Jacob Atabet

by Michael Murphy

  Told Jacob about the letter and he says that such things are possible. I am suspending belief and disbelief.

  July 16

  More questions about Vladimir Kirov. I asked him again about Armen Cross’s story. He says most of it is Armen’s imagination. It is possible though that there are alliances between this plane and others. “After all,” he said, “Freud saw that the ego and super-ego were both conscious and unconscious. Isn’t it true that people form alliances all the time, for and against every major cultural development? On every plane there is a Field of Kurukshetra.”

  August 1

  Sleep can be an ally or an enemy. The hours before sleep are crucial. In dreaming there is a mobility of the soul, a re-patterning that resembles the attempts of modern art to break the perceptual constancies. But our dreams can be good art or bad. We aim ourselves before sleep, set the dials of the unconscious, assemble the materials for our midnight creation.

  Last night someone was trying to reach me again. If I can hold the state a little longer, I can tell who it is. A strong but needy type—a round, vulnerable presence, with soft, steady, urgent vibrations. As if we were signaling each other at the bottom of a murky aquarium. Is it a part of me? Re-enacted the contact this morning, gestalt therapy style, and the entity came closer—but not close enough to tell what it was saying.

  Let our dreams be a discipline for remembering.

  At noon in Washington Square the old Italian men floating like dream-images, shimmering in their black suits while they watched the children play. The city was charged with light.

  I dutifully ask: Why should I go with them? Why? Because I cannot resist this adventure.

  August 2

  Warm and affectionate gathering last night. Then a call before sleep for my midnight visitor. But no dream or visitations.

  A foggy day. I can see Alcatraz in the mist, but not across the Bay to Angel Island. A veil of gray, like the veil across my mind. It parts, and for a moment I can see the sky. The earth is a mirror of the inner world.

  Coit Tower rising last night like a golden caduceus. Luminous blue arches suspended a thousand feet above us. Nerve-ways of air and midnight light. The earth is in the mind.

  The way of emptiness, the way of form. Relinquishment and imagination, detachment in the summoning. Since all this world flowed from Mind, it can be taken up again.

  Forms are altered in the inner eye and then directly. That is how the world proceeds. Earthly forms unfolding into mind. Back to the Real-Idea. To the angel of supramental events.

  Today a settling delight. Body changing. Running gets to be like flying, breathing like a beating heart. Every small perfection is an approximation to That.

  Discipline now is surrender to the secret homeward wending. Follow its lead with strong and skillful will. “Calm rapidity.”

  From the Golden Gate Bridge to Treasure Island, one mind. All afternoon just one transparent Bay.

  August 3

  “. . . the most striking peculiarity of Tibetan mystics is their boldness and a singular impatient desire to measure their strength against spiritual obstacles or occult foes. They seem animated by the spirit of adventure and, if I may use the term, I should like to call them ‘spiritual sportsmen.’ Indeed, this name suits them better than any other.” (In Alexandra David-Neel.)

  A good description of Atabet’s life. And Kazi Dama’s.

  Kazi Dama. It is remarkable that he has left the trappings of a Tulku-Rimpoche behind him. He could be a celebrity among gurus by now, but instead has chosen this adventure with three crazy Americans. He quoted Buddhist scripture today: “Our way (yana) makes the goal (Buddhahood) its base.” And added “But I never knew Buddhahood went in this direction!” He showed Jacob how to use a meditation rope monks sometimes use in Tibet, the sgomthag. You run it around your neck and under your knees to hold yourself erect for days or weeks of meditation. J. seemed to like it. Looked like he was strapped into a parachute upside down.

  Kazi will move into J.’s apartment. Brought a knapsack full of his possessions there today. His wardrobe: two pairs of jeans, three denim shirts, some socks and underwear, one sweatshirt, one large sweater, a windbreaker, two pairs of shoes. Says he has a “huge” collection of Tibetan ceremonial robes at his place in Berkeley, however, in case he ever decides to start a formal center. What would the Echeverrias think if they found him living in J.’s apartment with those brilliant hats and gowns? I think they would finally be stretched too far. And what will they think of our experiment? The four of us will be spending a lot of time there.

  We talked about the lung gom training in Tibet. Kazi practiced it for five years. Involves breathing, control of prana, and assumption of extraordinary powers. Then the conversation wandered around to Pierre Janet’s idea of a “paleoscope” by which we would recover levels of the primordial past. There have been premonitions of our venture for a long, long time, in the strangest places. Kazi said two things make it unique, however: J’s peculiar genius for “taking his body apart and putting it back together again!” and the access we have to the discoveries of Western science and psychotherapy through Simon Horowitz, Corinne and others. We talked about the marriage of “objective” and “subjective” biology, the complementarity of the animan siddhi and electron microscope. Am amazed at Kazi’s knowledge of Western science. There is a tough complex intelligence behind that ragamuffin exterior—and a sense of vistas, as if he carries the atmosphere of the high Tibetan country. His toughness and perspective will serve us well in the months to come.

  August 15

  What is the entity that approaches me in sleep? Last night again. No doubt that it is the same presence. Someone is reaching out to me when the doors of dream are open. I am closed to it during the waking hours, though.

  A sunny day. Faint mist on the hills. Dozens of white sails between here and Tiburon. San Francisco is a new Tibet. The vitality of the quest grows each year. Disciplines for everyone, new gurus every week. A psychic field is being built here—a culture to support this exploration.

  Today, at approximately 4:00 p.m., the adventure began.

  Three aspects of it, he said: (1) Play, contemplation and adventure. (2) Joining the network of forces that are opening up the world. (3) Venturing to the level of primordial matter, into the heart of the sun.

  These two aspects, like the Western and Eastern symbols of eternity—one linear, the other circular. Part of me senses the relentless beat at the heart of things, the drums of the march, all of us headed toward some mysterious consummation. But there is also the sense that we are going nowhere. Being is so rich. On a day like this, who needs to go anywhere.

  Yet the experiment begins.

  Why go with them when there is already this sense of completion?

  Because I want to. How can I resist this incredible event?

  August 16

  Second day. Corinne, Kazi, Jacob and I at Telegraph Place. Quiet concentration. Nothing special I could sense. Left before lunch.

  J. is forgoing all vigorous physical exercise, including running, in order to concentrate his energies. “By capping the geyser,” he said, “you can build up pressure to break the barriers with.” Kazi says there is a Tantric discipline that uses this kind of deliberate suppression.

  Evening. Jacob’s one comment this afternoon: “The fact that biologists are working seriously, both theoretically and experimentally, on the reversal of the aging process, suggests that the general level of man’s imagination and spirit is approaching the point where death may be challenged.”

  There will be a marriage of ordinary science and ventures like ours, we all agree. It is an enormous help to have Horowitz with us. But this marriage has been happening for centuries. Reading Henri Poincaire’s essay on scientific discovery I can see that. When Kekule discovered the benzene ring in his extraordinary dream, wasn’t he touching on something like Jacob’s second sight? Or Poincaire himself in the experiences he tells us about? Kekule had a glimmer o
f the animan siddhi. It is only a couple of steps from his experience to the research with Raymond Reant and others into the “clairvoyant perception of atomic structure.” It may take more gifts and practice though to go from there to Atahet country.

  A greater mysticism is emerging, a mysticism that reaches into the earth. The intelligence for it is gathering, forming nerveways everywhere. Science and the modern movement in art, literature and philosophy help, by combining criticism of the old order with an exploring sensibility. They prepare the way for this adventure.

  August 17

  9:00 a.m. Last night it began to reveal itself. At first there was the familiar feeling, the sense of that urgent, needy presence trying to get through to me, and I was able to remain steady while it came into focus. Then, in the center of it, a pinpoint of light appeared and began to emit a steady pulse. I thought my head would burst. When it seemed that the pressure would explode, the pulsing stopped and the entity withdrew. This is the closest it has come. I am sure that it is not a part of my immediate unconscious world.

  The most I get from re-enacting this “dream” is the sense that the entity is the Jiva, the root of the soul.

  The apprentice novel, especially when it deals with teacher and seeker, is an archetype of jivatman and ego in their struggle to join. Mundaka Upanishad: two birds on a limb. Jacob A. and Darwin F.

  Is this presence a messenger from the higher self? But it seems too needy, too far from self-existence. Lower than self-existence, but larger than ordinary life. And it has a definite intention.

  Evening. Third day. Still quiet concentration. Corinne gone much of the day, then back at 4:20. Exercises on the deck. A definite field gathering. More powerful now than I have felt before.

  Can see the footings of the Golden Gate bridge tonight, underneath the fog. The Bay is empty and I am free to roam these worlds.

  All day the image of Tilopa running through my mind. Kazi’s hero. “When the mind has no place to stop, the mahamudra is present.” There is no place for the mind to stop.

  11 p.m. Rapport with brother body grows each day. Images of cells and organelles, mitochondria and ribosomes are my constant companions. In this field of force and knowing around him, my body comes wide open.

  Corinne keeping a journal now. Kazi living in J.’s studio. Strange atmosphere tonight—a different kind of field around them. I feel a little outside it, though J. is intent to make me feel included all the way. He looks pale, has been indoors for three days now. All three of them silent, withdrawn.

  Again, he says he might be touching another physical world. Could this relate to the Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen effect? He is touching a place new even for him. Does the sub-cellular level branch off immediately into worlds populated with human-type entities? Is the “astral plane” a misrepresentation of other physical worlds? Are there actually all these subtle sheaths, five koshas, etc.? He wonders if there is a continuum of energy and form instead, shading off into other realms, many of which are attached to physical places, other solar systems or galaxies.

  But there is definitely something like an angelic order, he thinks, “worlds closer to the light.” More advanced civilizations? His discipline is to hold awareness at these levels within the deepest stillness.

  All the old maps are incomplete. He and Kazi take nothing on faith. Kazi amazes me, he is so free from Buddhist and occult dogma. J. couldn’t do this without him.

  August 18

  His openness to questions encourages me to expose my confusions and doubts. Today I asked him to tell me as precisely as he could what he means when he says that “all time is remembered in the body.”

  It is a simple idea, he said, an extension of the idea that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny—but down to the level of molecules, atoms and fundamental physical forces. There is a memory in the human body, however dim, of the main stages our universe has come through. “I say ‘we’,” he said. “Because this Self, the One, the Sea of Monads, comprehends while It forgets. It/we are the experiencer and the experienced. “

  His own remembering began in childhood, at first through images like that tower of spirals—then it would not stop. Siddhis-for-the-descent were constantly pressing to be used, interior microscopes and platforms for landings in the reaches of inner space. It has not been an orderly process though: he has circled and wandered through these levels for 24 years. But this winter and spring he achieved a new opening to the elemental worlds. Now he is trying to descend to the level of the “primordial event, into the light at the day of creation.”

  But remembering the First Day!? Would that mean coming in contact with the universal background radiation left over from the big bang?

  “That’s only 2.7 degrees Kelvin,” he said. “This is much hotter than that! The One is our basecamp though, or better to say it is our ultimate rheostat, maintaining life in this body as we press closer to the memory of the original sun.”

  Then he said that these formulations were less important than the “phenomenology of it, the living experience.” For we have to remember that present cosmologies—whether big bang, steady state or other—are subject to revision. But such revisions would not affect this enterprise. We will remember our world’s story, whatever that story turns out to be.

  That’s why we need all the scriptures and therapeutic records and the reason for keeping accounts of this experiment. “The human race,” he said, “has been flirting with this adventure for a long, long time. To accomplish it, we need all the help we can get.”

  Noon. This world would have us live at every level. It is the joining place. Survival and meeting demand the dance, and endless refocus.

  How apt the phrase, “out of my mind.” Out of one mind. We must live in this forest of symbols with all our wit and senses. Fear reminds us that we have forgotten who the world is. Enlightenment and incarnation/two goals in one.

  Today his hands were filled with light. It lasted all morning. Luminous stigmata. We are wounded with this new life.

  Amazing we have waited so long for these changes. The old mystics were caught in the hypnosis of their times.

  About eleven he moved around the deck, in a kind of slow-motion. Why this light in his hands? In the shade, a blue arc between them, a kind of rainbow.

  And walking here at twelve, an old lady with wet blue hair falling over her face. Like a blue veil. And at the top of the hill a boy sending light signals with a mirror to some friend on a rooftop below him. Synchronicities? Was it a reminder of the pulsing light from my night-mind visitor?

  Twilight. Sunset reflected from windows on the Berkeley hills. The Bay shading from silver to blue. This body filled with gentle fire. In emptiness there is nothing but surprise.

  I moved today through this body, as if it were a swarming sea. Ribosomes, mitochondria, strands of RNA filled the space I moved through. Gently, I am getting to know them. Someday, perhaps, I will assist in their slight reconstruction. Then, through a gentle nod of the head, the old code will give way to new tidings.

  No wonder he has been so intent to have me make peace with the ocean and its underwater life. On days like this I swim in even stranger seas.

  All our athletic adventures, conceivably, are preparations for this in one way or another. For one must surely fly, swim, dive and go spelunking in these depths!

  7 p.m. Sunset rays on the Bay. Reflected lights of ten cities merging in the water.

  I think he is entering a place that only a few have reached before. Kazi called it the “pradhana,” a Samkhya term for the world’s primary germ of spirit-matter. He also said that J. is “merging with the rainbow” in the ancient shamanistic and Tibetan sense. He is accomplishing thod-gyal. I will have to talk to him more about it. Midnight. A walk in the square. Russian Hill a subtle carnival of lights and swirling mist.

  God Blossoming.

  The skirling of pipes on a cobblestone street, coffee roasting, a piazza in Florence. Pondicherry. Bengal tiger skins and green fields of Somerset.
Emerald hills, glowing beneath gray clouds.

  Then an aircraft carrier gliding through the night, festooned with lights. A deadly fairy castle headed out to sea. All night the killer boats are headed toward their prey in Viet Nam.

  August 19

  Fifth day. Distinct thresholds going in, he says, and coming out. Pain at every threshold: “angels with swords of fire, turning the wheels, opening up dead places. The cells know and recognize these possibilities, and are secretly reaching for them.”

  Evolution as the cell’s groping for light. All aspiration for a fuller life carries this sense of our glory, even if it comes distorted.

  The midnight-one sent a message clearly. In a dream there were scenes from Prague—St. Stephen’s cathedral and the houses of the alchemists. Magyar? Moved into the pulsing light. Scenes of some strange city. Then a terrifying sense of suffocation. A death trap? Quicksand on the other side? Catastrophic gravitational collapse in the psyche? Or simple fear?

  We need all our wit and senses. In this voyage through, every demon might dress like an angel. Moksha before siddhi.

  Afternoon. Jacob must be careful with these long trances now, says Kazi. Can see how Vivekananda went into maha-samadhi. The death trap is a part of us: we must know what it is. Re-own every stargate.

  Subtle membranes at every threshold. In his trance they were torn. He said he could see them flapping like tattered kites! Streamers of subtle stuff all over the room. Such fragile structures we are, still built like the planes of Kitty Hawk. No wonder we can only fly a hundred yards.

  He says that maybe a change in the whole world-stuff will be needed before anyone can hold these changes. He has fasted for three days.

  Music arising? We all seemed to hear it. I am sure I heard a distant choir like Bach. It lasted for two or three minutes.

  August 21

  Seventh day. Fasting for five days now. The movements of his cells have become more pronounced.