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JAN’S DAILY FRESH REAL NEWS
© 2000: Jan Cox 

October 17, 2000. Today I am about twenty kilometers north of Cusco, Peru, birthplace of the spiritual leader to many native South Americans, the Dali Alpaca, (now living in harsh exile in Miami Beach).  This area also brags about being the poorest place on Earth, (but you know the kind of hyperbole that can overtake hometown boosters!) 

Not unexpectedly, I find in the routine affairs of the physical world here, (as I do wherever I am), metaphorical reflections of internal matters not routinely noticed by ordinary men, but which are significant to the-few-longing-to-be-out-of-these-cloud-shrouded-mental-lost-mountains.

The subject of poverty has long been a favorite of poets & fictionalists, economic & social philosophers, and religious & mystical scribes. Poverty has been acclaimed as being everything from, "The great molder of character" to, "The sure sign of righteousness."  But as always, crude minds miss the pithy, practical potential present. 

The religious & amateur mystics preach material poverty to be the will of God; to be the proper physical condition of a man seeking Enlightenment  --    all of which is irrelevant to waking up. 

The poverty of use to a-man-trying-to-cut-through-the-clutter is a poverty of mind.  A poverty of mental preferences, to be more specific.   And even more to the point for my non novice readers: a poverty of meaningless, mental bullshit, a category which includes everything that ordinary minds find meaningful. 
                 Now this is poverty you can USE!

Be alert to the fact that each ordinary man having a wealth of meaningless mental preferences is what keeps the ordinary world of man running.  Where would we & civilization be were it not for men preferring one god over another one, one culture over another, one political leader over another, or one football team over another, and on and on, and you-fill-in-the-rest.

Look at it head on: if a matter is not survival essential, (which is to say that you can’t hold it in your hand), then any feeling you have about it is a meaningless preference,
and if your desire is to see-the-light, 
it is a blinding preference.
    Better you should be in poverty than to suffer such specious abundance.

An ordinary man does not see his personal preferences in social matters in this way, nor can he be made to do so, (although no one who-knows-what’s-going-on would ever try).  There is no logical basis from which to argue to routine minds that their many preferences in non essential matters are useless at best and disorienting at worst, for in their lives, such is not the case. 

Meaningless, mental preferences only become a "problem" if you are attempting to achieve that special private goal, and then only if you fail to recognize them for what they are and realize the natural purpose they serve in the overall scheme of things here on Earth.
    If you & your mental preferences are one -- 
    --   you are asleep.
          Definitions do not come any better than that.

Just as the entire mentally-contrived-&-supported "secondary", social, and non-survival-essential world of man is "imaginary", compared to the physical, indispensable one, so too are all the mind’s preferences regarding the things of this world compared to the body’s instinctive preferences related to survival.  Simply put: the body’s instinctive preference for water over acid is beneficial, while the mind’s preference for religion X over religion Y is meaningless in any real, essential sense.  To a mind so involved, its preference for religion X certainly seems meaningful, but so equally does it seem to another mind which at that same instant is expressing its preference for political party A over that of party B.
   I remind you: all of these non essential, meaningless mental preferences are essential to the existence and maintenance of man’s unique, non physical, socially-civilized world, but if these preferences are not understood for what they are, and you accept these preferences that magically appear in your thoughts to be a valid & meaningful representation of "you"  --  you are an idiot, I’m sorry, you are asleep and confused. 
     You are WAYYYYY too rich in commonly believed bullshit.
      If he would let on, you know how you could spot an awake man for sure?  --   he’d be shallow as hell.
      He’d be dirt poor in the opinion department.
      He’d be poverty stricken when it comes to
      verbally expressed preferences.

Would-be, "waker-uppers" always dream of those who have succeeded as being men of great depth and complexity --  which is idiocy.  There is nothing about life that is "deep or complex" so how could understanding its nature be so?!

Throwing away physical items for which you have a fondness can present a challenge,
but doing so with mental ones is almost beyond human ability.
     Since consciousness consists of nothing but whatever thought is momentarily passing through it,
and in that thoughts are not actual "things", but simply references to things,
then from one view, consciousness is innately, in poverty.  It has nothing, and almost in reaction you might say, it exaggerates in words what it pretends to have --  and 
will cling to same with ferocious fanaticism.
     The devotion men’s thoughts give to their own preferences is the protection Bambi receives from her mother.
     When he has nothing worthwhile to defend
      a man is prone to defend it with
      irrational passion.
          There is nothing more dangerous than 
           a man protecting an empty box.
           ….why else do you think it is so EASY TO
                stay asleep?!

The paramount rule in rock climbing is to never let go of what you are holding on to 
until you are holding on to something else.
The rule for scaling the sheer wall of "Liberation" is
just the opposite.
 

Everyone wants to be rich --  the ordinary in material terms.
Many others want to be rich-in-mind --  to possess an abundance of knowledge in areas that interest them.
Nothing wrong with either of these, but neither --
--  obviously  --
will bring you Enlightenment.
     You have to be poor for that.

You must no longer have the desire to cling to the meaningless preferences that primarily make up your personal mental life, 
which is the only place wherein Awakening, Enlightenment, and Liberation can occur,
but they physically cannot coexist with your present riches of impertinent preferences.

Okay, look, it kinda comes down to this:
You got your choice: You can either "Wake up",
or else have The Yankees win the World Series.
…and anyone who finds this statement foolish is themselves a fool.

            Poverty of mind is the answer. 
            It is a safe and fully secured investment.

                                        Jan