THE TUBE EXPERIMENT
From the ‘Headless Way’ website - http://www.headless.org/experiments/the-tube.htm
We did this experiment at a couples retreat hosted by my teacher. It was a 'Wow' experience for some people in the class - basically those with significant meditation experience. I later hosted it in another meditation sitting group about 10 years ago but some people were uncomfortable doing it with strangers so I do not plan to do it in our group.
There is also a video where you can do the experiment with Harding's face on the other end of the bag - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0okQCx9108. You can put the bag up to the TV/monitor and Harding becomes the other participant. I actually did this later with a VHS tape I bought. The main problem is that he does not tell you when the bag experiment is over and you can drop the bag, he just continues talking.
If you do not have a 'C' person (reader) you can record the reader part yourself beforehand and play it back while doing the experiment.
THE TUBE
Text by Douglas Harding, written in the early 1970s
Get two friends (B and C) to help you (A).
You will need a paper tube. Either cut the end off a paper bag, or get a large piece of paper and tape the ends together to make a tube - large enough to fit your faces in the opposite ends.
A and B sit in a good light, open out the bag, and fit their faces into its opposite ends.
C slowly puts the following questions:
1. Going by what's given now (not by what you remember or imagine) how many faces are there in the tube?
2. Is your end closed, or open?
3. Are you face-to-face or face-to-no-face?
A and B come out for air, then go back, and C puts more questions.
1. Could that face register as form if you weren't void?
2. .................".............. anything........ " .....no-thing?
3. .................".............. coloured........ " .....colourless?
4. .................".............. opaque.......... " .....transparent?
5. .................".............. moving.......... " .....still?
6. .................".............. complex......... " .....simple?
7. .................".............. limited........... " .....boundless?
8. .................".............. changing........ " .....changeless?
Into the tube again for more questions:
1. Are you now (as 1st person singular, present tense) the sort of thing that could grow old or decay, begin or end?
2. Unable to say 'I am this, or that', aren't you still able to say 'I AM'?
3. Who or What is this unborn, undying 'I AM'?
1. Can you make yourself out to be here (at 0cm) anything like your partner there (at 30cm)?
2. Can you find any 'matter' (head, face, eyes…) your end?
3. Can you find any 'spirit' or 'consciousness' the other end?
4. Have you been living a double lie - awarding consciousness to that face, and a face to this consciousness?
5. Could this double pretence underlie your personal relationship problems, all your problems?
1. Do you see that face more clearly, fearlessly, penetratingly, now it's only a coloured, moving shape?
2. Do you find that face any less lovable, now it's unhaunted, part of the decor?
3. Is 'spirit' divisible, and any less your partner's now it isn't peeping through those eyes?
4. Can you now say to your partner: 'Your face is no more than your temporary appearance; I am no less than your everlasting Reality'?
5. Can you now say to all beings everywhere: 'Here, I am you'?
For further investigation: Is what you discovered in the tube true outside the tube, always? Come out of the tube.
See the article: The Bomb by Alain Bayod