THE KEY MISSING BASIC

THE KEY MISSING BASIC

Extracted from the book Ultimate Journey by Robert Monroe

Different Overview: T h e gathering of knowledge minus the glitter of

beliefs and animal commands. In developing a Different Overview, the
knowledge and application of certain Basics are essential. A key Basic,
for instance, would be the knowledge that you are more than your
physical body and that you do survive physical death. Such Basics must
be absolute Knowns, not just beliefs, to complete the growth. If one or
more of the key Basics is missing, the development is inhibited.

Unknowns create fears. When these Unknowns become Knowns the

fears diminish and disappear and we are able to cope with whatever
confronts us. All of us have enough Unknowns in our livesand
enough fears.
What are the Knowns regarding the out-of-body experience (OBE)?
First, while there is nothing new about realizing that you are more
than your physical body, you now have a means of proving it to
yourself. We also believe that by applying other criteria it can be
proved to the scientific community, and to the rest of humankind. To
date, however, we know of no way to do this except through
individual personal experience, but we do know that the tools are
available to perform this verification.
A controlled out-of-body experience is the most efficient means we
know to gather Knowns to create a Different Overview. First, and
perhaps most important, among these Knowns is survival of physical
death. If there is a better way than the OBE of knowing that this takes
placenot just hoping, having faith, or believing, but knowingwe
are unaware of it. All of those who become only mildly proficient in
the OBE soon reach this stage of knowing. In addition, such survival
takes place whether we like it or not, and without any consideration
as to what we do or are in physical life. It makes no difference.
Survival of self beyond physical existence is a natural and automatic
process. We wonder how we could ever have become so limited in
our thinking.
The highways and byways of out-of-body adventures and exploration
are broad and varied, for the most part beyond ordinary time-space
concepts. We can understand only that portion which relates directly
to the Earth Life System.
We may attempt to report the rest of itand it seems limitless but
we have no acceptable or comparable baseline of knowledge and
experience to do this accurately. The problem lies in trying to
understand it and to translate what you findto bring it back.
What has happened is that you have gone off the edge of the Known
map, and have returned with some previous important Unknowns
now converted to Knowns. You may or may not convince others of
this reality. Most do not try; the individual knowledge is enough.
Think how such knowledgenot belief or faithwould affect your
own life pattern; the knowledge that you are indeed more than your
physical body, that you do indeed survive physical death. These two
Unknowns converted to Knowns, with no conditions or contingencies
what a difference that would make!
A Different Overviewa clear way of perceivingcan make these
into personal Knowns. And more, much more. So unlatch your
Security Belief Belt, grab your climbing spurs and perhaps a
macheteand let's hit the high road.
So it must be said: the Different Overview you are beginning to
consider can be at most only a belief until you begin to test it for
validity within your own ongoing experience during your life as an
active Human Mind. As small beliefs convert to Knowns, perhaps
larger Different Overview beliefs will follow the same pathuntil you
are free.

What to me are Knowns can produce only beliefs in you unless you
have had or are having similar experiences that demand verification.
Let me therefore attempt to tell it "like it is" for me, allowing you to
form your own beliefs which experience may in time convert to
Knowns.
In my personal run, thirty-plus years of out-of-body activity had
brought me to a calm state of satisfaction. A cycle has been
completed, or so it seemed. My own Different Overview was well in
place and eminently rewarding. Or it should have been.
I knew where I came from, how I got here and became a human, why I
hung around, my final departure schedule, and where I would go
when I left. What else could have had any importance? Anything else
was mere detail.
The Basicthe missing Basicwas now a Known to me. Not a
belief, hope, or faith; not conveyed by intuition or emotion; but a
Known firmly fixed in my mind-consciousness. Indeed, it had been
there all along, but I had failed to recognize the many patterns of
evidence for what they were. Acceptance is not the same as
Knowing.
My role, I could see, was that of a facilitator. The Basic needed to be
incorporated into our activities and learning systems. I had been
unaware of what we had been leading up to. For more than fifteen
years our programs have been providing working knowledge of
human consciousness up to the very edge of time-space. The move
beyond this border to begin gathering knowledge of the Basic was
indeed an ultimate challenge. The problem was how to do this cleanly
and clearly, to make the Basic a Known instead of a belief. This
could only happen through personal experience.
I had to start with Knowns. What I have called the entry ramps to the
Interstate is physical death as perceived by most Human Minds.
These ramps lead past the edge of their Known map, and the road
signs are contradictory.
Culturally, we know very little about death and beyond at this time.
We may believe different premises and prospects, but that is not
Knowing. The only thing that we all do know is that physical death is
going to happen to each of us and to those we love sooner or later.
But that is all, and hence comes the fear.
To compound the situation, virtually all of our knowledge and
scientific study are focused upon physical matter and time-space.
Our insatiable dream is to know all about Here without exception or
omission. The origin of this compulsion goes back to the human
struggle to exist in a hostile environment, driven by the directive to
survive. This underlying motive is still present, even though heavily
disguised.
In the matter of physical death, our sciences can provide only those
approaches that somehow relate to physical matter. Specifically we
are looking at a system of measurement of Something. If there is no
electrical signal in the brain, if there is no chemical action, if there is
no physical movement, then you have Nothing. So death equals
Nothing. And if you ask whether the Human Mind disappears when
the electrochemical reaction ceases, much like the magnetic field
around an electromagnet when the electricity is shut off, you will
almost certainly receive a positive answer. But, you may continue,
such magnetic fields don't really disappear, because they leave
measurable imprints on sensitive matter in or near themso what
about the mind? Of course, comes the scientific reply, humans do
much the same; they live in the memory of their remaining loved ones
or in the physical artifacts they caused to be formedtheir work, their
books, buildings, and so on. But that is all.
It is easy to see why so many scientists and medical professionals
are nihilist or atheist in their public stance. But even so, many are
forced into a belief image of survival owing to cultural pressure or
hidden hopes and guilts. Moreover, scientific and medical
researchers are inadvertent participants in the Earth Life System
predator process. As such, they are prone to adjust their data to suit
their needs as much as anyone else. Nevertheless, some of our
greatest scientists have deduced that we are more than our physical
bodies, or at least that our mind is more than the output of our brain.

The bulk of our scientific knowledge is not germane to any approach

that tries to make Something out of Nothing, and so we must
reluctantly set it aside. Scientific endeavor is almost wholly
enmeshed in the Earth Life System and physical time-space, and
very little is applicable in this arena. Nor do religions and
philosophies provide us with much help. For thousands of years men
of religion in particular have been trying to persuade us to believe in
subsequent-to-death existence.
A vast number of techniques have been utilized in the attempt to help
followers into the Knowing stage, but very few, if indeed any, have
succeeded.
So we come back to personal experience. If it were possible to cross
the border, to visit the area of so-called Nothing and return, and to
describe it as it is in clear terms uninhibited by belief systems, then
this would in time lead to worldwide Knowing and consequently the
elimination of fear. But so far we do not know how to do this.
Yet there is the possibility that we are already doing itand we
simply don't remember. If I knew with no trace of doubt what I would
be and do after I died, it would change me radically. I could live my
physical life to the fullest, without the shadow lurking behind every
second, the shadow that says one wrong move and your time is up'.
If we knew that each of us had the option to depart when we were
certain our physical future held no more light for us, how our lives
would be transformed! If we had the assurance that, no matter what
happens, we can continue our love bonding beyond the Earth Life
System and time-spaceif we were certain that when a loved one
departs we would know beyond doubt where we can find him or her
what a wonderful freedom we would have!
Now that I knew what had to be done, one further question arose.
How could I organize all that I had experienced into such a shape that
it could be absorbed and put into practice by others? Not only that:
how could those experiences, which for me had stretched over years,
be compressed into a time-frame which others would find practical
and appropriate? This was not a process that could be established
by trial and error, for what we were shortly to be handling was, quite
literally, a matter of life and death. It had to be as nearly right as
possible the first time. And events in my personal life were telling me
that there was little time to spare.
But I was fortunateor perhaps it was not good fortune but the
fulfillment or completion of a design begun more than three decades
ago when we first commenced research into human consciousness.
For at my disposal I had all the resources of our Institute, which for
many years had shown that it was possible to bring individuals right
up to that transitional point between physical life and death and
enable some of them at least to see into the beyond. That our
procedures were safe and that our participants benefited enormously
and in so many ways had been proved beyond doubt. My left brain
told me that two things were needed. The first was research into the
frequencies of brain waves translated into sound that would permit
t h e individual mind-consciousness to travel safely beyond the
transitional point and to return when the task was accomplished.
The means by which these goals are achieved is by development
and extension of the methods and techniques that have been evolved
and refined at the Institute over many years: the Hemi-Sync, a trade
name for an audio wave system. Listening to these wave systems on
tape helps bring synchronization of electrical brain wave forms
between the two hemispheres of the human brain. This Hemi-Sync
program is called The Gateway Experience.
This program is a step-by-step absorption of phase-shifting methods
related to human consciousness. The purpose is, in the first instance,
to help the participant release inherent fears through exploration of
self and environment by converting Unknowns into Knowns. Once this
is achieved, the student is free to evoke controlled phase shifts into
other states of consciousness among other nonphysical energy
systems.
For the sake of convenience and mutual understanding, the term
"Focus" with an appropriate number is used to denote the different
stages or states of consciousness that participants move into during
the learning process.