States of Consciousness
Charles T. Tart
20. Ways Out of Illusion
The discussion in Chapter 19 involves a value judgment that should
be made more explicit: being in clear contact with external reality
is good; being in poor contact with it is bad. This statement
should not be overgeneralized: there is nothing wrong, for example,
with deliberately becoming absorbed in a good movie and
deliberately ignoring those aspects of reality that are inconsistent
with enjoying the movie. It is undesirable, on the other hand,
to believe you are in good contact with reality when you are not.
I think most readers will have difficulty accepting Chapter 19
on more than an intellectual level. In some of our bad moments
we may be unhappy with the ordinary d-SoC, but generally we seem
pleased. Feeling happy is a function of a viable culture. If the
culture is to survive, the majority of its members must feel contented
with what they are doing and feel they are carrying out a meaningful
function in life. Whether we generally feel happy or not, however,
my personal observations and understanding of much of the research
findings of modern psychology have convinced me that the analysis
of ordinary consciousness as samsara is basically true. The present
chapter is based on the assumption that it is true and is concerned
with ways out of a state of illusion. It is not a guide to "enlightenment,"
for that is both inappropriate in the context of the present volume
and beyond the reach of my competence.
Why, then, would you or I or anyone want to escape from the samsaric
state that is our ordinary state of consciousness? the exact answer
varies for every individual, but in general there is a mixture
of cultural, personal, and growth/curiosity reasons.
A major function of a culture is to provide a consensus reality
that not only deals adequately with the physical world about it
but also produces a psychologically satisfactory life for the
majority of its members. Each of us needs to feel that he belongs
and that his life has meaning in terms of some valued, larger
scheme of things. So every society has a mythos, a set of explicit
and implicit beliefs and myths about the nature of reality and
the society's place in it, that makes the activities of the people
in that society meaningful. The mythos that has sustained dour
society for so long, largely the Judeo-Christian ethic, is no
longer a very satisfactory mythos for many people. Similarly,
the rationalism or scientism or materialism that tried to replace
the religious mythos of our society has also turned out to be
unsatisfactory for a large number of people. So we are faced with
disruptions and conflicts in our society has also turned out to
be unsatisfactory for a large number of people. So we are faced
with disruptions and conflicts in our society as people search
consciously or unconsciously for more satisfying values. Our wheels
of life, to continue the analogy of Figure 19-2, are not rolling
along smoothly through our consensus reality. There are too many
flat spots on the wheel that produce unpleasant jolts, and too
many pieces of broken glass and potholes in the road of our consensus
reality. So the ride is no longer comfortable.
Personal reason for desiring a way out may involve initial poor
enculturation, so we don't fit in well, knowledge of other cultural
systems that seem advantageous in certain ways, and/or hope that
a more satisfactory substitute can be found for our faulty culture.
Various kinds of personal discontent make it difficult or impossible
for an individual to find meaning in his life within the consensus
reality of the culture. If he acts out these discontents, he may
be classified as neurotic or psychotic, as a criminal, or as a
rebel, depending on his particular style. If he acts out in a
way that capitalizes on widespread cultural discontent, he may
be seen as a reformer or pioneer. Or, he may outwardly conform
to the mores of contemporary society but be inwardly alienated.
Finally, a person may want to escape for what I call growth/curiosity
reasons, a healthy curiosity or desire to know. He may be able
to tolerate the limitations and dissatisfactions of the culture
around him and cope satisfactorily with it, and yet really want
to know what lies outside that consensus reality, what other possibilities
exist. He may see the limitations of the current worldview and
want to know what worldviews could replace it or whether it can
be modified.
I emphasize scientific curiosity in this book, the desire to understand
coupled with realization that science is an excellent tool for
gaining understanding. But even those of us who seek larger scientific
understanding are also motivated by cultural and personal forces.
Are There Ways Out?
A major intellectual theme in the Western world lately has been
that there are no ways out. Seeing the irrationality and horror,
the samsaric nature of much of the world about us, some philosophers
have concluded that this simply is human nature and that the best
we can hope to do is tolerate it in existential despair or try,
without much hope, to do the best we can. Indeed, a person can
use such despair as a prop for the ego by priding himself on his
"realism" and courage in facing such a dismal situation.
While I respect these philosophies of despair for their honest
recognition that there is no easy way out, I am of an optimistic
nature myself and cannot accept despair as an end goal.
More importantly, my studies of people's experiences in various
d-ASCs have convinced me that people can and do have vital, living
experiences that are ways out. People have what Maslow {36} called
peak experiences of openness, freedom, and belonging in
which they feel they transcend, at least temporarily, the samsaric
condition of ordinary consciousness. It can be argued that these
experiences are just other illusions, that there is no freedom.
But the belief that a way out does not exist may be just as illusory.
When the search for a way out is triggered by discontent with
the ordinary d-SoC, a common reaction is to blame your discontent
on some particular aspect of yourself or your society and look
for ready-made solutions. There are thousands of leaders and groups
who have ready-made solutions to sell you or give you—a multitudes
of-isms and-ologies. Give yourself to Jesus, join this commune,
join political party X and remake the world, support the revolution,
the truth is now revealed through yogi Z, eat your way to enlightenment
with organic foods, find health and happiness with a low-cholesterol
(or a high-cholesterol) diet, live in foreign country K where
nobody hassles you.
This is not meant to imply a blanket criticism of all communities,
political and social ideas, or spiritual systems: indeed, in Transpersonal
Psychologies {128} I attempt to promote the psychologies inherent
in spiritual disciplines because of their great value. Most of
the-isms and-ologies being offered contain valuable techniques
for personal growth, ideas and techniques that can help you get
out. But, when you motive for escape stems from a momentary discomfort
with your present consensus reality, from a feeling that your
wheel of life has too many flat spots and is hitting too many
bumps, you may be seeking not radical change in your self as
the root cause of your problems, but simply a more satisfactory
belief system, a rounder wheel, and a nicely protected consensus
reality that has no bumps. Any tool for personal or spiritual
growth that humanity has ever devised can be perverted from its
original function and used for simply making a person feel comfortable.
Too often, a person is not really interested in looking more directly
at reality, he simply wants his current samsaric wheel of life,
the structures of his mind, overhauled or replaced with a new
set that provides many good feeling sand hardly any bad feelings.
Figure 20-1 is a revision
of Figure 19-1, used to illustrate the concept of samsara. The
content of the associational chains that are activated is altered,
and the tone of the emotional energies is changed from negative
to positive, and so the person's experience is positive. The labels
on the figure make it self-explanatory. Still, all that happens
in reality is that a stranger walks up and says, "Hi,
my name is Bill." But this time the person, who we can
call Sara, becomes extremely happy as a result and feels very
good about herself. Yet she is as much in a state of illusion,
samsara, as she was before. She has a set of internal structures,
internal machinery, that make her feel good, but she is no more
in touch with reality than before.
D-ASCs as Ways Out
Since the ordinary d-SoC is the creator and maintainer of consensus
reality on a personal level, and since the sharing of similar,
ordinary, "normal" d-SoCs by others is the maintainer
of the consensus reality on a social level, one way out of samsara
is to enter a d-ASC, spend as much time there as possible, and
get all your friends into that d-ASC too. You would choose a d-ASC
or d-ASCs you valued, where you felt "high." To many
people today the solution to the discomfort of current reality
seems to be to get high and stay high.
Many of us are currently fascinated with the possibilities of
being happy or solving our problem by entering into various d-ASCs,
using chemical or nonchemical means. We have not yet learned to
estimate realistically the costs of this route. We know the costs
of chronic alcohol use, but seem willing to tolerate them. We
do not know the costs of other d-ASCs very well. Consensus realities
can exist and be created in various d-ASCs. The explanation of
ordinary consciousness as samsara may well apply in d-ASCs such
as drunkenness or marijuana intoxication. In other d-ASCs, such
as meditative states, samsaric illusion may be less common, but
this has not yet been shown scientifically.
We tend to get into what John Lilly {35} calls "overvaluation
spaces"; we tend to be carried away by the contrast between
our experience of the d-ASC and the ordinary d-SoC, and so overvalue
the d-ASC. I think this is largely a function of novelty or need
motivated blindness. Especially if we have taken a risk, such
as using illegal drugs, to attain a d-ASC, we have a need to convince
ourselves that the experience was worthwhile.
Further discussion of the costs of various d-ASCs seems to me
premature. The immense amount of cultural hysteria and propaganda
in this area gives us distorted and mostly false views of what
the costs are, and we must work through this and build up some
scientific knowledge before we can talk adequately about costs
and benefits of d-ASCs.
The values of experiencing and working in d-ASCs can b exceptionally
high. But, as is true of all the many tools that have been devised
for human growth, a d-ASC's value depends on how well it is used.
Experiencing a d-ASC carries no guarantee of personal betterment.
Achieving a valuable d-ASC experience depends on what we want,
how deeply and sincerely we want it, what conflicting desires
we have, how much insight we have into ourselves, and how well
prepared we are to make use of what we get in the d-ASC. There
is a saying in many spiritual traditions: "He who tastes,
knows." The process is not that automatic. A truer saying
is: "He who tastes has an opportunity to know."
In the d-ASCs we know much about scientifically, the experiencer
can be in a samsaric condition, involved in a personal or a consensus
reality that is cut off from reality, even though its style
is different, interesting, or productive of greater happiness
than the ordinary d-SoC.
Techniques exist, however, that are intended to free a person's
awareness from the dominance of the structure, of the machinery
that has been culturally programmed into him. In terms of the
radical view of awareness, whatever basic awareness ultimately
is, there are techniques that at least produce the experience
of freeing awareness partially or wholly from the continual
dominance of structure, of moving toward a freer, more wide-ranging
awareness rather than a consciousness that is primarily a function
of the automated structure pattern of consensus reality. Let us
consider the general categories into which these techniques fall,
remembering that any discussion of their ultimate usefulness is
beyond current science.
The first step in using any of these techniques is to recognize
that there is a problem. Assume, therefore, that an individual,
through self-observation, has acquired enough experiential knowledge
of his samsaric condition to know that he needs to and want to
do something. Although there are many religious definitions of
what a clear or higher state of consciousness simply as one in
which external reality is recognized more for what it is, less
distorted by internal processes.
Discriminative Awareness
One way to begin to escape from the samsaric condition is to pay
enough directed attention to your mental processes so that you
can distinguish between primary perception coming in from the
external world and associational reaction to it. We tend to assume
that we do this naturally, but I believe it is rare. This may
be done by understanding how your associational structures are
built and how they generally operate, thus distinguishing associational
reactions on a content basis, and/or by getting a general experiential
"feel" for a quality that distinguishes associational
reactions. If you can keep your primary perception and your reactions
to it clearly distinguished in your consciousness, you are less
likely to project your reactions to stimuli onto the environment
and others or to distort incoming perception to make your perceptions
consistent with internal reactions.
I have found, from both personal observation and indications in
the psychological literature that making this discrimination,
putting a fairly high degree of awareness on the beginnings
of the associational process, tend to undercut their ability
to automatically stimulate other associational chains and thus
activate emotions. You need not do anything in particular
to the association, just be clearly aware that it is an associational
reaction. The situation is analogous to being on your good behavior
when you know others are watching, whether or not those others
are doing anything in particular to influence your behavior.
A Watchman at the Gate
If you refer to Figure 19-1 and 20-1, you will notice the label,
DEROPP'S "WATCHMAN AT THE GATE" ENTERS HERE. The analogy
taken from DeRopp's book {15}, is to a watchman at the city gate
(the senses) who knows that certain slums in the city of the mind
have outbursts of rioting when certain mischievous characters
(stimulus patterns) are allowed into the city. The watchman scrutinizes
each traveler who comes up and does not admit those he knows will
cause rioting. If you have a good understanding of your associational
and reaction patterns, your prepotent needs, and the particular
kinds of stimuli that set them off, you can maintain an attentive
watchfulness on your primary perception. When you realize that
an incoming stimulus is the sort that will trigger an undesirable
reaction, you can inhibit the reaction. It is easier to become
self-conscious, and thus remove some of the energy from incoming
stimuli before they have activated associational chains
and prepotent needs, than to stop the reactions once they have
been activated.
To a certain extent the practice of discriminative awareness,
described above, performs this function. Setting up the watchman,
however, provides a more specialized discrimination, paying special
attention to certain troublesome kinds of stimuli and taking more
active measure when undesirable stimuli are perceived. The watchman
robs the reaction of its power early enough to prevent it from
gaining any appreciable momentum; discriminative awareness allows
the reaction to tap into various prepotent needs, even though
the continuous observation of it lessens identification and so
takes away some of its power.
Nonattachment
A classical technique in the spiritual psychologies for escaping
from samsara is the cultivation of nonattachment, learning to
"look neutrally" on whatever happens, learning
to pay full attention to stimuli and reactions but not to identify
with them. The identification process, the quality added by the
operation of the Sense of Identity subsystem discussed in Chapter
8, adds a great deal of energy to any psychological process. Without
it, these processes have less energy and therefore make less mischief.
Vipassana meditation is a specific practice of nonattachment performed
in the technically restricted meditative setting. Recall that
the instructions (Chapter 7) are to pay attention to whatever
happens, but not to try to make anything in particular happen
or to try to prevent anything in particular from happening. The
idea is neither to welcome nor reject any particular stimulus
or experience. This is quite different from the ordinary stance
toward events, where a person seeks out and tries to pleasant
ones. Meditation, as Naranjo {39} points out, is a technically
simplified situation: a person removes himself from the bustle
of the world to make learning easier. But it is also designed
to teach nonattachment so the practice can be transferred to everyday
life.
If one is successful in practicing nonattachment, the machinery
of the mind runs when stimulated, but does not automatically grab
attention/awareness so readily; reactions and perceptions do not
become indiscriminately fused together; and attention/awareness
energy remains available for volitional use.
These are two clear ways in which the practice of nonattachment
can be flawed. Often a person believes that he is unaffected by
certain things, that he just is not interested in them or that
they do not bother him. This apparent indifference, however, actually
comes from an active inhibitory process that takes place outside
that focus of awareness. So he is really up-tight even if he does
not feel it. Self-observation and/feedback from others is a corrective
for this. Effective growth practices can thus promote unhappiness
and upset by breaking through an inhibitory layer before being
able to work on the disturbances themselves.
The other flaw is that while nonattachment may free a person from
the habitual loss of attention/awareness energy to the machinery
of the mind, the machinery is still there. He no longer automatically
identifies with the machinery; it no longer forcibly grabs his
attention/awareness, but the machinery itself, while dormant,
has not been dismantled. What happens if he is put in totally
new circumstances in which he has not practiced nonattachment?
Recall that once the machinery of the mind is activated, it grabs
attention/awareness energy, and after this, control may be difficult
or impossible. Totally new circumstances may activate the previously
inactive structures in novel ways so that they cannot be stopped.
A person may be unaware that the machinery has begun operating,
so it can grab his attention/awareness energy and plunge him into
a samsaric state again. This appears to have happened, for example,
to some Indian yogis who began living in the West. Their practice
of nonattachment as a principal discipline in India had enabled
them to achieve a special serenity of mind, but this was under
particular cultural circumstances. As one example, yogis and holy
men are treated as nonsexual beings in India. Thus women may worship
them, but in a completely nonsexual way. When they come to the
West and are besieged in a sexual way by beautiful young girls,
the yogis, lacking practice in handling this, are subject to strongly
activated samsaric mechanisms.
Dismantling Structures
The above techniques are mindfulness techniques, involving
an increase in awareness of what is happening and how one is reacting
to it, usually with some discipline, such as nonattachment, practiced
in conjunction with this increased awareness. To some extent,
these mindfulness techniques can actually dismantle some of the
structures of the mind. This happens in two ways. First, some
structures seem to need to operate in the dark; they cannot continue
to operate when one is fully conscious of what is happening. Thus,
insight into the nature of a structure results in its partial
or full dissolution. Second, some structures and combinations
of structures seem to need to be activated periodically to maintain
their integrity. By practices like the watchman at the gate or
nonattachment, which do not allow energy to flow freely into them,
they are starved and gradually lose their integrity, Gurdjieff's
{48} technique of self-observation, for example, involves paying
full attention to one's reactions without making any attempt to
change them. Many people practicing self-observation have had
the experience of watching an undesirable reaction occur repeatedly,
then weakly and later not at all, even though the requisite stimulus
occurs.
Many structures and subsystems are an intimate part of a person's
enculturated personality, however, and are not only highly resistant
to change by insight, but may be incapable of being perceived
well at all. They are so connected to prepotent needs and defense
mechanisms that they cannot be observed clearly, or else they
are so implicit that they are outside awareness. They are never
observed, so observation and mindfulness techniques do not work.
Here is where Western-developed psychotherapy becomes exceptionally
valuable. Through feedback and pressure provided by others, whether
a single therapist or a group, ordinarily invisible aspects a
person's self may be so surcharged with emotional energy that
he is forced to confront them, and this insight may change
them. If insight alone is not sufficient, a variety of techniques
are available, ranging from operant-conditioning to guided imagery
techniques {3}, which can deliberately change specific structures.
Western-style psychotherapy is limited because it is likely to
be used not on structures that are basic to the samsaric condition,
but only on structures that produce experiences and behaviors
that are not acceptable in the particular consensus reality. Thus
many psychotherapists are not growth agents in a general sense,
but rather work to readjust a deviant person to the consensus
reality of his culture. This is not a conscious manipulation on
the part of these psychotherapists, but simply a reflection of
the power and implicitness of their own enculturation processes.
Psychotherapy can be a subversive tool in some practitioners'
hands, for some of the assumptions of the consensus reality can
be questioned in it, and the patient can grow beyond his culture
in some ways. All too often, however, the implicit assumptions
are not even questioned.
In stating that most patients do not learn to go beyond consensus
reality, I do not want to imply that they should learn to behave
in a way that is clearly at odds with consensus reality. To behave
in "crazy" ways is no sure sign of escape from samsara.
Knowing how to use effectively the consensus reality in which
one lives in essential for survival. In terms of cultural, personal,
and scientific goals of transcending samsaric limitations of the
ordinary state, however, we should be aware of the limits of conventional
psychotherapy.
I suspect, as Naranjo {39} has suggested, that the synthesis of
the psychotherapy techniques of the West and the spiritual disciplines
of the East will form one of the most powerful tools for understanding
ourselves that has ever existed. The various kinds mindfulness
and nonattachment techniques are the ultimate tools because of
their generality, but there may be some psychological structures
in the personality that have so much energy, are so implicit,
or are so heavily defended that they must be dealt with using
specific psychotherapeutic techniques to dismantle them.
How Far Can We Go?
If we assume, for the purpose of this discussion, the 9at least
partial) validity of the radical view of the mind, then what are
the limits to human consciousness and awareness? Figure 20-2 presents
some speculation along this line.
Consider reality as divided into two realms: MEST, the physical
world, of which we know many of the basic laws and are discovering
more, and the realm of awareness, whose basic laws are essentially
unknown to us at this time. The ordinary d-SoC, then, is the gestalt
product of awareness and structure, determined and limited by
whatever laws inherently govern each realm, and yet is also an
emergent synthesis not fully predictable from the laws of either
realm.
In some ways the composite system is even more limited, for both
the MEST structure and awareness have been further restricted
in the enculturation process. Thus the ordinary d-SoC is capable
of considerable expansion: we can change existing structures and
build new ones, and we can cultivate the ability to control awareness
more freely within these structures and to pay attention to things
other than what the culture has defined as important.
Judging from experiential reports, some d-ASCs seem to be much
less mechanical, much less controlled by structures and allowing
more free range of awareness. This is represented in Figure 20-2
by the oval just to the left of the ordinary d-SoC penetrating
more into the realm of awareness and less into the realm of MEST.
Similarly, experiential reports from some d-ASCs—those caused
by sedatives, for example—suggest that there is less awareness
and far more mechanicalness, that consciousness is far more restricted
by structure than ordinarily. Thus another oval, further to the
left, shown as more into the MEST realm and less into the awareness
realm. The extreme case of this, of course, is mechanical intelligence,
the computer, which (as far as we know) has no awareness at all
but processes information in a totally mechanical way, a way totally
controlled by the laws of the MEST realm. Present computers are
also partially limited by cultural structuring; it only occurs
to us to program them to do certain "sensible" things,
giving them a range that is probably less than their total capability.
Up to this point the discussion is still compatible with the orthodox
view of the mind, which sees awareness as a function of the brain.
The circle to the far right in Figure 20-2, however, is compatible
only with the radical view that awareness can operate partially
or totally independently of the brain structure. In some mystical
experiences, and in states called out-of-they-body experiences,
people report existing at space/time locations different from
that of their physical bodies, or being outside of space/time
altogether. I believe that parapsychological data require us to
consider this kind of statement as more than interesting experiential
data, as possibly being valid rather than simply being nonsense.
The reader interested in the implications of parapsychology for
the study of consciousness should consult other writings of mine
{128, 129, 131}. Let me note here that to the extent that this
may be true, awareness may potentially become partially or wholly
free of the patterning influence of MEST structure.
An awareness of how structures and systems of structures tend
automatically to grab attention/awareness and other psychological
energies makes it easy to form a picture of structure as bad and
to see d-SoCs that are less involved with structure as automatically
better or higher. This is a mistake. Structures perform valuable
functions as well as confining ones. A d-SoC is not just a way
of limiting awareness; it is also a way of focusing attention/awareness
and other psychological energies to make effective tools, to enable
us to cope in particular ways.
I have observed people in d-ASCs where they seem less caught in
structures, more inclined toward the unstructured awareness dimension
of mind. My impression is that it was both a gain and a loss:
new insights were gained, but there was often an inability to
hold to anything and change it in a desired direction. Certainly
there are times when not attempting to change anything, just observing,
is the best course, but the ability to move between activity and
passivity as appropriate is optimal. The structures of
d-SoCs aid us by restricting awareness and facilitating focusing.
Perhaps as meditative and similar exercises teach us to control
attention/awareness more precisely, we may have less need for
structures.
As a scientist, I have tried to keep the speculation in these
last three chapters compatible with the scientific worldview and
the scientific method as I know them. I have often drawn on data
not generally accepted in orthodox scientific circles, but they
are data that I would be willing to argue are good enough to deserve
closer examination. Because I have set myself that restriction
in writing this book, I now end speculation on how far human awareness
might be able to go, for to continue would take me further from
my scientific data base than I am comfortable in going at this
time.
Let me conclude with what may seem a curious observation: Western
psychology has collected an immense amount of data supporting
the concept in the first place. We have studied some aspects of
samsara in far more detail than Eastern traditions that originated
the concept of samsara. Yet almost no psychologists apply this
idea to themselves! They apply all this knowledge of human compulsiveness
and mechanicalness to other people, who are labeled "abnormal"
or "neurotic," and assume that their own states of consciousness
basically logical and clear. Western psychology now has a challenge
to recognize this detailed evidence that our "normal"
state is a state of samsara and to apply the immense power of
science and our other spiritual traditions, East and West, to
the search for a way out.
Figure 20-1. Development of samsaric consciousness
with positive rather than negative emotional tone. As in Figure
19-1, internal processes soon overwhelm perception and are mistaken
for perception. (back)
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