The cosmic game : explorations of the frontiers of human consciousness PDF
Preview The cosmic game : explorations of the frontiers of human consciousness
The Cosmic Game SUNY Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology Richard D. Mann, editor The Cosmic Game Explorations of the Frontiers of Human Consciousness Stanislav Grof Disclaimer: This book contains characters with diacritics. When the characters can be represented using the ISO 8859-1 character set, (http://www.w3.org/TR/images/latin1.gif) netLibrary will represent them as they appear in the original text, and most computers will be able to show the full characters correctly. In order to keep the text searchable and readable on most computers, characters with diacritics that are not part of the ISO 8859-1 list will be represented without their diacritical marks. Cover Illustration : Plate 48 from Rawson, Philip, Tantra: The Indian Cult of Ecstasy, (London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd, 1973). Copyright © Thames & Hudson. Used by permission. From the Collection of Ajit Mookerjee, New Delhi. Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 1998 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246 Production by Marilyn P. Semerad Marketing by Dana E. Yanulavich Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Grof, Stanislav, 1931– The cosmic game : explorations of the frontiers of human consciousness / Stanislav Grof. p. cm. — (SUNY series in transpersonal and humanistic psychology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-3875-9 (hardcover : alk. paper). — ISBN 0-7914-3876-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Spiritual life. 2. Altered states of consciousness. I. Title. II. Series. BL625.G697 1998 200’.1’9—dc21 97-41502 CIP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. Cosmos, Consciousness, and Spirit 3. The Cosmic Creative Principle 4. The Process of Creation 5. The Ways to Reunion with the Cosmic Source 6. The Problem of Good and Evil 7. Birth, Sex, and Death: The Cosmic Connection 8. The Mystery of Karma and Reincarnation 9. The Taboo against Knowing Who You Are 10. Playing the Cosmic Game 11. The Sacred and the Profane Bibliography Index Experiential Holotropic Breathwork Workshops and Training for Facilitators Those readers who are interested in a personal experience of the Holotropic Breathwork or would like to participate in a training program for Holotropic Breathwork facilitators can obtain the necessary information from: Cary Sparks Director Grof Transpersonal Training 20 Sunnyside Ave, #A 314 Mill Valley, California 94941 tel.: (415) 383-8779 fax.: (415) 383-0965 e-mail: [email protected] website: www.holotropic.com List of Illustrations Figure 1. Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca Figure 2. Purushakara Yantra Figure 3. The Hermetic Cosmic Man Figure 4. Adam Kadmon Figure 5. The Tibetan Wheel of Life Figure 6. The Sorcerer of Les Trois Frères Figure 7. Beast Master from Les Trois Frères Figure 8. Hunting Scene from Lascaux Figure 9. The Dancer from La Gabillou Acknowledgments This book is an attempt to summarize the philosophical and spiritual insights from forty years of my personal and professional journey that involved exploration of uncharted frontiers of the human psyche. It has been a complex, difficult, and at times challenging pilgrimage that I could not have undertaken alone. Over the years, I have received invaluable help, inspiration, and encouragement from many people. Some of them have been my close friends, others important teachers, and most of them have played an important part in my life in both roles. I cannot acknowledge all of them individually, but some of them deserve special notice. Angeles Arrien, an anthropologist and daughter of a “vision maker”—a spiritual teacher from the Basque mystical tradition—has been for many years a true friend and an important teacher. Drawing on forty years of her spiritual training, she has been a living example of how to integrate the feminine and masculine aspects of one’s psyche and how to “walk the mystical path with practical feet.” Gregory Bateson, an original and seminal thinker, with whom I had the privilege of spending hundreds of hours in personal and professional discussions during the two and half years when we were both scholars-in-residence at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, was for me an important teacher and a special friend. In our talks, he never wholeheartedly embraced the mystical realm. However, the relentless logic of his inquisititive mind produced an incisive critique of mechanistic thinking in science that provided a large opening for the transpersonal vision. David Bohm’s work has been one of the most important contributions to my efforts to establish connections between my own findings concerning the nature and dimensions of human consciousness, on the one hand, and the scientific worldview, on the other. I found his holographic model of the universe invaluable for my own theoretical formulations. The fact that Karl Pribram’s model of the brain is also based on holographic principles has been particularly important for this bridging work.
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