For those of you whose attention may of late been entangled in other pressing matters,
may I remind you that most of what you are is taken up by body,
and it is a statement of obvious fact to say that its welfare is the primary concern of your most outstanding feature -- your brain.
In areas both outside of your consciousness, and within the realm of thought
your brain is constantly surveying your external environment,
while monitoring your internal one as well.

Easy observation indicates that the conscious operations of your brain
has a lot of free time on its hands --
time not taken up with physical plant maintenance.
From this leisure potential has come man's culture;
his creation of unnecessary, non tangible interests
which give his brain's consciousness, pleasure.

If your brain's conscious mind was overwhelmingly occupied with instinctive concerns,
you would think of little more than food, sex, and physical comfort,
and if your conscious mind was occupied principally with the matter of consciousness,
you would think mostly about thinking.

The conscious minds of ordinary men deal in a combination of the two,
their ratio shifting from moment to moment,
and in reaction to changes in the physical circumstances.
Individual men may show a natural attraction
to one of the two areas over the other;
the crotch over the mind, or vice versa,
and men of similar inclinations may group together,
and form cultures that reflect such preferences.
The minds of men who congregate at the corner bar are rarely concerned with
the same subjects that are on the minds of those gathered at the university's faculty tea.
It is obvious and incontestable that
the minds of most men -- most of the time --
are focused on matters of the body, and not the mind.
Merely glance at the sundry cultures, and readily see,
in their religions, literature, music, mythologies,
movie making, political and social structures,
living proof of this plain fact.
Its inescapable reality in fact lurks where you might not tend to look, (e.g.),
though the verb-mind of a professor at the aforementioned, Lipton-happy hour
is expressing interest in the intellectual reaction to his latest paper,
his real concern is about how its rejection could effect his tenure and income,
and thus impact his physical life and well being.

Only a few men amidst the collective herd even appear to have minds that are
almost exclusively devoted to things about the mind,
and it is nearly impossible not to be bedazzled by a species-wide mirage that
says otherwise.

Ordinary men do claim to have among them those whose minds are firmly focused on
studying the matter of the mind, such as:
philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists,
but this is not so, (not in the sense pertinent to the special interest of the few),
and I do not bring it up for the purpose of promoting the notion of
me being correct about it while everyone else is mistaken;
its importance is in the fact that if you do not eventually distinguish in your own mind
the study of a factory's product from the study of the factory
you will never get to the bottom of all this.

A person could actually start out this special journey by studying any aspect of himself:
his body, his feelings, or his thinking --
-- All roads lead home --
but once a person's sense of being alive is grounded to a certain extent in
their conscious thought,
that then offers the path of most immediate potential.
Trying to achieve a more awake and enlightened state of consciousness could certainly
be realized though the proper study of one's physical existence, or emotional life,
but since it would be thought that was used as the instrument of study --
why not cut out the middle-man in advance, and from the outset,
turn your attention to the place where it must end up eventually any way?!

You do not wake up to the plain reality of things that is hidden behind the fancy version
by studying what you, or anyone else think about.
The subject to be studied is -- thinking itself.

Only thought supports the dream world of an unenlightened man --
not any particular things that he may think about,
but just thinking -- the operation itself.
This is what bucks off & tramples most would-be riders,
who will pick themselves up from the dust,
brush off their chaps,
and tell themselves more strongly than before of the importance of: "Knowing your bull!" but this is the illusion -- all you need to know is:
The truth about all rodeos.

If you want to immediately start sharpening your ability to eventually,
see-through-all-the-smoke,
then start now to ignore the thoughts that pass through your head, and instead,
pay attention only to the matter of:
"What is it that produces these things?"
I could frame the question from other verbal perspectives, but eventually all such inquires
lead to the same discovery, and I have simply framed it in as direct a fashion as seems presently possible for mass, random consideration.

No man can tell another what it will be like for him to be awake,
but you can be validly informed of this:
Being awake is when your thinking suddenly understands what thinking is.

I am telling you -- out loud -- right here in public,
The Big Secret, (always a safe thing to do):
being enlightened is not in understanding what "God" is;
or what, "Truth" is, or "Beauty,"
but is in understanding what thinking is,
(the others being but examples of its creative nature.)

For anyone who may have been interested in this kind of thing for some time,
but has been frustrated by a lack of meaningful progress,
here is a way to inevitably cause inner movement,
for things in you cannot remain as they are if you undertake a constant -- relentless
turning of your thoughts unto the matter of thinking.

Do it as non verbally as possible,
and whatever you do, don't give any attention to
the individual thoughts themselves;
ideas are no good for awakening -- only thoughts about the nature of ideas.

And let me give you a closing tip:
there is no great: "Statement of the truth about thinking" that awakening brings,
just the sudden realization of what thinking is,
and how it alone is responsible for the world of dreams in which ordinary men
partially live -- and take seriously --
but which the clear headed man finds merely amusing.