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Dancing with theVoid Dancing

e Innerstandings of a Rare-Born Mysticby Sunyata Edited by BETTY CAMHI AND GURUBAKSH RAI New Sarum PressUnited Kingdomwith theVoid Dancing

First published by Blue Dove Press in 2001 Revised and corrected edition published April 2015 is edition published by New Sarum Press, February 2024Copyright ©New Sarum Press, ©Deepak RaiAll rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the Publisher.Special thanks to Paeder Baek, the grand-nephew of Sunyata, for permission to publish these writings. Cover Photo: Courtesy of Bill KeelerISBN: 978-1-7385296-0-5www.newsarumpress.comNew Sarum Press | 6 Folkestone Road | salisbury | sp2 8jp | United Kingdom

Out of the Void, the fullness of the universe has paradoxically evolved. Empty of all personalities and all forms, the Void is paradoxically the root of all personalities and all forms. There is no movement or change in it, yet it contains the endless possibility of all movements and all changes. From Void arises everything, from Silence come all sounds, from unconsciousness emanates consciousness, from intangibility arise all tangible things.Tunyata, all through his simple and natural life in the world, danced blissfully in the Void, the No-thing-ness, the Silence in the invisible Real. S

Table of Contents Preface ix A Short Biography xv1. Who am I? 32. Pilgrimage to India 73. Snow Maiden 154. Meeting with Rabindranath Tagore 195. In the Light of Tagore’s Radiance 236. Meeting with Mahatma Gandhi 297. Jawaharlal Nehru 398. Ramana Maharshi 459. Peer A. Wertin (Ramana Giri) 5510. John Blofeld 6111. Grecian Lila 7312. Rudolf Ray 7913. Passings 8514. Albert Schweitzer 9115. Milarepa—Tibet’s Great Yogi 9716. Kabir 10717. Carl C. Jung 12118. Mysticism 127

19. Towards the Mysteries 13520. Sunyata Ever Is 14721. A Whole Man 15322. Wholeness 16723. Gautama Buddha 17724. Dhammapada 18125. Suffering 18526. Awakening 19327. All is Divine Play 19928. Eternal Silence 20329. The One Remains 20730. There is Only the One 21131. That Thou Art 21332. Awareness is All 21733. Beethoven’s Four Quartets 22134. Who is Wuji? 22735. The Wisdom of Sunyata 231 Glossary 261

Publisher’s NoteThis is a book that lingers in the memory. Some fifteen years after reading the first edition of Dancing with the Void I approached the original editors to ask about re-publishing this important book. I was delighted to learn that they were looking for a new publisher and we came to an agreement.In Dancing with the Void we meet, via Sunyata’s narrative sketches, some of the great figures in esoteric and secular culture of the 20th Century: from his pivotal meetings with Tagore and Sri Ramana Maharshi, to Indian Prime Ministers and statesmen, including Mahatma Gandhi, and the fascinating characters who lived at or vis-ited ‘Cranks’ Ridge’ (his home in the Himalayas). As I re-read the story of Sunyata’s life—and immersed myself in it—I was once again struck by the depth and flavor of this ordinary yet extraordinary being. And yet… Sunyata avoided being a teacher or guru in the accepted sense which makes his life and sayings all the more authentic. He possessed an unsullied wonder and innocence, but was not naive to the ways of the world and the strategies of the ego. With affectionate detachment, his writings bring the reader back to the path of eternal vision, free from social conditioning and the sway of samskaras.Transcending, but also embracing, the cultural, political and spiritual climate of his day, Sunyata’s life and writings contain a timeless wisdom which is as relevant today as it was in his lifetime.With much gratitude to Betty Camhi 1 and the family of Gurubaksh Rai for their cooperation and support.Julian Noyce, New Sarum PressApril 20151. Betty Camhi sadly passed away on the 13th March, 2018.

ixPreface How This Book Came to Be How this book came to be is an amazing story. It is a testimony to the power of grace. I attended Sunyata’s weekly satsang aboard the late Alan Watts’ houseboat for the first time in 1978. Instantly I liked this elderly, gentle and wise man. At the end of the meeting I went up to him and asked, “Is there anything you need?” He thought for a moment and then said, “I could use someone to type my scribbles.” So I became his typist and he became my Friend. Sunyata’s weekly satsangas became the highlight of my week. I enjoyed listening to the questions and Sunyata’s responses to them. A few questions that stand out in my memory are: Question: Should we try to relieve suffering in the world by joining organizations set up to help? Sunyata: Only if you feel the push or urge from within to do so. Q: Should we meditate? S: Yes, but never force it if you don’t feel like it.

x ◆ Dancing with the VoidQ: Have you ever had sex? S: Only once in my life, as there was no need for it on my part. I did it for the woman’s sake, as her fiancé had been killed in the war. Q: Are your teeth your own? S: Who else’s would they be? After listening over a period of several years to these questions and answers, I found myself becoming less interested in the verbal exchange and more interested in the silence and radiance that was emanating from this “rare-born mystic.” He had a healing Presence. There was a kind of subtle but palatable emanation coming from him. A flow of Grace was what some of us called it. This energy was quite delicious and most satisfying to be around. When people would point this out to him, he would remark “I do not know what I do”. He once told me to never take credit for anything seemingly out of the ordinary that happens in my presence. To do so would simply strengthen ego-ji. Miracles or healings were to be witnessed as “We are not the doer.”Whatever spare time I had I would spend with Sunyata and with whomever else he happened to be with. It became not only easy, but very pleasant to be with people when Sunyata was there, especially since there was never any disharmony. I would often wish that I could experience this genuine harmony with people more often in everyday life. This harmony never seemed to be anything unusual or extraordinary. What seems extraordinary to me is that the natural joy of being together with people is not present more often. Is it because most of us have what is commonly called a “shadow side,” the place where our little demons and unresolved ego issues reside? Sunyata had no such “shadow side.” He simply

Preface ◆ xiradiated. Here was someone, “Mr. Nobody,” as he was often called, who could walk so lightly as to leave “no footprints in the sand.” He was childlike and innocent without being childish. After Sunyata left his body I felt certain that some- one would publish his writing. When one year passed and no one had done it, I felt a prompting from within to do it myself. I approached a friend of Sunyata’s and asked for his assistance. He gladly agreed to help. In 1990, in celebration of what would have been Sunyata’s 100th birthday, the book, Sunyata—The Life and Sayings of a Rare-born Mystic, was published. It was well received. An Indian friend of Sunyata’s was visiting family in the United States. He wrote me a letter and later phoned to express appreciation for the book. We had a long conver-sation and an unusually good rapport. He told me that when Sunyata left India to come to the United States in 1979 he’d entrusted many of his writings to him. After Sunyata’s passing, this man began editing these writing for eventual publication, but he needed assistance. Would I help him? Since I had just completed one book and needed a rest, I regretfully declined. I told him that if he wanted to publish a book, he would have to do it himself.TI had been seeing Amritanandamayi Ma, Ammachi or the Holy Mother as she is often called, on her annual trip to her ashram in California, for several years. I would get my hug but never asked any questions. I wondered, after so many years of seeing her, if she even remembered me from year to year. Because I wanted to have some additional contact with her I thought it a good idea to ask her a personal question. All I could think of to ask was about a very small desire I had to go to India.

xii ◆ Dancing with the VoidI wrote the question down on a piece of paper and after waiting in the long line of devotees I gave this question to her translator. I received my hug and her translator told me to wait on the sidelines for her response. She looked at me for a moment and then told him, which he translated into English, “Yes, yes, you come to India. Your destiny is to be with Mother.” Years later I approached Mother’s translator for clarification of the word “destiny.” I had taken Mother’s meaning to be that I would be destined to live for the rest of my life in India. The translator said, “No, Mother’s meaning was that it was your destiny only at that time to come to India to be with her.” I felt somewhat relieved.I would never have gone to India if not for this clear indication by Mother. So in December, 1993 I traveled to Mother’s ashram in South India. After spending almost one month there, I felt it was time to return to the U. S. Then the thought arose that since my health was good and I still had some money, I could visit Ramana Maharshi’s Ashram at the foot of Arunachala Hill. The necessary travel arrangements were made and I arrived there via train in January, 1994. About one day after I arrived I noticed a small group of Indian people talking. I heard the man say that he could read palms. I was instantly drawn to him, hoping that he would read mine. However, when I approached him, he changed from the subject of palm reading and was more interested in learning about me, and what had brought a single woman, a Westerner, to this ashram. I told him, “I had a guru who spoke very highly of Ramana Maharshi.” He replied, “Who was your guru?” (For me, Sunyata was a guru but he never declared him- self as one.) I was sure he had never heard of him and said, “He was quite unknown.” The Indian gentleman insisted on knowing his name. I told him. Upon hearing the name “Sunyata” he said, “But I knew him, he stayed at my house

Preface ◆ xiiiseveral times.” We exchanged names and only then did I realize that this was Gurubaksh Rai, the gentleman who had contacted me to help him edit Sunyata’s writings three years earlier when he was living in the USA.This was a miraculous moment. Both of us were vis-iting the ashram for the very first time, me from the USA, and him from his home in Delhi. We had both been entrusted by Sunyata with his writings. We had arrived at Ramanashram almost at the same time. Of all of the guests staying there, I had singled him out. From this unlikely meeting, this book, Dancing with the Void, was born. Betty Camhi, Editor March 2000

1. Sunyata & Sister 2. Sunyata’s Father 3. Sunyata 4. Sunyata’s Mother 5. Sunyata with his Mother & Father 12345

xvA Short Biography Sunyata was born on October 27, 1890, on a farm in Århus, in the north of Denmark. His Danish par-ents christened him Alfred Julius Emmanuel Sorensen. He was called Emmanuel—an unusual name for a Dane that means “God within.” He was their third child, born to them after two daughters—Jensine and Mary—who were 10 and 12 years older. Sunyata’s father, Soren Sorensen, was a farmer, fully competent in his profession but simple, quiet and unassuming. He did not interfere in the household affairs. “Although my father was very active in running the farm,” wrote Sunyata, “he was singularly quiet and still. He didn’t assert himself or fuss in any way. In fact, he rarely spoke except when oth-ers approached. So, unconsciously and without effort, he taught silence. And so also did nature and God, around and within me.” Emmanuel’s mother, Maren Sorensen, was sociable, friendly and assertive. She managed the household with love and efficiency. Emmanuel grew up in a peaceful, happy home in the quiet environs of the farm. The family

6110TJohn Blofeld John Blofeld, born in London and considered an expert on Buddhism, was at one time a neighbor of Sunyata’s on the Himalayan ridge. He lived in Almora for a few years, along with his Chinese wife and two children. He wrote many books including The Wheel of Life, People of the Sun, and The City of Lingering Splendour (Peking). ohn Blofeld’s experience in ego abeyance may be temporal, but it was real. The mystic experiencing which he underwent was actually induced by the intake of mescaline. His mind-ridden ego was influenced and subdued by this drug. The use of mescaline and other synthetic drugs, now so much in vogue, seems to be a second- or a third-best mode towards “heaven,” “nirvana” “or “the mystical experiencing of God.” It may well be only an artificial short-cut for certain fellow wayfarers in whom intellect, erudition and other condi-tioning seem to be obstacles in their sadhana. There is use and abuse of everything—and of every invention. Whether it is mescaline or any other kind of drug—like nicotine or alcohol, trash novels or even excessive sex—it is a bid to escape from unsatisfactory J

62 ◆ Dancing with the Voidego life. John Blofeld accepted mescaline religiously and in stark seriousness. One must be simple as one is simple before God. His integral experiencing was but a tempo-rary elimination of ego and duality. How could it be otherwise when artificially evoked by drugs? John Blofeld speaks well about his dream or death experience which made itself upon him. He has the word technique (just as Beethoven had the tone technique) in his maturity to express the almost inexpressible. I like his passages as a whole. I admire his attitude, his light of awareness, his feeling tone and the choice of word sym-bols. What Paul says about Peter tells us more about Paul than about Peter. What John says about his inner, mystic experiencing reveals him—as consciousness. Isn’t consciousness more of our Self than our physical, mental and feeling bodies? John’s “surrender” is a kind of simple ego surrender. It discards all that hinders the “ecstasy.” Here the ego is subservient to the Self. It sets one’s ego free from all the mental tension and emotional stress. Ego knows itself as non-existing, yet it is at ease. Ananda pervades. One innerstands consciously and serenely. No shouting, no raptures, no ego fuss! Higher and lower states of consciousness are also ego terms, ego concepts and ego values. It is the swell and clever ego consciousness which arrogates itself a higher status. Fundamentally, “there are no others” but there is only the “I am.” Once a Bengali youth shouted to me, “In the whole world there is nothing but God.” This state-ment pertains to an impersonal ego-free universality, which is beautiful, but it is discouraged in orthodox Churchianity, Judaism, Islam and other dualistic creeds. In Buddhism, the term symbol God is hardly mentioned. It is too vague, too ambiguous and too elastic a concept. All depends on what we mean by the term symbols such as “God,” “Soul,” “Self,” “Spirituality,” and the like. Are

John Blofeld ◆ 63the concepts, ideals and precepts sentimental restric-tions, or are they concrete valid experiences in the play of the universe (swalila)? Read John Blofeld’s death experience as he tells it. It is not a joke, or a frivolous fancy to die—or to take mescaline in order to experience a heightened, widening and more vivid consciousness. It may be taken sacramen-tally and simply, as one is simple before God or Self. “Egoji” must be willing to die and mature enough to surrender. Even then, there can be Hell to pass through unto Heaven. Read Aldous Huxley’s The Door of Perception, Heaven and Hell and Island. His trouble was “intellect” and “erudition” and mere “mental beliefs,” which are a hindrance to integral awakening. Preconceptions, preconvictions and mere beliefs must go, giving way to intuitive light, “karuna love” and empa-thy. The meaning of Yoga is union, awareness and ego-free satchitananda; or is it power, knowledge and ego swellness?John Blofeld’s integral “experiencing” was but a tem-porary elimination of ego and duality. How could it be otherwise—when artificially evoked by drugs? Ramana Maharshi’s experience, on the other hand, was the Sunya Silence and he lived it. He also radiated it gracefully. He spoke out from the Silence. He answered our ques-tions—always directly, tersely and simply—rather than in flowing eloquence. T[John Blofeld’s “Experiencing,” in his own words as found in Sunyata’s records, is as follows.]“Prior to the experiment described here, I had enter-tained some doubts as to the claims of Aldous Huxley and others, which imply that mescaline can induce yogic experiences of a high order. The experiment took place

64 ◆ Dancing with the Voidon 25 May, 1964, at my Bangkok house under the super-vision of Jonathan Slokes, who had previous experience (direct and as an observer) of the effect of mescaline.“At 9:50 a.m., I took a half-dose (0.25 gr). For some time, there was no remarkable effect, but a slightly heightened sense of color and form as exemplified by the vividness of the patterns seen upon my eyelids when I closed my eyes, after gazing through the open slats of a Venetian blind. At 10:40, an unpleasant state of mental tension supervened. I found myself in a struggle to pre-serve a hold on my ‘I,’ which seemed to be in a process of disintegration. The schizophrenic effect was accompa-nied by a sensation of cold (although the temperature in the room must have been about 100° F), and by an increasing lethargy, which discouraged the smallest action. After a while, these unpleasant symptoms abated and I was able to enjoy attending to what was happening to me. “At 11:10 a.m., I took the second half-dose (0.25 gr). Shifting colors of form danced upon my closed eyelids. Some of these were patterns of great intricacy, such as those which embellish certain parts of sacred build-ings—mosques, temples etc.—or sacred objects of vari-ous kinds. These elaborate patterns were abstract, floral etc. Figures of deities, humans or animals formed no part of them. I recognized each one for what it was— Islamic, Tibetan, Siamese—but now, for the first time, I saw them not as arbitrary decorations, but as profoundly meaningful. I felt that, in spite of belonging to widely varied traditions, they are all really valid, and all derived from a single source. “Presently, I tried to visualize the Tibetan Mandala of the Peaceful Deities, but succeeded only in conjuring up some rather metallic looking demons, although they were far from frightening and not even very lifelike or

John Blofeld ◆ 65realistic (being something of a cross between metal statues and living beings), they did convey to me (as though mockingly) that to expect a profound religious experiencing as a result of taking mescaline was presumptuous. “Soon after that, the sensation of a rapidly fragment-ing personality returned to me with frightening force. I grew alarmed for my sanity and should have hastened to get an antidote for the mescaline had one been available. Though J.S. persuaded me to eat some lunch, I was in no condition to enjoy it. By then, things seen and heard presented themselves as independent visual and actual experiences with no seer or hearer to link them into one of those single compositions which, at any given moment, form the content of normal consciousness. The food went down my throat as usual, but it seemed to be dis-appearing into a receptacle connected with me only to the extent that it was too near to be visible. The mental stress grew agonizing. My fear of permanent madness increased and I suffered especially from the feeling of having no inner self or center of consciousness into which to retreat from the tension and to take a rest. An additional discomfort was the sensation of bright lights, shining now and then from behind me, as though some-one were standing there flickering a flashlight off and on. The movement of my man servant, who came in several times with dishes of food, sweets and coffee, occasioned great uneasiness. Whenever he was out of sight, I felt he may be standing behind me for some vaguely sinister purpose. And since he knew nothing of the experiment, I was afraid he would suppose that I was mad. Anyone else’s uninvited presence would have made me equally distrustful and uneasy, though I was not bothered at all by the company of J.S., because he was in the know and I felt the need of a nurse or guard. “No words can describe the appalling mental torment

66 ◆ Dancing with the Voidthat continued for well over an hour. All my organs and sensory experiences seemed to be separate units. There was nothing left of me at all, except a sort of disembod-ied sufferer, conscious of being mad and wracked by unprecedented tension. There seemed to be no hope of being able to escape this torture, certainly for many hours, perhaps forever. Hell itself could hardly be more terrifying. “At about 1 p.m. I dragged myself to my bedroom, shut myself away from everyone like a sick animal and fell on my bed. In my extremity, I suddenly made a total surrender and called upon my ‘I am!’ Come madness or death or anything whatever, I would accept it without reservation, if only I could be free from tension. For the first time in my life I ceased to cling—to cling to self, loved ones, sanity, madness, life or death. My renuncia-tion of my self and its components was so complete as to constitute an act of unalloyed trust in my ‘I am’ (Christ within).“Within a flash, my state was utterly transformed. From hellish torment, I was plunged into ecstasy—an ecstasy infinitely exceeding anything describable—or anything I had imagined from what the world’s accom-plished mystics have struggled to describe. Suddenly there dawned full awareness of three great truths which I had long accepted intellectually but never until that moment experienced as being fully self evident. Now they had burst upon me, not as intellectual convictions, but as experiences no less vivid and tangible than are heat and light to a man closely surrounded by a for-est fire.“There was an awareness of undifferentiated unity, embracing the perfect identity of subject and object, of singleness and plurality, of the One and the Many. Thus I found myself (if indeed the word symbols ‘I’ and ‘myself’ have a meaning in such a context) at once the

John Blofeld ◆ 67audience, the actors and the play. Logically, the one can give birth to the many, and the many can merge into the One or be fundamentally, but not apparently, identical with it. They cannot be in all respects one and many simultaneously. But now logic was transcended. I beheld (and myself was) a whirling mass of brilliant colors and forms, which, being several colors and several forms, were different from one another and not altogether the same at the moment of being different. I doubt if this statement can be made to seem meaningful at the ordi-nary level of consciousness. No wonder the mystics of all faiths teach that understanding comes only when logic and intellect are transcended. In any case, this truth, even if at an ordinary level of consciousness it cannot be understood, can, in a higher state of consciousness, be directly experienced as self evident. Logic also boggles at trying to explain how I could at once perceive and yet be those colors and forms, how the seer, the seeing and the seen, the feeler, the feeling and the felt could all be one; but to me all this was so clearly self evident as to suggest the words ‘childishly simple.’ “Simultaneously, there was awareness of unutterable bliss, coupled with the conviction that this was the only real and eternal state of being, all others (including our entire experience in the day-to-day world) being no more than passing dreams. This bliss, I am convinced, awaits all beings, when the last vestige of their selfhood has been destroyed—or, as in this case, temporarily dis-carded. It was so intense as to make it seem likely that the body and mind would be burnt up in a flash. Though the state of bliss continued for what I later knew to be three or four hours, I emerged from it unscathed. “I shall now attempt to describe the entire experience in terms of sensory perception, though not without fear that this will cloud rather than illuminate what has been said, for the content of my experiences, being

68 ◆ Dancing with the Voidsupra-sensory and supra-intellectual, can hardly be made understandable in terms originally coined to describe the mental and physical content of ordinary perception. “Reality, it seems to me in retrospect, can be viewed as a plasma of no intrinsic color or form that is, never-theless, the substance of all colors and forms. Highly charged with vivid consciousness, energy and bliss, it is engaged in eternal play. Or it can be viewed, not as plasma, but as an endless succession of myriads of simultaneous impulses, each of which rises as a wave mounts and dissolves in bliss within an instant. The whirling colors and shapes which result produce certain effects that recall flashes of rare beauty seen sometimes in pictures, dreams, or in the world of normal everyday consciousness. It can be deduced that the latter are, in fact, faint recollections of this eternal beauty. I remem-ber recognizing a well-loved smile, a well-remembered gesture of uncommon beauty, etc., though I perceived no lips to smile, no arms to move. It was as though I beheld and recognized the everlasting abstract quality to which such transient smiles and gestures had owed their charms.“Again, Reality can be viewed as a good dancer with marvelous vigor, his every movement playfully producing waves of bliss. From time to time, he makes stabbing movements with a curved knife. At every stroke, the bliss becomes intense. (I remember that the plunging knife made me cry aloud, That’s it! That’s right! Yes, yes, yes!) Or else Reality can be viewed as a whirling mass of light, brilliant color, movement and gaiety, coupled with unutterable bliss; those who experience it cannot refrain from cries of ‘Yes, yes, yes! Ha ha ha! (Wu!) That’s how it is! Of course, of course!’ I felt as though, after many years of anxious search for the answer to some momen-tous problem, I was suddenly confronted with a solution so wholly satisfying and so entirely simple that I had to burst out laughing. I was conscious of immense joy and

John Blofeld ◆ 69of credulous amazement at my own stupidity having taken so long to discover the simple truth. “Within the ‘Play of the Universe,’ there is endless giving and receiving, though giver, gift and receiver are, of course, the same. It is as though two deities (who are yet one) are locked in ecstatic embrace, giving and receiving with the abandon of adoration (the Tibetan Yab Yum representations of deities hint at this). The artists who paint them must be forgiven for their inabil-ity to indicate that the giver and the receiver are not only one but form-free, although indeed some artists manage to suggest the oneness by blending the figures so well that the Yum is not seen unless the figure is given pro-longed and careful scrutiny. During the experience, I was identical with the giver, the receiver, and the incred-ible bliss given and received. There is nothing sexual about this union; it is form-free, the bliss is all-pervading and giver and receiver, giving and receiving, are not two but one. It is only in attempting to convey the experience that the imagery of sexual joy suggests itself as perhaps coming a little closer than other imagery to the idea of an ecstatic union in which two are one. “Some of the conclusions I drew from the whole experience are as follows: a) Fear and anxiety as to our ultimate destiny are need- less, self inflicted torments. By energetically breaking down the karmic propensities which give rise to the illusion of an ego and of individual separatedness, we shall hasten the time when Reality is revealed and all hindrances to ecstatic bliss removed unless, Bodhisattva wise, we compassionately prolong our wandering in samsara so as to lead other beings to that goal. (b) The world around us, so often gray, is the product of our own distorted vision, of our ego-consciousness and

70 ◆ Dancing with the Voidego clinging. By casting away our selves, together with all our longings, desires, qualities and properties that pertain to them, we can utterly destroy the illusory egos, which alone bar us from the ecstatic bliss of universal consciousness. The key is total renunciation, but this, also, cannot often be achieved by a single effort or will because each of us is hemmed in by a hard shell of kar-mic propensities, the fruit of many, many lifespans. The three fires—desire, passion and ignorance—are hard to quench. And yet they would be quenched in an instant could we but make and sustain an act of total renuncia-tion (ego death). Such an act cannot result from effort or longing, because these would involve our egos and thus effectively strengthen them. Thus, in the ultimate stage, even effort and longing for nirvana must be abandoned together with everything else. This truth is hard to understand.(c) The Buddha experience indicates that when enlight-enment (i.e., full awareness of that blissful Reality, whose attributes include inconceivable wisdom, compassion, light, beauty, energy and gaiety) is obtained in this lifespan, it is possible to continue carrying out human responsibilities, behaving as required, responding to circumstances as they arise—and yet be free in them all. So it is with a talented actor, who in the part of Romeo, weeps real tears when his grief for Juliet threatens to overwhelm him. Yet he can withdraw inwardly from his role long enough to recollect the unreality of Juliet and her death and yet continue to give the same performance.(d) A single glimpse of what I saw should be enough to call forth unbounded affection for all living beings for, however ugly, smelly or tiresome they may seem, all that is real about them is that glorious blissful shining

John Blofeld ◆ 71consciousness, which formed the center of my experi-ence. Hatred, disdain, dislike, aversion for any being sharing that consciousness (i.e., any being at all) must amount to blasphemy in one who has seen Being itself. “It may be objected that my description of the expe-rience is too closely reminiscent of Vajrayana [Tibetan Buddhist] imagery and that what I perceived was not Reality at all, but a mere subjective illusion based on the content of my previous studies and practices. The answer to this objection, as Aldous Huxley brought out so well in The Perennial Philosophy, is that, in all ages and all countries, everyone who has undergone profound, mysti-cal experience, even though in essence its content is apparently the same in every case, has been compelled to fall back on the imagery of his ego-religionists or of those for whom he writes. The experience itself is unlike anything known to us in ordinary states of conscious-ness. There are no words to describe it. Moreover, while my own experience fully confirmed what my Vajrayana teacher had taught me, it was much too foreign to my previous understanding of those teachings to have been a subjective illusion based on them. “As to how it happens that a dose of mescaline can make such an experience possible to someone who has not attained it by profound and prolonged practice of Yogic meditation, I just do not know. The way I explain it to my own satisfaction is that the effect of mescaline is to free the consciousness temporarily from the obsta-cles to true realization of universal unity, normally imposed by that karmic structure which each of us takes to be his individual self.”