Observations placeholder
Lilly, John - The atman
Identifier
014577
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
John Lilly: Altered States Interview with John Lilly by Judith Hooper
Jan 1983 Omni Magazine
My experiences have convinced me that Eastern yoga philosophy is right: that there is a purusha or atman [immortal soul] for each person -- one for the planet, one for the galaxy, and so on.
As mathematician/philosopher Franklin Merrell-Wolff says in his book The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object, consciousness was first -- before the void even. When consciousness got bored and turned in upon itself, becoming conscious of itself, creation began. He/she/it created time, space, energy, matter, male, female -- the whole tableau. It all got so complicated that sneaky things may go on beyond its ken.
If you get into these spaces at all, you must forget about them when you come back. You must forget you're omnipotent and omniscient and take the game seriously so you'll engage in sex, have children, and participate in the whole human scenario.
When you come back from a deep LSD trip or a K trip -- or coma or psychosis -- there's always this extraterrestrial feeling. You have to read the directions in the glove compartment so you can run the human vehicle once more.
After I first took acid in the tank and traveled to distant dimensions, I cried when I came back and found myself trapped in a body.
I didn't even know whose body it was at first.
It was the sadness of reentry.
I felt squashed.