The TAT Forum: a spiritual magazine of essays, poems and humor.



TAT Forum

August 2022


TAT August Gathering: Meditation & the Path Within. August 19-21, 2022.

August spiritual retreat details
 

Contents


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Convictions & Concerns

TAT members share their personal convictions and/or concerns


Intuition & Honesty

third eye

Everyone treads the path to Truth based on feelings, even those who see themselves or are seen as the analytical and intellectual type. After all, feeling precedes thinking. It influences, even generates, thoughts. Thinking is largely—maybe even completely—reactionary, and feelings along with physical sensations are primary sources of our mental reactions. Emotions likewise are largely—maybe even completely—reactionary, being preceded or triggered by physical factors, both arising in the physical body and from the continuous onslaught of experience.

Left-brained seekers typically react without acknowledging their feelings, devising rational explanations for their reactions and getting caught-up in conceptual thinking. Right-brained seekers largely bypass such analytical spinning and go directly into the whirlpool of emotions.

Both approaches to finding the Truth, to finding the Real, are lacking. They might never bring you to clear, objective seeing of yourself, the way you live your life, and the world in which you live. Chief among the reasons why is lack of self-honesty. Another reason is your need to protect yourself, psychologically. Another reason is a lack of consciousness of desires and the degree to which you are driven by them....

See the complete article.

quill icon

~ Thanks to Bob Cergol for this essay based on a presentation he made at the September 2009 TAT meeting. Photo from pixabay.com. Comments or questions? Please email Reader Commentary to the .

 

TAT Foundation News

It's all about "ladder work" – helping and being helped

Richard Rose, the founder of the TAT Foundation, spent his life searching for the Truth, finding it, and helping others to find their Way. Although not well known to the public, he touched the lives of thousands of spiritual seekers through his books and lectures and through personal contacts with local study groups that continue to work with his teachings today. He felt strongly that helping others generates help for ourselves as well in our climb up the ladder to the golden find beyond the mind.


Call To Action For TAT Forum Readers

With the intention of increasing awareness of TAT's meetings, books, and Forum among younger serious seekers, the TAT Foundation is now on Instagram.

You can help! A volunteer is producing shareable text-quote and video content of Richard Rose and TAT-adjacent teachers. We need your suggestions for short, provocative 1-3 sentence quotes or 1 minute or less video clips of people like Rose, Art Ticknor, Bob Fergeson, Tess Hughes, Bob Cergol, Bart Marshall, Shawn Nevins, Anima Pundeer, Norio Kushi, Paul Rezendes, Paul Constant, & other favorites. (An example here is selected by the TAT member who volunteers to oversee the Instagram account.)

Please send favorite inspiring/irritating quotes—from books you have by those authors, from the TAT Forum, or any other place—to . If you have favorite parts of longer videos (ex: from a talk at a past TAT meeting), please email a link to the video and a timestamp.

Thank you!



Project: Beyond Mind, Beyond Death II

BMBD cover image TAT Press's Beyond Mind, Beyond Death (BMBD), published in 2008, covers selections from the first seven years of the TAT Forum, from November 2000 to December 2007.

We've had 14 additional years of monthly TAT Forum issues since then. And we're getting ready to launch a project to solicit recommendations from all readers for a 2nd volume of BMBD from the seven years of monthly issues spanning January 2008 to December 2014.

Our approach will be to have a brief, interactive survey each week for participants to rate the items in one issue of the Forum for inclusion in volume II. That will take about 20 months, during which time volunteer co-editors Abhay D. and Michael R. will arrange the selections into chapters and organize the book's contents. Within 2 years BMBD II should be available in paperback and e-book formats.

Your participation to any extent practical for you will help the best formulation of Beyond Mind, Beyond Death II. If you haven't opted-in for participation notices, you can sign up at BMBD_II.htm, where you also can find links to all active surveys.



TAT Foundation Press's latest publication

Passages: An Introduction and Commentary on Richard Rose’s Albigen System

The latest book from the TAT Foundation Press, Passages: An Introduction and Commentary on Richard Rose’s Albigen System, is now available in print and Kindle versions on Amazon.com. Mike Gegenheimer and Shawn Nevins combined their experience with Rose's teachings to create this introduction to Rose's work. Passages highlights the tools and techniques for self-realization that Rose recommended. It is a concise yet deep plunge into these valuable spiritual teachings.

Please add your review to the Amazon listing. It makes a difference!



Random rotation of
TAT Foundation Books & Videos


2022 TAT Meeting Calendar

February Virtual Gathering: Saturday, February 5, 2022
April Gathering: Friday evening through Sunday noon, April 8-10, 2022
June Gathering: Friday evening through Sunday noon, June 10-12, 2022
* August Gathering: Friday evening through Sunday noon, August 19-21, 2022 *
September Virtual Gathering: Saturday, September 24, 2022
November Gathering: Friday evening through Sunday noon, November 11-13, 2022


See the August spiritual retreat details page for details and registration. Comments or questions? Please email .


door on TAT Community Building 2010

See TAT's Facebook page.
Photo of TAT's open door by Phil Franta.



TAT's YouTube Channel

Have you seen the TAT Foundation's YouTube channel? Subscribe now for spiritual inspiration (and irritation)!

Volunteers have been updating the channel with hours of new content! They've also curated some great playlists of talks by Richard Rose, teacher talks from recent & not so recent TAT meetings, episodes of the Journals of Spiritual Discovery podcast, and other great TAT related videos from around the internet.

Featuring: Richard Rose, Bob Cergol, Shawn Nevins, Bob Fergeson, Mike Conners, Anima Pundeer, Norio Kushi, Bart Marshall, Paul Rezendes, Tess Hughes, Art Ticknor, Howdie Mickoski, Shawn Pethel and other speakers.

This month's video, "Richard Rose & the Threefold Path: A discussion with Shawn Nevins," is from the June 2021 TAT meeting.



Shawn along with Mike Gegenheimer recently published Passages: An Introduction and Commentary on Richard Rose’s Albigen System, which is available in print and Kindle versions on Amazon.com.



Local Group News

Groups with new updates are featured below. Link here for a complete listing of local groups.

Update for the Online Self-Inquiry Book Club:
The book club is now meeting monthly on Richard Rose'sPsychology of the Observer: The Path to Reality Through the Self by John Kent and will sync up with the new ProBoard book club discussion board on the Kent publication. Upcoming meeting schedule:
> Aug. 7: John Kent Thesis Chapter 13: Meditation
"With the seeker's foundation now in place and the necessary preparations made, we come to the central theme in any esoteric teaching: meditation. In the Albigen System, genuine meditation—or going within—is defined as: "Finding reality by finding the real part of oneself." The final objective of the practice is to arrive at the true state-of-mind, or ultimate sanity, which is considered to be synonymous with Self-Realization...."
> Sep. 18: John Kent Thesis Chapter 14: The Psychology of Observation and Perception
> Oct. 16: John Kent Thesis Chapter 15: Jacob's Ladder
~ For more information on book club participation, see the meeting website (link above). TAT Forum readers are welcome to drop in any time (invitation to Sunday meetings).


gold separator orn

Update from the Pittsburgh, PA self-inquiry group:
=> Online group confrontation and individual contributions every Wednesday, 8:00 pm via Zoom.
Email selfinquirer (link below) to receive invitation to monthly in-person meetings in Pittsburgh.
- Wed, Aug. 3: Len S. host: "Re-traversing The Projected Ray - Uncovering the i/me/us/we."
- Wed, Aug. 10: "What do feel that you Are? What do feel you Are Not?"
- Sun, Aug. 14: Dublin-American Joint Confrontation Meeting 2-4pm EST: "What is the difference between feelings and beliefs?"
- Wed, Aug. 17: "How could you tell if there is an unconscious part of you?"
- Wed, Aug. 24: Shawn Pethel will continue and follow-up as speaker at the August 19-21 TAT weekend intensive.
- Wed, Aug. 31: Guest Host to be announced.
=> All Forum subscribers are welcome to join us. Email to receive weekly topics with preparatory notes and Zoom invitations. Current events are listed on Meetup as Pittsburgh Self-inquiry Group (link above) and on www.pghsig.org.



Members-Only Area

A password-protected section of the website is available for TAT members. (Note that there's an occasional glitch that, when you try to link to the members-only area or a sections within it, you'll get a page-not-found error. If you try the link a second time, it should work.) Contents include:

Latest recordings:

TAT's Novemeber 2021 online gathering, titled What Do You Really, Really Want From Life?: 3.5 hours of selected sessions.

TAT's February 2021 online gathering, titled In Thought, Word and Deed : 2.5 hours of selected sessions.

TAT's August 2019 Workshop was titled Beyond Mindfulness: Meditation and the Path Within and included three guest speakers who each led separate workshops. The following audio recordings are now available in the members-only website area:

TAT's June 2019 Spiritual Retreat Weekend was titled Between You and the Infinite. The following audio recordings are now available in the members-only website area:

TAT's April 2019 Spiritual Retreat Weekend was titled Once in a Lifetime is Now. The following audio recordings are now available in the members-only website area:

Please us if you have questions. (Look here for info on TAT membership.)


Amazon and eBay

Let your Amazon purchases and eBay sales raise money for TAT!

As an Amazon Associate TAT earns from qualifying purchases made through links on our website.

TAT has registered with the eBay Giving Works program. You can list an item there and select TAT to receive a portion of your sale. Or if you use the link and donate 100% of the proceeds to TAT, you won't pay any seller fees when an item sells and eBay will transfer all the funds to TAT for you. Check out our Giving Works page on eBay. Click on the "For sellers" link on the left side of that page for details.


Your Contributions to TAT News

TAT founder Richard Rose believed that working with others accelerates our retreat from untruth. He also felt that such efforts were most effective when applied with discernment, meaning working with others on the rungs of the ladder closest to our own. The TAT News section is for TAT members to communicate about work they've been doing with or for other members and friends. Please your "ladder work" news.

 

Humor {(h)yo͞omər}

"One thing you must be able to do in the midst
of any experience is laugh. And experience
should show you that it isn't real, that it's a
movie. Life doesn't take you seriously, so why
take it seriously." ~ Richard Rose, Carillon

Gogo


Gogo with The Child Within Lives!


Gogo relaxing with The Child Within Us Lives! A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Metaphysics. Thanks to Shawn Nevins, who says: "He probably has a better grasp of William Samuels than I do."



Max Planck before/after quantum physics

*

~ Thanks to Colm H.


Air & Space


air & space museum


~ Thanks to Dan G.


We enjoy presenting humor here from TAT members and friends. Please your written or graphic creations. Exact sources are necessary for other submissions, since we need to make sure they're either in the public domain or that we have permission to use them.

 

Inspiration & Irritation

Irritation moves us; inspiration provides a direction


John Kabat-Zinn on Mindfulness



“The way I define [mindfulness] is paying attention on purpose in the present moment non-judgementally. And then I like to add sometimes as if your life depended on it…

“If you think about our educational system and how we grow up, we are trained more and more and more to get into thinking, and thinking is wonderful stuff; very powerful. Some of the greatest achievement of humanity come out of thought and out of imagination and out of creativity.

“But the other piece of it that’s equally as powerful as the capacity for thought is the capacity for awareness, but we get no training in awareness and attention, a huge amount of training in thought so a lot of time when we get into bed at the end of the day we can’t deal with our thought.”

~ Thanks to Dan G. for the 5-minute video link and the selected quote. Adding a personal note, Dan wrote: "This is pretty much what I see when I attend to the mind’s activity."



Once You Know What You Want


train your brain

  • In his book The Compound Effect, Darren Hardy said, “Never ask advice of someone with whom you wouldn't want to trade places.”
  • Wherever it is you want to go, there is a long and conventional path, and there are shorter, less conventional approaches. The conventional path is the outcome of not paying attention. It’s what happens when you let other people dictate your direction and speed in life. However, once you know what you want--and it intensely arouses your attention—you will notice simpler and easier solutions to your questions. What might have taken 10 years in a traditional manner takes only a few months with the right information and relationship.
  • “When the student is ready the teacher will appear.” - Mabel Collins
  • Thus, 60 days after being told it would take three to five years to have a substantial following, I was there. Personally, I don’t fully credit myself for this. In an age of skepticism and doubt, a childlike faith can take you a long way. Before each article I wrote (and continue to write), I pray that the work I produce will be beyond my own capability; and I visualize my work reaching the people who need it.
  • Just because other people have limiting beliefs does not mean you need to.
  • When you know what you want, you notice opportunities most people aren’t aware of. You also have the rare courage to seize those opportunities without procrastination, because what you focus on expands. Courage doesn’t just involve saying yes--it also involves saying no. But how could you possibly say no to certain opportunities if you don’t know what you want? You can’t. Like most people, you’ll be seduced by the best thing that comes around. But if you know what you want, you’ll be willing to pass up even brilliant opportunities because ultimately they are distractions from your vision. As Jim Collins said in Good to Great, “A ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’ is irrelevant if it is the wrong opportunity.” “Once-in-a-lifetime” opportunities (i.e., distractions) pop up every day. But the right opportunities will start popping up only when you decide what you want and start selectively attending to them. Before you know it, you’ll be surrounded by a network you love and by mentors showing you the fastest path.

~ Thanks to BH, who spotted How To Train Your Brain To Get What You Want In 60 Days by Benjamin Hardy on thoughtcatalog.com and provided the selected quotes above. Photo from clipartmax.com.



Intuition


intuition


The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. ~ Albert Einstein

~ Quote Investigator tells us: "Albert Einstein died in 1955. The earliest evidence known to QI linking Einstein to this expression appeared in the 1976 book The Metaphoric Mind: A Celebration of Creative Consciousness by Bob Samples." Here's a quote from the book:

Albert Einstein called the intuitive or metaphoric mind a sacred gift. He added that the rational mind was a faithful servant. It is paradoxical that in the context of modern life we have begun to worship the servant and defile the divine.

Photo by suju-foto on pixabay.com.


Douglas Harding on "Seeing"


Harding 160 degree


Shawn Nevins visited Douglas Harding at his home in Nacton, England in 1999 after attending a Harding workshop in the US. In a subsequent correspondence, Shawn "was trying to convince Harding to take his image of the Youniverse and superimpose it on a torus, which I thought would give it an added dimension." Douglas's response:

Nacton, Sept 4 ‘99

Dear Shawn,

Nice to hear from you. And thank you for the torus pictures, which seem to be a valid way of setting up our Cosmic/1st Person Singular Map.

Thank you also for the help you generously gave us, in taming the wilderness we euphemistically call our garden.

May I suggest that if you were to pursue our way of “seeing” because it pays off psychologically or spiritually, you will find many times when it seems to yield no benefits whatever; and is, in practical/experimental terms, a dead duck. But if, on the contrary, you go on “seeing” (in spite of no apparent benefits), because seeing reveals what’s the case, what’s so, the simple and always accessible truth about your nature at Centre – why then you practice “seeing” because, in the long, long run, it sets you free.* The more you go for the pay-off, the less you get, in the end!

With all affectionate good wishes from Catherine & Douglas.

*From all our anguished[?] delusions about who we really, really are.

Youniverse: A three-dimensional model that Harding designed in the 1970s to "illustrate the many layers of one's being, both as viewed by others from the outside, and viewed by oneself from the inside." See The Youniverse Explorer.

Cosmic/1st Person Singular Map: Two-dimensional views of our place in the hierarchy of heaven and earth developed in Harding's book with that title. The image above is a 160-degree "View Out" (for myself).

Seeing: Douglas developed experiments to help seekers look for themselves (i.e., as opposed to taking somebody else's descriptions), for themselves (i.e., their true identity). He was convinced that if they continued the practice, it would eventually succeed. See The Experiments for 18 of the exercises. There are many more scattered through his many books. [Douglas was still developing new experiments when I visited him in 2003 and 2004 and in subsequent correspondence, probably right up to his death in 2007, one month shy of his 98th birthday. - Editor.]


Please your thoughts on the above items.

 


Reader Commentary

Encouraging interactive readership among TAT members and friends


A reader wrote that what would make the Forum more interesting would be:

Hearing from people who are searching—and have questions instead of those providing endless advice and "answers." What challenges they are facing. What their doubts and questions are. How they perceive their path is going. What they are doing in their lives. Where they think they will end up. Etc., etc.

Can you help make the Forum more interesting?


Sergio F. writes: "Recurring tunes that involuntarily pop up and stick in your mind are common: up to 98% of the Western population has experienced these earworms (cf: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4723199/). Usually, stuck songs are catchy tunes, popping up spontaneously or triggered by emotions, associations, or by hearing the melody."

The Reader Commentary's 3-pronged question for the August TAT Forum is:

Do you experience these 'earworms'? If so, do they follow some pattern? Do you have any theories about your experience of them?

Responses follow.



From B&K:
I don't experience this too often these days, or not enough for it to stick out much in my memory. When I used to meditate a lot, sometimes this would happen after a long period of meditation, and it was sometimes distracting/frustrating at the time (if I recall correctly). But I don't remember noticing any patterns with the songs.

I do have a Mariah Carey song in my head right now, one K. (my girlfriend) has been singing some lately: 'you've got me feeling emotions' (ha).

She says, "I don't know about a pattern, but the tunes are always sentimental - they compliment the less sentimental parts of my thought."


From Eric C:
Earworms as annoying, unwanted intrusions as with the OCD patients cited in the study, has not been my experience. The repetition of melody by my brain is usually pleasurable. It feels as if there is a dopamine release from the initial hearing of the melody, and there is incentive for the brain to repeat the pleasurable experience.

In observing my brain repeating a melody to itself, it feels much like the thoughts produced by the default mode network – a chattering to itself. My understanding of the function of the latter is to maintain the appearance of self-in-time and self vs other. The brain’s musical repetitions are perhaps incorporated by the same network, yet seem to contribute less to the creation of the personal self. In observing the theater of the mind in order to answer this month’s question, it seems these snippets of sound are more pleasurable than the other (self-referential) thoughts.

If a task requiring focus arises, then the melody-playing loop subsidies for a time. Usually, it comes back; then is gradually repeated less often.


From Patrick K:
Songs I like I don't consider earworms. It is the song that I find irritating that becomes the earworm for me. I have one earworm these days that has been with me almost 20 years now. I probably liked it initially in the “ignorance is bliss” state of my 20s. The song and band represent to me modern culture packaged in a nice inoffensive way. The lyrics when I think about them are woefully tacky to me. The reason I feel it became an earworm to me is because instinctually I want to jive along with everyone else as it is a very popular song, yet on an intuitive level I just in no way can dig it at all. It creates a kind of spasm reaction in me to look to the origin of the duality it is creating in me. My earworm I feel is prodding me to become my own authority, even if the whole world loves the song, if I don't like it, just admit that to myself, it is really ok.


From Dan G:
There is some science to creating an earworm per https://www.cbsnews.com/news/psychologists-identify-why-certain-songs-get-stuck-in-your-head/, and after reading the list of top 9 in that article, one of them is now stuck in my ear. Why that one? Answering that could involve multilayered analyzable meaning like a dream.

Humming the notes slowly, a couple of associations come up. Reading the lyrics out loud in a speaking voice, I have a few reactions. These associations and reactions potentially have nonverbal information about my mood and unquestioned identities.

I suspect the earworm also relates to Rose’s statement, "if you need entertainment or escape, you are asleep." If my mind is singing a song and I notice that, that seems like an opportunity to transmute the situation into watching the mind more deeply with awake presence.


From Tim H:
I do have earworms. Perhaps no more frequently than vivid dreams. They are non-intrusive. Though at times they seemingly pull me to listen to the song that's made a groove on my mind. The experience is usually pleasant and leads to some time listening to my favorite music. If there's any meaning to this, perhaps I'm being pulled to relax and enjoy some downtime.


From Shawn Nevins:
I would respond to the earworm request, but I have no clue what they mean! I used to think there must be a message and if I dig into the song I'll "get it." Despite innumerable attempts through reading lyrics, watching music videos, listening to the performance, I've never "gotten" what I was supposed to learn.

*

Editor's comment: TAT Foundation Press publishes Shawn's Passages: An Introduction and Commentary on Richard Rose’s Albigen System co-authored by Mike Gegenheimer, Hydroglyphics: Reflections on the Sacred with photos by Phaedra Greenwood, Subtraction: The Simple Math of Enlightenment, and The Celibate Seeker. He also authors the SpiritualTeachers.org website featuring recommendations of teachers, movies and books along with The Journals of Spiritual Discovery podcasts.


From Mark W:
I can remember having music earworms in my head even as a child. Back then it took the form of TV add jingles which I can still sing word for word. On one hand, I find that amusing, but on the other hand, it’s annoying that such music, even TV jingles, can be so intrusive and persistent. A particularly interesting aspect is that I’m vulnerable to such musical distractions in my head even when I never liked the song at all. It seems to show just how sticky programming can be. That’s a scary thought when I think about it, and I wonder what other thoughts and beliefs I might unconsciously have that are as sticky and unwanted.

It seems that most of these earworms have a memory-related connection. Moreover, I’ve noticed lately that it’s as if some of these memories have an intrusive motivation behind their appearance. It feels like I’m somehow indebted to them, and I still owe them my attention or energy because of whatever meager role they had in the past as part of my identity. Now that’s what I call sticky – the mental mafia I can’t seem to shake off!

I do, however, now that I think about it, remember how important music was to me in high school and college. That was especially true when singing some of my favorite songs. I remember music as being the most convenient, effective and passionate way for me to express my feelings. I guess I do miss that, but the onset of allergy symptoms in 1986 closed that outlet rather abruptly.

Nevertheless, I do not miss the truly obsessive and intrusive way that music seemed to thrive in my head before 1986. That was, perhaps, the programmed payoff for the passion mentioned above. But these days, I’ll gladly renege on that deal. The everyday thoughts in my monkey mind and the occasional song in my head triggered by my Walmart radio shopping experience is enough for me to contend with for now.

I may have come full circle in the way in which music has shown up in the past nine months, however. For almost the last three years, I seem to have developed an affinity for nostalgia. I hit a dry spell a year ago when I felt as if I longed for the longing of nostalgia. I was saddened by this but didn’t see what I could do about it. Then, to my surprise, nostalgia returned as strong as ever, seemingly and separately triggered by music each time, and did not trigger any earworms like in the past. That was quite a relief on a path full of surprises, yet I have no idea where that leaves me now or what’s next other than to double down on my commitment to my search.


From Art Ticknor:
I met Richard Rose and did my first solitary retreat when I was 33. The retreat was for a week on the RR farm in West Virginia, staying in an old trailer with no electricity or plumbing. I decided to fast (for the first time in my life) during the retreat since I didn't want to be bothered with food. And the trailer was parked near a spring, so I had plenty of water to drink.

Five surprises from the retreat come to mind. [I started the sentence with two then changed it to three, and so on.] One surprise was that I went the whole week without ever feeling hungry; that clued me into my misinterpretation of what I thought was the hunger signal but was mostly saying "entertain me" or "comfort me." A second surprise was seeing that my dreams could contain great humor: I was riding a bike with a fresh loaf of French bread in the basket, and I started to put the end of the loaf into my mouth then said to myself that I couldn't do that since I was fasting—and I awoke from the dream laughing.

A third surprise occurred when I was out walking on a dirt road that ran along a stream. This was after a couple of cold, rainy days. On my return to the farm, I spotted a boulder along the edge of the stream with the sun shining on it, and I thought it would be great to sit there to warm up. But then I saw a No Tresspassing sign and thought there might be a hillbilly hiding behind one of the trees with a gun. I found myself stopped in my tracks, watching the decision-making process roll out in great detail. There were different "characters" or "voices" each trying to get into the spotlight to get what they wanted. Those fears and desires had aligned into two teams, one wanting to go to the boulder and the other not wanting to ... and they were about evenly matched in their tug of war. Eventually the team that didn't want to go to the boulder won the argument. What determined the outcome? The team that made the most noise.

The fourth surprise was getting the nursery rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb stuck in my head on and off over several of the days. I'd never had a song stuck in my head before ... and why this ridiculous one?! My thoughts were always rational! I even ignored feelings since they were irrational! :-) I didn't see the reason for why this material had gotten lodged in my thoughts, but it surely challenged the conviction that I had control over my thinking.

And the fifth surprise occurred near the end of the retreat, when a light bulb flashed on in my head. I thought that only happened in cartoons. What followed the illuminated bulb was the strong, worded conviction that my only chance for mental clarity was an extended period of celibacy. I didn't label it as such at the time, but in retrospect I see it as the result of my intuition processing the material in Rose's Energy Transmutation, Between-ness and Transmission, which I had read during the retreat.


From Brett S:
My most memorable instance of an “earworm” was a dream I had. In it, Anima P. from TAT said something like, “I knew you were gonna be okay when I left you at Times Square.” When I woke-up, I had Mariah Carey’s “Hero” in my head. Some of the lyrics are:

“You don't have to be afraid
Of what you are
There's an answer
If you reach into your soul
... You can find love
If you search within yourself”

I had to go to Times Square for work that morning. As I was passing through the Times Square station, I saw a woman singing “Hero.” I stopped to listen and then went on my way. I can’t tell you any of it meant anything, but it was cool. More generally, I find that the lyrics of the song I’m singing often correspond to my mood.


From Mark C:
I regularly experience "earworms," which I have always chalked up to my younger days as a musician. I started playing the piano in 1975 (when I was 10) and the guitar when I was 15. I was an active member in quite a few rock banks between ages 16 and 33 and had to quit everything in 1998 due to becoming a single parent in an unexpected fashion.

I feel like I generally didn't find the earworms to be that bad of a thing, at least until I was attempting to go to sleep, or attempting to meditate. I have had earworms so bad in the past that I couldn't go to sleep, but luckily this was quite rare. I have had mixed results with it in meditation though, and sometimes it definitely can be an interference. Focusing on my breath or a question can definitely help, but not always.

I have noticed that sometimes the earworm starts immediately upon waking, but I don't notice it at all while I am dreaming. I pray in the shower everyday, and this seems to interrupt it, but then it will sometimes come back afterwards. It seems to be less of an issue if I am busy, but this could just be what seems like more pressing thoughts pushing the earworms to the background.

I have been in a solitary retreat the past 4 days and have noticed it being more of an issue during this isolation than any isolation before, possibly because I listened to some music on the way to my destination. My experience has been that avoiding music for a period of days seems to help quiet things down, and I have noticed in group retreats (where music is very rarely played) that the earworms seem to disappear or become less noticeable around day 3 or 4.

I think the article sent along with the earworm question ["Stuck song syndrome: musical obsessions — when to look for OCD" from the British Journal of General Practice; see link above. - Editor.] may also have some merit because I am not formally diagnosed with OCD, but I have definitely demonstrated compulsive behavior in my past.


From Anima Pundeer:
My theory about earworms is that they originate from a mood. Most of the time, it is early in the morning that i find a song stuck in my head. So maybe it is the mood of the dream that spills over during the day.

Brain, I find, is a thought churning machine. Most of the time these thoughts do not get our attention. But once in a while when there is a thought, an earworm, that is not part of my familiar, routine thoughts, it grabs my attention.

I have also found instances when a song gets stuck in my head which is describing something i may be going through. And then of course there is this catchy but annoying tune that gets stuck in my head and refuses to stop in spite of me trying.

*

TAT Press publishes Anima's and Art's book Always Right Behind You: Parables & Poems of Love & Completion.


tiger

Next Month


Thanks to Michael R. for the Reader Commentary question for the September TAT Forum:

Where are you? Where do you feel yourself to be? Are you inside the body or is the body inside you? Are you inside the mind or is the mind inside you?

Please your responses by the 25th of August and indicate your preferred identification (the default is your first name and the initial letter of your last name).

PS: What question(s) would you like to ask other TAT Forum readers?


Other Reader Feedback

From Shawn Nevins, whose response to the July Reader Commentary question ("Have you considered doing all things for the sake of a higher power, and if so, what does that mean, and how would you go about that?") was hiding in the editor's spam folder:

I've thought of this scores of times over the years, generally when a critical mass of failures was reached—meaning the failure of circumstances to match my wishes. "I must be doing something wrong. If I could align myself with God's will everything would work out." Then I would try to detect any guidance being offered as I was presented with decision points. Should I turn left or right? Should I choose this book or that one? Do I detect any spark of inspiration or direction with a source other than my own desire? I wasn't "thinking" about what God's will is, rather I was looking/listening/feeling for the experience of God's will.

Of course, the mental mechanism of desperation leading me to that point of curiosity was akin to the old saying, "there are no atheists in foxholes."

I believe the notion of aligning with God's will is equivalent to "doing all things for the sake of a higher power." I prefer that wording as it avoids the absurdity of a higher power needing our help or consideration. But ultimately, even my preferred wording lands us in another absurdity—that we could ever be out of alignment with God's will; that a decision we make could ever be averse to anything except for a human-centric conception of a God, that there could be a God over there and a me here, or a "there" of any sort opposed to "here."

Here, at the heart of every moment, is where you need to "look for yourself" and see.



Q: What are your thoughts on this month's reader commentary? Please your feedback.



Richard Rose described a spiritual path as living one's life aimed at finding the meaning of that life. Did you find anything relevant to your life or search in this month's TAT Forum?

summer sunset

Summer Sunset from Roof Top Patio. Thanks to Bob Cergol.


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Founder's Wisdom

Richard Rose (1917-2005) established the TAT Foundation
in 1973 to encourage people to work together on what
he considered to be the "grand project" of spiritual work.


Quotes and Notes II from Richard Rose Audiotapes

* Direct Mind Approach to the Absolute *

  1. One of the most foolish conceits of the young is that there is pleasure, or happiness.
  2. Nothing matters, so you’d think you’d go out and rob a bank, but that doesn’t matter either.
  3. I didn’t change. I realized what I was all along.

*

~ Thanks to Shawn Nevins, who commented: "Notes I took from several Rose audiotapes. This must date to 1994-95. Direct quotes are in quotation marks, but the rest I assume is paraphrasing." There are quotes and notes from 20 audiotapes. The previous set appeared in the July Forum.




Definition of Terms

cherries separator

Index of many of the key terms and principles in Rose's work, with brief definitions, from Richard Rose's Psychology of the Observer: The Path to Reality Through the Self by John Kent.




Jacob's Ladder (Richard Rose diagram)

Jacob's Ladder © 2001 Richard Rose. See this transcript of a talk on the topic by Rose.


Homing Ground Update

… A spot on earth where people can do retreats and hold
meetings; where the emphasis is on friendship and the search.


Hurdle Mills new home for TAT


August 2022:

The small but steady donations keep arriving each month, which brings us to 30.5% of the fundraising goal for 2022! We're a bit behind for the year, however, so please consider making a donation.

There have been several improvements at the Center this year, including:

  • Starlink internet access, which is much better, faster, and with a stronger signal than our previous connection.
  • A new heat pump installed for the second floor that makes it much cooler, as well as two new window AC units for the third floor.
  • Additionally, five people have done isolation retreats so far this year, there has been one group retreat, and the Center has hosted our first two in-person TAT meetings since November 2019.

Meetings, group retreats, and solitary retreats are all happening at the TAT Center this year. Hopefully, you'll get a chance this year to see and experience the TAT Center first-hand. And please consider joining the effort to sustain our Homing Ground for years to come.

Shawn Nevins

PS: Monthly contributions are a great way to support the TAT Center if making a larger one-time donation seems too much. If you're so inspired, click the Donate button below, then check the box for "Make this a monthly donation" as in the example below:

donation example



expanded meeting room exterior finished

Let's bring this to life! "The job is upon us," Richard Rose said, "and it is worthwhile." To contribute to the TAT Center, mail a check made out to the TAT Foundation to:

TAT Foundation
PO Box 3402
Roxboro, NC 27573

Big checks, little checks, all are welcome. Or use the PayPal link above (though we lose 2.2% of your donation to PayPal fees).

* See photos and more on the Homing Ground page. *

In friendship,
Shawn Nevins
on behalf of the TAT Trustees


TAT gathering


Did you enjoy the Forum? Then buy the book!
Readers' favorite selections from seven years of issues.
Beyond Mind, Beyond Death is available at Amazon.com.

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