Home > Author > John C. Lilly
1 " I feel that I am merely an agent, giving you some keys that have been given to me to pass on to you. These keys are to unlock doors out of your present prison. Doors opening onto new vistas. Doors beyond where you are now. "
― John C. Lilly
2 " I am not my opinion of myself, I am not anything I can describe to me. I am only a part of a large system that cannot describe itself fully; therefore, I relax and I am in the point source of consciousness, of delight, of mobility, in the inner spaces. My tasks do not include describing me nor having an opinion about the system in which I live, biological or social or dyadic. I hereby drop that "responsibility".I am much more than I can conceive or judge me to be. Any negative or positive opinions I have of me are false fronts, headlines, limited and unnecessary programmes written on a thin paper blowing about and floating around in the vastness of inner spaces. "
― John C. Lilly , The Center of the Cyclone: Looking into Inner Space
3 " You don't have to suffer continual chaos in order to grow. "
4 " In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits. These limits are to be found experientially and experimentally. When the limits are determined, it is found that they are further beliefs to be transcended. In the province of the mind, there are no limits. The body imposes definite limits. "
― John C. Lilly , The Deep Self: Consciousness Exploration in the Isolation Tank
5 " My philosophy: Don't get caught with a fixed philosophy, a setof safe beliefs, a particular way of life.Experiment! With live, with love.Run an exploration of the real and the true degrees of freedomof life, of love, of the human condition, inside self and in one'sstyle of life.Move! Into new spaces beyond one's present concepts of possible/probable/certain real spaces.Far vaster than I now know are the innermost/outermost realities.Far more interesting than I now feel are the deeps of the space, the beyond within, the infinite without.Love and loving are basic.Hostility is redundant.Fear is non-sense."Death" is a myth.I am I. "
6 " Cosmic Love is absolutely Ruthless and Highly Indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not. "
7 " As I say at the beginning of my workshops, 'Everything I say here is a lie -- bullshit, in other words -- because anything that you put in words is not experience, is not the experiment. It's a representation -- a misrepresentation. "
8 " For when it starts feeling like a prison in there—and it usually does for most people—you are confronted with the fact that the bars are of your own making. "
9 " I have explored and have voluntarily entered into domains forbidden by a large fraction of those in our culture who are not curious, are not explorative and are not mentally equipped to enter these domains. "
10 " I am a thin layer of all those beings on [samadhi level] 3, mingling, connected with one another in a spherical surface around the whole known universe. Our "backs" are to the void. We are creating energy, matter and life at the interface between the void and all known creation. We are facing into the known universe, creating it, filling it. I am one with them; spread in a thin layer around the sphere with a small, slightly greater concentration of me in one small zone. I feel the power of the galaxy pouring through me. I am following the programme, the conversion programme of void to space, to energy, to matter, to life, to consciousness, to us, the creators. From nothing on one side to the created everything on the other. I am the creation process itself, incredibly strong, incredibly powerful.This time there is no flunking out, no withdrawal, no running away, no unconsciousness, no denial, no negation, no fighting against anything. I am "one of the boys in the engine room pumping creation from the void into the known universe; from the unknown to the known I am pumping".I am coming down from level +3. There are a billion choices of where to descend back down. I am conscious down each one of the choices simultaneously. Finally I am in my own galaxy with millions of choices left, hundreds of thousands on my own solar system, tens of thousands on my own planet, hundreds in my own country and then suddenly I am down to two, one of which is this body. In this body I look back up, see the choice-tree above me that I came down.Did I, this Essence, come all the way down to this solar system, this planet, this place, this body, or does it make any difference? May not this body be a vehicle for any Essence that came into it? Are not all Essences universal, equal, anonymous, and equally able? Instructions for this vehicle are in it for each Essence to read and absorb on entry. The new pilot-navigator reads his instructions in storage and takes over, competently operating this vehicle. "
11 " Floating in the tank after a busy day’s work brings a great relief. Suddenly all of the stimulation of holding one upright against gravity disappears. One realizes that a good deal of the fatigue accumulated during the day is caused by keeping one’s body upright in a gravitational field. From a neurophysiological standpoint, one has immediately freed up very large masses of neurons from the necessity of constant computations (as to the direction of gravity, the programming by visual and acoustic inputs, by temperature changes, etcetera). For example, one’s cerebellum is now freed for uses other than balancing the body. In summary, then, "
12 " In order to become, to be, to move,Imagine leaving here, going to a cliff above the sea.Watch the seaDive into the air, down into the sea.Dive deep toward the bottom.Feel the entities in the sea, in the cool darkness, the pressure.Listen and communicate with them.They know the secret way of escape from here.Escape into other places far from this planet.Move up from the sea's depths.Slant up through the dark clod, up to the warmth.Move out of the sea's surface, into light.Travel through the earth's air space, out.Accelerate toward our star, the sun.Feel its radiance increase, its energy.This energy started, maintains us, is us.Enter the sun's flaming self, be its light,Be its energy, share the star as you.Be the sun, shining into space.Move away on its energy, become greater that this star.Spread as its light in all directions.Fill the universe with thee, be the universe.Be all the stars, the galaxies are your body.Be empty space spread self to infinity.Be the creative potential in the empty spaces.BE the potential, infinite in the absolute zero of nothing. "
― John C. Lilly , The Quiet Center: Isolation and Spirit
13 " find it essential to be able to relax completely irrespective of anything that is going on in the environment at certain times. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with an idea that I want to work out, so rather than disturb my wife, I float in the tank and work out the idea at great length and in fine detail. I am then able to put it down on paper or to dictate it in the morning. For a businessperson, a scientist, a professional of any sort, this is a boon: to be able to think, free of physical fatigue of the body. The method allows one to become free within a few minutes. "
14 " In the province of the mind, what onebelieves to be true is true or becomestrue, within certain limits to be foundexperientially and experimentally. Theselimits are further beliefs to be transcended.In the mind there are no limits. "