Deep Unconscious Diving (Photo by Leigh Hilbert)
A question arose from deep down among the iridescent deep-sea dwellers along the bottom volcanic layer of my unconscious.
Iridescent Deep-Sea Dweller (Thanks to coilhouse.net for the image.)
The question goes like this:
“What qualities must I incorporate into my essence to make myself a true teacher?”
This led me to ask,
“What qualities have my various teachers shared in common with each other that gave me the deep impression that they were true teachers in the art of living (and dying)?”
Norman Allen, Yogi Extraordinaire
The Late Christopher S. Hyatt and Friends
E. J. Gold
As this inquiry grew larger, more precise, and more desperate for answers, the texts and communications in my life undertook the task of providing a solution, if I could only stay attentive for long enough to listen to what they had to say.
So I listened, and today’s post comes to you as an answer that I received….
I have met many teachers over the course of my seeking, and I have found the quality that they all have held in common, from my Jeet Kune Do instructor to John Juan Matus sitting outside the Wandering Goat Coffeehouse in Eugene, OR; and from Norman Allen, the famous yogi on the Big Island in Hawaii, to Dr. Christopher S. Hyatt (Peace be upon him…click here for his books and DVDs); and from the legendary E. J. Gold (Click Here for a Good Website to Start With)
E. J. Gold has lately taken up the task to build Spirit Radios, and in doing so, he has stumbled upon a device he calls a “Beta Blocker.” (Click here to read more about both Spirit Radios and Beta Blockers.)
This device purports to nullify the persistent and dominant beta brain waves. (For more information on beta, alpha, delta, and theta brain waves and the corresponding mental and physical states, click on this sentence and follow the links…) Beta brain waves create the state most of us currently call, “I.” This wavelength is made up of analysis, rampant thought, advertising jingles, and other mental wiseacreings and linguistic thought patterns.
The other wavelengths, theta, delta, and alpha, all go on at the same time as beta, but the beta generally prevents full awareness and use of the other states. If only a person or a device could nullify these beta brain waves for long enough, a person could experience states known as telepathy, psychic states, at-one-ment, deep connectedness with the all, and more. I have had these experiences repeatedly, both of my own doing and undoing, and in the presence of all the great teachers I have mentioned, and some I have not mentioned.
These non-beta states lead to enhanced wellness, healing, creativity, expressiveness, expansiveness, deep and lasting joy—-joy not dependent upon any specific phenomena, calmness, peace in the center of the storm, and more….use your imagination!
As I pondered the above questions, an email came my way from E. J. Gold about his discovery of the Beta Blocker device. An excerpt reads,
“You know the effect of Beta Block if you’ve ever been pissed off at me or Lee Lozowick or Zalman Schachter-Shalomi or Claudio Naranjo or Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche or Swami Rudy…You march in there, all raging and ready with vituperous venom, and by the time you get within a few feet of any of us, you’re blissed out and giggling with glee. That’s the effect of being within effective range of a Living Beta Block.”
I have recently spent time with E. J. Gold, and this effect does happen in his presence. Even attending his online workshops at GorebaggTV, I have noticed the effects of 1. an effective blocking of the beta brain waves…and 2. transmission of something-other-than-beta. For example, in the charcoal workshop (results posted here), I sat alone in my living room, broken down to sobbing over the integration of an expressive, creative, and child-like nature I saw and felt embodied by E. J. Gold. Something other than thoughting and analysis was at work, and it took an effective block of the beta brain waves for me to tap into it and do charcoals all day.
Yesterday, I picked up my copy of:
and I read the following passage:
“Don Juan’s look, however, numbed me to the point that I could not think coherently. I became thoroughly intrigued with that look and decided to search for him.”
After reading this line, everything came together. The quality held in common by every real teacher I have ever met, including those few English teachers back in high school (Ms. Hamlow, Mr. Lymburn, Mr. Vallaincourt, and others), is summed up in these lines from Castaneda and E. J. Gold. All of these teachers shared a beta-blocking quality that emanated out of them and through any students in their presence. After the initial meeting, and although further meetings are desirable and useful, the beta blocking quality can occur across any amount of distance as equally effective as being in the presence of the person, if the experience can be focused on enough.
This is my mission and my quest, to do any and all things necessary to make myself into a living beta blocker. One step toward this will be to purchase a beta blocker from E. J. Gold and Claude Needham. Another step is more daily meditation, and an even further step is to follow up with work that already sits before me that leads me in the beta-blocking direction.
STOP!
Enjoy the Silence
The false self that dies today is the one that has confused beta brain waves with the essential (or energized) self…
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Love, Wildness, Chaos, Joy……::::::
-GTD
Wow, thanks for all the comments, folks!
Simon: your comments are excellent and well-received. These are certainly important questions to ask. It took Carlos Castaneda about 10 years to duduce what had actually occurred between he and don Juan on their first meeting.
The essential self lives beneath all of the concepts, dualities, and basic beta assumptions about oneself. To have thoughts stop, while it may feel threatening, does not reduce the essential self at all. It simply gives it a different view or focus.
Yes, I think a deep awareness of how cults operate is very important for the seeker to understand and to navigate carefully. Gold mentions over and over in his books that no reader should believe anything he has to say until they prove or disprove it to themselves with personal experience, personally experienced.
An interesting insight develops when you study the operation methods of various cults. The insight is that all society and culture operate by the same methods, sometimes on a mass scale. Usually the favored tactics include: forced adherence to societal law, coerced agreement on the basic premises of life and reality, and subtle, passive, hypnotic induction into the ways humans spend their time as good citizens.
Thanks for stopping by, my friend. I always love comments that dig deeper into the content I put forth.
-G
Hi Garret,
This adds new pieces to my personal puzzle… thanks, as always.
C!
Amazing wild love this post!
swan queen’s last blog post..Jack Kerouac
regarding unconscious participation in beta blocking:
as in, for example, experience of the presence of a beloved. the beta block is experienced, but only by the lover and not generally.
beta blocker… hmmm. i wonder how someone not convinced of Gold’s special quality would respond to his beta-blocking field. does this supposed effect require unconscious participation of the one being blocked?
personally, i regard the notion of beta blocking with distrust – not because i mistrust the other brainstates, at all, but rather because such beta blocking must surely be an aspect of all the most miserable, cultish, social movements. anyone who declares that my very sense of ‘i’ awareness is going to be nullified in their presence becomes suspect in my mind, because such an impact is the wet dream of the narcissist. it’s cult logic that plays on the deep self-hatred and self-aggrandizement of the aspirant.
which isn’t to say that there isn’t validity to the basic cultic formula for self-realization. rather, personally, when i see this formula stripped of the cautions relating to its abuse, i keep my distance.
of course these are all beta words, so perhaps you should ignore them.
in any case, enjoy the journey…
- SM