How to Reveal the Truth of Life by Passing Straight Through Altered States of Consciousness (Part 1)

★Why we don’t pass on a systematized breathing method

Today let’s talk about why, although we recommend that you deepen your everyday breathing, we don’t pass it on to you as a systematized breathing method.

In a word, it’s “so that your consciousness doesn’t get caught up in mystical experiences like those taught in parts of yoga and other spiritual methods, and wander off onto a side road that neglects the main path—the evolution of consciousness.”

The side road we mean here, mystical experiences (including spiritual experiences), are mysterious experiences you don’t have in an ordinary state of consciousness. Once people experience them, most of them become interested in that direction, and the goal and the means get turned upside down.

If you see, hear, or feel something you’ve never seen or heard before, most people, with quite high probability, are drawn to it and their consciousness gets carried away by it, right?

When that happens, the evolution of consciousness tends to get put off.

That’s how it really goes.

The distinctive feature of our approach is that we don’t make you push yourself, so that you don’t wander onto such side roads, and within very natural, slow, relaxed breathing you grasp the essence of the evolution of consciousness before you know it.

So while we recommend constant deep breathing, we are always watching over the state of your mind and body in cooperation with your Guardian Deities and Spirits (made up of the Guardian Deity, the Guardian Spirit, sub-Guardian Spirits, guiding spirits for your profession and special skills, and so on), so that you don’t experience auditory or visual hallucinations and lose sight of the goal (the main line: the evolution of consciousness and the development of divinity).

Specifically, it is mainly your main Guardian Spirit and sub-Guardian Spirits who watch over you so that breathing differently than usual doesn’t cause abnormalities in your brain, blood flow, or nervous system and bring on auditory or visual hallucinations.

With any breathing method, if you do it in your own forced way, you may have experiences like auditory or visual hallucinations.

What’s called an altered state of consciousness.

★The demonic realm that altered consciousness brings

Aum Shinrikyo, for example, made people experience such altered states of consciousness by putting them through severe practices in closed spaces, convinced them these were signs of supernatural powers, turned their dependence into absolute loyalty, robbed them of the normal workings of reason, and moved its followers at will.

Come to think of it, there’s a story like this in the world of Buddhism.

At a certain temple, a young novice training under his master saw flashes of light—flash, flash, flash—behind his closed eyes during meditation.

So the young novice proudly reported it to his master.

“Master, I saw light behind my closed eyelids. Is this a sign of enlightenment?”

To which the master replied, “So what? That’s nothing but a demonic realm. You still need much more training.”

And at another temple, there was a monk at a Zen temple devoting himself to training under the guidance of a great Zen master.

One day, while he was in the midst of shikantaza (just sitting), with his eyes closed, he was taught the answer to a Zen riddle by a clear human voice. When he later passed it on to the great Zen master as if it were his own answer, he was severely scolded and expelled.

The great Zen master could see that the monk had been led astray by beings of the astral world and had stepped off the path.

So the great Zen master expelled him for wandering onto a side road he had never taught, and admonished him to start over from zero.

There are difficult terms like “the tranquility of nirvana,” but the state Buddhism aims for is the same as what we are telling you: a state of consciousness in which your everyday consciousness naturally has no attachments or fixations, is caught by nothing at all, has not the slightest anxiety or fear, and expresses divinity with an unshakable heart.

So being ruled by thoughts, words, and deeds that stray from that direction is, after all, not how a human being is meant to be. (To be continued next time)