StrangerInTheWorldTranscript
0:01 foreign
0:09 I'm referring to a kind of experience
0:12 a kind of shall we say state of
0:14 consciousness
0:17 which seems to be as prevalent
0:21 among human beings
0:23 as measles
0:25 it's something that simply happens
0:29 and we don't know why it happens
0:32 and although there are all sorts of
0:34 techniques
0:36 which claim to be able to promote it and
0:39 which are more or less successful in
0:40 doing so and sometimes rather less than
0:42 more
0:44 nevertheless there is this peculiar
0:47 thing that happens to people
0:49 and it's been recorded
0:52 as far back in time as we have any
0:55 recording at all
0:58 and that is
0:59 [Music]
1:02 coming over people the peculiarly
1:04 convincing sensation
1:07 [Music]
1:09 that
1:10 there are ordinary sense of
1:12 individuality
1:14 personal identity
1:17 is transcended
1:21 [Music]
1:23 and the individual suddenly
1:26 feels an experience that actually it
1:29 could be described from a number of
1:31 quite different points of view
1:35 but we could add up these dominant
1:39 characteristics
1:43 that instead of the ordinary feeling
1:46 that I as an individual confront a world
1:50 that is foreign to me that is not me in
1:54 this kind of experience
1:56 I find myself to be of one and the same
2:01 nature or identity
2:04 as the world outside me
2:07 in other words I suddenly feel
2:10 no longer a stranger in the world
2:14 but as if the external world were my own
2:18 body
2:27 the next aspect of the feeling
2:32 is even more difficult
2:35 to assimilate to our ordinary practical
2:37 intelligence
2:40 but a very overwhelming feeling that
2:42 everything that happens everything I
2:45 have ever done everything anybody else
2:47 has ever done
2:49 was part of our harmonious design
2:55 that there is no error at all
2:57 [Music]
2:58 that's the sort of thing I'm referring
3:01 to
3:03 now you see I'm not talking about a
3:05 philosophy I'm not talking about a
3:07 rationalization some sort of theory that
3:12 somebody cooked up in order to explain
3:13 the world and make it seem a tolerable
3:16 place to live in
3:18 I'm talking about
3:20 a rather whimsical
3:22 unpredictable experience that suddenly
3:25 hits people
3:28 and it includes this element of feeling
3:32 the
3:33 total harmoniousness of everything
3:36 now I realize that those words
3:41 can carry with them a sort of
3:43 Sentimental Feeling and sort of
3:44 Pollyanna feeling
3:48 there are various
3:49 religions in our society today which try
3:54 to inculcate in you the belief that
3:57 everything is a harmonious Unity
4:00 you know things like Christian Science
4:02 or the unity movement and so on they
4:05 want to to make a kind of propaganda for
4:08 one to believe and through believing to
4:11 feel
4:12 that everything is harmonious
4:13 [Music]
4:16 now to my mind that is a kind of pseudo
4:19 mysticism because it's an attempt to
4:22 make the Tail Wag the Dog
4:24 [Music]
4:28 to make the
4:31 the effect produce the cause
4:36 because this sensation of things being
4:39 harmonious
4:41 they somehow never brought about
4:44 by insisting to yourself that that is so
4:47 because when you do that when you would
4:50 say to yourself all things are light all
4:54 things are God all things are beautiful
4:57 Etc
4:58 actually by doing that you're implying
5:02 that they're not
5:05 because you wouldn't be saying all the
5:06 stuff
5:08 uh
5:10 if you really knew it to be true
5:18 so
5:20 this thing the the sensation of a kind
5:23 of universal Harmony
5:26 cannot
5:28 come to us when it is sought
5:31 when we look for it as something to be
5:34 an escape from the way we actually feel
5:36 or to compensate for the way we actually
5:38 feel it's a thing that comes out of the
5:40 blue and when it comes out of the blue
5:41 just like hiccups come out of the blue
5:47 it's overwhelmingly convincing
5:51 and it it stands as actually the
5:54 foundation
5:56 for
5:57 most of Mankind's profound
6:01 philosophical mystical metaphysical and
6:05 religious ideas
6:08 [Music]
6:10 the words to whom this sort of thing has
6:12 happened
6:14 and as I said before it strikes us as
6:17 measles May strike us someone to whom
6:19 this sort of thing has happened can't
6:21 restrain himself when it has happened
6:23 and he has to get up and tell everybody
6:25 about it
6:26 [Music]
6:27 and alas he becomes the founder of a
6:30 religion
6:33 because people say
6:37 look at that man how happy he is
6:42 what conviction he has he has no doubts
6:45 he seems to be sure in everything he
6:47 does
6:48 you see that's a wonderful thing about a
6:50 great human being he's like an animal or
6:53 a flower see when a flower buds and the
6:56 bud goes pop and opens it has no
6:57 hesitation or doubts about it
7:00 are the chicken's egg breaks
7:03 flower buds there's no doubt about it at
7:05 all comes forth and so in the same way
7:08 when somebody has an experience of this
7:10 kind
7:13 he just has to tell everybody about it
7:16 [Music]
7:19 because you see he sees everybody around
7:22 him
7:24 looking dreadfully serious
7:27 looking as if they had a problem
7:32 looking as if the act of living were
7:36 extremely difficult
7:38 but from his standpoint the person who's
7:40 had this experience
7:41 he feels that they look funny
7:43 that they don't understand
7:46 that there isn't any problem at all
7:50 that he has seen from where he stands
7:56 that the meaning of being alive
8:00 is just being alive
8:03 and it's so plain and it's so obvious
8:06 and so simple
8:08 [Music]
8:10 and yet here is everybody
8:12 rushing around in a great panic
8:15 as if
8:16 it were necessary for them
8:19 to achieve something beyond all that
8:23 and the funny thing is they're not quite
8:25 sure what it is
8:27 but they are devilishly intent upon it
8:31 after that thing
8:34 and so to the person in the State of
8:37 Consciousness which I call Mystical
8:40 that all seems
8:43 very weird
8:45 very absurd
8:56 foreign
9:00 [Music]