The Lecture of Questions – Revisited

The first time I saw Richard Rose, I heard him give his Lecture of Questions. It began with “What do you know for sure? Does a man own a house or does a house own him?” and continued, question after question, challenging my assumptions, beliefs, and hopes about every aspect of life. I was both stunned and inspired. My life was literally never the same afterwards.

shawn nevins

In the thirty years since that lecture, I found other questions that drew me — natural koans is a good name for them. This month’s podcast edition is my own version of Rose’s Lecture of Questions. I kept a few of his originals and added some of my own. Hope you enjoy, are inspired, and challenged by these.

Please feel free to leave comments or send an email with the contact form.  I always appreciate hearing your thoughts.


 

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QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Selected Links and Topics from this Episode:

  • Read Richard Rose’s original Lecture of Questions.
  • I originally delivered this Lecture of Questions at a TAT Foundation weekend retreat. It’s worth checking out their events.
  • Here’s the complete text of this Lecture of Questions:
  • What do you know for sure?
  • Do you have power or are you overpowered? A predator or a victim? Or both?
  • Do you enjoy or are you consumed?
  • Do you really reason … or are you so programmed?
  • Can you learn … that which you really wish to … by yourself alone?
  • What is the difference between knowledge and being?
  • Can you become? How shall you know what you should become?
  • *
  • Who is knowledgeable about good, the item goodness?
  • Is good that which we desire … or that which is in itself good?
  • Do we discover that which is Real or do we create it?
  • Do we actually know that which we are doing? If so, why do we repeatedly regret things that we do?
  • If we decide to create our future through positive thinking or levers of manifestation, should we not first have some understanding of what motivates us?
  • Have you ever watched yourself make a choice? What is the impulse that precedes the decision?
  • From what depths does the final decision bubble up into consciousness, or from what heights does inspiration descend into the mind? What are the depths and heights of our being?
  • Do we ever see the world or ourselves clearly? Or is our view constantly colored and influenced?
  • Which of these is your chief influencer? opinions absorbed from family, friends, or neighbors, advertising that imitates news, news that imitates truth, conscious or unconscious traumas, hereditary conditions, instinct, past lives, planetary forces, or the will of God?
  • *
  • Do animals have consciousness? Do plants? Or molecules?
  • How do we measure consciousness?
  • If we judge someone or something as unconsciousness is that simply a failure of the sensitivity of the measuring instrument?
  • Do animals feel pain? Joy? Love? Do they feel the approach of death?
  • Science periodically announces the discovery of human-like qualities in animals. Is this the truth or are all human qualities simply those of animals?
  • Does a spider plan its web? Does a human plan its life?
  • What is the difference between natural and man-made?
  • Are humans separate from the natural world or an emanation from it?
  • Are humans a parasite on the Earth, its divine guardian, or a visitor?
  • *
  • Are you a unique identity or an assemblage of parts walking in a meatsuit?
  • Do you plan the motion of each footfall?
  • Is there an intelligence of the body? of the digestive system? of the cell? Is there an intelligence of mitochondria within that cell? Of an enzyme within that mitochondria? Of the amino acid that forms the enzyme? what of the carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), and nitrogen (N) elements that form the amino acid? Is there an intelligence of the atoms which form the elements? Of the protons, neutrons, and electrons within the atom? Of the quarks within the protons?
  • Is the mind separate from these excavations into ever more fundamental divisions of particles?
  • Or are the mind and matter inseparably connected?
  • What is the mind?
  • *
  • What is time?
  • Does time pass or is it only you who passes?
  • Which lasted longer: the summer vacations of your youth or this past year?
  • Does the ant or amoeba interpret duration the same as a human or does its time pass more swiftly?
  • If the clock stops, does time stop? If the rotation of the earth stops, does time stop?
  • What is space?
  • Is space interdependent with time?
  • Do space and time exist at all except in reference to us?
  • Does stopping the mind stop time?
  • What is eternity? What is infinity?
  • Can we conceive of an eternity as anything other than a very long span of time?
  • Can we conceive of infinity as anything other than a very large space?
  • What does a lifetime feel like?
  • How will we know when it ends?
  • *
  • What is self? What is other?
  • What is the borderline between self and other? Is it the surface of our skin?
  • If we touch our left hand with the right hand is that left hand an “other?”
  • If we touch our friend’s left hand with our right hand is their left hand an “other”?
  • What is “inside” and “outside” in relation to our self?
  • Where is “inside our self”?
  • Without distance and separation would time exist?
  • Without the senses, would we be imprisoned or freed?
  • *
  • What is the Now?
  • If you are not “being here Now” then where are you?
  • If you think of the past, does that thinking happen in the past? If you think of the future, does that thinking happen in the future? Or is all thought occurring in the Now?
  • If so, then who is it that believes the Now is someplace other than right Now?
  • *
  • What is awareness?
  • Is awareness separate from the mind?
  • Is awareness separate from the body?
  • Have you ever passed out, been knocked out, or anesthetized? What became of awareness?
  • What becomes of awareness when you sleep?
  • Does awareness only exist for you if you are aware of it?
  • If you become aware of awareness are there now two awarenesses within you? If so, which awareness is more real?
  • *
  • What is feeling?
  • What is a feeling of God, the Divine, or something/anything other than our individual self?
  • What is it to know with certainty?
  • Do you remember the certainty with which you held to childhood beliefs in Santa Claus, God, or monsters under the bed?
  • What is intuition?
  • How does one arrive at it? Can it be improved?
  • Is intuition limited by the symbols in which we allow it to be expressed?
  • Are those symbols in turn limited by our pre-conceptions, beliefs, fears, and desires?
  • *
  • What is death?
  • Is all religion and philosophy merely rationalization … to answer constant cellular awareness of death?
  • Or is the belief in life after death an intuitive reading? A reading not completely translatable into limited human symbols?
  • What proof do we have of life after death, for us as an individual?
  • We see a dead body and recognize something is missing. What is it? Where did it go?
  • *
  • What is life?
  • Is it a collection of memories?
  • What fraction of a day do we remember and how accurately?
  • Is life a dream – or an illusion, Or an opportunity?
  • What is a life well-lived?
  • Is this life just one of many?
  • Are we ever-evolving?
  • If so, what is it that is evolving? Is it a soul? A spirit? An individual self?
  • If so, what is the point? What is the ultimate aim of this evolution? Is there an end?
  • What happens after we reach the end?
  • What were we before we were born?
  • *
  • What are death and life?
  • Can we conceive of anything other than endings and beginnings?
  • What is the difference between something and nothing?
  • Between being and non-being?
  • Or is there a third way? That is not a way at all?
  • But a transformation.
  • A revealing.
  • A revelation.
  • Beyond seeming.
  • Beyond dreaming.
  • That is both the roaring of a waterfall,
  • the ringing of a tiny, silver bell,
  • And silence.

Pat The Barber Crowley: the power of intuitive intelligence

The one thing I didn’t ask Pat “The Barber” Crowley in our interview was how he got his nickname. I’ll blame that on the Irish gift for storytelling, in full evidence with Pat Crowley, which mesmerized and transported me to the wild seashores of Ireland and into the heart of Pat’s hunger for Truth.

pat the barber crowley

Pat the barber Crowley is the author of The Rose and the Stone, which tells the story of his spiritual search and people, like Irish poet and mystic John Moriarty, that he met along the way. As you’ll hear in our interview, Pat Crowley’s story is especially interesting as his spiritual quest occurred amidst the daily demands of family and work in which it would have been easy to find excuses to not make space for the intuition to be heard.

I hope you enjoy this episode. In addition to audio, there is video available for this interview. Check it out below. Please feel free to leave comments or send an email with the contact form.  I always appreciate hearing your thoughts.


 

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QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Selected Links and Topics from this Episode:

  • Growing up in southwest Cork, Ireland.
  • Suffering from the illness of alcoholism, and the ego deflation that resulted from that.
  • Meeting “Spiritual Jim,” who gave Pat The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley and introduced him to the spiritual search.
  • Jim and his friend Con were both enlightened. Pat the barber Crowley also got books on Zen Buddhism from them.
  • “There was a hunger in me.”
  • The First and Last Freedom by J. Krishnamurti — “This really blew me away. This thing of questioning.” “I feel in love with that style of inquiry.”
  • The importance of sticking with self inquiry.
  • Other books I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj, Pointers from Nisargadatta by Ramesh Balsekar.
  • Pat Crowley’s friendship with John Moriarty.
  • The flow of life includes our sorrows.
  • “There’s nothing outside the divine.”
  • Enlightenment is “from the person,” not “for the person.”
  • Interest in Carl Jung and psychology.
  • “What has the body done to anybody?”
  • What is self inquiry? Finding out what I am by finding out what I’m not.
  • Intuition as awareness at large.
  • Intuitive intelligence.
  • “To live vulnerably is to live freely.”
  • Remaining as the witness.
  • “Understanding liberates.”
  • The witness versus witnessing.
  • Life after death. How we never ask what happens before life.
  • “We suffer from the regrettable smallness of the soul.” ~ Carl Jung
  • Reincarnation – Pat doesn’t buy into the idea. “What happens at death is I remain what I’ve always been.”
  • Addiction to the world of the senses. “We’re psychic visitors here.”
  • Though not updated in awhile, you can read more of Pat The Barber Crowley’s writing at his The Rose and the Stone blog. Contact Pat Crowley at: pat.the.barber.crowley.2020 at gmail dot com.

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Art Ticknor: the essence of confrontation

My last interview with Art Ticknor was nearly 15 years ago, so I thought it time to catch up and see what’s new. Nothing much, in the sense that Art is still as uncompromising and ever a truth-seeking gadfly. In addition to audio, there is video available for this interview. Check it out below.

Art Ticknor in 2019

Art Ticknor is the author of Solid Ground of Being, Beyond Relativity, and, his latest, Sense of Self. He was a long-time student of Richard Rose, a persistent meditator, and late in life found value in meeting with Douglas Harding. Wherever he goes, Art organizes small group meetings for discussion and self inquiry and has helped hundreds, if not thousands, of people along the way.

I hope you enjoy this episode and want to give a special thanks to monthly sponsors Rui, David, Johan, Cavebear, Sreechand, Bill, and Jeroen.  See the Supporter Options below for more info. on that.  Please feel free to leave comments or send an email with the contact form.  I always appreciate hearing your thoughts.


 

Supporter Options




QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Selected Links and Topics from this Episode:

  • Confrontation, aka group self-inquiry. Trying to get at beliefs about what we are that may not be the truth.
  • Starting your own confrontation group.
  • Aging, dying, death, and awareness – life eroding the ego
  • Obstacles on the spiritual path.
  • The view is not the viewer.
  • Meditation practice as building a muscle.
  • Looking back at what you’re looking out from.
  • Two biggest mistakes that teachers make: 1) looking back at their life and thinking they can pick out what was instrumental in their realization and what was not, 2) telling others that what the teacher did will work for the student.
  • Art’s new book: Sense of Self: the source of all existential suffering?
  • The best questions that strike you are often those being asked of someone else.
  • Determining where your focus is, self or others, and trying to swing the pendulum the other direction.
  • What to do when feeling stuck.
  • The value of fasting while on retreat.
  • Getting out of your comfort zone.
  • The difficulty of giving advice.
  • Carillon and Psychology of the Observer — Art’s two “desert island” books.
  • Douglas Harding and the Tube Experiment.
  • Going within versus meditation. If meditation means “watching the mind” then that’s the same as “going within.”
  • The processes and machinery of the mind.
  • The sense of “I.”
  • Details of the retreat in which Art’s spiritual breakthrough occurred. Douglas Harding’s Little Book of Life and Death, which Art was studying at the time.
  • The magical value of effort followed by relaxation.
  • If you want to experience group inquiry/confrontation for yourself, check out the groups listed on the TAT Forum.
  • To learn more about Art Ticknor or contact him, visit SelfDiscoveryPortal.com.
  • To learn more about Art’s early years of seeking and more about the events leading up to his spiritual enlightenment, check out his interview on ConsciousTV.

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John E Davis Interview

John E Davis II is a spiritual teacher who passed away in 1984 , leaving behind an audiotaped interview and a few poems that appeared in a TAT Journal shortly after his passing. I resurrected that interview for this month’s podcast because it’s refreshingly far removed from the increasingly homogeneous mass of spiritual teachings on the market.

John Davis II

Though the audio recording shows its age, you can still detect the power behind the words of John E Davis. It’s a power that builds throughout the recording, culminating in the reading of several of Davis’ poems. “It’s not great poetry,” he says, but his voice passes a message.

I hope you enjoy this episode and want to give a special thanks to those of you who’ve become monthly sponsors.  See the Supporter Options below for more info. on that.  Please feel free to leave comments or send an email with the contact form.  I always appreciate hearing your thoughts.


 

Supporter Options




QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Selected Links and Topics from this Episode:

  • My special request for all listeners to consider supporting the TAT Foundation’s new center. Check out the photos and make a donation on the TAT Homing Ground page.
  • Einstein’s Space and Van Gogh’s Sky. Circa 1983, John Davis’ top recommendation addressing the conflict between science and spirituality.
  • “I saw more in that vision than I’ll ever be able to tell,” Davis references this saying from the book Black Elk Speaks.
  • Davis discusses the degenerative brain damage that led to homelessness, and his losing his license to practice law.
  • “All my life, I have infrequently, frequented graveyards. It’s a place of solitude.”
  • The difference between a “scuffler” and a “bum.”
  • “You don’t have a year to live. You’re ready for the box.” Pronouncement from Davis’ doctor.
  • “There’s one thing about the desert — you risk meeting God.”
  • “I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never made,” Davis quoting the English poet A. E. Housman in “The Laws of God, The Laws of Man.”
  • “Zorba the Greek is one of my heroes.” “The flame burned in as strong in him an in any writer,” referring to author Nikos Kazantzakis’ Zorba the Greek. His Odyssey: A modern sequel, is the “greatest poem of the 20th century.”
  • “I began to get a sense of other — something other than my own personality.”
  • John E Davis repeatedly mentions how the crew of the tv show That’s Incredible magically captured the feeling of his spiritual revelation in the graveyard. If only I could find that episode!
  • “I’m trying to talk to your nervous system, not your cerebral hemispheres.”
  • Maurice Bucke’s Cosmic Consciousness — “Excellent. There’s are things in there I just nod [in agreement].”
  • “I wrote a book, Out of Darkness,” from which Davis reads several poems in this recording. Despite searching, I’ve never located this book.
  • “Much of what I’ve been able to do after this experience is not to project so much.”
  • “For tomorrow’s hero the battle is fought within.”
  • “Follow your fascinations.”
  • “What’s important is that man in his soul goes into the abyss, goes into darkness, into death, finds something, comes out with it.”
  • “You’ve got today, now. And when you live in that here and now, a certain centering takes place, then anything can happen. That’s the experience, and if you look for it you’ll find it. Or, as you’ll soon find out, you don’t find it. God finds you.”
  • “Engross yourself with the paradox; with the pairs of opposites.”
  • Recommends Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces and Myths to Live By.
  • Jean Houston – one of the top twenty most interesting people in the world.
  • Davis says if one’s voice has a certain resonance, then they can communicate something more than just words.
  • “We are the leaves on a tree.”
  • “In the long run, only the impossible happens.”
  • “Reality always leaves the experts far behind.”
  • “Using the old myths and symbols keeps your self from getting wrapped up in thinking you thought this up.”
  • “If I was a man your age, I’d carry two coins in my pocket. One saying the world was made for me and me alone. That is true! It is. It’s waitin’ just for you. I’m serious! And I’d carry another one that says I’m but dust and ashes. And that’s true.”
  • “Remember that the supreme arbiter, the judge, is your own soul’s opinion. Always.”
  • “When you’re truly meditating is when your eyes listen.”

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Joel Morwood Interview

Joel Morwood is the spiritual director of the Center for Sacred Sciences in Eugene, Oregon. For over 30 years, he’s helped guide seekers on the spiritual path through his many talks, essays, and books, as well as helped fashion a body of teachings that calls upon the great mystical traditions.

Joel Morwood
Joel Morwood, photo by by Jennifer W Knight

It was 2017 when I first reached out to Joel Morwood for an interview. I was told he was busy writing a book and not available until the following year. Forward to 2020 when I finally followed up with him. It was worth the wait. Honest, self-deprecating, insightful, I count Joel Morwood as a “win” in the world of spiritual teachers.

I hope you enjoy this episode and want to give a special thanks to those of you who’ve become monthly sponsors.  See the Supporter Options below for more info. on that.  Please feel free to leave comments or send an email with the contact form.  I always appreciate hearing your thoughts.

  • Listen to the interview on iTunesStitcher, or Google Play.
  • Stream by clicking here, or download after you follow the link by using right-click and then “save as.”
  • Or watch on YouTube.
  • As a thank you for visiting, enjoy free shipping and get a signed copy of my book Subtraction: The Simple Math of Enlightenment for only $12.95.
  • If you enjoy the podcast, please join my monthly supporters.  Your help is appreciated.

 

Supporter Options




QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Selected Links and Topics from this Episode:

  • My special request for all listeners to consider supporting the TAT Foundation’s new center. Check out the photos and make a donation on the TAT Homing Ground page.
  • For more of Joel’s background, see his interview on BATGAP.
  • Giving up on the spiritual path – kenosis – the dark night of the soul.
  • The value of precepts.
  • Practices designed to destroy the spiritual practice itself.
  • Joel Morwood’s time with Franklin Merrell-Wolff in Lone Pine.
  • Joel’s spiritual autobiography: Naked Through the Gate.
  • On the surprising number of students at the Center for Sacred Science who have woken up.
  • “For the spiritual path to work, you really got to put all your eggs in one basket.” If you don’t have that passion, fine, just keep at it and you may get it.
  • The Way of Selflessness – a practical guide to enlightenment that takes core teachings from many traditions come together to make a complete path to awakening. Joel Morewood considers this book the introduction to his teachings.
  • Effort versus non-effort on the spiritual path, giving up spiritual practices versus reaching the point where you can’t do them, “who” surrenders? See Joel’s article “To Practice or Not to Practice” for more.
  • Joel’s book on preparing for death is Through Death’s Gate: A Guide to Selfless Dying.
  • Whether any of Merrell-Wolff’s students became enlightened, and a few stories from Joel’s time with him.
  • When I asked Joel if he had any favorite spiritual films, he couldn’t think of any, but later sent a note that Zorba the Greek, starring Anthony Quinn is one he often references. “Although Zorba’s not enlightened, he exemplifies the freedom and passion for life that comes from practicing true detachment, as opposed to a sterile, pretend kind.”
  • Reach Joel Morwood at centerforsacredsciences.org.

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