mind.
Contrary to the human dimension of experience, yes and no in Divine Reality carry
no value judgment. In human terms we assume that "yes" is good, meaning positive,
and "no," being negative, must therefore be bad. But in the context of Divine Reality
nothing is ever bad: Therefore, even "no" has a positive connotation.
The Metapsychiatric therapist does not speak about what should be or what should
not be. Metapsychiatry is concerned with developing the faculty to discern what is.
The habit of thinking in terms of what should be or what should not be constitutes
a "mind-set" which clouds the ability to see what is. It is therefore advisable to
dispense with the habit of thinking in these terms. For instance, we don’t say that
horizontal thinking shouldn’t be. We say that it interferes with the faculty of perception.
A fundamental ethical point in Metapsychiatry is the respect for people’s right
to be wrong. It is important that




patients be given the freedom to be wrong. It is not the therapist’s task to influence
his patient. Someone asked, But what do you do if the patient does not want to change?
Patients have a right not to want to change.
Patients seek help believing that they are unhappy or sick and hoping to find a
way to be happier and healthier. Let us take for example a middle-aged man who went
to see a therapist because he was getting increasingly less capable of enjoying his
homosexual marriage. He was becoming impotent. He was hoping to have his potency
restored. He believed that it was wrong to be impotent. The therapist refrained from
thinking about what should be or what should not be, and instead sought to understand
the meaning of the problem. He knew well that whatever change may occur in the patient’s
life will not be brought about by what the therapist wants, nor by what the patient
wants. Change occurs under the impact of the truth realized in consciousness.
The therapist invited the patient to try to understand the meaning of his impotency.
In the course of exploring the meaning of this phenomenon, it was discovered that
the patient had recently become interested in spiritual studies. He had taken an
intensive course in Transcendental Meditation. He also became interested in the study
of comparative religions. As a result of this, he was awakening to new realizations
about what God is, what man is, what life is, and what health is from a spiritual
standpoint. As a result of his progress in spiritual understanding, it was becoming
more and more difficult for him to continue in his previous lifestyle. This manifested
itself as a growing inability to sustain his homosexual involvement. Consequently,
it dawned on him that he was not getting sicker but healthier, that his impotency
was actually a good sign, that it was not something to fear but to accept. The right
understanding of spiritual values is a power active in his consciousness to bring
about a transformation of his mode of being-in-the-world.
As we see, the therapist did not have to impose his own ideas on the patient, nor
did he have to accept the patient’s




ideas about what should be or what shouldn’t be. The power to bring about change
lies in the understanding of what is, which, in this case, was the emergence of spiritual
consciousness in the patient.
According to Jesus, it is the knowledge of the truth that makes man free. This
fact eliminates one of the great psychoanalytic stumbling-blocks, namely, the concept
of resistance. Resistance always requires two people: one who wants something, and
the other who does not want it. Since the therapist has no personal wants, there
is no one to resist. In Metapsychiatry there are no interpersonal relationships.
As for intrapsychic conflicts, they are considered to be collisions of two or more
forms of ignorance. When two forms of ignorance collide, we can speak of an "implosion"
of nothingness. Since truth is irresistible and omnipotent, it abolishes all forms
of ignorance, just as light abolishes darkness.
As mentioned above, the Metapsychiatric therapist does not influence his patient;
nevertheless, he is influential. The therapist is influential by virtue of the quality
of his being and by his ability to shed light on what is. Metapsychiatric therapy
is a hermeneutic process. The Metapsychiatrist is neither a "should" thinker, nor
an influencer, nor a "why?" asker. He is an elucidator, a clarifier. To ask "why?"
would imply that there is a cause. For instance, had the therapist asked why this
patient was getting impotent, he would have had to blame it on Transcendental Meditation.
But since he was exploring the meaning of this impotency, he wound up giving credit
to the increasing spirituality in the patient’s consciousness.
Cause-and-effect thinking is a narrow-minded way of looking at life, and Metapsychiatry
seeks to transcend it. Here there are mainly two questions asked: (1) What is the
meaning of what seems to be? and (2) What is what really is? To illustrate, let us
come to the gentleman with the impotency problem. If we ask, What is the meaning
of his problem? we see that the meaning of his problem is an erroneous mode of being-in-the-world.
"Mode of being-in-the-world" is an existential term. Everyone has a specific mode
of being-in-the-world




which can be, more or less, in harmony with the Fundamental Order of Existence. Our
patient had a specific form of misdirected mode of being-in-the-world, manifesting
itself in a homosexual life-style, centered around the idea that the good life can
be found specifically in the practice of sodomy.
Thus, the first question helps to understand a patient’s mode of being-in-the-world.
Following that, we ask the second question, But what is what really is? This question
refers to the issue of what constitutes a healthy mode of being-in-the-world. The
answer to it is that man, as an image and likeness of God, is a spiritual being and
participates in existence as a beneficial presence in the world. When this is brought
home to a patient, his mode of being-in-the-world undergoes a confrontation with
what really is. What seems to be collides here with what really is. Regardless of
the patient’s initial reaction at this point, he will never be able to shake off
the power of the truth which was planted in his consciousness, somewhat as a seed.
The seed will germinate and, sooner or later, bear fruit.
If potency is expressing itself in coerciveness, violence, and trespassing under
the guise of love, it is a sickness. Sickness drives man to seek therapy. When a
man seeks spiritual understanding, he is being drawn to the Christ. There is a spiritual
hunger in man, no matter how depraved he seems to be, or how deeply immersed in perversion
and ignorance he may be. Everyone is drawn to the Christ-idea because it is the light
of the world.
Jesus said: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me.... For my yoke is easy, and
my burden is light" (Matthew 11:29, 30). The yoke which Jesus described as easy and
the burden which is light could be understood in our terms as "letting-be." "Letting-be"
is an existential term. It originated in Taoism. Letting-be, translated into existential
philosophical conceptualization, actually means reverent, loving responsiveness to
that which is from moment to moment. It is a highly constructive, supremely spiritual
attitude toward all life forms, not




unlike Albert Schweitzer’s reverence for life. Essentially, it is a Christ-like stance
of the Metapsychiatric therapist. Letting-be is a most enlightened form of love,
but it must not be confused with leaving alone, which is neglect.





We tend to assume that everything written in the Bible is spiritual, and everything
religious is spiritual. Nothing is further from the truth. For instance, the Ten
Commandments are not really spiritual laws but moral principles. The law of karma
is an epistemic law because it refers to thought processes. For instance: "Whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6:7), is an epistemic law. The
word "karma" is a Sanskrit word referring to actions and the consequences of actions.
Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge, i.e., mental action, or processes
of the mind. The Bible speaks in many instances of the significance of mental processes.
For instance: "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7).
We have been able to realize a law which says: "Nothing comes into experience uninvited."
This, too, can be called an epistemic law. Thoughts entertained in consciousness
express themselves either in words or actions, and they have a tendency to attract
corresponding experiences. Therefore, this can also be called the law of correspondence.
Thoughts, indeed, seem to carry quanta of energy; and whenever we have a thought,
we can express it either verbally, or emotionally, or through action, behavior, or
activity. Whenever we send out a thought, it tends to return to us in some form.
Thought then is energy which can manifest itself in a variety of forms. If we don’t
send out a thought, it can expand its energy internally in a beneficial or harmful
way. These phenomena can be called the epistemic law of mental energy.


Unenlightened man is at the mercy of these mental processes. In proportion to our
ignorance, we are vulnerable to our own thoughts and to the thoughts of others. Jesus
strongly emphasized the importance of thoughts. He said, for instance: "Take no thought,
saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
For after all these things do the Gentiles [the ignorant] seek" (Matthew 6:31–32).
Most religious systems encourage their devotees to work within the karmic law in
such a way as to produce positive results. For instance: "As ye would that men should
do to you, do ye also to them likewise" (Luke 6:31). This can help us understand
the difference between religion and enlightenment. Most of what religion consists
of is the effort at utilizing moral and karmic laws in a positive way. Prayer thus
becomes an endeavor to escape the consequences of having violated the moral law.
It is therefore a mistake to confuse religiosity with spirituality.
Life on the level of the karmic, or epistemic law is very difficult. It consists
mostly of interaction experiences, that is, what one individual does to another,
and their consequences. When it comes to spiritual understanding, we rise above this
level; we realize that all this is just relative ignorance. It is life as it seems
to be. On the level of personal interaction and the karmic law, life is not really
what it seems to be; it is just one thought relating itself to another thought. It
is as if two and two is five were talking to two and two is six. This would not really
be mathematics. It would only seem so. Moreover, it is very troublesome. It reminds
us of one of the problems of trying to manage a friendly relationship. It involves
much effort and is not easily sustained.
As long as we see life in these terms it is a constant struggle to be nice, to
be good, friendly, just, honest, helpful, generous, and to be liked and avoid being
disliked. This is spoken of as getting along with people and managing our affairs
with the least amount of conflict. Furthermore, on this level of understanding we
are also very vulnerable to hypnotism.
There are many forms of hypnotism. Whatever is a new


trend in the culture, or among friends and relatives, or whatever is suggested in
the broadcast media exerts a great influence. The question arises: How can we protect
ourselves from being influenced? We cannot stick our heads into the sand. However,
the apostle Paul shows us the way of protection when he says: "The law of the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2).
What does that mean? It means that when we understand spiritual law, when we become
spiritually enlightened, when we catch a glimpse of omniactive Truth as the sole
Reality of the entire universe, then we are lifted up to a higher level of awareness
and discover that God is the only power, the only Presence, the only Life, the only
Mind there is, and this Mind is not susceptible to hypnotism, to intimidation, seduction,
and provocation, to praise, pampering, persecution, or to self-confirmatory ideation.
We discover life above the level of personal interaction. Suddenly, we understand
what Paul meant when he said: "None of these things moves me" (Acts 20:24). We cease
to be carnally minded and we become spiritually minded. When we are spiritually minded,
God is our mind and we gain immunity from the tribulations of this world, which means
there is a way to rise above the inanities of this world. However, it must be pointed
out that if we are to rise above the tribulations of this world, we must lose interest
not only in its pains but also in its pleasures.
From the perspective of spiritual enlightenment, the karmic law is revealed to
us as no law at all but as a mockery of law. Everything in the human dimension of
consciousness is transitory, including human existence. It appears and disappears.
But in Divine Reality nothing can disappear. Life is immortal, life cannot die. Spiritual
laws convey the nature of Spiritual Reality.
Spiritual laws must be realized in individual consciousness to the point that one’s
outlook on life changes drastically. Spiritual law and Spiritual Reality are identical.
When we say, "There is no interaction anywhere; there is only Omniaction everywhere,"
we are referring to two laws. We are making two



statements: one about human appearance — life; and one about the nature of Divine
Reality —Spiritual law. We must come to discover in individual experience that it
is really true. And the more clearly we can see that this is so, the higher we have
risen on the Mount of Revelation.
Spiritual law cannot be violated; it is inviolable. But we can be ignorant of it
and suffer the consequences. Even a most hardened sinner is ultimately just an ignorant
individual. In proportion that we come to understand spiritual law, in that proportion
it will become impossible for us to ignore it. So we are lifted gradually from the
quagmire of human mockeries.
Everything on the level of personal mind is a mockery of the Divine Mind because
the Divine is nondual. In Divine Reality there is no good and evil; there is only
good. And there is no such spiritual law that would work ill. Whereas karmic law
is two-sided, it can bring evil as well as good into experience. Therefore, it is
not really a law, it just seems to be. The serpent spoke to Eve in the garden of
Eden. He said: If you eat of this fruit, "ye shall not surely die. For God does know
that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:4–5). This was the first mockery of God because
God knows no evil; evil is unknown to God. God is good, period.
The Sermon on the Mount as well as many other passages in the Bible show us the
way out of the karmic law and are pointing in the direction of spiritual law. For
instance, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked.... For he that soweth to his flesh
shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the
Spirit reap life everlasting" (Galatians 6:7–8). Sowing to the flesh means entertaining
carnal thoughts and being preoccupied with the pleasures and pains, the glories and
disasters of the body. On the other hand, sowing to the spirit means turning our
thoughts with increasing appreciation to Spiritual Reality and spiritual values.
This results in increasing harmony, health, freedom, love, longevity.





A Viennese psychoanalyst remarked once that writing things down is the first step
toward forgetting. The Metapsychiatric principle of learning is as follows: What
we understand we do not have to remember, and what we remember we usually don’t bother
to understand. This is an epistemological principle. Epistemology —the study of the
nature of knowledge — is an important part of Metapsychiatry because only what we
really know has an impact on our mode of being-in-the-world, not what we just know
about.
The process of understanding is a fascinating study because understanding is something
that we cannot do. Here again, we are facing the fact that there are vitally important
things in life, which, however, cannot be done. How does one partake in something
which one cannot do? We all realize that to understand the truth is very important,
and yet it is something that we cannot actively bring about. We can volitionally
express ideas, behavior, affection, emotions. If we are trying to express love, for
instance, at will, then it will be artificial. We may deceive ourselves or we may
deceive our loved ones. Let us take a flower, for example. A flower expresses beauty,
but this kind of expression is entirely different from what we express volitionally.
Similarly, beauty, harmony, integrity, love, joy, peace, assurance, wisdom, freedom,
health are all qualities that express




themselves through man. If we wanted to express these qualities volitionally, actively,
we would become inauthentic. Existentialism emphasizes the importance of authenticity
of being. The human experience is fraught with conscious and unconscious falsehoods
because we do not differentiate clearly between what is genuine and what is a "put
on." Authenticity of being is important for health and for fulfillment in life, but
it requires commitment, attention, and understanding. We have to become perceptive
of what is genuine and what is false, what just seems to be and what really is. There
are many things in life that seem to be but are not really.
Let us come back to the issue of understanding. Here again, authenticity and radical
sincerity are required because we can easily fool ourselves that we know something
while we only know about it. This is also called intellectualism. Intellectualism
is fundamentally fraudulent. Every intellectual statement is a "lie and the father
of it," because when we make an intellectual statement, we pretend that we know something
and actually it is not true; we only know about it. The essence of intellectuality
is fraud. Jesus must have known this clearly when he spoke about "a liar and the
father of it" (John 8:44). But how does understanding, genuine knowing, come about?
Let us ask, Is it possible to understand that two and two is five? No, it is not
possible to understand what is not true. It is only possible to believe it. We can
understand, i.e., realize only what is true. Again, we are here confronted with an
epistemological principle, namely, that it is not possible to understand what is
not true. Only truth can be understood.
Some people believe that they can understand what they have experienced. But suppose
we experience something that isn’t true? Where are we then? Therefore, experiencing
is not reliable as a road to understanding. Experience is an organismic reaction
to some situation, a reaction through emotions, sensations, intellect; the totality
of the organism reacts to certain factors. These things are not reliable; we cannot
judge truth on the basis of experience.
In Metapsychiatry there is a great deal of stress laid on epistemology




and semantics. Therefore we say, Truth and Reality cannot be experienced; they can,
however, be realized.
To come back to the issue of understanding, there are several prerequisites for
understanding to occur. One of them is not to try to remember what is being said;
the second is not to agree with what is being said, nor disagree; the third is not
to believe what is being said, nor to disbelieve it; the fourth is not to try to
trust someone, nor to distrust him. What happens when these four categories of thought
are eliminated from our way of facing an issue? The open mind is attained and it
is only under the condition of open-minded receptivity that understanding can come
about. "Except ye become as little children, ye shall in no wise understand the kingdom
of heaven." The primary requisite for understanding to happen is the open-minded
confrontation of that which reveals itself from moment to moment.
Now in what way does remembering, believing, agreeing, trusting, disbelieving,
disagreeing, mistrusting — all these mental attitudes — interfere with understanding?
All these mental attitudes are willed; we can will ourselves to believe, to disbelieve,
to agree, to disagree, to trust, to distrust, or to remember. These are ego functions.
The ego interferes with that receptivity which makes grace possible. Understanding
is nothing else but grace. It is by the grace of God that this cognitive event occurs
in consciousness which we call understanding or realization. "As many as received
him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God," said Jesus (John 1:12). We
may ask, What about the rest of the people? The rest of the people were trying to
figure him out, and trying to decide whether to believe him or to disbelieve him,
to agree with him or to disagree with him, or to label him as, say, a Rogerian or
Jungian, etc., to diagnose him and thus "put him in his place."
Receptivity is not an ego function; it takes place in the absence of the ego. The
open mind is open when the obstacles are not there. The natural way is the open mind.
The closed mind is a product of experience and education. Education helps us to develop
a closed mind.




Realization is a synonym for understanding. If we want to define realization we
can say that realization happens when a certain aspect of truth becomes real to us.
The truth has its own power of self-validation. We can realize, for example, that
two and two is not five but four through the fact that it works and brings harmony
into our computations. Truth imparts harmony. Truth heals, liberates. Falsehood creates
problems. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).
And this applies to our checkbooks, our marriages, to our jobs as well. Whenever
we are "standing under the light of truth," we are healed and liberated from our
problems.
What is understanding? It is "standing under the light of the truth." Ideally,
education means e-ducere, which means to lead out of darkness into the light.
Truth cannot be spoken of directly because it would be a defilement of it. If we
speak of the truth directly, it is not the truth. For instance, if we say, God is
Love, that is not the truth; it is only a statement about the truth. Therefore, all
spiritual guides throughout history have had to resort to parables, riddles, analogies,
and mythology in order to lead individual minds toward the realization of the truth.
The Zen koans also belong among these aids to realizing the truth. A Zen Master gave
this koan to a student: "Things are not what they seem to be; neither are they otherwise."
St. Paul said something similar when he said: "Things which are seen were not made
of things which do appear" (Hebrews 11:3).
Experiences are organismic reactions to certain stimuli. Grace is spiritual awareness.
Understanding and realization are not organismic; they are spiritual. There is another
dimension to knowing which is not organismic, which is not in the brain but in the
being of man, in consciousness, spiritual consciousness. It is a transcendent realization.
The worlds of psychiatry, psychology, and theology are confusing the two things;
they are confusing realization with experiences. When someone says, I have an experience
of grace, he is revealing the prevalent confusion existing in the world of psychology
and religion, because grace cannot be experienced. It can only




be realized as a blessing. Realization is the awareness of what is real, and this
awareness is not an experience. A great deal of confusion is generated in religious
literature which speaks of "religious experiences." This is a self-confirmatory term.
There is no such thing as a religious experience.
Experiences and spiritual realizations are two entirely different things; there
is a radical separation between the two. Until we understand this difference, we
shall not understand ourselves as spiritual beings and God will remain just a concept.
As mentioned before, experiences are organismic reactions to stimuli coming either
from the outside or from within and they can be sensory, emotional, or intellectual.
We experience our thoughts, our fantasies, our dreams, our imaginations, all the
mental and organismic processes in the body and outside the body — all these can
be experienced.
Sometimes a spiritual event in consciousness is misinterpreted as an experience.
This is happening to those people who have genuine so-called "religious experiences."
They do not realize that they are not having an experience; they are having a transforming
realization, a spiritual awakening. A spiritual realization comes to consciousness
very peacefully, like the white dove which settled on Jesus after he was baptized.
It comes peacefully, without fireworks. It descends imperceptibly and it transforms
our entire outlook on reality, on life. Our character is healed and we become a "new
man."
These things cannot be discussed or argued about or debated. We can only enter
into dialogue about it, which means to jointly participate in the search for truth.
Dialogue is entirely different from conversation, chattering, debating, discussing,
or contending. What we are engaged in here is a joint participation in the process
of hermeneutic clarification of the truth.
It seems appropriate to say a few words about remembering. What is remembering?
It is a brain function; it is a human effort at storing information and retrieving
it. Therefore, it interferes with understanding. Accepting-rejecting, believing-disbelieving,
agreeing-disagreeing, trusting-mistrusting, and




remembering-forgetting are all ego functions; therefore they interfere with understanding.
Is there a spiritual equivalent to remembering? Yes there is. It is called recollection.
We call back some knowledge. We rely on the spiritual faculty of recall. While remembering
is an ego function, recall is a spiritual faculty of calling on the "Great Computer"
to retrieve the information which is needed at a particular moment. It is generally
believed that the faculty of remembering is diminishing with age; what about the
faculty of recall? This faculty, being spiritual, improves with the passage of time
through an improved understanding of Spiritual Reality.
If we are studying to be spiritual guides, it is necessary that we understand the
spiritual faculties of man. After all, a spiritual guide needs to awaken in other
people their spiritual faculties. And how can we be spiritual guides unless we understand
clearly the difference between ego functions and spiritual faculties?
If we are eager to transcend our egos, then there is no dualism. There is only
God and there is only the glorious liberty of the children of God. There are no entanglements
with the yoke of psychological bondage. Spiritual guidance transcends psychology,
psychiatry, and all other "ologies." This is the road and we are free to take it
or to depart from it, should we find it difficult. But it is possible to overcome
the world, if we are interested. Jesus said: "In the world ye shall have tribulation:
but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). If we are followers
of Jesus, we have to be committed and not drag our feet, so to speak; those who wish
to drag their feet take courses in psychotherapy, not in spiritual guidance.
If you want to benefit from what is said and not suffer unduly from the shock of
unusual information, don’t try to remember. Just let it do its work. It is not necessary
to exert a mental effort to understand anything. As a matter of fact, the harder
you try to understand what is being said and to remember it, the less likely it is
that understanding will occur. Just relax and let what you hear do its own work.
All that is needed is to cultivate an interest; God’s only requirement of




us is to be sincerely interested. Actually, there is nothing else we can do in the
area of spiritual growth. If we are ambitious in this area, we shall be like the
gardener who is trying to pry open a rosebud. We have to be patient and maintain
a sincere interest. Otherwise we shall not be able to become enlightened. A teacher
can point in a certain direction, explain and clear the way in the desert, and if
one is sincerely interested in understanding, it will come by the grace of God. This
type of education is entirely different from other forms of education. Conventional
education requires an effort and hard work. In spiritual education effort and hard
work are a hindrance. What is needed is sincerity and interest because they are the
basis of receptivity. God’s grace is flooding the whole universe all the time, but
there is not enough receptivity to it in human consciousness. Therefore the blessings
are scarce. God is not stingy with His love and with His power, but we are distracted.
One of the main distractions of ambitious people is effort.
Let us explore what ambition is. It is again an ego function. What does the word
"ambition" mean? What is ambivalence? It means being of two minds about something.
In ambition we have the word "ambi," meaning double, and "ition," which stands for
eo, ire, ii, itum, which means moving in two directions at the same time. Thus the
word "ambition" reveals that ambitious people are caught up in the dualism of human
intending. One cannot be successful without being a failure at the same time, and
that is ambition. Ambitious people are successful and failing at the same time. That
is the tragedy of the human dualistic mode of being-in-the-world. So instead of ambition
we aspire for understanding. We cultivate an interest in Spiritual Reality, and by
the grace of God it comes to us like a white dove, descending on consciousness. There
is a story about the nuclear physicist Oppenheimer, who was observed staring out
of a window for a long time, and when asked what he was doing, he replied, "Don’t
you see? I am working!"
We must also understand that receptivity is not a passive state. Our dualistic
inclinations assume that we are either


ambitious — which is an active state — or we are not ambitious, which is a passive
state, and receptivity therefore may be misinterpreted as passivity. But if receptivity
is neither active nor passive, what is it? Receptivity is attentiveness and responsiveness.
When we are floating on water, for example, are we passive or active? Floating is
neither active nor passive; it is attentive. What are we attentive to when we are
floating? We are attentive to an invisible power called buoyancy. This is an analogy
for wakeful receptivity. The search for enlightenment is neither ambitious nor lazy;
it is reverent, loving, grateful, attentive, and responsive to that which reveals
itself from moment to moment. This is an existentially valid position which we need
to learn. The world is a distraction from Reality and is constantly working against
our receptivity to God. The world is "every high thing that exalteth itself against
the knowledge of God" (2 Corinthians 10:5). At this point we are trying to understand
the existentially valid attitude which facilitates the unfoldment of understanding,
and whatever interferes with this is distraction. Anything external, internal, worldly,
cosmic, operational — whatever interferes with that basic, reverent, loving, receptive
orientation — we call the world, the world of distraction. What we are seeking is
conscious grace, which is enlightenment.
An interesting thing happens when we come to realize God to a sufficient degree.
Distractions come to our attention, but they do not come into our experience. If
a distraction comes into experience, we get disturbed by it; but there can be distractions
that do not distract and therefore are not distractions. They are just phenomena.
We speak of this world as the phenomenal world. What does the word "phenomenon" mean?
The word "phenomenon" is derived from the Greek and is composed of two root words:
phaos, which means light, and apophansis, which means statement. Another explanation
of the word "phenomenon" is phainein, phainomenon, which means light. So phenomena
are appearances and the phenomenal world is the world of appearances. A great tool
of existential psychotherapy is phenomenological analysis, which we shall




discuss later. Suffice it to say at this time that all distractions are phenomena.
They are things that seem to be. They are appearances but not realities. We can say
that they are thoughts appearing as form.




I have been asked about the meaning of excarnation. The meaning of excarnation
is implied in the Bible first in the ascension, then in the scene on the Mount of
Transfiguration, and by the following statement: "Whilst we are at home in the body,
we are absent from the Lord.... We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be
absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:6, 8).
The Bible also states that "the Kingdom of God is within you." Let us explore what
"within" means and clarify it. We are so used to thinking organismically and psychologically
that we assume that within means inside the body. Even if we don’t admit it, that’s
how we think. This seems to be the natural way, but actually it does not make sense.
Where is the Kingdom of God located? In the lungs? In the nervous system? In the
brain? Where within you? Someone suggested that it is in the heart; what does the
heart symbolize? In Meta-psychiatry we speak of consciousness rather than of heart,
and so within means in consciousness. Where is consciousness? Neurophysiology would
locate consciousness in the brain, but we know that the brain does not really have
consciousness; it is just a relay system. Therefore consciousness cannot be localized.
Consciousness is not in the organism; the organism is in consciousness. Awareness
is what religions call soul, and it is a synonym for consciousness. Soul is the faculty
of awareness.
In Metapsychiatry we speak of consciousness. Consciousness is a unique faculty
of man, enabling him to be aware



of himself in a transcendent manner. This is the divine element in us. To fully appreciate
it is very important, because until we have learned to appreciate the Divine in us,
we are undeveloped and we live below the level of our potentialities. Heidegger speaks
of being-in-the-world as transcendence. The more perfectly we realize being-in-the-world
as transcendence, the more perfect spiritual guides we become.
It is important to differentiate between being a psychotherapist and being a spiritual
guide. The perspective of a spiritual guide is spiritually transcendent; the perspective
of a psychotherapist is dependent upon what school of thought he adheres to. Psychotherapeutic
systems can be intrapsychic, interpersonal, social, interactional, mythological,
bio-energetic, etc.
It is interesting to consider the development of knowledge in general, because
there is a parallelism in this field. If we take, for instance, the development of
astronomical knowledge, we see that first there was the flat earth viewpoint, which
is called the geocentric viewpoint. This indicates a primitive and narrow mental
horizon. The geocentric viewpoint assumed that the earth was the center of the universe.
In psychotherapy the intrapsychic viewpoint assumed that everything can be known
about man by looking inside of him, into his body and into his psyche. The idea was
that studying the dynamics of the psyche would help us to understand man. This viewpoint
is just as primitive as was the geocentric viewpoint in astronomy. After Kepler,
Galileo, and Copernicus, we gained a broader perspective in astronomy and we attained
the heliocentric perspective, which meant that the sun was the center of the universe,
a center around which the planets revolved. After the heliocentric perspective, we
attained a galactic knowledge. We have realized that the sun is one of an infinite
number of stars which make up a galaxy. From the galactic viewpoint we have attained
an intergalactic viewpoint. Here we suddenly see that there are many galaxies in
the universe. The intergalactic viewpoint led to a cosmic consciousness. Every schoolchild
today is already free to develop a cosmic




consciousness. This is a tremendous step forward. Today we are able to conceive of
an infinite expanding universe. Some astronomers have advanced from cosmic consciousness
to a cataclysmic consciousness. This is based on the discovery of black holes in
the universe and the matter-antimatter phenomena which indicate the possibility of
cataclysmic events taking place in the universe. There are exploding galaxies and
black holes which swallow up planets, and then there is the issue of matter-antimatter
collisions. Wherever matter comes into contact with antimatter, it disappears. It
turns into nothing.
Analogously, in the area of the knowledge of man we have the intrapsychic, i.e.,
anthropocentric viewpoint, then the interpersonal, then the socio-dynamic viewpoint,
then the interactional viewpoint, the transactional viewpoint, the mythological viewpoint,
then the existential viewpoint, indicating an ever widening context of perception.
The existential viewpoint is a largely expanded viewpoint, going beyond the socio-dynamic
perspective. In the socio-dynamic viewpoint society is the context, which can be
socio-economic, sociopolitical, cultural, etc., but in any case it sees man in a
much broader context than the original psychotherapies. The existential context sees
man in the context of existence. What is the context of existence? In this viewpoint
we speak of modes of being-in-the-world. Therefore the context of our study of man
in existentialism is his mode of being-in-the-world. How does man express his essential
potentialities within the context of the world around him, which includes everything
that preceded but goes beyond it? Here the world itself becomes a manifestation of
existence.
Metapsychiatry goes one better to existentialism. The context of Metapsychiatry
is Spirit, God, infinite omniactive Love-Intelligence. Here man is not only in the
world but also beyond the world — that’s what Heidegger means by being-in-theworld
as transcendence — we are "in the world but not of it." So of all the various schools
of thought concerning man, Meta-psychiatry approximates or speaks to the issue of
spiritual guidance in a most relevant manner.




What school of thought corresponds to that cataclysmic viewpoint in terms of the
study of man? The last book of the Bible is called Revelation, but its other name
is Apocalypse, which means cataclysm. This corresponds to the cataclysmic viewpoint
in astronomy. St. John’s description (vision) of the "new heaven and a new earth;
for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away" (Revelation 21:1) indicates
a total spiritualization of consciousness. There exists here a remarkable parallelism,
and interestingly enough, there is a similar parallelism in atomic research as well,
but going in the other direction. In physics the movement of knowledge goes from
matter to molecules to subatomic particles to high energy physics, where there are
no more particles, there is just pure energy. This reveals the true nature of Reality
as pure energy (spirit=energy) and the disappearance of the phenomenal world. This,
too, is an apocalyptic, cataclysmic realization.
Let us now ask again, In what way is it more helpful to be a spiritual guide than
to be a psychotherapist? I am sure all of you know the proverbial story of the four
blind men trying to describe an elephant. If we have a spiritual perspective, then
we can see the whole elephant and only then can we know what an elephant is. If we
only see part of an elephant and try to put together all this information, we will
never really know what an elephant is. Therefore, the broader our perspective on
man, the more perfect our understanding will be. We can see then that to be a spiritual
guide is far beyond any type of psychotherapy.
Something happens to us when our perspective expands. The Bible refers to this
by stating: "As he [man] thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7). The broader
our perspective on Reality, the more understanding, the more compassionate, the more
inspired, the more perceptive, and the more capable we are to benefit people on all
levels, even if they are in the stage of believing in a flat earth. Even then we
have the intuitive wisdom of communicating with them in a beneficial way. But if
we don’t have that perspective, we are as the psychiatrist who has certain preconceived
limitations within his specialty




from which he cannot get out. He is boxed in, so to speak, in a particular knowledge
in which he was trained.
No matter what wonderful contributions to psychotherapy were made by individuals
in that field, it does not mean that they have already attained ultimate knowledge.
The danger is that we can get attached to a particular frame of reference. There
seems to be a fear in many to go beyond these viewpoints. They are afraid to expand
their mental horizons. We may ask, What is this fear? This fear is an indication
that we are cherishing what we already know and leaning on it for a false sense of
security. The trouble with this kind of subjectivity is that it misinterprets reality
and generates a great deal of anxiety. We cannot rely for information on feelings.
In this connection it may be helpful to consider the "five gates of hell." The
"five gates of hell" are (1) sensualism, (2) emotionalism, (3) intellectualism, (4)
personalism, (5) materialism.
What is sensualism? It is a mode of being-in-the-world where the primary preoccupation
is with sensory awareness: pleasure and pain. It judges reality purely by sensory
awareness. This is a very troublesome condition, for it leads to all sorts of disorders:
disorders of the senses, of the skin, sexual problems, etc.
Emotionalism is a mode of being-in-the-world which is primarily preoccupied with
emotional experiences and seeks to cognize reality on the basis of feelings. Emotionalists
try to use their feelings as sources of information concerning what is and what is
not real. Feelings provide misinformation, but they seem to us very valid. We are
convinced that things are really the way they feel, which of course is a mistake.
We cannot rely on feelings to provide us with valid information. Furthermore, people
who become emotionally based have a tendency to develop anxiety neuroses and a wide
variety of emotional disturbances.
The third gate of hell is intellectualism. Intellectualism is knowing about things
and placing great importance on being known as knowing. Intellectualists are living
filing cabinets




and they like to display their contents. So the sensualist leans on his sensory perceptions,
the emotional man uses his feelings as a source of information, and the intellectual
tries to figure things out in his head. He is on a continuous "head trip." Various
difficulties stem from intellectualism, such as contentiousness, headaches, high
blood pressure, and various other somatizations.
The fourth gate of hell is personalism. Personalism is thinking about what others
are thinking about what we are thinking. It can be very painful and disturbing when
one is caught up in such ruminations. Personalists have difficulties with people,
conflicts with friends, family, etc.
The fifth gate of hell is materialism. Materialists are involved in accumulating
material objects and possessions.
The process of obtaining an open mind can be very frustrating and painful and even
anxiety provoking. Besides the "five gates of hell" which have specific pathogenicity,
there are three more factors which we must become aware of, namely, what we cherish,
what we hate, and what we fear. The gates of hell comprise the things we are inclined
to cherish: a sensualist will cherish his sensory perceptivity; an emotionalist will
cherish his feelings; an intellectualist will cherish his knowledge; a personalist
will cherish his relationships; and a materialist will cherish his possessions. So,
then, the underlying common denominator in these modes is that we are inclined to
cherish that which is familiar and that which other people cherish, because if two
people cherish the same thing, they have something in common and it makes them feel
good. It gives them the impression that they are on the right track. This is the
basis of group formations, school loyalties, and loyalties to various ideologies.
Anything that would threaten to deprive us of what we cherish, or invalidate what
we cherish, will provoke fear and resentment. The more we are inclined to cherish
any one of these "five gates" — or all of them — the more vulnerable and insecure
we shall be in life, and the more we shall be given to anxiety reaction, resentfulness,
frustration, and even hatred. Therefore, the Zen Master says: "Above




all cherish nothing." In our language this saying translates as "Cherish only God,"
because "nothing" is a Buddhist God. In other words, God is no thing, and the Buddha
nature is love, beauty, intelligence, harmony, peace, serenity, assurance, joy, health,
freedom, perfect being. The Buddha nature is a synonym for the Christ consciousness.
Thus, the gate of Paradise is to cherish nothing. "Thou shalt have no other gods
before me" (Exodus 20:3) and "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul and with all thy mind" (Matthew 22:37).
The Bible says: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a
highway for our God" (Isaiah 40:3). What does that mean? We cannot produce grace,
but we can study and meditate, and listen to some teachings which show us how to
get rid of the obstacles to grace. And that is what we are engaged in here. Our aim
is to prepare the way of the Lord, make straight a highway in the desert. Every mountain
of selfishness must be brought low, and every valley of sin shall be exalted; the
rough places must be made plain, and the crooked straight, so that we may become
receptive to grace and inspired wisdom. "Every valley shall be exalted, and every
mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and
the rough places plain" (Isaiah 40:4). This is what we call being spiritually integrated
and enlightened. We have an open and receptive consciousness where Divine Intelligence
has the possibility of reaching us.
Righteous judgment requires inspired wisdom. Every moment of the day and night
God is pouring out His love and wisdom to anyone who is receptive enough to hear
it. Jesus was struggling with people who had various kinds of impediments to receiving
the word of God, or who were hampered in their spiritual perceptivity. For instance,
at one point he said: "For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are
dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see
with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their hearts,
and should be converted, and I should heal them" (Matthew 13:15). This points to
an




epistemological problem. The knowledge of God requires us to purify our consciousness
of all the things which we have been miseducated to cherish, because as long as we
cherish certain things which we are accustomed to, we cannot receive, and we cannot
perceive spiritually. Under such circumstances we do not know what is really going
on; we only know what someone else is saying about what is going on.
In view of the fact that Metapsychiatry relies heavily on the Bible, especially
the teachings of Jesus, the question frequently arises about the relationship between
Metapsychiatry and religion. Is Metapsychiatry a new religion? Or, if it is not a
religion, does it in any way interfere with traditional religious practices?
Essentially the question boils down to this: What does it mean to be religious
and what does it mean to be spiritually enlightened? It is said that religions are
more often than not involved with moralism, formalism, even ethnicity. For instance,
a Polish Roman Catholic may find it difficult to be accepted in certain Catholic
churches which are predominantly, say, Irish; or blacks may feel unwelcome in a prevalently
white Protestant congregation, etc.
Unfortunately, religions in the past have tended to divide people and to foster
intolerance, fear, guilt, and other forms of conflict. In contrast to this, spiritual
enlightenment —which is the goal of Metapsychiatry — is concerned with existentially
valid universal principles to enable man to love his neighbor as himself and be transcendentally
compassionate to all.
However, the most fundamental difference can be found in the basic questions which
constitute the point of departure between religion and Metapsychiatry. All formal
religions start with one implicit question, namely, What should we do to please God?
Metapsychiatry starts with radically different questions, namely, What is God? or,
What is what really is? and, How is it possible to know what really is?
The religious question results in operationalism; the Metapsychiatric question
leads to existentialism. Operationalism is concerned with mastery, influencing, and
inevitably with manipulation




bribery, and fear. Existentialism is concerned with understanding what is in order
to live in harmony with the Fundamental Order of Existence.
In the history of religions and civilization there have emerged from time to time
certain exceptionally gifted individuals who hit upon the right questions and found
right answers. These individuals appeared to have exceptional powers and wisdom,
and they tried to convey their knowledge to the world, but the world always found
it hard to hear the message and to learn to ask the right questions. Jesus is known
to have exclaimed — perhaps somewhat despairingly — "Having eyes, see ye not? and
having ears, hear ye not?" (Mark 8:18). And again: "And this is the condemnation,
that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because
their deeds were evil" (John 3:19). It is possible to surmise that the word "deeds"
refers to operationalism.
Enlightened man actualizes within himself the principle which Jesus formulated
the following way: "I can of mine own self do nothing" (John 5:30); "But the Father
that dwelleth in me [omniactive Mind], he doeth the works" (John 14:10). Omniactive
Mind expresses itself through man in specific types of necessary and useful activities
from moment to moment. Therefore, man who is involved with mental busyness is disregarding
the impulses of omniactive Mind.
In Metapsychiatry we do not worry much about Western or Eastern thought. The question
we are concerned with is, "Is it existentially valid or not?" Here we have the principle
of existential validation. This is a very useful idea which unifies all cultures
by transcending them, and makes it possible to evaluate them in a pragmatic way.
The values which come to us from various parts of the world, from various cultures,
times, and ages, can be known as to their validity.
The principle of existential validation comes to us from Jesus Christ. Jesus formulated
this principle of existential validation the following way: "Ye shall know them by
their fruits" (Matthew 7:16). What does that mean? Any idea, or system of values,
or religious system, anything that impinges on individual




existence, can validate itself or disqualify itself by its consequences for the health
and fulfillment of the individual. That which is existentially valid is subject to
existential validation. If it is life enhancing, health promoting, increasing the
capacity for love, wisdom, and beneficence of the individual, if it makes it possible
for an individual to realize his inner potential, if it brings man into greater harmony
with the Fundamental Order of Existence, it is valid. If it has a disruptive, pathogenic
effect, it is not valid. This principle of existential validation liberates us from
sectarianism and cultural isolation. It makes it possible to know what to consider
seriously and appreciate and what can be dismissed out of hand. "Ye shall know them
by their fruits." If this marvelous principle were more universally understood, there
would be no more intolerance or prejudice, xenophobia, fear, religious hostilities,
or political strife. It would be a unifying principle.
In Metapsychiatry, where the primary objective is the health and the fulfillment
of the individual, the principle of existential validation is very important. The
art of the healing dialogue is based on clarification of certain values which individuals
have consciously or unconsciously espoused and which have resulted in a misdirected
mode of being-in-the-world. If we grow up in a certain culture, we tend to accept
unwittingly certain values which may be socially and culturally acceptable but which
are existentially invalid. The result is that we wind up with a misdirected mode
of being-in-the-world.
In Metapsychiatry pathology and sickness are considered manifestations of misdirected
modes of being-in-the-world. Consequently, we do not treat diagnostic categories,
neither do we treat personalities, nor do we treat diagnostic categories along traditional
psychiatric lines (like schizophrenia, neurosis, manic-depressive states), and, furthermore,
we do not diagnose people in a traditional way. What we treat is modes of being-in-the-world.
Let us be clear about the fact that there is no such thing as a person. Person
is just a concept. "God is no respecter




of persons," says the Bible (Acts 10:34). Man is not a person. He is an individual
consciousness and this consciousness can be imbued with certain ideas. If these ideas
are existentially valid, they manifest themselves in health, harmony, freedom, and
fulfillment. If the ideas which fill an individual’s consciousness are invalid, he
will find suffering and various forms of disturbed and frustrated ways of being-in-the-world.
The healing dialogue is based on a method which is called hermeneutic clarification
of the underlying value system which governs the thinking and the activities of an
individual. We have already mentioned ambition, for instance, as an invalid value.
If we subject ambition to an existential analysis, we discover that ambition, while
socially approved and accepted, is existentially invalid because it really creates
a conflict within individuals. It is moving in two directions at the same time, forward
and backward. The same applies to the idea of personal success; it is not possible
to pursue success without, at the same time, courting failure. So the success-hunting
individual has a misdirected mode of being-in-the-world.
Every one of us is like a sponge which has absorbed certain ideas about what is
good, what is desirable, and what is important; and it is these ideas which determine
our mode of being-in-the-world. The question now is, How can we discern the ideas
which govern an individual’s mode of being-in-the-world? This is accomplished through
a method which is called phenomenological analysis. Phenomenological analysis requires
us to be trained in phenomenological perceptivity. Everyone has the faculty of phenomenological
perceptivity, but it needs to be developed through training. The basic requirement
for this faculty is the open mind. The father of phenomenology is Edmund Husserl,
the German philosopher, who called this feat of the mind époché, which translated
from the French means "bracketing." It refers to the need to put everything that
we already know into brackets and put it up on a shelf, so to speak, so as to be
able to confront whatever reveals itself in a nonjudgmental open-minded way. Once
we have learned to confront situations and individuals in that manner in an




interview situation, we will find that suddenly things reveal themselves and we have
a clear picture of what makes an individual "tick" — what values, what objectives,
what ambitions, what wants, what desires, what misconceptions, what miseducation,
what ideas, govern his mode of being-in-the-world. Jesus spoke of the need for this
kind of open mind when he said: "Except ye [be converted, and] become as little children,
ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3), which means in order
to be receptive to inspired wisdom and to realize spiritual values and Spiritual
Reality, this capacity for the open-minded confrontation of that which reveals itself
from moment to moment is an absolute requirement.
Self-confirmatory ideation is a mental process whereby we are constantly seeking
to reassure ourselves that we exist. It can take physical form, it can take emotional
form, or it can take intellectual form. The essence of personalism reveals this universal
tendency toward self-confirmatory ideation (ideation means persistent thinking about
something). When we are involved in personism or personalism we ruminate over our
thoughts about what other people may be thinking about what we are thinking. The
essence of personalism is self-confirmatory ideation and it can result in paranoia.
Some people do not like the term "self-confirmatory ideation," and they prefer
to talk about egotism instead, but actually this is not just simple egotism. The
basis for self-confirmatory ideation is the dread of nonbeing. Everyone is scared
of nothingness, of nonbeing, of annihilation, of being nothing, of dying, of being
ignored. This is a universal fear and is called "existential anxiety." It is this
existential anxiety which we try to combat through a process of self-confirmatory
ideation. And the more scared we are, the more intense the desire to confirm ourselves
in one form or another; there are a million ways in which we can reassure ourselves
that we really exist, and so it is an almost inseparable aspect of the human condition.
Of course, it can be healed.
How can existential anxiety be healed? How can we be liberated from this dread
of nonbeing? Salvation, liberation,




resurrection, healing, enlightenment have a common objective, namely, to help us
to be unafraid and to live with a sense of assurance that we are not alone, that
we are not separated, that we are not what we seem to be, but that "neither are we
otherwise." It is possible to know ourselves in a larger context. In proportion that
we come to realize this existential fact, in that proportion the "dread of nothingness,"
as Heidegger calls it, will be mitigated, or diminished, and the compulsive urge
for self-confirmatory ideation will leave us, and it will be possible to live in
PAGL, which is peace, assurance, gratitude, and love.
A more advanced understanding, based on existential research, has abandoned the
concept of "person" and sees man as an individual consciousness. Personhood implies
self-existence, whereas an individual consciousness is an aspect of the divine consciousness.
We can have great appreciation of each other as individual manifestations of divine
consciousness. This may appear strange to some people because all the great knowledgeable
people in the field of theology and psychology speak of personhood. But, of course,
there is progress going on and progress in understanding often requires us to revise
our ways of conceptualizing. Great progress is being made in understanding the brain,
for instance, and the nature of reality. A group of scientists (Bohm, Pribram) has
developed a new way of looking at reality which is quite revolutionary. They have
developed a holographic paradigm of reality. Holography is a form of photography
which uses laser beams to project three-dimensional pictures into space; the projected
image seems real and seems to be there in three dimensions, while it is only illusion.
The idea is that the human brain is a hologram and what we see is not really what
is. The material world is but a holographic projection and the brain functions as
a lens which transmutes certain frequencies of vibration coming from the Infinite
Source and projects them as material forms. These scientists’ claim is that there
is no such thing as solid matter anywhere, that this is a phenomenal world, and everything
that seems to have form and shape




and solidity and texture is just a holographic image. The brain interprets reality
and the universe as material and finite.
When the question was asked, How is it possible that we all see the same thing?
the point was made that our brains are conditioned by the culture and our common
assumptions. Thus we have very similar lenses and we interpret what we see in a similar
way, with only subtle differences. It is said that mystics were able to perceive
reality not through their brains, and they could see what ordinary people cannot
see, because most of us rely on our brains to interpret what we see. The mystic can
apparently transcend this holographic instrument and discern reality in a nonfocused
manner. ESP, psychokinesis, seeing at a distance, and other phenomena are also explained
by this research. Time and space are explained as results of the brain’s way of interpreting
reality; that is, there is no such thing as time and space. For instance, if someone
through ESP becomes aware of something happening, say, in California, the explanation
is that California is simply not there but here; if there is no space, then there
is no such thing as "there," and there is no such thing as "was." There is only "is,"
because there is no time.
Thus we go beyond the concept of personhood and endeavor to see one another as
individual divine consciousnesses, and that is just another way of saying that man
is the image and likeness of God. The only reality about us is consciousness. It
is becoming more and more evident that consciousness survives the body. Therefore,
the more clearly we shall understand ourselves as consciousness, the less afraid
we shall be of dying. The less we understand this, the more we are pushed by fear
into self-confirmatory ideation and out of that push come all sorts of problems.
We have to clarify the issue of consciousness. There is consciousness and there
is the content of consciousness. One can be conscious of garbage. One can be conscious
of two and two being five. We can be conscious of many invalid thoughts. An unenlightened
consciousness may have many mistaken and misguided ideas filling it and distracting
it from what really is.




The fantastic things which Jesus was demonstrating, such as walking through closed
doors, walking on water, transporting himself instantaneously from one place to another,
all illustrate his understanding that there is no "there," only "here"; that there
is neither time nor space. Solidity of matter, distance of space, or duration of
time — these were of no consequence to him.
So far we have spoken of the "five gates of hell" and of self-confirmatory ideation,
and now we may consider the four "Ws." They are: (1) Who am I? (2) What am I? (3)
Where am I? (4) What is my purpose in life? As can be seen, this is a meditation
in our "closet," the secret compartment of our consciousness. The answer to the first
"W" is: I am an image and likeness of God, a manifestation of Love-Intelligence.
Omni-active Love-Intelligence is an existential name for God. God is also omnipresent,
omnipotent, omniscient. The second, What am I? is answered by: I am a divine consciousness.
Where am I? I live and move and have my being in omniactive Divine Mind. The fourth
"W," What is my purpose in life? is answered: My purpose is to be a beneficial presence
in the world. Students of Metapsychiatry meditate on the four "Ws" daily. People
sometimes ask what the distinction is between the first and the second "W." The first
refers to identity; the second refers to substance.
What is the value of meditating on the four "Ws"? It establishes us in the awareness
of the right context. To see ourselves and others in the right context is very important.
For instance, the question was asked, How do you encourage your children or praise
them without indoctrinating them in self-confirmatory thinking? If, for instance,
a child brings home from school good marks and the parent wants to praise him, how
does he praise him without making the child proud or egotistical, vain or self-confirmatory?
If a parent criticizes a child, he is teaching him to be self-confirmatory in a negative
way. If he praises the child, he is doing the same thing because then the child will
be self-confirmatory in a positive way; if he tells the child he is great, it is
the same as




if he tells him he is no good; in all cases the result is self-confirmatory thinking.
And we know that self-confirmatory ideation is the basis of all problems in life.
It was said before that the four "Ws" help us to see ourselves and others in the
right context. Unless parents are able to see the child in the context of God, as
an expression of Divine Love-Intelligence, no matter how they phrase their words,
it will lead to self-confirmatory thinking in the child. But if they have the right
viewpoint on the child, then implicitly it will be communicated to the child that
God is manifesting Himself in the good work. Clearly, it is not a matter of handling
things; it is a matter of seeing and knowing something. When things don’t work out,
we know that it was a manifestation of ignorance. The child made a mistake. He was
not sufficiently aware of who he is and where he is and what he is. Therefore he
made a mistake. So we do not blame him. We blame ignorance. And when we praise him,
we do not praise him. We praise the Lord for making it possible for the child to
do well. The context of parental seeing and thinking is crucial in being able to
praise and criticize without ill effects. Without that, no matter what technique
and what words we use, they will always be personalized anyway. And that is how meditation
on the four "Ws" can help us.
It is a fact that the outside world (outside of the home) sees the child as a little
person, an autonomous entity entirely apart from God —who may not even exist, or
perhaps exists only as a symbol — but isn’t such a child, whose parents are able
to see him in the right context, greatly blessed?
In spiritual guidance it is important not to judge and not to blame under any circumstance.
The moment we are judging and blaming, we have disqualified ourselves from the possibility
of being helpful; therefore, we observe but we do not judge. In judging we approve
and disapprove. In observing we clarify. Only clarification is helpful. Blaming leads
to self-confirmatory ideation. Sometimes an individual whom we have loaded with guilt
and blame may seem to have reformed, but while his behavior may have changed, his
thinking




processes have possibly become more self-confirmatory. So it is possible to help
someone outwardly, while aggravating his condition inwardly. The basic problem is
the tendency to self-confirmatory ideation. This must be guarded against.




The concept of self-confirmatory ideation is particularly important to spiritual
guides. Among religiously inclined individuals it is not unusual to come across some
who can quote the Bible from beginning to end and seem very religious, and yet their
interest in spiritual life is not authentic. I am reminded of a young man, a patient
in a mental hospital who was a convert to Christianity, who to all appearances was
very sincerely interested in God, but was not able to live right. He was frequently
getting into trouble with his family and others, and was irritating people. Occasionally
he would hallucinate. His was a case of pathological religiosity. Sometimes it is
difficult to know whether an individual is sincerely religious, spiritually minded,
or mentally disturbed. One thing is crucial in recognizing pathology, namely, the
presence of the element of self-confirmatory ideation. When an individual —no matter
how theologically sophisticated — is exploiting his knowledge for his own self-aggrandizement
and is referring to himself overtly or covertly, crudely or in subtle ways, he is
bearing witness to himself under the guise of bearing witness to God or to the truth.
Here we can know that we are faced with a serious problem. The differential diagnostic
point in such situations is the element of self-confirmatory ideation.
Health requires self-transcendence. The healthy, spiritually minded individual
loses himself in Christ, while in pathological religiosity there is no self-transcendence.
If we understand this important differential diagnostic sign, we will also know




how to help such individuals. In Metapsychiatry there are no special techniques,
only principles. One of the principles is: "If you know what, you know how." If we
can discern the problem and if we understand the process of being healthy, of being
truly spiritually minded, we will know how to approach such an individual in a helpful
way.
The most essential requirement for a spiritual guide is the attainment of such
integration that the very quality of his presence is beneficial. Beyond this we have
to know that the main feature of healthy spirituality is self-transcendence. In addition
to this, there is another important element. It is described in the Bible that Jesus
was accused by his listeners of bearing witness of himself. "Thou bearest record
of thyself; thy record is not true" (John 8:13). The Bible clearly states that if
someone bears witness to himself, his spirituality is not authentic. Jesus’ reply
to this accusation bears on our work in spiritual guidance. He said: "Though I bear
record of myself, yet my record is true; for I know whence I come and whither I go;
but ye cannot tell whence I came, and whither I go" (John 8:14). We see here the
importance of the four "Ws," the realization of which must take place in a patient,
or any other individual, as to who he is, what he is, where he is, and what his purpose
in life is. If there is a basic understanding of our identity, of our substance,
of our location, and of the quality of our presence, then self-confirmatory ideation
will cease to be a problem.
It may take a certain amount of creative intelligence to be able to communicate
this to an individual, but that cannot be taught. It comes through inspiration based
on purity of motive in the healer. Purity of motive makes it possible to be inspired
moment to moment in conveying these ideas in such a manner that it may become meaningful
to the individual in distress.
In spiritual guidance we do not resort to techniques based on preconceived notions
as is done in psychoanalysis or various forms of psychotherapy. We rely on inspired
wisdom. Inspired wisdom is creative intelligence obtaining in receptive consciousness
from moment to moment under conditions of PAGL (which is peace, assurance, gratitude,
and love). Inspired




wisdom makes it possible to communicate meaningfully with individuals who are in
need of guidance. It is a spiritual method of responding to people in need, and it
can be learned by all who have given up relying on feelings, the known, on what we
think or what someone else has thought, what is in vogue, or what is official, etc.
Inspired wisdom comes when there is a willingness to rely on God unconditionally.
It is the open mind.
Heidegger speaks of the Gelassenheit zu den Dingen, which means it is all right
to have everything, to have technology, to have possessions, to have information,
to have filing cabinets, to know about everything as long as one is not clinging
to these things. We are not advocating ignorance but freedom. The issue is open-minded
receptivity to Divine Intelligence.
Let us return to the concept of self-confirmatory ideation as a diagnostic criterion
for pathological religiosity and also for all forms of pathology that we can run
into in life. One of the forms of self-confirmatory ideation which is frequently
encountered in academic circles is the cherishing of what one already knows. It is
very difficult not to lean on what we already know. There is nothing wrong with knowing,
but we must be alert to the tendency to lean on the known for a sense of security.
Such a sense of security is acquired at a great price; if we lean on what we already
know and cling to it, we cannot learn anything new, and certainly we are not open
to God, to inspiration. Our lives become less and less creative and more and more
routinized. Among psychiatrists and psychotherapists we can distinguish two kinds:
the artisans and the artists. Even in spiritual guidance one can imagine that some
individuals might tend to become artisans. We certainly know that some clergymen
are just artisans who perfunctorily perform certain services. Their sermons are boring.
They seldom come up with an original idea. Their lives are uncreative. To live and
work creatively it is necessary to lean on God, and that requires courage. It is
somewhat like trying to float on emptiness. But once we have learned this, it is
easier. Life then becomes most interesting. We are never




bored — and more than that — we are not boring. Sometimes we seek parameters for
functioning. We want to lean on parameters. This hampers creativity and inspiration
because we then have preconceived ideas as to what should be. We may rationalize
that an individual isn’t yet ready for this, that he must first be psychotherapeutized
along Adlerian or Sullivanian lines, etc., and that perhaps afterward he could be
guided toward the spiritual path.
There is, of course, a great tendency to think that in order to be a spiritual
guide one must first be a psychotherapist. But the glorious thing about spiritual
guidance is that it transcends all psychotherapy; a spiritual guide does not have
to be a psychotherapist. A spiritual guide has to be a divinely inspired understander
and clarifier of an individual’s mode of being-in-the-world. Someone may say, If
you want to run, you have to first learn to walk, but in spiritual guidance we want
to "fly." The Zen Master Suzuki was once asked, "How does it feel to be an enlightened
man?" Suzuki replied, "Oh, just like an ordinary man, except about two inches above
ground."
If we take as an example the ability to float, we see that in floating one leans
completely on buoyancy, and so it is with God; when we lean on God, we lean on seemingly
nothing. Some people get the hang of it right away and they can float. The analogy
about floating approximates what it is to let go of all the cherished idols we cling
to, and learn to face life with nothing but God.
The issue of time is another problem which is very interesting to consider. It
is called the issue of temporality. Temporality is closely associated with character.
There are three categories of character disorder from which we are inclined to suffer.
One is pride, another is ambition, and the third is vanity. If we inquire into the
temporality of these character disorders, we find that pride is always related to
the past. Ambition is oriented toward the future, and vanity is in the present. People
who live in the past are inclined toward pride; people who look forward to the future
have a tendency to become




ambitious, and people who live in the present like to look into the mirror. Associated
with these three categories of character problem is the flip side of each. The flip
side of pride is shame; the flip side of ambition is fear, while vanity’s flip side
is embarrassment. Were we to tell someone, "Your problem is that you are proud,"
will he be able to stop being proud? Not likely. None of these character problems
responds to a direct attack. Therefore, such an approach is not helpful. In psychotherapy
these problems become horrendous because they are unyielding. In Metapsychiatry we
can talk about such a problem without condemning it or without demanding of the patient
that he stop being proud or ambitious. We don’t say, "You shouldn’t be proud" or
"You shouldn’t be ambitious" or "You shouldn’t be vain." We can say instead, "I discern
that your suffering has something to do with certain ways of relating to time." Or,
"It seems that you are living in the past," or, "You are thinking too much about
the past and about yourself in the past," or "You are future oriented," or "Your
problem seems to be connected with temporality." We do not say, "You shouldn’t live
in the past, or in the future." We try to clarify these problems in terms of how
they are connected with thinking about time.
Our definition of mental health speaks of being a beneficial presence; a presence
is not the same as living in the present. There is a very helpful passage in the
Bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes, which says: "That which hath been is now; and
that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past" (Ecclesiastes
3:15). This passage describes the problem of being time-bound. Unenlightened man
is stuck in the dimension of time, but Reality is timeless. Therefore, if we are
time-bound, we cannot be in touch with Reality. The only way to be healed of pride,
ambition, and vanity is to abolish time. How do we abolish time? By learning to appreciate
timelessness. In creative, inspired living, whenever God is speaking to us, at that
instant when inspiration reaches consciousness, the temporo-spatial coordinates of
experience are suspended. By learning to appreciate timelessness we become




liberated from the imprisoning effect of time and are healed of these three common
forms of character disorder.
God is not in the past and God is not in the future and God is not in the present.
Where is God? We have to have some verbal expression for that dimension of Reality
where God can be found: It is eternity, the timeless now. It is good to understand
the difference between the present and the timeless now. The present, the past, and
the future are time frames, and God cannot be framed. Therefore, we need a certain
concept which is extratemporal, and that is the timeless now which is synonymous
with eternity. Eternity is timeless.
This, of course, is of great practical value whenever we are disturbed by something
that has happened in the past. Most people have had some unpleasant, regrettable,
painful, disturbing experiences that happened in the past and that they fear never
being able to get over. The right understanding of timelessness and of God’s omnipresence
makes it possible to pray effectively for the healing of the past.
Recently, a very disturbed gentleman came for help. He had given a speech in a
certain organization where he was a guest. He got carried away, and what he was saying
to the people in that audience was very disturbing to them. As he spoke, he lost
control of himself; he did a lot of bragging and made some provocative statements.
Afterward he was crestfallen; he received letters accusing him of having caused people
suffering by what he said. He didn’t know what to do. We considered the possibility
of healing the past through prayer. We considered the fact that God is not in a time
frame but in the timeless now, and that what is needed is to catch a glimpse of God’s
presence and to know that in the presence of God all things are healed. Therefore,
we proceeded to lift the "curtain of time" and peek, so to speak, underneath this
curtain and behold the healing presence of Divine Love. We further considered what
the curtain of time was made of. This curtain of time, i.e., the existential structure
of time, is made of dreams, fantasies, and imagination. The past is a dream, the
future is a fantasy, and the present is imagination. A Zen Master put




it this way: "The past is gone, the future is not yet, and the present eludes us."
As long as we live in time, we do not perceive Reality. We see our own thoughts
about Reality. By peeking under the curtain of time we seek to behold Reality, the
presence of the healing power of Divine Love. Such perception can relieve us of the
burden of past mistakes. How is that possible? It is the realization that we do not
have the power to cause unalterable wrong, because God is the only power and the
only intelligence, and what was is, and that which is, is not under our control but
under God’s control. Therefore what is needed is a healing to take place in the consciousness
of the individual who is disturbed by what was. As he gains peace in the awareness
of God’s presence, the past is erased and is healed. An interesting thing happened
in the aforementioned case; after we had peeked under the curtain of time, this individual
became peaceful and grateful in the knowledge that God can heal the past. The next
day he received a telephone call from the man in charge of the organization where
he gave his talk, and found that things had changed. His talk was, in fact, appreciated
and no ill effect remained from what he said. Thus we had confirming evidence of
the fact that it is possible to heal the past by contacting God in the timeless now.
This is a very comforting realization. We do not have to suffer for past mistakes.
All we need is to understand the three "Rs" of Metapsychiatry.
The three "Rs" of Metapsychiatry are as follows: recognition, regret, and reorientation.
When we have a problem we need to recognize its meaning. Then we need to regret
it, because problems usually ensue from mistakes or insufficient understanding. Let
us clarify what we mean by meaning. Meaning must not be confused with cause. As we
said earlier, we transcend cause-and-effect thinking. Meaning is the mental equivalent
of a problem, of a phenomenon. Phenomena are externalizations of thought processes.
Therefore, if we seek to understand the meaning of a problem, we seek to discover
the underlying thinking




processes which have expressed themselves as a problem. Thought processes have a
tendency to become phenomena and become perceptually accessible. By recognition we
mean coming to understand the meaning of a problem. In other words, we have to see
that we made a mistake, that we were mistaken and in what way we were mistaken. In
the above case, the man got carried away with himself and spoke on a level which
was both self-confirmatory and above the heads of the audience. That created the
disturbance. He came to recognize the meaning of that problem and he regretted it
sincerely. Then he sought reorientation by peeking under the curtain of time and
realizing that God is the only power and the only presence and the only intelligence
and has the power to heal the past, the future, the present, and everything. In that
realization he found his peace and that peace was the healing, which then was confirmed
by the telephone call. It is possible to heal the past because the past is a dream,
the future a fantasy, and the present imagination.
We spoke earlier about phenomenological perceptivity. It is a method described
and explained by Edmund Husserl whereby an open-minded confrontation with that which
reveals itself can make it possible for a spiritual guide to discern the meaning
of a problem and shed light on it for the patient, thus helping him to understand
it. This kind of shedding light we call hermeneutic elucidation. It helps the individual
to attain the first R, namely, recognition. Recognition entails knowing the meaning
of the suffering —not "why" we are suffering — but what the meaning of it is, i.e.,
its mental equivalent. The next step is regret, which would correspond to repentance,
followed by the reorientation process where the mistaken mental thought processes
are corrected through a confrontation with Divine Reality. In that correction the
outlook of the individual is spiritualized and healing takes place.
Recently a man was complaining about a hernia. As we were talking about this and
his other problems, it became clear that he had a mode of being-in-the-world in which
he was exerting much effort to get people to feel sorry for him. He was




in the habit of exerting himself to get his family, his friends, and even business
associates and strangers to feel sorry for him. This was a method of self-confirmatory
manipulation. It became clear that his hernia was an expression of that effort over
some years. This was clarified to him. He could see it. He recognized it. But he
did not regret it. He then had surgery performed. The hernia was repaired. He enjoyed
the experience, praised the surgeon, and spoke of the wonderful care he received
in the hospital. The whole experience was right down his alley, since people were
solicitous of him. After the operation he seemed happy, but he hadn’t stopped exerting
himself to get people to feel sorry for him. This mode of operating continued. A
short time afterward his hernia returned. He could see that this was his way of confirming
himself. He could see that he was doing it. But he had not realized that there is
a more intelligent way to live. He was not ready to take step No. 2. He did not regret
it. What needs to be healed, then, is this idea which is in his mind, that the successful
way to live is to have the power to get people to feel sorry for him.
Contrary to conventional thinking in the field, this is not a psychosomatic case;
psychosomatic implies that the body can get hurt by the mind. But this is an obsolete
concept. There is no such thing any more as psychosomatic medicine. There is only
phenomenology. Mind and body are one, and what we see in the world is the manifestation
of certain ways of thinking. Thought is the basic stuff of life. Thought is a unit
of mental energy which can manifest itself as speech, as activity, as behavior, or
as symptom. The hernia in the above case needed to be repaired surgically and it
will probably have to be done again, but all that work will be of no help unless
this individual’s thinking is redeemed; so the issue is the mode of being-in-the-world.
It is the basic ethic of psychotherapy, and particularly of spiritual guidance, that
we cannot heal anyone unless he has reached the point of sincerely desiring to be
healed, and it would be a trespass to try to heal anyone against his will.
The first of the eleven Metapsychiatric principles is as follows:




"Thou shalt have no other interests before the good of God, which is spiritual blessedness."
The issue of interestedness is crucial. We have to reach a point where we are more
interested in living in harmony with God, which we call omniactive Love-Intelligence,
than anything else. Perhaps that is what Kierkegaard meant by "willing one thing."
Purity of heart means purity of interest, wholehearted interest in spiritual good.
What is spiritual good? It is PAGL (peace, assurance, gratitude, and love). The interesting
thing about PAGL is that it is also a criterion which can help us to know whether
we are on the right track on any issue in life, or whether we are just deceiving
ourselves. If there is no awareness of PAGL, chances are we are just deceiving ourselves,
which is very easy to do. PAGL is a sort of landmark, or a sign, which can help us
to know whether or not we are on the right track. And when we are praying about any
problem we may face, if we reach the point which we call the "PAGL point," then we
know that the problem is healed. If we meditate and reach PAGL point in our meditation,
we can stop. There is a sense of assurance that whatever we are facing has been healed.
Psychoanalysis does not have the awareness of the dimension of the spirit. What
it is working with are purely humanistic concepts. It is an attempt to change the
past by altering the present. But the present is still a time frame. It is not really
possible to change the past by altering the present. It is possible to be healed
only if we succeed in abolishing the past ("And God requireth that which is past,"
Ecclesiastes 3:15).
We are also trying to understand the possibilities beyond what has been experienced
until now. What were considered limited possibilities are gradually receding. We
are continually expanding the horizons of limitation and pushing into areas which
have not yet been realized. It is better to be idealistic than realistic. Had the
Wright brothers been realistic, there would be no aviation today.
Let us ask again, What is spiritual guidance? At the outset of these lectures it
was stated that spiritual guidance is not an activity. It is a quality of consciousness
which is receptive to




inspired wisdom and which is responsive to manifest needs. If we are going to teach
spiritual guidance, then the primary issue is learning the open-minded receptivity
to creative Intelligence which meets every moment’s requirement. The open mind is
the central issue in spiritual guidance.
Conventional psychological thinking knows only sensations, emotions, and intellect
as basic factors. It presumes that if one is intellectual then one supposedly has
to learn to feel. If one is emotional, one has to learn to think. If one is sensual,
one has to sort of distribute these three human experiences evenly so that one may
become an integrated human person, with one’s feelings, sensations, and intellectual
thinking ability in balance. And this supposedly makes for a healthy person. This
is the avowed purpose of psychotherapist manipulation of man, namely, to bring about
a balance. But we cannot mix psychology with spirituality, just as we cannot mix
oil with water. What is needed is to understand what spirituality really is. When
we confuse our feeling responses to situations and issues with intuition, we just
don’t know what we are talking about. The way we feel about something is not the
same as having intuitive understanding of something. Intuition is a colloquial word
for inspiration. Intuition based on feelings is not intuition. It is subjectivity.
Furthermore, it is totally unreliable and is inseparable from judgment. But true
inspiration, spiritual insight, is on a different level of consciousness.
In Metapsychiatry we distinguish two sources of thought: one is the "sea of mental
garbage," from where all invalid thoughts, which we are constantly being flooded
by, come. We can surmise that Teilhard de Chardin would call this the "noosphere."
The other source of thought is the "infinite ocean of Love-Intelligence," from where
all intelligent, valid, constructive, helpful, and creative ideas come. The dividing
line between the human and the spiritual modes of awareness we call the firmament.
If we are going to be spiritual guides, we cannot mix up the two; we cannot practice
psychotherapy one minute and spiritual guidance the next minute. Those who




wish to practice psychotherapy are entitled to study psychotherapy, but those who
are interested in spiritual growth and realization must be helped to rise above the
firmament so that they may have a Divine perspective on Reality rather than a human
one.
Above the firmament, in the "ocean of Love-Intelligence," man does not become callous,
unfeeling, and intellectual; man becomes intelligent, infinitely compassionate, spiritually
loving, serenely dignified, peaceful, assured, grateful, and harmonious. He lives
in a different dimension of consciousness which transcends all psychology (including
Jungian psychology), psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and other human systems. And
that is what Metapsychiatry understands to be spiritual guidance. There is a difference
and a radical separation between psychology and spiritual consciousness. Anyone who
mixes the two just does not understand what the difference really is, and a great
deal of confusion follows this kind of mixing.
The vast majority of people want to make a go of life below the firmament, and
they try to manipulate and conduct things in the "sea of mental garbage." There are
a great many pleasures in the "sea of mental garbage," and there is a great deal
of suffering and confusion there as well. As the Bible says: "Wide is the gate, and
broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few
there be that find it" (Matthew 7:13–14). And we may add: "Few there are who are
interested in finding it." But it is not our job to make people interested. That
is God’s job. If we are going to be spiritual guides, this is what it is all about:
"the straight and the narrow." We must be prepared to face the fact that there will
be a great many people who will not want to have any part of the narrow way. We must
understand that this is not a matter of liking, disliking, or arguing about it. It
is something to contemplate. Is it possible to debate or argue about the merits of
two and two being four? It can only be considered by everyone and contemplated. If
we are sincerely




seeking God, we must eventually commit ourselves to this. This is spiritual guidance.
Everything else is just messing around in the "sea of mental garbage."
As mentioned before, the basic issue in training for spiritual guidance is learning
the open-minded confrontation of that which reveals itself from moment to moment,
which is entirely different from training for psychotherapy or the legal profession
or philosophy or any academic subject.
Metapsychiatry is offering the tools necessary for a spiritual guide in the form
of the three "Rs." It also explains what recognition requires of a spiritual guide:
it requires recognizing an individual’s mode of being-in-the-world through phenomenological
perceptivity. So a spiritual guide needs to discern a patient’s or a client’s mode
of being-in-the-world and the meaning of his presenting problem, so that he can hermeneutically
clarify it. He then explains that regret of the mistake on the part of the client
and his reorientation are requisite for a healing to take place. The healing is always
one of the "signs following," as the Bible states. When consciousness is elevated
above the firmament, human problems are healed. This is not psychotherapy. It is
phenomenology. Training in phenomenological perceptivity rests on the attainment
of the open mind.
It may be helpful at this point to clarify the difference between intellectualism
and intelligence. To put it into simple language, intellectualism is a desire to
be known as knowing. This was designated previously as one of the gates of hell.
Intelligence, on the other hand, is the ability to utilize, express, and communicate
ideas in a clear and concise form.
We might mention here that spiritual consciousness is not very popular or highly
valued when it comes to individuals being committed to it. It may be popular to profess
it, to talk about it, to read about it in books, but not to commit oneself to it.
There are two ways we can become committed to spiritual life: one is through suffering,
the other is through wisdom. It is, of course, difficult to become totally committed
to the spiritual life through wisdom alone. Even Jesus is described in




the Bible as having been "in all points tempted like as we are" (Hebrews 4:15).
At times it happens that individuals come to us ostensibly for psychotherapy while
actually seeking to find God. Therefore, we have to tune in on the wavelength upon
which an individual is starting out with us, and gradually clarify the difference
through the process of hermeneutic elucidation.
The eighth principle in Metapsychiatry states: "Problems are lessons designed for
our edification." This is a very important principle because it helps us not to be
afraid of problems, but actually welcome them as opportunities for growth. Every
time a problem is understood in its meaning and is clarified and appropriately regretted,
it leads to reorientation and we ascend a rung on the ladder of consciousness.
A young wife and mother reported the following: "It came to my attention recently
that I go around all the time cherishing a completely fictitious concept of my husband,
and I am interpreting everything that is going on in the home in the light of an
idea which has no relation whatsoever to his view of himself. When I saw this, I
became increasingly embarrassed about my hateful point of view of him. I seem to
be locked in a dream, my own dream, which I am projecting onto other individuals
to the detriment of the entire family, including myself. I have suffered for many
years from the idea that I am being hated. Now the question which preoccupies me
is, how could I get out of my dream?"
The way to be healed of such problems is by realizing that our dreams are not ours.
The dreams which we are dreaming are not our dreams. They are just suggestions and
fantasies which have taken hold in our consciousness; they happen to be there but
they are not ours. Only what God gives us can be ours and God does not give us hateful
dreams or unloving ideas. Unless we recognize that these things are no part of our
true being, we can never be helped. If there really were a hateful individual, he
would be beyond hope. Hateful thoughts do not belong to the man God created. He is
a pure consciousness of Love-Intelligence. Just because certain factors are messing




up our life experience, it does not mean that they are ours, that they belong to
us, or that we are such individuals. These thoughts must be separated from us in
order that we may be healed.
Some garbage thoughts are being transmitted from generation to generation and are
at times cherished like heirlooms. Still, they are no part of our true being, even
if we got them from our parents or grandparents. This is good to know, because if
we were to blame ourselves, there would be no way to be healed. When we blame ourselves
we claim ownership and are secretly proud of our disastrous heritage. So the dreams
we are dreaming are not our dreams. The prejudices which we feel and express are
not our prejudices, they are just prejudices. If we walk in the streets of New York
City and our faces get dirty from the soot and smog, that does not mean that we are
dirty people. It only means that we happen to have dirt on our faces. The dirt is
no part of our true being. Our insanities are no part of our true being either. That
realization is very helpful when it comes to healing and liberation. We disavow these
ideas and we endeavor to behold our pristine purity as expressions of Divine Love-Intelligence.
The Bible says: "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are
the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with
Christ" (Romans 8:16– 17). The wave bears witness to the ocean and the ocean to the
wave. The wave is the ocean and the ocean is the wave. And so the son of man is the
son of God and God expresses himself through the son of man, and man is the manifestation
of God. The only way that God can be known is through man expressing the qualities
of God. That’s what we really are.
Garbage thoughts and dreams are no part of our being, just as pollution is no part
of the sea. All the garbage in the sea may be moving with the waves, but pollution
is not the sea. It is not even part of the sea. It does not belong to the sea. The
sea is pure and always was pure. The garbage is entirely separate from the sea. But
the wave and the sea are one as man and




God are one. The purity, the perfection, and the love of God constitute the real individual.
Whenever something needs to be healed, this separation must be clearly realized.
The moment this is clearly realized, the healing can take place.
Sometimes people get panicky about "their own" thoughts. But if they realize that
what seems to be their own thoughts are not really their own thoughts, they do not
have to get panicky. Only God’s thoughts constitute the real man.
There are certain aspects of mental pollution which create in us experiences. For
instance, hate is exciting; interaction is entertaining; intimidation can be overwhelming,
etc. When we understand the illusory nature of these experiences, they can be successfully
transcended, especially interaction, which seems to be the most ubiquitous element
in human experience. Interaction seems particularly desirable when we feel alone,
isolated, neglected, ignored, or unloved. These conditions conjure up a dread of
nothingness, which then leads to a desire to stir up some interaction.
I know a couple who had a very stormy marriage. For many years they had frequent
fights. In exploring the problem, we found that the wife was terrified of solitude
and quietness. She could not stand being in the house because it was too quiet. This
gave us the clue as to what the problem was. It was the dread of nothingness, and
the marital squabbles were but a form of entertainment and reassurance that they
are really there as individual beings.
On the spiritual path we are studying to realize the glory of our "nothingness."
Unenlightened man clamors for confirmation of his personal somethingness. Heidegger
made the dread of nothingness the central theme of his philosophy. ("Nothingness,
in contrast to all that seems to be, is the veil of being.") When we realize the
true nature of being, we come to understand that nothingness is not dreadful but
supremely comforting, because nothingness is allness, for that is what really is.
It is not nothing but the divine essence of everyone.
At this point true compassion can emerge as love based on




understanding that the garbage is not part of real being. Compassion, then, requires
the presence of enlightened love. It is clear then that compassion cannot be turned
on at will. Real compassion requires some understanding of what is man and what is
not man. Here it is helpful to distinguish between compassion, empathy, and sympathy.
The compassionate man says, "I love you because I understand you." The empathizing
man says, "I know how you feel." The sympathizing man says, "I feel for you."
Human sentiments like empathy and sympathy have little to do with Reality and are
devoid of healing power. They have a temporary soothing effect, but they do not heal.
Quite to the contrary, they tend to make a reality of the problem. True compassion
heals because it is based on understanding of the truth of man as an expression of
divine consciousness where nothing enters "that defileth ... or maketh a lie" (Revelation
21:27).




Metapsychiatry is timeless. What do we mean by that? In Metapsychiatry we are not
working in the dimension of time. Metapsychiatry is ahistorical, acausal, and nonteleological.
This means we are not interested in the history of the patient; we are not interested
in why he is sick and who is to blame for it; we are not interested in the purpose
for which he is sick.
Temporality has a lot to do with character, and we have described certain problems
associated with it, as well as their flip sides: pride and shame; vanity and embarrassment;
ambition and fear. It is now becoming clearer that these characterological factors
have their own temporality: pride and shame are in the past, vanity and embarrassment
are always in the present, and ambition and fear are of the future. So we have here
six characterological factors which have their own specific temporality. If we abolish
the temporality, we abolish the problem. If there is no past, we cannot be proud
or ashamed. If there is no present, we cannot be vain or embarrassed. If there is
no future, it makes no sense to be ambitious or even afraid.
Suppose someone said, But ambition is important; couldn’t I retain at least a little
ambition? But the question is, Is it possible to be ambitious and be free of fear?
Certainly not. If we want to be free of fear, we must sacrifice ambition. We cannot
make a deal with the devil. There is no possibility of living a fearless life as
long as we are ambitious. The moment we are future oriented, there is fear.




So let us face the fact that if we don’t want to be ashamed and prideful, we must
give up the past; if we want to be free of fear and ambition, we must give up the
future; if we want to be healed of vanity and embarrassment, we must give up the
present. Where does this leave us? After we have given up the past, the future, and
the present, we find ourselves in the dimension of timelessness.
What do we find in the realm of timelessness? In the realm of timelessness we discover
God. Time is just something that seems to be, viewed from the narrow perspective
of human experience. In Reality there is no such thing as time. In the dimension
of timelessness we discover inspiration, which is the dynamic of enlightened living.
Reality cannot be experienced. All the previously cited characterological factors
can be experienced, but Reality is timeless. It cannot be experienced; it can only
be realized. Contrary to the prevailing statements of mystics in the literature that
Reality can be experienced but cannot be described, we can say unequivocally that
anyone who claims to have experienced Reality is either a fraud or else that person
is deceiving himself.
What is the difference between experiencing something and realizing something?
Experiences are mediated by the neurovegetative nervous system, whereas realizations
take place in consciousness. If Reality is timeless, then none of the temporalities
belong in the realm of the real. They are purely experiential. Therefore, they only
seem to be. And the more involved we get in the experience of time, the more we live
in unreality.
Since Metapsychiatry is ahistorical, acausal, and nonteleological, it is firmly
anchored in Reality. Someone may ask, Is faith necessary for this realization? No,
all we need is understanding. If we thought about faith, we would be talking about
religion; but we are talking about science. Neither faith, nor believing, nor accepting
is required. We are simply working in the direction of understanding Reality. This
Reality happens to coincide with many biblical statements, especially




the teachings of Jesus, understood existentially, but this does not mean that we
are talking about religion. We are talking about life lived in absolute Reality.
Psychotherapy can be effective only to the extent that it helps the patient to
realize more and more of what is real and what is not real. Unfortunately, sometimes
we try to achieve the impossible. For instance, a patient may be suffering from anxieties,
fears, and phobias, and we try to cure him of his fears, never noticing the fact
that ambition is also a problem. It is like trying to give the patient a coin which
has only one side. There is no such thing as a one-sided coin. So this kind of psychotherapist
fantasy is just that. If the aim of psychotherapy is to help the patient attain better
contact with Reality, then he needs to be guided out of temporality into the realization
of the timeless. In the realm of the timeless there is no fear, no anxiety, there
are no neuroses, no psychoses, no depressions, there are no problems. Everything
is perfect and healthy and loving and harmonious and supremely intelligent.
When we speak of the aim of psychotherapy, the impression is unavoidable that we
are talking about the future of the patient, and thus we seem to be contradicting
ourselves. However, this is not so. We have to understand the difference between
"now" as an aspect of the present, and "moment by moment" as an aspect of the timeless.
The word "aim" is unavoidable because our language itself is time-bound. The realization
of the difference between now as a time frame and moment by moment as an aspect of
the dynamism of the timeless is very helpful.
Similarly, the word "hope" seems to point toward the future. Hope, however, is
a religious concept. Enlightenment reveals the good of God which already is and manifests
itself moment by moment in timelessness. Therefore, we "hope to dispense with hope"
and replace it with the grace of actual realization.
When someone comes to us asking for help with a problem, it is important to have
a clear idea of what would be helpful. To bring this understanding to the patient
is the aim, but this




aim is not in terms of the future, but moment by moment. The therapeutic process,
which is conducted in the realm of the timeless, is not now. It is moment by moment.
The timeless is not static. It is dynamic, but not in the terms in which we are accustomed
to thinking. It is not really possible to understand something tomorrow or yesterday.
If we explore the amazing event which takes place in consciousness in a moment of
understanding or inspiration, we realize absolute timelessness. The famous French
phenomenologist-psychiatrist Eugene Minkowski wrote a book entitled Le Temps Vécu,
in which he speaks of the transcendence of the temporo-spatial coordinates of experience,
which takes place in the moment of inspiration and understanding.
Actually, real life is not happening in time. It transcends the experience of time
and space. If we have ever become aware of the moment when we understood something,
we must have realized the extratemporal nature of that event. In psychoanalytic literature
this is sometimes referred to as the "aha experience."
It is interesting that in the English language we speak about making extemporaneous
comments. Usually we mean to say that our comments are not premeditated and prepared
ahead of time. But if we consider the word "extemporaneous," we see that it hints
at the fact that unpremeditated speech has a quality of transcending time. Extemporaneous
means outside of time. Indeed, the gift of making extemporaneous comments hinges
on our receptivity to inspired wisdom, reaching our consciousness from the realm
of the timeless, which is the realm of Love-Intelligence.
All realizations of Reality are extratemporal. The Metapsychiatric therapeutic
session, while it is restricted to a segment of time — say thirty minutes — is essentially
timeless in its process. The entrance into the realm of the timeless abolishes all
problems: fear, tension, guilt, shame, pride, ambition, vanity, obsessions, and compulsions;
emotional hang-ups disappear in proportion to the extent that the timeless Reality
of true existence is glimpsed. Every little glimpse has a




powerful therapeutic impact. It is like beholding God. In proportion to the degree
that God becomes real to us — and not only in terms of a religious denomination but
existentially — in that proportion we are lifted out of the quagmire of human temporality.




In most forms of teaching, the basic style consists of debating and also, to some
extent, contending, especially if there are pharisaical tendencies in the students.
In the Metapsychiatric area of seeking spiritual understanding, however, only dialogue
can be fruitful. This means that opinions have no place in this kind of learning.
The Zen Master strongly recommended, "Above all, cherish no opinions." In order to
be able to participate in a dialogic process, we must be willing to abandon, or put
aside, opinions. What are opinions? They are cherished ideas, personalized ideas.
As long as we cherish opinions we cannot participate in a dialogic process, because
we have an investment in affirming our opinions.
If we cherish opinions we are inclined to contend. Therefore, opinions have to
be set aside — at least temporarily. The Zen Master also says: "The wise man has
no opinions whatsoever about anything." We may ask, What does a wise man have? A
wise man has a thirst for understanding. He does not claim personal knowledge. At
the drop of a hat he is ready to alter his thoughts. There is an amusing story about
an American newsman who traveled all the way to the Himalayas to see a famous wise
man, living on a mountaintop. When he finally arrived, he said: "Great and exalted
Master, please tell me what is the secret of life?" The wise man thought very deeply
for a long time and then he said: "The secret of life is like that river." The reporter
exclaimed, "Is that all?" And the wise man said, "You mean it isn’t?"...




The thing to keep in mind is that in order for dialogue to take place — and by
the way, this is essential in the healing process as well — the focus of attention
must be on the increasing realization of whatever aspect of the truth is necessary
to be known at a particular time.
Let us recall the three "Rs" of Metapsychiatry: recognition, regret, and reorientation.
These three factors can become clear only under conditions of dialogue. The Bible
character Daniel was a great spiritual guide, as can be seen from his therapeutic
sessions with King Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar had dreams and visions which troubled
him greatly, and there was no one who could understand or interpret them, until finally
Daniel was called in. Nebuchadnezzar, who was a man in an existential crisis and
was very fearful, asked Daniel to interpret his dreams to him. Nebuchadnezzar was
faced with the necessity of recognizing the meanings of his dreams. But even though
he asked for it, he was not willing to accept them because they were too horrible
to face. We may look at this situation from our own standpoint as spiritual guides,
called upon to help someone.
King Nebuchadnezzar suffered from delusions of grandeur. He had an exalted image
of himself. He had fantasies about his own greatness. He thought himself to be the
king of the whole world and that his kingdom, power, and fame reached to heaven,
and from one end of the world to the other. Daniel saw through this and said to him,
in a sense: "Beware, because you are going to become psychotic if you continue in
this way of thinking, and you will go through a period of depression where you will
be like an animal of the fields, knowing nothing but complete degradation. And this
depression will last until you come to recognize that God alone is mighty and you
are His servant" (see Daniel 4). Daniel was trying to help him recognize the problem
— which was self-confirmatory ideation of psychotic proportions — and was trying
to get him to the point of regret where he would recognize his mistake and abandon
his self-exaltation. Daniel was also prescribing the reorientation process which
would be necessary in order




to be healed. Had Nebuchadnezzar listened to Daniel he could have been spared seven
years of total desolation. It took the king seven years to come to recognize his
mistaken mode of being-in-the-world, to regret it, and to reorient himself. When
he reformed by acknowledging God as superior to himself he regained his sanity.
Here the Bible provides us with a beautiful model of a spiritual guide endeavoring
to heal and to prevent a tragedy from occurring, failing in the short run but succeeding
in the long run, because Nebuchadnezzar remembered that the God of Daniel is supreme,
and after seven years of psychotic depression he finally was willing to see that
point; only then was he healed. His thinking about himself and about reality was
reformed, or reoriented. So Daniel is a marvelous model of a therapeutic spiritual
guide, and also of an individual who could be in the midst of malicious intrigues
and hostility from the courtiers around him, and even beastliness, and yet remain
unscathed. The whole empire around him was collapsing from malice and moral decay,
yet he remained unscathed (see Daniel 6). Daniel is truly a paradigm of spiritual
uprightness.
Let us come back now to the issue of dialogue. In dialogue we put aside all other
considerations except the search for understanding whatever is existentially valid.
For instance, Nebuchadnezzar had an existentially invalid fantasy about himself,
an exalted self-confirmatory idea. In his own eyes he was the strongest, the smartest,
the most powerful man in the world, and it was hard for him to listen to the interpretation
offered by Daniel. In order to be able to participate in a dialogue, we must be interested
in one thing, as Kierkegaard says: "Purity of heart is wanting one thing." If we
can put aside all other motivations, all other thoughts and opinions and just seek
to understand as much as possible of the truth which is existentially valid, then
we can participate in a dialogic process. In a dialogic process there is a place
for asking questions and seeking clarification, but there is no place for debating,
because the truth cannot be debated; one cannot arrive at existential truths through
a process of debating. Debate has its




place in a courtroom and politics but not when it comes to existential hermeneutics.
A dialogue can be very easily aborted. The moment a dialogic explanation hits upon
an opinion, a resistance phenomenon occurs and at that point dialogue stops. There
is nothing we can do in such a situation except wait until the other individual becomes
ready for dialogue. When we understand an eternal truth, there is a sense of peace,
assurance, gratitude, and love (PAGL). When we harbor opinions, we are "uptight."
This understanding makes it easy to differentiate between truth and opinions. As
far as others are concerned, we respect people’s right to be uptight, to cherish
opinions. There is nothing we can do about it, and even if we could, it would be
wrong to try. It would be trespassing. If someone therefore insists upon clinging
to an opinion, that is his privilege and we have no right to try to rob him of it.
But when we harbor opinions, we tend to run into existential crises. Thereby we can
be sure that opinions are not the truth, because truth is liberating and opinions
are enslaving. The freedom Jesus speaks about is not sociological or economic or
psychological. It is spiritual freedom, which we call PAGL. It is also accompanied
by wisdom, joy, harmony; these are the spiritual qualities which we become aware
of and which heal us every time we get a glimpse of the truth which is beyond opinions,
which is existential.
Jesus said: "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world,
that I should bear witness unto the truth" (John 18:37). A spiritual guide who is
a beneficial presence in the world bears witness to the truth, both by the quality
of his presence and by voicing the truth to those who have ears to hear. "He that
hath an ear let him hear" (Revelation 2:7,11, 17, 29). It is not something that we
can force on people. We have to wait until they ask. Unsolicited solicitude is trespass.
Jesus never healed anyone who didn’t ask him to. He was not offering unsolicited
solicitude. He respected people’s right to be wrong or to be sick or to disbelieve.
He was constantly bearing witness to the truth through the quality of his presence




and through his words, but he was not pushing it on anyone. When he returned home
to Nazareth, he was not able to heal the sick because there was no receptivity. He
said, in fact: "Nemo propheta in sua patria" (No man is a prophet in his own country).
And so he left. He did not force his healing ability on anyone.
I am reminded of a poster I once saw. The caption went as follows: "The truth will
make you free, but first it will make you mad!" Praying for someone who is not receptive
is also a trespass. When we pray we try to behold in our mind’s eye man in the context
of God. We are required to love our neighbor as ourself, and since we pray for ourself
at all times, we also endeavor to pray for our neighbor. But this is a blessing,
not intercessory prayer.
A very helpful way to pray for ourselves is by meditating on the following statement:
"I am a place where God’s presence reveals itself as omniactive Love-Intelligence."
And if someone asks that we pray for him or we want to bless someone in a specific
way, we can endeavor to behold him in a similar way as a place where God’s presence
reveals itself as omniactive Love-Intelligence. If we pray for ourself this way and
if we pray for others this way, then we are loving our neighbor as we love ourself.
This way we can pray even for people who call themselves atheists, not in order to
influence them but in order to fulfill the commandment, because influencing is a
sin. It is a trespass. To be influential is right. A beneficial presence in the world,
a witness to the truth, is influential, but he does not influence.
The question was asked, What is the meaning and the benefit of thinking of ourselves
as a place? It leaves the ego out of our thought. The existentialists speak of man
as clairiére de l’existence. Heidegger speaks of man as Lichtung des Daseins, which
means that man is a place where existence manifests itself. We think of ourself as
a transparency, or a place, or a consciousness, or a presence. In all these conceptualizations
of prayer the ego is put aside, and that is important. If our prayers contain a thought
of what should be, it is a trespass; if it is




an acknowledgment of what already is, then it is prayer. The prayer of beholding
endeavors to see spiritually in the mind’s eye what really is beneath what seems
to be. Someone may be a very aggressive, cruel, and objectionable character, but
beneath that we know that he is a child of God. The important differentiation is
that there must be no thought of what should be. We seek to behold what really is.
The second principle of Metapsychiatry states: "Take no thought for what should
be or what should not be; seek ye first to know the good of God, which already is."
In our prayers we seek to behold (not visualize, fantasize, or imagine, which is
qualitatively different), or see in consciousness, what really is in spite of what
seems to be. That is true prayer in which there is no influencing, no trespassing,
because the objective is to know the truth. The meaning and purpose of life is to
come to know Reality.
Matter is being discovered more and more as just a holographic appearance of vibrations
and therefore as not what it seems to be. With holography it is possible to project
images in space, which look very substantial, but actually they are just coherent
light projected through a special photographic plate. The latest scientific research
claims that the brain is this kind of holographic plate through which vibrations
are being projected into space which makes the universe appear in the form of material
substance. But actually matter is not substantial, and the basic stuff of life is
just vibration.
As to emotions, they are just thoughts organismically interpreted. The basic stuff
of life — even beyond vibrations — is thought. We tend to see everything in the context
of our organism, but that does not mean that our organism is what it seems to be.
Joy and love are not emotions. They are spiritual qualities which we can be aware
of by the grace of God; they are attributes of God.
We seek to understand ourselves ever so deeply in the context of God’s creation.
In various periods there were and are new theories put forward. The latest one is
that the visible universe is a holographic image of God. Divine ideas flow




into His universe and are interpreted by the brain through a process of holographic
projection, which makes ideas appear as solid stuff. But the solid stuff is not really
solid. We are trying to understand this. There is no man alive — not even Karl Pribram
and David Bohm who are in the forefront of this research — who can fully understand
what is being discovered. But one thing is becoming clear, namely, there is no such
thing as solid stuff anywhere, contrary to our sensory perceptions.
Since God is the source of all intelligence, life, love, wisdom, and truth, if
we are going to petition God, there is only one thing we can sensibly petition for,
namely, we can plead for understanding. We all pray all the time, even the avowed
atheists. Man is unavoidably, inescapably, a prayerful creature but many pray to
the wrong god, and that is a tragedy.
What happens if someone seeks spiritual guidance believing that that’s what he
really wants and, while sitting with him, it becomes clear that this is not what
he really wants? What can the spiritual guide do in such a case? The spiritual guide
has to discern the discrepancy in the motivation and find a way of meaningfully communicating
it and clarifying it to the individual so that he could become aware of this dichotomy
of motivation within himself. Once the individual becomes aware of divergent motivations,
he has the freedom to say, "Well that’s what I really want," or, "That’s not what
I really want," or he can say, "All right, I will give this up and choose the other."
The more clearly we can help someone to see his conflicting or divergent motivations
and his self-deceptions, the more helpful we shall be to him, but this requires the
ability of discernment. There is a very interesting Taoist saying relevant to this
issue: "If the right man does the wrong thing, then the wrong thing will work the
right way; but if the wrong man does the right thing, then the right thing will work
the wrong way." Motivation makes the difference; the right man is the one who has
existentially valid motivations. And so if someone comes to us for spiritual guidance,
we can help him to see that as long as he has wrong motivations he is not being the




right man, and things will keep going awry in his life even if he behaves in a Christian way.
Thought is a basic unit of mental energy. Thought is energy. There are two kinds
of thoughts: valid thoughts and invalid thoughts. The principle of existential validation
helps us differentiate between the two. If a thought or a series of thoughts are
life-enhancing, health-promoting, healing, loving, and clarifying, they are existentially
valid and they are energy which blesses us and heals us. Invalid thoughts, while
they may appear rational and logical within a certain context of reasoning, have
the opposite effect.
Everything intellectual is an abstraction, but if the abstraction is valid, it
can be helpful. Let us take, for instance, the very useful intellectual abstraction
"God is love," which is not the truth but a statement about the truth. Anything that
appears in the form of a thought is, in a way, an abstraction of Reality because
Reality is beyond thought. Thoughts can help us to discern Reality, but thoughts
themselves are not the Reality. The Zen Master says: "The finger is not the moon."
Once, when I told my dog, "Look, there is your food," he began licking my finger.
And that is, in a sense, what we do, too.
The more clearly the truth is established in our consciousness, the more protection
we have from invalid thoughts. If we are unenlightened about what is valid and what
is not valid, then we are at the mercy of all sorts of invalid ideas invading our
consciousness and showing up in various forms, in problems which can be physical,
mental, emotional, social, economic, behavioral, or any other type.
Mind fasting is a Taoist concept which corresponds to the statement Jesus made
when asked by his disciples why they could not heal the epileptic boy: "This kind
goeth not out but by prayer and fasting" (Matthew 17:21). Jesus did not refer to
abstaining from food. He referred to abstaining from certain ways of thinking. He
placed great emphasis on the power of thought. At one occasion he said: If you only
think about committing adultery, you have already committed it. ("Whosoever




looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in
his heart," Matthew 5:28.) So the entertainment of invalid thoughts is harmful to
us and has a tendency to transmute itself into problems. Energy, according to the
second law of thermodynamics, has a tendency to transmute itself into other forms.
As mentioned before, the basic stuff of life is thought and thought appears to be
energy. It behaves as energy because it has the tendency to transmute itself into
emotions, feelings, sensations, symptoms, behavior, speech, and various other phenomena
of daily living. A phenomenon is a thought in visible form. When thought energy transmutes
itself and appears in visible form, then we speak of phenomena.
"Bracketing" helps us to participate in a dialogue and in discerning the meaning
of phenomena, because it provides us with an open mind. Mind fasting is an integral
aspect of the healing process. For instance, if we have critical thoughts about someone
and we begin to feel very uneasy about it, then in order to see that individual in
the context of God, we must abstain from critical thoughts about him. This is mind
fasting. It is the abstaining from entertaining existentially invalid thoughts and
prayerfully endeavoring to acknowledge what is existentially valid. Thereby we heal
ourselves of the burden of malice, hostility, antagonism, and all sorts of unpleasant
thoughts which can easily transmute themselves into a stomach ulcer, or a headache,
or into allergies, etc. Mind fasting is a very helpful and important mental hygiene
principle. The closer we are to the truth of being, and the clearer we understand
ourselves as spiritual beings, the more perceptive we are of invalid thoughts. It
is somewhat like when we have learned to appreciate taking showers every morning
and being clean, the more intolerable it is for us to be dirty. We are stewards of
consciousness. It is our task to maintain the purity of our consciousness. The more
we appreciate PAGL, the more intolerable it is to think and talk in critical ways
about anyone.
Attitudes are congealed thoughts. Congealed emotions are emotional disturbances
where the emotions rule our lives,




such as when someone is chronically angry and hateful and gets high blood pressure
or something else from it.
The question was asked about the difference between bracketing and the Buddhist
concept of self-emptying. Bracketing is, as mentioned before, the seeking of open-minded
confrontation of whatever reveals itself from moment to moment. The Buddhist form
of self-emptying is a method of mind fasting sought in meditation where all calculative
thinking ceases and one is completely receptive to inspiration: where there is no
more cogitation taking place, ideas obtain.
Let us clarify the meaning of ideas obtaining in consciousness. It is insight into
God as a source of all creative, intelligent and valid ideas. Right knowledge comes
to all who are willing to be receptive in this open-minded way where ideas can obtain
in consciousness.




The central focus in Metapsychiatry is God, but not the God of the traditional
religions. In religions God is a symbol of reality. In Metapsychiatry we seek to
develop the faculty of direct contact, not with the symbol of reality, but with Reality
itself, the "God beyond God" (Tillich).
Reality and absolute truth are synonymous. Jesus explained how healing occurs by
saying: "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).
Not the symbol of truth. The symbol of truth cannot make us free, but the knowledge
of the truth itself can make us free, that is, it can heal us. In this sense we are
radically different from religious teachings and denominations. Our endeavor is to
help our patients to come into contact with this Reality. This may sound very difficult
and, indeed, it is not easy, but it can be realized.
An important thing to know is the difference between information and transformation.
It is common knowledge that no amount of reading of books — or even the Bible — will
have any therapeutic effect. One can become very educated and well-informed, but
there will not be the slightest therapeutic effect. Healing will not occur through
reading books. Neither will it happen through listening to lectures and sermons.
Reading books and listening to lectures is gathering information. Information in
and of itself has no therapeutic value.




What is needed is transformation. There is a relevant passage in the Bible: "Be not
conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that
ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God" (Romans
12:2). In this passage the secret of transformation in contrast to information is
revealed.
To move from information to transformation, we are required to do something. Goethe
said something relevant to this issue, namely: "Whatever we have inherited, we must
reacquire." Information is something that we receive from books and lectures. But
in order for this information to become existentially integrated, it must be proven
in individual understanding. The information we receive must be put into practice
through participation in existence as a beneficial presence in the world. For instance,
it is not enough to know that God is love. We must also be loving. It is not enough
to know that God is truth. We must also be forthright and honest in our daily life.
It is not enough to know that God is beauty, harmony, joy, freedom, intelligence,
and goodness. We must also live that way. Information is passive gathering of data.
Transformation requires participation.
In therapy we are not only providing information. We seek to help our patient attain
transformation. In order to help him attain transformation, we must gain a clear
understanding of his mode of being-in-the-world. For instance, there is a case of
a young man who keeps getting fired from his jobs and repeatedly rejected by his
friends, both male and female. The harder he tries to ingratiate himself with people
and establish close relationships with his employers, friends, or relatives, the
more he gets rebuffed. In Metapsychiatry we refer to this as a misdirected mode of
being-in-the-world. This is a broader concept than the concept of "repetition compulsion"
introduced by Freud.
Psychoanalysis seeks to explain repetition compulsion on the basis of childhood
experiences. Psychoanalysis asks: "What’s wrong with this man? Why is he behaving
this way? And who is to blame for it?" In Metapsychiatry we do not ask




these questions. We ask, What is he doing? What is his mode of being-in-the-world?
What is the meaning of this mode of being-in-the-world? And what is the healing remedy?
So we do not blame anyone — not his parents, society, not even the patient. But we
see that this problem is based on an erroneous assumption about what is important
in life. The patient assumes that the important thing in life is to have good personal
relationships, and in order to have good personal relationships, he has to be clever
and manipulative and make a pest of himself. As a result of such behavior, he suffers
repeated rejections which, in turn, have a devastating effect on him.
So what is needed here is for the patient to become aware of his mode of being-in-the-world
and of his erroneous assumptions about how to live in an intelligent way. Then he
needs to come to understand what constitutes a truly intelligent mode of being-in-the-world.
The model of the intelligent mode of being-in-the-world for us is Christ Jesus, whose
main qualities can be summed up in two outstanding features, forthrightness and love.
Our patient, however, was neither forthright nor loving, but calculative, scheming,
manipulative, and obsequious. By acquainting him with the qualities of the Christly
mode of being-in-the-world, we are providing him with information about an existentially
valid way of living. He may agree with us and accept this information, even gratefully
and eagerly, but chances are he will try to use forthrightness and love as a technique
for more successful interpersonal manipulation. He may not commit himself to the
Christly way until he has suffered much more. Suffering may eventually compel him
to a point of commitment to the right values, and only then will a healing occur.
The Bible says: "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring
it to pass" (Psalm 37:5).
The psychoanalytic theory behind transformation is based on the concept of the
corrective emotional experience. The idea is that man has certain bottled-up emotions
from childhood on, and through free association, dream interpretation, and




transference analysis within the context of the relationship between the therapist
and the patient, a corrective emotional experience can take place in the patient.
This, in turn, will have a therapeutic effect on him. For instance, coming back to
this patient, the idea would be that he would begin to "butter up" the therapist
and try to establish a close, interpersonal, emotionally charged relationship with
him and make a pest of himself. If the therapist, in spite of all this, persisted
in being patient, kind, and accepting, this would give the patient a corrective emotional
experience, which would hopefully lead to understanding.
Now let us ask, What is the difference between a corrective emotional experience
and a real healing? We have seen that emotion is not enough, because it is just information.
No matter how powerful the corrective emotional experience may be, it is essentially
still just information occurring on an affective level. The patient discovers what
is wrong in a more meaningful way. So now he knows what is wrong. Knowing what is
wrong will not heal him. Jesus did not say, "Ye shall know what’s wrong, and you
will be healed." That is not enough. It is the integration of the truth in an existentially
meaningful way that brings about a healing.
What is the difference between an emotional experience and existential integration?
Emotions and feelings are not reliable indicators of Reality; they are purely subjective
and subject to misinterpretation. Existential integration is of an entirely different
order. Existential integration takes place when the truth validates itself by transforming
our mode of being-in-the-world. A healthy individual has a harmonious and fulfilling
mode of being-in-the-world, fulfilling in the sense of being able to express his
inherent potentialities in a most beneficial way in his daily life.
Far from being just metaphysical and theoretical, Metapsychiatry provides us with
a most practical and useful way of being in this world as a beneficial presence.
The interesting thing to contemplate is that Metapsychiatry starts out with a metaphysical
assumption about man and the universe and



winds up being supremely practical in daily life. This indicates that its metaphysical
assumptions about man and the universe are thus validated. If they were just mystical
nonsense, they could not possibly have practical consequences of a beneficial, life-enhancing
nature.



What is the important thing about a lamp? The important thing about a lamp is the
light it sheds. The important thing about Jesus was the Christ. The important thing
about a teacher is the teaching. The human tendency, however, is to get hung up on
the concrete rather than on the abstract. We get attached to personalities, and we
have a tendency to see life in terms of interpersonal relationships.
This is what happened to psychotherapy. Psychotherapy has fallen victim to myopia,
or shortsightedness, which is a universal human frailty. It is a tendency to cling
to the concrete, the tangible, or the material, and lose sight of the essential which
is spiritual. A lamp is good for nothing if it does not shed light. A teacher is
good for nothing unless he has something valid to teach. It is the teaching that
is important, not the teacher. It is the Christ that is important, not Jesus. Jesus
was a man who expressed the Christ, who manifested the light of truth and love and
perfection and reality to the world. He even said: "I am the light of the world:
he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life"
(John 8:12).
And so in psychotherapy we have to be careful to see beyond personality, because
no amount of "improving" of personality can be therapeutically valid. There are politicians,
psychopaths, and all sorts of con artists in the world who have beautiful personalities.
They are very clever, very smooth, very articulate and appealing, and yet that has
nothing to do with health. A beautiful personality can be a terrible disease. So
if



psychotherapy is conceived of as the restructuring of personality, it is like trying
to polish up a lamp to make it look nice in the living room, without ever considering
whether it will give light.
Man is a manifestation of Love-Intelligence. Everyone has the potential of being
what he really is. But if psychotherapy focuses attention on improving the personality,
then it is dealing with make-up. Psychologists speak of personality make-up. Personality
is just make-up. If psychotherapy is to be authentic and helpful, it must deal with
the essence of man. Essentially, we are spiritual beings. We are not personalities.
We just seem to be.
There are no creative personalities. There is only creative intelligence, and some
people have awakened within themselves a higher degree of receptivity to certain
aspects of that creative intelligence. They are called artists. But we can aim at
higher levels of awareness where it is not only in a circumscribed area of activity
that we are receptive but in the totality of being. An enlightened man is an existential
artist; his life is a work of art. Everything about him expresses beauty, harmony,
originality, joy, and love. He is a substantial being. He is authentic. In existentialism
this is a very favored term. Authenticity of being means becoming manifestly what
we really are potentially.
In ordinary life there is a lot of copying going on. What do we mean by copying?
People c