6c) Time-Bound States vs. Time-Free States

The first fetter from which consciousness needs release is time. Whereas our cognition of each dimension of space is full and extensive in two directions, our perception of time is partial, for it has a one-way arrow. Indeed, in one sense, time is imaginary space, since mathematically time is to space as "i" (the square root of minus one) is to one. It is not easy to divest our thinking of

(page 16)

this time-bound fetter, since even our language is made up of tensed verbs.

The transcendence of time occurs in two modes: magiscule (or the experiencing of large areas of time compressed as it were), and miniscule (or the experience of microscopic instants of time, expanded as it were). Let us examine these two in order.

If the numinous (which is beyond time) is to be experienced by us in time, it must be perceived as a series of periodic cycles or recurrences. An old and familiar form of this relationship is seen in the myth and ritual annual seasonal changes. We quote from work elsewhere (Gowan 1975:206) on the "durative topocosm" which is to the ritual celebrating it as climate is to weather:

"Gaster (1959: 11) traces the origin of myth as 'a sequence of ritual acts, which . . . have characterized major seasonal festivities.' These as he explains (1959:9) are 'derived from a religious ritual designed to ensure the rebirth of a dead world.' He elaborates on the central thesis (1959:17) as follows:

Seasonal rituals are functional in character. Their purpose is to revive the topocosm (i.o.) that is the entire complex of any given locality conceived as a living organism. But this topocosm possesses a ... durative aspect, representing not only actual and present community, but also the ideal of community, an entity, of which the latter is but the current manifestation. Accordingly, seasonal rituals are accompanied by myths which are designed to present the purely functional acts in terms of ideal and durative situations. The impenetration of myth and ritual creates drama. . . . What the King does on the punctual plane, the God does on the durative ... The pattern is based on the conception that life is vouchsafed in a series of leases which have annually to be renewed.

"it would be difficult to state more clearly and concisely the central motivating elements of myth than has here been done. The concept that the topocosm needs to be renewed like an annual lease, and that since it exists on the transcendental (durative) level, it can be affected as if in sympathetic magic on the temporal (punctual) level, and finally that it is a living organism amenable to the efforts of man, is both good anthropology and excellent psychology regarding man's parataxic relationship to the numinous element."

(page  17)

Schlipp, (1949:114) quotes de Broglie:

In space-time everything which for each of us constitutes the past, the present and the future is given en bloc . . . each observer as his time passes discovers, so to speak, new slices of space-time which appear to him as successive aspects of the material world, though in reality the ensemble of events constituting space-time exist prior to his knowledge of them.

But time may be experienced, at least by the subconscious mind in greatly expanded form. We know that many atomic reactions take place in nano-seconds. Evidently this is the level at which the next higher realm operates. Consider the following enlightening quotation from Wilber (1978:53-5):

No matter how much we may detail the historical (ontogenic and phylogenic) aspects of the spectrum of consciousness, these details remain, in my opinion, purely secondary. For without any doubt the most important aspect of the spectrum is that the entire sequence of evolution is entertained now, moment to moment to moment, not once but thousands upon thousands of times. In this present instant we unceasingly re-create the entire spectrum with all its levels and potentials. Moment to moment, through the various forms of resistance that operate on different levels-from the basic ignorance (avidya) in the Buddhist sense to concrete repression in Freud's sense-we narrow, restrict, and constrict our basic awareness from prior unity consciousness to successively evermore impoverished, fragmented, and isolated forms. From absolute Self to illusory ego, through all sorts of stages, moment to moment to moment ...

This moment-to-moment evolution is nothing but the process of microgeny, which in orthodox psychology is the study of the immediate unfolding or micro-evolution of a psychological process or form ...

From our point of view, however, microgeny is not just, nor even primarily, a moment-to-moment unfolding of conscious states from physical and physiological stimuli, but a momentto-moment evolution of the separate self out of unity or nondual consciousness (the Brahman-Atman). In this moment and this moment and this, an individual perpetually, if unconsciously, manufactures various substitute selves out of prior, open-ground consciousness ...

(page 18 )

When you start to think about all this, the whole situation is truly astounding, for the implication is nothing less than this: in this moment, and this moment, and this, an individual is Brahman, the Godhead, the Dharmakaya - but, in this moment and this moment and this, he ends up as John Doe, as a separate self, as an isolated phenomenon apparently bounded by other isolated phenomena. Put rather poetically, at the beginning of this and every moment, each individual is God; but by the end of this same moment-in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye-he winds up as an isolated ego.

For further views on this matter, we quote from Gowan, 1974:44-45:

"According to Evans-Wentz (1960:31) the Tibetian belief is that as the human being dies and the individual psyche is reabsorbed into the Spirit of Man, there is a review or recessional of the periodic stages in inverse order. First comes the vision of the Clear Light of the Void (our ninth stage), then the Clear Light somewhat obscured (the eighth stage), then the vision of seven peaceful (affective) deities (aspects and then the vision of seven wrathful (cognitive) aspects."

Evans-Wentz (1960:31) tells us:

Definite psychological significance attaches to each of the deities appearing in the Bardo Thodol; but in order to grasp it, the student must bear in mind that . . . the apparitional visions seen by the deceased . . . are not visions of reality, but nothing more than the hallucinatory embodiments of the thought-forms born of the mental content of the percipient; or in other words, they are the intellectual impulses which have assumed personified form in the after-death dream state.

He goes on to distinguish between the two orders of deities:

The peaceful deities are the personified forms of the sublimest human sentiments which proceed from the psychic- heart center ... Whereas the peaceful deities are the personification of the feelings, the wrathful deities are the personification of the reasonings, and proceed from the psychic brain center. (In psychological language-the affective and the cognitive).

(page 19)

After the final appearance of the wrathful deities the deceased is frightened into wishing for rebirth, and is driven to seek a conceiving womb. Thus starts the cycle over again. The fit between the life processional or development through the stages, and the after-death recessional back through them in reverse order to rebirth (if the Clear Light is not grasped) is a remarkable example of the goodness of fit between ancient Eastern mysticism, and modern western psychology, confirming the validity of both.

Evans-Wentz describes the Bardo apparitions which appear after death; first come the peaceful (affective deities).
 
 

POST-MORTEM BARDO APPARITIONS
Devas
1
7
Generativity
Spreading forth of the seed (EW 105)
Asuras
2
6
Intimacy
(The father) embraced by the mother (EW108)
Humans
3
5
Identity
Power of egotism EW 111)
Brutes
4
4
Industry
.
Pretas
5
3
Initiative
Avoid Jealousy (EW 117)
Hell
6
2
Autonomy
.
.
7
1
Trust
,

Then come the wrathful (cognitive) deities.

In comparing this Bardo vision with the inverse of the developmental stages in life, one should note several remarkable correspondences:

1) The Bardo Thodol defines two orders of deities and states that both are hallucinations of the mind, one being sprung from the sentiments and emotions (affective) and the second being sprung from the intellect (cognitive).

2) There are seven visions in each corresponding to the stages one to seven in reverse.

3) In the peaceful deities, some actual correspondences with stage characteristics can be noted (see above).
 

An even more interesting issue has to do with comparisons between the Buddhist view of the Bardos after death (EvansWentz 1960), (Gowan, 1974:44-45), (Wilber, 1978:57ff), as seen in the Bardo Thodol, and Western developmental stage theory. Developmental stage theory seems to be the processional of life,

(page 20)

and the post-mortem bardos the recessional. Or, to look at things like a monopoly game, the cycle of birth is like trying to go around the board and back to "Go" during the period of a single life: only the saints get the $200, the rest of us recess back through the bardos to have another probably futile try. Not only is there a close fit between the deities and the stages, but the peaceful and wrathful deities of the East correspond nicely to the
affective and cognitive stages of the West. It was Durr (1970:89) in a book on poetic vision who brought this to our attention.

In Trance, Art and Creativity, (1975:247) Table VI-4 was presented showing development in terms of jhanas (or levels of knowledge). If this table is compared with Table 0-2, (Gowan 1974:51), a complete picture of developmental process is obtained at least from the personal view. One may also look at this progress from a transpersonal view, as does Wilber (1978:58), given here as Table 0-3. It is easy to see that the outward devolution corresponds rather clearly to the first five stages of the Periodic Table 0-2, while the involutionary return path corresponds to the higher periodic stages, and the jhanas in Table VI-4. The reader is urged to make this comparison.