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#3168 - Friday, May 16, 2008 - Editor: Jerry Katz

Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights 

photo: Timothy Leary "The eye with which I see God...photo: Tony Parsons ...is the same eye with which God sees me." Meister Eckhart

Drop out, tune in, turn on: Tony vs Tim

"Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Did Timothy Leary have it backwards?

The following is from the Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_on,_tune_in,_drop_out:

“Turn on, tune in, drop out” is a counterculture phrase coined by Timothy Leary in the 1960s. The phrase came to him in the shower one day after Marshall McLuhan suggested to Leary that he come up with “something snappy” to promote the benefits of LSD. It is an excerpt from a prepared speech he delivered at the opening of a press conference in New York City on September 19, 1966. This phrase urged people to initiate cultural changes through the use of psychedelics and by detaching themselves from the existing conventions and hierarchies in society. The phrase was derided by more conservative critics.

“The phrase is derived from this part of Leary’s speech: ‘Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present — turn on, tune in, drop out.’”

Now consider what nondualist Tony Parson invites. The following was posted to the Nonduality Highlights:

“Drop asking ‘why’ and simply become totally involved in the absolutely wonderful miracle of life just as it is, right here, right now. Can you not see that whatever has just happened for you at this moment has never happened before and will never happen again? It is totally unique and fresh and innocent, and it is here and then it isn’t. Isn’t that just great?”

Seems like Tony is saying first to drop out: “Drop asking why…”

Then he’s suggesting you “see” the moment for what it is, or tune in. "Can you not see...?"

Finally he asks you to value the moment to be turned on to the moment. "Isn't that just great?"

Using Leary’s terms, those three invitations might be re-phrased as, “Drop out, tune in, turn on,” the reverse of what Leary declared.

Dropping out is the main step. It means to stand free of the thousands of trances that compete for your mental space.

Then you will be able to tune in or “see.” See what? God, creation, the structure of reality.

Finally, when you value this seeing, you will turn on, which means to naturally express it (perhaps silently, perhaps through some creative effort), send it forth, cast the light of it in all directions, emit the perfume, turn-on the world, whichever metaphor you prefer.

To walk on Nonduality Street, rather than Psychedelic Boulevard, discriminate. If a practice or a person makes you feel high or blissful, you are turning on. If in the presence of a person or practice you see the futility of everything, that “all is vanity,” then you are dropping out.

Dropping out is only the beginning. Often fear sets in and one settles for a glimpse of the freed mind, which is better than not having had a glimpse.

Remember the chant of the nonduality generation: Drop out, tune in, turn on. Or does hearing it put you in a feel good trance? Well, no one ever said there’s a winner in the nonduality game.

-Jerry Katz

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