I write this while driving through southern Hesse in old West Germany
headed for the town of Hanau,
birthplace of the two renowned folklorists-brothers Grimm, 
and their lesser known sibling, the source of that most piquant phrase; 
“After directions  --   it’s all storytelling.” 
(he is also the one who would 
offenbach the truck up on trips to Frankfurt.)

The author of such a line was surely one of us,
for in five words he summed up entirely 
the essence of mankind’s non physical reality.
Indeed, its explanatory pithiness is such as should  make 
a percipient man hesitate to make additional comment thereon  --   but  --
a faint heart ne’er new understanding e’re won, what?! 
(plus, even in the New Europe, 
self-plagiarism is still not a crime, 
although for a man trying to see his way through 
the blinding bramble of his own thoughts,
it damn well should be.)

In the beginning 
if you could get a man’s naturally, self-centered, conscious attention
off of his limbic system
these five words could be presented as a 
complete system to achieving Enlightenment.
Conversely: A man who does not recognize 
the radical reality of the statement 
is living in the dark.

The original and primary purpose of conscious thought, 
like every other characteristic of 
every other living thing, 
is for survival enhancement,
and thought discharges its responsibility through its ability to 
picture physical reality in its non physical realm
where it can manipulate it in ways both imaginary, and beneficial.
Thought can solve physically extant 
survival problems,
and also dream up new arrangements of the
physical environment that will make survival
less taxing and more enjoyable,
all without ever putting hands physically on the task.

It accomplishes all of this by --  “Giving directions”
first to itself,
(via the constant conversation between 
the talking and listening components 
that make up consciousness), 
and then to others.

A man’s thoughts look at a running stream,
then at wheat that needs to be ground,
and pictures how to build an apparatus that will 
use the falling water to turn wheels and do the job.
His thoughts do this by giving directions to themselves 
as they work out the details of how 
the enterprise is to be accomplished.

Once he has constructed a functioning waterwheel
he can then give directions to other men about how to
build one even without them ever having seen his.
“Giving directions” also would be used when a man discovered 
a new food source distant from home 
so that he could describe to himself in his mind 
how to return there,
and it would also enable him to tell others how to reach it.

Simply put, “Giving directions” is the very essence,
and raisin detray of thought,
but to a liberated mind, 
everything after that is nothing but   --  story telling.
    (Let me  pull over and stop the car for a moment, 
    and be sure I make myself clear:
    After directions --  everything is story telling.
            EV-REE  THING!
   Okay, let’s get back on de road again,
    look and see’f anything’s comin’.)
 

If you are really determined to find out for yourself 
what it means to be, “Awake & Enlightened”
then you eventually will have to see, realize, and
accept the plain, in-your-face-fact  that
whatever is being said and thought about,
if it does not have to do with, 
“Giving directions” regarding the physical world
then it is story telling plain and simple.
That’s all it is   --   and   -- 
that’s all it is.

It doesn’t matter what it sounds like it is;
it doesn’t matter what the subject matter is;
it doesn’t matter how seriously men take it,
it is still nothing but story telling.

There is nothing “wrong” with this,
its vexation for a man with the interest
is in him not recognizing the activity for what it is.

Once humans learned to raise wheat, 
build water mills, and become sufficiently civilized 
through the use of thought to have “free time,”
they immediately were faced with the problem of:
How to fill it? --  how to entertain themselves?
           Story telling!

Men’s thoughts began to make up stories of 
supernatural figures who they would pretend 
represented the forces of nature.
Thoughts invented pretend histories for man,
and concocted fantasies of his future.
Once begun --  the story telling has never stopped.
It totally surrounds man,
and the more civilized, and 
thought-centered he becomes,
the more does he engulf himself in it.
We speak here of: movies, literature,
politics, religion, philosophy, 
psychology & all of the other social sciences 
and most popular of all  --   gossip, & self-promotion.
(the former being filler used in lapses of the latter).

The fantastic tales that men’s thoughts weave regarding 
giants, and gods, and demons 
are nothing compared to the stories they invent about 
the human in whom they reside.
After “giving directions” to a doctor as to the 
location of the pain,
or giving his waist size to a tailor,
everything else that a man ever says about himself is --  story telling.
     Plain and simple --  story telling.

A sleeping man is his own Brothers Grimm;
his thoughts stay engaged in a lifelong telling of 
fairy tales about himself.
He is his own Hansel & Gretel;
his own Frog Prince;
his own Emperor’s New Clothes;
his own Jack & The Beanstalk;
his own Jackie Benson, (if his thoughts answer to the name, Jackie Benson). 
 
 

There is little to compare in a hungry man’s journey
to his own realization that:  after directions  --
everything else in man’s non physical life is nothing
but endless story telling;
a new story derived from a past one;
a new story to contradict an old one,
just an endless activity of 
piling one story on top of another story 
on top of another story, on top of another one.
Such is so-called, “progress” in all of man’s
non scientific/technological endeavors;
the making up of  new stories to go with the ones already made up.

You will always remember the day when you 
first realize this for yourself.
The liberation you will instantly feel is indescribable.
It will be as though a tight fitting, heavy helmet
has been suddenly removed from your head,
and the laughter it will produce will startle even you.

You realize that every one of the mental,
spiritual, philosophical  -- (call them what you will) –
problems you ever wrestled with 
never amounted to anything more than 
fictional tales created and told by men’s minds.

Once you've given an inquiring stranger 
directions to the bus stop,
everything you say after that consists of nothing but
stories that the thoughts in your head make up.
This is true for you –
your neighbor,
your priest,
your president,
your professor,
your psychologist, and
your own ordinary state of self conscious awareness.

Being “Enlightened” 
is in knowing that: 
   If it ain’t physically essential, 
   it’s just  --    story telling.
 

Well, we’ve reached today’s destination.
…..See, I know that,
cause I’m the one driving the car,
and making all of this up as we go along.
(An instant gauge of your comprehension of what this sort of activity is actually about
is how you react to my mention of me
making all of this up.
How can you possibly misunderstand that
after all I have just said today?!

   OH!  --  but it’s possible, all right!  --
            --  you better believe it is!
 
...in fact, (as shocked as I know you'll be to hear about it), 
there's a rumor going round that claims 
some people still do not realize that such things as....oh,
Buddhism, Gnostism, Sufism & Zen are entirely inventions of
man's thoughts.
                   Tut tut, Sleeping Beauty.)
 
 
 

If you  heard  what I have talked about  today, then  – 
--   it was nice having you along.

…….and even if you didn’t --  it’s still okay.
 

But before you go, a hint:
If you want be able to hear life itself tell you,
how-to-wake-up,
stop taking all the stories you hear SERIOUSLY.
 
 

                                                 Jan
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

.....he sawren mary comin' and he  -- jump back in the alley,
 oh,   ba-beeeeeeeeee................................................................