AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD Containing some suggestions as to the right method of reading Gurdjieffs Beelzebub's

Tales to His Grandson by Louise March It is the peculiarity of this text, as of all so-called secret texts, that its inner teaching can be understood only by practice, like a medicine which proves its usefulness only by being taken. Therefore, this introduction may indicate a method of approach to the book whereby the reader or listener can make profitable use of it. Since this teaching is to travel "by the path of the ear" into your inner self, your outer self should be put aside as if it were dead. As in death, the attention is drawn away from the physical body to a new focal point, so here, the chief aim of the text is to uproot man from his outer world and to awaken his real consciousness. When the body "holds still" for the first time, unhindered by the usual habitual associations and desires, the consciousness, or "Knower" has the opportunity, in a sudden flash, to see itself as it were from within, to be able to weigh itself as to its own worth. This great "shock" is the first and best opportunity for it to take hold of itself and to attain what the text calls "liberation." But in most cases the "consciousness" is too weak to look death in the face. It falls into a "swoon" from which it "wakes" as though in dream only after three and a half days. Throngs of godsboth peaceful and terrible dawn on the "dead one." They impress and confuse his senses, blind and beset him with ever-new forms of light and terror. The text is a faithful guide each step of the way. It calls the pursuing forms by name, describes their qualities, retards their speed by descriptions, binds them fast with prayers. In short, it becomes the saving interrupter, telling the pursued what these figures actually area kaleidoscope of his own ideas and impulses. They are not independent entities outside of him of which he needs to be afraid; they are only reflexes of his own thoughts and feelings. The whole life, seeming finished at death, passes over into the dream world of straying bits and scraps of consciousness. The "dead one" sees his friends and relatives and calls to them but is unheard, which makes him suffer dreadfully. He sees his possessions used, and misused, by others which greatly upsets him. He goes back again and again to his lost body and finally longs for a new one. He is driven hither and thither, falls into deep depressions, and can change nothing. He has the same reactions as in life, nothing but reactions, where it is action alone which could save him. The text is constantly advising him to take this stepthe step away from himself, away from the sympathies and antipathies which direct him, away from the bonds of habits and inclinations. This first step is "to learn to listen," to wish to listen, to wish to drop the chaos in oneself in the same way that we drop the body at physical death. This step means that we will not interfere any longer, will not change anything (in the beginning not even ourselves); that we will not quarrel; that we have no opinion to insist upon; that we will not translate what we hear into our automatic daily languagewhich would be equal to letting it go out the other ear. This step means that one stays quietly apart from the multitudinous army of attacking thoughts and feelings and physical associations. To be able to listen is a most difficult task, even if most Westerners do not wish to believe this. The Chinese sage, Lu-bu-ve, wrote, "All people need a certain training of the mind before they understand how to listen rightly. He who lacks this training must acquire it by learning. It has never occurred in the past or present that anyone has been able to listen rightly without learning." The different Yoga systems teach this, each in its own way. This teaching is adapted to the different human types, but at the same time is based on laws as exact as mathematics. To be able to listen is to be able to put aside one's "own" opinion, to be able to empty oneself of the subjective world so that there may be room to take in another. It is well known that no one has been able really to understand, or rather, to practice Yoga without a teacher. This book refers the dying one to his teacher and is the "reminder" of the guru's teaching.

However, it goes beyond this and can be especially useful for modern man in that the text, itself, takes over the role of the teacher for the one who has not had a teacher before. It can do this because it prescribes the means on which all Yoga systems are basedthe path which alone leads to the goal. For this reason the Bardo Thodol calls itself the "essence of all teachings" and calls them blessed who meet with it. The Bardo Thodol is a supremely patient and forbearing teacher, one that again and again, in various ways, tries to bring the one who is wandering in the labyrinth of his own hell, heaven, and earth to selfliberation in this intermediary state after death. In principle, liberation can take place as soon as identification of the consciousness with illusory happenings and illusory selves is interrupted; or, more positively, when there is created in us that observer who watches our automatic thinking, feeling, and sensing. In practice, liberation is possible at any step, depending on the inner data and peculiarities of each individual. This is why the admonitions of the text fall on the right soil with different people at different times. When this happens, the person who is being "set face to face with reality" at every step, is finally able to recognize itthat is, himself. Liberation is attained when, through impartial selfobservation, self-knowledge is achieved. The Bardo Thodol means literally "liberation through listening in the intermediate state." By intermediate state is meant that long uncertain stretch between death and birth, the chain of self-deception when the being is led astray by "imposters." These "imposters" are the unrecognized contents of consciousness, the deceptions of one's own nature which the various religious systems name egoism, jealousy, hate, avarice, ambition, etc. Buddhism also includes stupidity and insensitivity on this list and Christ speaks of the lame, the halt, and the blind. Those whose ears have not yet opened are "blown hither and thither by the wind of Karma" in the intermediate state. They remain in this state for endless time and do not even recognize death when it happens to them. Those who have ears to hear bring this intermediary state to an end. They draw together in themselves the two imaginary limits of birth and death, so that the line becomes a point, and time, eternity. It is impossible to foresee what the one who has learned to listen finally attains. What enters into us by "the path of the ear" goes into the secret chamber from which nothing goes out again, and is crystallized there into the master who regulates all our thinking, speaking and acting. In order to beginwhich is very difficultone should try to approach this text as a pupil comes to his teacher with a question that is important but has nothing to do with the questions of daily life. It is better still to approach it with the dawning awareness of one's own nothingness which, in spite of everything, we believe ourselves capable of changing. (Goethe says, "You think you push, but in reality you are pushed.") Or to approach it with the desire, free of curiosity, for real knowledge. It should be added that for right listening, a capacity for patient waiting is essential just as it is for right questioning, when one remembers the story of the Grail. For those who wish to make use of opportunities, there are many in this book. Try, for instance, simply to accept the at first strange unknown Tibetan or Sanskrit names as the unknown quantity in a mathematical equation, without immediately looking up an outer explanation of them in an encyclopedia. Above all, in reading this book, acceptance is essentialacceptance perhaps of its apparent digressions, or repetitions, or of certain, (perhaps) weak philosophical passages. In these, worn thin over the course of years or translations, one cannot always clearly sense the bloodstream of the text. However, these passages seem intentionally to dull or dampen the reader so that the next impression will strike surer and deeper. One should refrain from making oneself a judge of this book, but rather use it as a helper for oneself. Then it might be that one could experience what is said in The Secret of the Golden Flower: "The hen is able to hatch her eggs because her heart always listens."