Richard Chambers Prescott
'I am glad to receive two copies of your wonderful book
Inherent Solutions to Spiritual Obscurations. Thank you very much for sending us these valuable books.'
-Swami Sarvagatananda, The Vedanta Society of Rhode Island
'In this materialistic age, it is always good to create a spiritual vibration, either through writing or speech. What one thinks that one becomes. Your thoughts may inspire some sincere seekers in this world. May the Mother bless you.'
-Swami Chetanananda, The Vedanta Society of St. Louis, Missouri
'This will indeed be a valuable addition to our Library. We deeply appreciate the monumental work that you have done in bringing out this publication. We shall be thankful if you kindly send a copy of Inherent Solutions to Spiritual Obscurations with the new addition of a final chapter entitled 'The Ancient Method' (Ramakrishna, Janaka and the Upanishads), as and when it is published. With all my best wishes.'
-Swami Gokulananda, Ramakrishna Mission, Ramakrishna Ashrama Marg, New Delhi, India
'The book would be of great value and interest to our Library members.'
-Swami Jnanadananda, Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore
'This book will be added to our public Library. This is a good work. I hope our readers will be benefited by this book. Thank you very much for the book which you have so kindly sent to us. May the blessing of Sri Ramakrishna be on you.'
-Swami Krishnarupananda, Ramakrishna Mission, Vacoas, Mauritius, Africa
'Ample references of Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda there as I found at a casual glance gladdened me. Wish you the best from my heart.'
-Swami Jyotirupananda, Ramakrishna Society - Vedanta Centre, Moscow, Russia
'We express over appreciation and thankfulness for the same and we are sure the volumes will be very helpful to many readers.'
-Swami Jagadatmananda, Ramakrishna Mission, Singapore
'Thank you very much for the kind gift of your new book... They will be kept in our library for the use of devotees here.'
-Swami Nirmalatmananda, Ramakrishna Vedanta Ashrama, Sao Paulo, Brazil
'I gratefully acknowledge receipt of the gift mentioned below and extend to you our sincere thanks. Faithfully yours.'
-Scott Bennett, Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut
Richard Chambers Prescott is a writer and publisher of twenty books of poetry. He has had five plays published by Aran Press in Kentucky and over seventy essays and articles published from the USA to India. His essay, 'The Lamp of the Turiya,' has been translated into Dutch and published in the Amsterdam journal, Vedanta. Over the last several years, some articles and essays have been printed in Prabuddha Bharata and The New Times. The intent of his writing is to join the spiritual and psychological aspects of human nature. He has donated to the publication of a text on the woman saint, Gauri Ma. Grascott Publishing has published two books of humor by Swami Bhaskarananda, The Danger of Walking on Water and One Eyed Vision. Some of his collected essays have been published in the texts, such as, Because of Atma: Essays on Self and Empathy and the work entitled Measuring Sky Without Ground: On the Goddess Kali, Sri Ramakrishna and Human Potential. His manuscript, The Goddess and The God Man: An Explorative Study of the Intimate Relationship of the Goddess Kali with Sri Ramakrishna of Dakshineswar came later and is perhaps the crown of those creations. Then, The Mirage and the Mirror was born out of continuous pondering on the Goddess. His most recent text is Inherent Solutions to Spiritual Obscurations, which is a comparison of Tibetan Dzogchen and Indian Advaita in four parts, 'The Wonder of the Dakini Mind'' 'Letting Go and Soaring On,' 'Resolution in Pure Mind' and 'The Ancient Method.'
His early seven books of poetry, The Sage, Moonstar, Neuf Songes, The Carouse of Soma, Lions and Kings, Allah Wake Up, and Night Reaper, are on the passionate emergence, the coming forth of spiritual desire, Neuf Songes (Nine Dreams), being the crest wave of that time. Kings and Sages is a poetic sojourn through discoveries in East Indian doctrines. Three Waves is a poetic text on the transformation of tragedy into the love of life, that then becomes spirituality. The Imperishable is a collection of Tantric and Vedantic essays. The Dark Deitess is a sensitive text on the enigmatic stages of Goddess worship. Years of Wonder is a recounting of time spent in searching for the spiritual. Dream Appearances is a one-fourth of a century study and examination of the spiritual connection within the dream state. Remembrance Recognition and Return is a record of personal spiritual return to the Goddess. The seven Dragon books: Tales, Dreams, Prayers, Songs, Maker, Thoughts, and Dragon Sight: A Cremation Poem are an evolution of the creative mind culminating with the poetic affection for non-dualism and the composition of his own cremation poem. Kalee Bhava :The Goddess and Her Moods, The Skills of Kalee, Kalee: The Allayer of Sorrows and Living Sakti: Attempting Quick Knowing in Perpetual Perception and Continuous Becoming are purely expressions for the Goddess, conveying states, emotions, methods, techniques, direct insights, fresh discoveries, and a few personal spiritual ideas. Disturbing Delights: Waves of the Great Goddess are twenty-one journal volumes which are written, illustrated, and published by Mr. Prescott. Tales of Recognition is seven stories of spiritual journeys through the past and the future, death consciousness and return. Spare Advice is a short novel on the tragic comedy of two souls searching for truth. Racopa and the Rooms of Light is a play taking place in the after death condition. Hanging Baskets is a comedy about psychiatry. Writer's Block and Other Gray Matters, written with his marriage companion, S. Elisabeth Grace, is a collection of comedy drama one acts. The Resurrection of Quantum Joe is a comedy on physics. The Horse and the Carriage is a comedy on disparagement. Mr. Prescott has been published side by side with other journalists, some professors, and renunciate women and men in the text Eternal Platform by the Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama in Ramharipur, India. He has also been published in the journal text Matriarch's Way and Vitals Signs: The International Association for Near Death Studies. He has just recently had an essay entitled 'Sri Ramakrishna As Personal Companion' published in Global Vedanta. His works are in some libraries, universities and spiritual sanctuaries in the U.S.A., Europe, Russia, South America, and India. Writing has been his spiritual practice for thirty years. Including all volumes, he has over eighty published manuscripts, most of which are privately distributed. His works, of over twenty years, are now mentioned in the International Poet's Encyclopaedia, Cambridge, England. As of 1999, he is forty-seven years old and has been married for eighteen years.
The more you identify with Pure Mind the less you identify with the sleep of deep sleep, dream and waking. Pure Mind is Original Awareness never lost. Discovering the Awareness of this Original Awareness is Rigpa. Letting Go, Cutting Away or the Immediate Complete Decision to be Pure Mind is Trekchod. One may think Trekchod is an act in mind that cuts away or lets go, yet, it is more a sudden total seeing that Pure Mind has no conceptual barrier at all and You are This. Thogal is to Soar On from Here without moving from Here. Pure Mind! Trekchod and Thogal are two very deep and powerful spiritual dynamics. And Tayi (All Light) is a Step Further.
As much as Pure Mind is Ajati (Not Born), that is, the not birth in body/mind, it is also the not death of itself. The appearance of death or birth only come on or over the surface of Pure Mind which always remains in the deepest depth of Original Awareness untouched (Asparsa) by the surface appearance of death or birth. This awareness produces the feeling that the world is dreamlike, yes, but the dream feeling also must be quenched and exhausted away (Alatasanti and the fourth Thogal) and this just naturally, effortlessly happens the more Original Awareness of Pure Mind proceeds dream, dream-like feelings and appearances in general or all together.
It is no less, Pre-Sleep, Pre-Dream, Pre-Waking. Pure Mind remains the Spiritual Constant never having made the leap into the display of sleep, dream and waking. Yet ever Abiding in a somewhat divinely adjacent fashion as the Illuminator of all that goes on in the display. Yet its thought is not dualistic in this adjacent description. Its Sight is Non Dual Sight. A Great Oneness if you would. You may think of this Great Oneness as Immense Mind or Universal I-ness (the Bhavamukha of Sri Ramakrishna) but it is Not a cosmic state of I-ness in conceptuality for you See, it is nothing less than Pure Mind free of all conceptuality which has apparently taken the form of an appearance of an Immense I-ness!
Losing oneself in the Immensity of Great Wondrous I-ness can and most certainly is a pleasure. Yet this spiritual pleasure may simply be a way of continuing the display mind. Not then exhausting pleasure, though spiritual, into Natural Great Bliss (Dakini's Sahaja Maha Sukha) in Original Pure Mind! If one presumes immensity forgetting Pure Mind that is simply arrogance which is nothing less than presumption itself. The antidote is Humility which in its Genuine Depth is not presumptuous in the least. Then Surrender spontaneously comes in the Soaring On (Thogal). Here, in this context, Trekchod is the Cutting Away of all presumption of ego's conceptuality of its self importance within duality. When this is so, Pure Mind or the Energy (Sakti) of Pure Mind which is as it was said a moment ago, to be the Abiding Spiritual Constant, is Seen and Realized to be the best spiritual friend, guide, teacher and illuminator. If you have become sensitively aware of Pure Mind and then arrogance about it arises, that presuming self feeling will in fact make you feel unwell. When Humility is restored the unwell feeling will disperse.
When it comes to teachers who believe that they have learned every thing there is to learn and have presumed that thought to be their self reality, you will find that teacher is not a very good one. There are severe problems and there are blessings with all teachers in history. It is the hope for the Perfect in the imperfect. And for just that reason it should be clear that Pure Mind is the best teacher and is the teacher no less, of even the very best of the good teachers. Though from Pure Mind viewpoint there is no teaching, teacher or taught. It is only from the imagined dreamlike conceptuality of the taught that the appearance of a teaching and/or teacher appears. A teacher too should see this way in regard to the teacher's teaching itself. Develop this Attitude Now, because once you attain the Dignity of Enlightenment that will be your Attitude then! For the real meaning of the teacher/elder/mentor is that they are Knowledge holders in the Continuance of the Tradition in Human Heritage for the living, so that Wisdom follows on and does not disappear with their death. So this Wisdom is handed down to the next generation. To worship them is Insanity. To have Loving Respect and Honor for them is True Humanity! To Know Pure Mind is to be a Real Human who has Awakened from the Sleep! And it is Pure Mind alone that should be worshiped, if you must make a dualistic separation where alone any kind of worship is a possibility.
What Ramakrishna said, 'Sometimes I say to myself in the Kali temple, 'O Mother, the mind is nothing but Yourself.' Therefore Pure Mind, Pure Buddhi, and Pure Atman are one and the same thing.' This is the inspiration for this elaborate explanation of Pure Mind to myself. It was on Friday, December 21, 1883 that Sri Ramakrishna was telling M. 'many secrets of spiritual discipline' when he said 'that the mind at times becomes one's guru.' This great Truth is conveyed to even a further depth when Ramakrishna says, 'It is the mind that becomes at last the spiritual teacher and acts as such.' Pure Mind is Ubiquitous whether body/mind is in New York, Chimphu or Dakshineswar. Whether you are a great non-dualist like Gaudapada, a great Dzogchenist like Garab Dorje or a great awakened poet like Walt Whitman, this Pure Mind is the Unchanging Reality.
