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October 24, 2000. It is Tuesday
morning and here we are on the island of Rhodes, one of the several
reputed birth sites of the Greek mythologist-cum-poetic-historian, Homer,
who many revere as the father of western, written story telling, and
whose tales can also be viewed as an allegorical record of the early
years of man’s consciousness.
Two things are required for story telling:
a teller, and
a listener.
Two things are required for consciousness:
a speaking consciousness, and
a listening consciousness.
In story telling one man tells another man a story.
In consciousness, one part of one man’s brain tells a story for another
part of itself to listen to.
In ordinary consciousness, the telling and the listening are a seamless,
endless whole.
In this condition, a man is normal.
In this condition, a few say that a man is, "asleep."
They say that even though he arises from bed,
opens his eyes, and walks about
that he nonetheless -- lives in a dream.
To men of ordinary consciousness,
this is foolishness.
To ordinary men whose consciousness consists of
their listening-consciousness being totally engaged with what their
talking-consciousness is saying,
the idea that men routinely live in a dream world
is beyond comprehension.
Of a thousand who will say that man is asleep,
not one will understand what he says.
He may be sincere, and he may be well convinced that the words he speaks
reflect the truth,
but all chickens who cluck the proper tune
do not necessarily lay eggs.
Thousands of people for thousands of years have enjoyed saying that
they were trying to "Awaken", or,
"Achieve Enlightenment," and there is nothing any more wrong in that
than there is for people to identify themselves as Existentialists,
or Republicans, or Mets fans.
But most who believe they are walking the path to Enlightenment never
have the foggiest personal notion of what they are actually involved
with.
But then again, not every Mets fan is a walking encyclopedia of the
team’s statistics either,
but that fact does not bar them from their own enjoyment of being a
fan of the game.
This is no attack on contemporary claimants to awakening.
Things are not going to hell.
Thus have things always been in this sport.
….and you wanna know why?……….
I’ll tell you why,
It’s all because of consciousness itself.
People who hear-about, and then adopt the idea of
"waking up to" a new state of consciousness are not fools,
but the factual situation I am pointing to
is so innately at odds with the very construction & operation of
ordinary consciousness that its
realization literally teeters on the impossible.
Everyone who says that they know they are "asleep"
certainly know that they do not like their routine state of mind;
so in one sense, at a crude level, they do know what "being asleep"
is –
it is that state of consciousness in them that they do not enjoy and
wish to change.
And there is still nothing improper in any of this,
for people will spend many years and considerable finances earning an
advanced degree in some area in which they sincerely imagine their eventual
practice therein will afford them a life of fulfillment.
And yet they have no way of knowing for certain how they will really
feel about living such a life until they are actually doing so.
And the situation is not dissimilar with those who work to awaken from
the sleep of ordinary consciousness
even while not have a clear understanding of what either of the terms
truly and tangibly represent,
and the only reason I continue to broach the subject is because I know
how much unsuspected joy there is in this whole affair if you will but
forever push on past wherever you believe you are now,
and beyond all that you think you understand
into totally uncharted waters.
If you will undertake a relentless effort to continually look at what
is going on inside your own brain
you can eventually see for yourself that that activity you call consciousness,
(your very sense of yourself, in fact),
is composed at all times of two parts:
the part of your brain that talks,
and another part of your brain that listens to the talk.
If an ordinary man heard this and was queried, and made to momentarily
think about it,
he would say that I am simply describing,
"him thinking,"
a notion that cannot withstand the most cursory of scrutiny.
To an objective eye,
what goes on constantly in your head can in no wise be accurately
called,"You thinking."
You do not decide to think,
and you personally, certainly do not plan before hand
what you will think in the next upcoming second.
You can say that, "You run",
As you are sitting, you decide you will go run.
You get up from your seat, put on your shoes,
leave the house, and -- "you run."
But nothing even remotely resembling this occurs
in your head, in your brain, in your consciousness.
The talking part of your consciousness speaks a thought,
The listening part of your consciousness listens to the thought,
and then -- after those two activities combine –
only then do you experience a conscious thought;
it is only after all of this automatically takes place in your brain
do you have the sensation, "I am thinking."
I supra claimed that few of the few who pursue the muse of awakening
ever have the slightest personal understanding of what "being asleep"
is to begin with,
and thus make the entire undertaking more difficult than necessary,
(not to mention all the secret fun they miss out on!),
but I am now going to verbally paint a plain physiological picture for
you of exactly what,
"being asleep" actually consists of.
It is your listening-consciousness giving its TOTAL attention to your
talking-consciousness.
Being asleep is the condition wherein your listening-consciousness’
capacity to hear
is being completely taken up by what your own talking-consciousness
is saying.
It is that straightforward set of cerebral circumstances that
produces the mystic’s alluded-to, "Dream world" in which ordinary men
live.
It is a neural situation wherein all of the brain’s conscious attention
is only on itself.
The brain’s non conscious activity is forever engaged in a constant
survey of external conditions,
and if things outside are sufficiently calm as to not require the participation
of its conscious attention
then as though by a "default setting"
the brain’s consciousness will turn to itself for
something to do.
If conscious thought is not involved in some
external matter,
it will be found involved with itself.
(The world of entertainments might appear to be the exception to this,
but not so.
For when men go to see a movie, a baseball game,
or hear a lecture,
they do not go to: see a movie, see a game,
or hear a lecture,
they go to such places to hear what their own
talking-consciousness will have to say about the
movie, game, or lecture,
and to see the quickie film clips that its words will
relentlessly trigger in their heads.)
Not only is the condition I describe
the physical reality of what the metaphysicians denounce as,
"Being asleep,"
it is also the condition that six billion ordinary men and women accept
as their normal mental condition.
As long as your entire ear-of-consciousness is
totally glued to your own lips-of-consciousness --- you’re
okay.
You are then so completely asleep that you can never
be aware of it.
See! --
if you had just been THAT asleep to BEGIN WITH
you wouldn’t be in the fix you are now!
(with all that, "I wanna, ‘wake up’ stuff.
……………….[just a little humor.])
Put it to you a bit more bluntly.
Your dissatisfaction would desert you
if you did not give over the total hearing of your listening-consciousness
to your own
talking-consciousness.
I’ve already suggested that you: "Get out of the house more often,"
which, translated as per today’s approach would be to say: "Get your
ear away from your own mouth",
(neurally speaking).
Or: "Don’t listen to anybody -- especially yourself!"
No one in life can con you --
only you can con yourself,
and you do it 24/7
within the privacy of your own head;
you do it by using up all of your conscious potential
in listening to the voices that appear constantly, and
automatically in your brain
which people of ordinary consciousness call,
"Them thinking,"
but which a non dozing man knows to be
no such thing -- it is a dream;
it is incestuous lips whispering
hypnotic sweet-nothings
to ears
normally too weak to resist.
The one problem in the life of the few is:
"My consciousness is not as fully functional as it could be,"
and the one reason for this problem is:
your consciousness’ stupifying fascination with listening to itself
talk.
Once you get the right view of what’s going on,
the problem gets simplified.
You can cut your efforts to oversee consciousness in half.
You can cease having any concern about
whatever the talking part of your brain may be saying in your head;
all you have to do is see that the listening part does not let
all of its attention be taken up with it.
It’s not the talking that hijacks your chance for improved consciousness,
it’s your total immersion in listening to the talk.
.
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Well, listen,
we’ve got to get to the dock before the last boat leaves.
We’ll pick this conversation up again later.
Andi'o
Jan
:
There is a certain puzzle whose final, all-revealing move could
not be simpler.
Thing is
you have to go through
fourteen million, six hundred & ninety four thousand other moves
to ever get there.
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