now then when oriental philosophy and
religion was first introduced to the
Western world it was introduced under
the auspices of people who were
fascinated with power it was introduced
in the latter part of the 19th century
when we had heard all about evolution
and how the human race was going on to
ever greater heights and we would
eventually develop Superman according to
Nietzsche or DB Shah and HG Wells
remember all that early fantasy of where
evolution would lead through the
development of technology and so at this
time people like HP Blavatsky were
talking about the mysterious wisdom of
the east and they phrased it they
commended it to us in a technological
spirit that there was psychic technology
now there was something that you could
go way beyond anything that could be
done through the physical sciences you
could cause your physical body to
disintegrate to another level of
vibration and then transmit it and
reassemble it somewhere else you could
live as long as you like because you
control the fundamental processes you
could determine if you decided to die
where you would be reborn exactly you
will be a complete master of life and so
there are still innumerable books being
sold which present oriental philosophy
and religion in this light that
charlatan Lobsang rampa who writes about
Tibetan mastery people read that because
they think that there may be a way of
beating the game
so therefore the wise man of Asia were
represented through this kind of
propaganda as masters of life as for
example people whose emotions didn't
bother them who could put up with any
amount of pain by simply turning off
their feelings who could foretell the
future who could read your thoughts and
who were above all kinds of ordinary
human frailty well when I first met
Buddhist priests Zen masters Swami's all
these wise men from the east one of the
first things that impressed itself upon
me was that they were perfectly ordinary
human beings they had bad tempers they
were fussy about certain things they
just acted as I would expect human
beings to act and so at first I was very
disappointed I thought they had feet of
clay that they didn't come up to these
promises of psycho technology but after
a while I got to realize why not that
they had already thought all that
through their thought through what might
be done if one had all these powers and
who decided that wasn't what they
rendered the powers of this kind in
Sanskrit are called city si D DHI but
there is hardly one decent scripture or
text on yoga that does not say again and
again if you get City ignore them go
onto something else these are only the
foothills
these are furthermore not only foothills
but they are seductive blind alleys
won't take you anywhere at all
now I think that this is the greatest
possible lesson for the Western world to
learn because we are so hung up on the
idea of power of control of being able
to make everything go the right way and
if we've never thought it through when
you get control of it what are you going
to do with it
supposing I have I'm an alchemist and I
have a whole secret closet full of love
filters very potent ones if I see a
desirable woman all I have to do is to
offer her a cigarette or give her a
glass of wine with one of my secret
potions in it and instantly I'm on
master now what when I think that
through what would I do with the
situation because all I've got again is
that plastic doll that when I push it it
does what I tell it to and doesn't have
any comeback what you always are looking
for in things is where the surprise is
there where there's a combat and you say
my god this thing is alive it has a will
of its own it is not in my control and I
would like to have a relationship with
something like that because it would
never be dull
