Paul Levy, author of Dispelling Wetiko and a longtime practitioner in a Tibetan Buddhist lineage, speaks in an excerpt from Pinchbeck's Future of Consciousness online course. He explains terma, the Tibetan tradition of hidden treasures that surface through a discoverer, or terton, at the moment a lineage has grown stale or a crisis demands them, and compares the mechanism to a dream compensating for one-sidedness in the psyche. He proposes that quantum physics is a modern terma: a revelation that cannot be grasped intellectually but must be participated in, since it shows a universe that is not separate from the observer. Levy connects this to his own breakdown in his twenties, when he was hospitalized and diagnosed as mentally ill while understanding the episode as an awakening.
Guest: Paul Levy
In brief
- Levy describes terma as spiritual treasures encoded in the fabric of the universe that become visible only to the right discoverer at the moment they are needed.
- He argues that revelations characteristically emerge in periods of maximum danger, and that the current threat of collective self-destruction is such a period.
- Levy claims quantum physics functions as a modern terma, offering a participatory rather than merely intellectual response to what he calls the wetiko mind virus.
- He holds that humanity is dreaming a collective waking dream conditioned toward destruction, and that people who become lucid together can dream it differently.
- Levy recounts being hospitalized and told he would be mentally ill for life in his twenties, and credits his refusal of the psychiatric interpretation with saving him.
- He says a terma's discoverer must first do the practice the treasure contains before being able to transmit it, and that anyone can become such a discoverer through creative work.
Full text
okay now um when I was thinking this morning about oh what you know there are so many different you know with aspects of what I could share and one thing that Lit me up that I took note of is this idea the Tibetan Buddhist idea of tarma okay and I just want to explain that a little bit because it's so psycho activating so Tera it translates as hidden treasures and the way to conceive of it in Tibetan Buddhism like you know the the actual lineage that I've been doing practice in for 40 plus years it's it has to you know the the Tera tradition is how this lineage keeps itself fresh whenever the community or the practitioners get a little one-sided or stale all of a sudden one of these Hidden Treasures gets discovered whether it's with a prayer or teaching a visualization an object or and and one way think about it it's like when you have a dream and if you get one-sided in in your own life the unconscious compensates the one-sidedness and sends you a symol okay so these Tera a way to conceive of it is um that there are these hidden spiritual Treasures that will activate us that are hidden implanted in the multi-dimensional fabric of the universe and exactly at the moment when they're needed and it's a known Arch typal thing first off that you know you know the idea of that light is hidden encoded within the darkness and that it's in times of incredible danger and darkness that Revelations emerge okay and that's what I'm pointing at that we are in such an intense time a dangerous time there are so many ways that our species is actually participating in in acting Collective suicide you know and we all know that we all sense that and then the question is what do you do so what I'm pointing out is that okay there's this idea of Tera and Tibetan Buddhism and it's not a fairy tale Scholars have been studying this for years okay it's a real thing and not just in Tibetan Buddhism every spiritual tradition they have the conception of that there are certain of these blessed objects or or Inspirations or visions or dreams or you know songs or music or artwork that all of a sudden will come into a person's mind and then they'll be the intermediary the instrument to bring that into the world and that work of art or that hidden treasure will then affect other people okay so in a sense that's the other half from all the evil and the Darkness and the mind virus and the horror of what's playing out is there's something that's emerging that's a that's available for all of us and so I point out in my work you see so I'll just take a step back quantum physics I don't know any physicist who doesn't agree that it's the greatest disc Discovery ever in all of history in the realm of science the controversy is what does it mean and I'm not a physicist but I've you know so been studying quantum physics for 40 plus years because it was actually describing this experience that I had fallen into 40 plus years ago where all of a sudden it was like I had a Quantum jump and I was living in a universe where stuff could ha that would it not that it could happen that it was happening events experiences in my life were happening that were completely impossible that could only happen in a dream and I was so ecstatic and you know my mind was so blown and my assemblage point to use cat language got so shifted and I was you know in my early to mid 20s and you know and I immediately got thrown in hospitals and told oh you're mentally ill you'll have this illness the rest of your life but I was very thankful that I knew what you know that I was having an Awakening so I never subscribed to the psychiatric Viewpoint and that that's you know that saved my life but I was beginning to have the realization of oh my God we're having a collective dream and this dream is man manifesting in such a problematic way because we've been all conditioned and programmed to dream it that way okay and imagine being in a dream where you have Lucidity and imagine connecting with other people who are also lucid and you come together and hang out and share notes and trip out on what you're realizing and what you're realizing I imagine is that oh my God this dream Universe we're in is manifesting in this way because because we've been programmed and conditioned to dream it in this limited way in a way that's killing us but then the other half of that realization is oh we can dream it different we can get in Phase and in sync with each other you know all based on our realization of who we're discovering we are that we're not separate selves but we're all parts of one another and we can dream the dream different and that's that's what our situation is you know that's not just describing a night dream that's our situation in the waking dream in other words we discover that we can actually step into and consciously participate in our own evolutionary process okay so quantum physics I point out is a modern day Tera it's offering us the solution to the Mind virus to the insanity to the evil that's playing out in our world but it's it's not just a revelation that you intellectually understand it's a participatory Revelation just like quantum physics is discovering the this universe is a participatory Universe we're not separate from it we have to step into the realization and embody what quantum physics is showing us in other words that our nature is creative and then we can actually I don't want to appropriate the Tibetan idea of Tera you know but we that's sort of the underlying template for that each one of us can in a way discover something like an analog of a tera in our own lives whether it's a vision we're having you know uh or whether it's um whatever an artwork or an idea or a song you see because what happens when we open ourselves up and something you could think of it as something higher dimensional comes through us you see when somebody discovers a tera these figures will call tons and they were destined to discover and these teras are quantum phenomena imagine they're hidden in the earth somebody could come and be right at that place and not see the Tera it would be invisible the Tera would render itself invisible if it's not the right person and if it's not the right time it's only at exactly the moment it's needed it's like these Tera or alarm clocks hidden within the fabric of the dream that are programmed to wake us up and the amazing thing is we are ourselves or true nature have planted the alarm clocks in the fabric of the dream an example like just a Monday example if I tomorrow want to when I leave the house oh there's something I need to remember well in this moment I'll put a box of tissues in front of the front door okay tomorrow I go out I see the box of tissues in front of the front door that reminds me oh yeah I need to bring that thing right think about it in this moment I'm planting a clue in my waking dream that has a Time release that I've set up that when I encounter that clue it's going to help me to remember something what I'm pointing out is that the deeper part of us that's dreaming the dream has planted clues in the multi-dimensional fabric of our universe to help us to wake up okay that we are actually colluding with ourselves we're participating in our own evolutionary process of Awakening and it helps enormously when we Act become conscious of that okay so not only is quantum physics potentially a modern day analog to a tera to we hidden treasure but I I just want to really um you know offer the the thought form that um we all can be these these tons the discovers of Tera but when a tera is discovered and for example even wao wao is a revelation you could think of it as a form of Tera I've been switched on to it for like 30 40 years not having the language at first and the more I integrate the Revelation that is this mind virus the wio Mind virus the more I'm able to transmit it in a way that actually helps people so in the same way when any of us discover our own particular Tera and hidden treasure you know in the tradition it's definitely you know pointed out that typically the teron the Discover has to do the practice that the Tera is offering and have the realization that the Tera is freely offering and when the Discover of the Tera actually gets it and realizes what the Tera the the gift and the blessing of the Tera then they're in the process of being able to transmit it to others and in my dream we're all potentially discovering Tera every single one of us you know and it has to do with being creative with our creative nature
Automatic transcript, lightly edited for readability. Originally published on the Liminal News channel.