5 Quotes & Sayings By John C Lilly

John C. Lilly (1917-2001) was a pioneer in the field of consciousness studies and an expert in the fields of neurophysiology, artificial intelligence, and human behavior. He was a leading figure in dolphin research and psychotherapy, and began his career as a researcher at Harvard University. He later founded the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) and the NIMH Research Center (NRC) at the University of California at San Francisco Read more

1
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
2
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. . John C. Lilly
3
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
4
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. John C. Lilly