Ep. 6 Miasmas of the Mind

More wisdom from the great bouffant-haired philosopher of the ditches and dairy yards. The Doctor Who of West Kerry

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Fáilte romhaibh go léír. Welcome chuign an eagrán seo, to another edition of the bog Shaman Manchán on Moriarty. This time around, we're going to explore miasmas of the mind. Make Believe versus reality, counter versus altar, which are Irish words for this dimension and those beyond, though, be aware, like for Moriarty, there's very little fixed reality to be found anywhere. It's gossamer thin at the best of times, we all somehow wander down into this thing called the world to know we existed in the Divine, and we wandered out of the Divine. And at the edge of the world, we became totally enchanted by it, and we forgot altogether like that we have a divine source, or that we had come from God like and we've been wandering in this world for incarnation after incarnation after incarnation, totally enchanted by it. The world we walked into is a mirage, like it's a desert mirage. We think it's a lake. We think it's a city, you know, but it's actually a mirage that we walked into. And we are, we believe the Mirage is real, and we are totally mesmerized by the Mirage, and enchanted by the Mirage, and charmed by the Mirage. We are in a state of radical illusion, of rooted illusion. You're listening, by the way, to the first ever John Moriarty podcast in the history of mankind. It's called, as I said, the bog Shaman monriarty, because it's mission monochron Magan, that's that's me. If you like it. Check out the almanac of Ireland, which is my official, legit podcast with RTE Ireland's beleaguered, but still beloved national broadcaster. This bog shaman thing is just a bit I'm on the side a wayward detour through the mire of moriarty's meandering mind that I'm doing with the great help and production and editing of the hero that is Ronan Coleman. On we go. There's another Hindu story also that I will tell much shorter. It is a man in his rice fields again all day. And no, I'm not going to tell you anything about the first story. You don't get everything for free in this world, you know, if you're so keen on hearing it, go out and buy the CD box set or the digital download. These were put together with great trouble and a degree of expense by a generous sold Dingle man named browndon or Brendan and a scientist named Gary who was working for MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the time, it was he who arranged Prometheus and the dolphin, a Moriarty lecture that you can find on YouTube, and it's thanks to the fact that he recorded it surreptitiously, as in, without MIT knowing that we can see it now. So don't start quibbling about the quality. It's pure bootleg material, pompaling, govincha, eguin in E we're lucky to really have it anyway. Let's get back to John's second, shorter Hindu story. It is a man in his rice fields again all day, and at evening time, the sun is sinking that little bit lower. He is ready to go home, and the dust of this world is on him, and he is tired, and there's a couple of hills that he has to climb on the way, but he knows that when he climbs a second hill, he will look down and see his house, and then we smoke from his chimney, and he'll know that his children will be running out to meet him, and there will be a meal ready for him, and he will have In the shade away even from the sun, and it would be lovely to be back with his family again. But as he's walking towards the second 10 suddenly he sees on the road beside him, he sees a snake on the side of the road coiled there on the side of the rope, and he leaps back and leaps back and leaps back again, terrified, and he's frightened almost to open his eyes in case the snake has bitten him. He tries to imagine his old body and experience his whole body has the snake somehow bitten me. Finally, he opens his eyes and sees, no, it wasn't a snake coiled on the side of the rope the road at all. It was just a coil of rope that was there on the side of the road. You hardly need much commentary on that little tale. Do you it's kind of self evident, yeah, though Moriarty does go on to break it down for us, just in case we've forgotten entirely how to interpret a parable in these in these godless, mittless days. Now, he refers again to the two parables. And as I said, I don't want any of you complaining about the fact that we are only getting one of them here. Now, those two parables underlie, in a sense, the whole Hindu perception. They are the Hindu diagnosis. In short, they are the Hindu diagnosis of what ails us that the second man walking home with. Icefield, he saw a coil of rope on the side of the road, and what he did was he projected a snake into it, and he became terrified of the snake and leaped backwards three times from the snake he had projected into it. Now a Hindu will say that is mind. The great question that Hindus and Buddhists ask all the time is, what is the nature of the human mind? Like ever before you ask, is there a god? The first religious question that you should really ask, in a sense, is, what is the nature of the human mind? Instead of asking the question, you have to ask a question about the nature of the mind that is asking the question, you know, and the Hindu diagnosis is that the mind projects a snake into the rope. We project a world into divine ground. What exists is the rope, in other words, now that rope is, if you like, divine ground, and we don't very often experience that divine ground. What we experience is the water we project into it. So what you have to do to get well, if you're a Hindu or Buddh, and follow the Hindu or the Buddhist way, is to de superimpose the snake you've projected into the rope, like you have superimposed the snake and rope. Now you must de superimpose the snake projected into the rope. We have superimposed

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a world

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onto divine ground. And what we must do now is de superimpose that world so that the world doesn't stand between us and divine ground. Does this stand? Does this strike you as outlandish or frightful or terrible? But they are literally saying that the world is the world illusion, that the world is Maya I lead and love this man like we need to de superimpose our minds from reality. It's such a gorgeously trippy concept. It's like he also often says we need to embrace our disbelief, escape our beliefs, and dive deep into our disbeliefs. But he's not finished. He now goes on to get us to question even the heat radiating out of a fire. In this next bit, he's like some spaced out fiqh our voodoo priest trying to get us to walk over hot coals. Ethnicia, listen up. Supposing I'm sitting in front of a fire. Now we're going into heavy philosophical country here. But supposing I'm sitting in front of a fire and my leg feels warm. Now, I can say that the fire is hot, can't I that's a hot fire. But is the fire actually hot? What the fire is, is energy, pure energy. Now when that energy hits my leg, I experience that energy hitting my leg as heat. Now, the heat is in my leg, okay, but it's not in the fire. Heat is an experience in my body or in my mind, like in my flesh, maybe, and in my central nervous system, or whatever you like to call it, mind, brain, central nervous system, heat is the sensation of that energy impinging on my leg. And I then project heat into the fire. I project my sensation, which is a sensation that I call heat, I project that back into the fire. Do you see what I am doing? I am projecting a snake into the rope. I mean the fire is the rope, and I am now projecting a snake into it. I am now projecting heat into the fire. But heat is sensation, and the fire has no sensation, so it doesn't so I am doing what this whole Hindu walking home does all the time. I'm projecting color into the rose, but the color isn't in the rose. The color is in my eye. The color is in my central nervous system, or in my mind. Now, Newton was the first, like the Hindus talk about you. We superimpose the snake on the rope, we superimpose heat on the fire. We superimpose color on the rose or on the tulip, but they are all sensations. I mean, color doesn't exist on the rose. Color is a sensation. Now, the Hindus have two words, the word ADIA ropa, which is, you superimpose the snake on the rope, that word of superimposition. And they have the word apavada, which is desuperimposing you desuperimpose The snake from the rope ADIA ropa and apavada. There you have it. I hope your minds have been suitably stretched by this piece of delicious mind yoga from the great Kerry bog cutter and Rhododendron hacker. From the barn, Stormer of ditches and the dreamer of buyers and barns. Tom harrich le Ronan Coleman, I'm incredibly grateful to Ronan Coleman for producing and editing these and to little per press, for providing me with the audio and for having published all John moriarty's books. And, of course, to the John Murray Arti dot, a the John Murty institute that is bringing together so much of this man's lore. Goody and calnella Sloan live until the next time see us all you.