Robert A. Monroe Talks - From the Deck of the Gatehouse

Bob Monroe from the deck of the Gatehouse (Transcript) So welcome to the deck of the gatehouse, now get comfortable. Get my cup of coffee. It's early in the morning and I'm just a little bit to the right of you; early is a relative term. Hear the birds and the woodpeckers and the cars going by, people going to work. They will pass by on the road about 800 feet away from you to give you an idea of the sensitivity of the system we're working with. The back of the gatehouse overlooks the foothills of the Blue Ridge and is truly a gatehouse...with my favorite place in early morning... that is in the summer. It gets a little cold out here in midwinter. That truck that you hear there is a mile away to give you an idea. It's just part of the sensitivity of these very special type of microphones that we're using and I have my cup of coffee. One of the things that always impresses me being out in the morning here is that- I see thousands upon thousands of trees. I see thousands upon thousands, perhaps, that are said millions of different types of life, plant life, tree life and to me there is a great coherency in the design of it. Each seems to fit into its own place in a pattern. As I look at this mixture of air, water, plants, still life, animate life, I come inescapably to the conclusion that somebody had something to do with all of this. My -I guess my mechanical part can't possibly admit that it just happened by accident. Where all of these trees are in direct symbiotic relationship with me. Because those trees take what I don't need and give off what I do need and so, I'm very very friendly with these trees. And also, a tree has a lot of smarts to it. How does a tree know to come exactly plumb line up from the center of the earth? The -that is left to its own designed. Of course, in competition for other trees it may -grow up a little crooked or heavy, constant winds from one direction and will make it bend but its basic desire is to move upward on a very, very straight of line. That's an illustration, nice neat design to make a tree be balanced. And the tree has to have me and I have to have the tree but I suspect I need the tree more than the tree needs me. Also, I suspect there are more trees. So, this ambience under which we live as a part of the learning process, to recognize that we really are a part of that ambience, instead of something totally alien. And I suppose, we are the crowning peak we hope and we like to think of this biologic activity here, we're the kingpin we're the dominant species. And I suppose as the dominant species, we have responsibilities that we don't even truly perceive as yet. The dominant species can either nurture or destroy. A bobwhite you hear in the distances, the quail and there are quite a few quail in this part of the world, a bird actually, that likes to walk more than it flies. So therefore, if you come upon it slowly it'll run in front of you till finally it has to fly, if you start running. On the other hand, if you come upon it when it's out in the field and it's in a nest or something like that, it'll suddenly take off and fly. Because there's no really place to run at that stage and quail is a gamebird. People go quail hunting. So, albeit if this is a school, under which all sentiment life learns in one form or another. Oh, what do we learn? How do we learn? And I suspect the answer begins, first of all, with a definition of different types of learning but what is the process? What is the graph? What is the chart line? First of all, it seems to me that when we're born, we're born in a- what is supposedly a total state of innocence. And that is innocence- innocence means that you have no basic experience in physical life in which to begin to gauge your actions. A supreme illustration, perhaps, a cause and effect law, or a department thereof at work, and so, as you gather experience beginning with a little newborn-newborn baby, gathering experience infers the increasing application of cause and effect on the graph on the line to total adulthood and total adulthood would infer total responsibility for the authoritative acts that you take. Adulthood being of course an ideal, that one can never reaches adulthood. So somewhere early in your life you learn if you touch the fingers to a hot stove, your fingers burn, touch stove -burn, cause and effect; and so therefore, you pick up the responsibility for the act that you perform in touching your fingers to the stove. You learn that you must be responsible because mommy can't be there all the time to prevent you from touching the stove. So you have learned cause and effect you picked up your own authority as to touch stove or not touch stove and one's life pattern continues along that way. So, labeling adulthood as a measurement along the line of how much authority, responsibility you have assumed in your life. Adulthood, one of the goals, I suppose, of this learning process, hmm-sip of coffee will be nice.... and what would be a second part of this learning process? Well, having started with a blind slate ..and here comes a car... that car is 800 feet away.. just to give you an idea of the dimensionality of this type of sound. Another flow would be the road to maturity. A road to maturity and how would we define maturity as against the road, our path as it were, up to adulthood. I suspect that the road to maturity and the degree of a maturity that you achieve, that you obtain might well be measured by the number and quality of illusions that you have discarded. The illusions that you have discarded not ones that have been taken away from you that you have arrived by disillusion with those you have deliberately released, or come upon the reality of what it is...measured along the road to maturity, measured along the big road on which the mileage markers are the number of illusions that you have discarded. And I gather that somewhere close to total maturity is an ultimate illusion that you have to release. Might be interesting to sit down and think about what is your ultimate illusion. Think about that once in a while and determine what it might be the ultimate illusion. The one just before you get to that total condition of maturity. Then we have a third track in this whole pattern of learning that is so important to the process of being here; and that one, I suppose, would be properly defined as wisdom. And how do we get wisdom-wisdom? I like to think of wisdom as being measured upon your actions, your thoughts, your doing and being as a result of the release of illusions; conceivably, a vacuum exists and you in turn will fill that vacuum. How do you fill that vacuum? What do you do? Wisdom is composed of the material, the being, the thought that you use to fill that vacuum left by the illusions. And then there's a final mix of all three of these and all of this could naturally be graphed by some good guy with a flip chart or even a computer. And that superhighway could be graphed by indicating the averaging of all three of these, the path to adulthood, the road to the whole end of maturity and the third one to wisdom and put all three of them together and it would give a nice measurement system to indicate our degree of growth. How much we have, quote, grown since our inculcation into this particular training school. Growth.. growing into what, into where, into why? Of course, that's the most interesting part of all is growth to what end for what purpose? Know that, and then of course, you know the reason for this school. The school that you entered at birth. Well, all the near and distant..commuter cars, people who are... live out here in the foothills, the Blue Ridge and in turn, drive to work somewhere probably up the road to Charlottesville, or down to Lynchburg, or even over the Blue Ridge into Waynesboro. They go to begin another day of learning...and so do I. I don't have to get in a car and go all I have to do is move into the office, as it were, and begin my day...change hats so to speak. So, I will not use ole' Lowell Thomas's, "So long for now," but possibly take a deep breath, and move out of 10, and back to 1, but I'll see you in 12. edited by Joyce Wahlberg