November 13, 2001.
 
 
 

Understanding comes not through adding on, but by simplifying.
Consciousness manipulates the outer world to man’s advantage via complexity;
it is less trouble to feed yourself today than when each man grew his own food,
but the process that brings it to your table now is much more complex than
the efforts involved in an individual man’s farming.
So, you getting food now is simpler than it once was, but the activity that results in
it being simpler for you is many times more complex than would be
if you did raise your own.
 

This is how things go in the external material realm
when they are run through the process of human consciousness;
it takes relatively simple needs (nourishment) and through larger scale,
more complex methods than a non conscious creature would instinctively employ, makes the meeting of the aim easier for the individuals involved.
 

Life simplified locally by things being made more complex generally:
mass farming techniques and production, along with multifaceted  processing, packaging, distribution and retailing makes putting food on one’s table
a matter as simple as picking it up and paying for it.
 

This can be considered an unstated law;
look around and you will see that it has no exceptions:
meeting simple needs through more complex methods than would be
minimally demanded of an individual working to that end is how consciousness’ planning and man’s rearrangement of his physical environment creates progress.
You add-on to make a matter easier and simpler,
and to ordinary views, the same seems to apply in man’s intangible,
internal world: progress surely comes through complexity:
the enriching of the intellect by the adding on of new knowledge –
but here the mind stumbles and drops two separate trays of dishes,
which commingle on the floor, never to be properly seen discreetly again;
this is in men mixing, then confusing and forgetting the difference between
knowledge concerning the material world and that applicable only to the intangible.
Making the growing of food or the construction of shelter, etc more complex,
does result in its acquisition by an individual with barter being simpler than
it might have been if his physical efforts alone had been required to produce same,
but the plane falls apart in mid air --  and no one aboard ever notices --
when the matter in question has no physical reality,
such as the growing of a religion, or philosophy, or the construction of metaphysical truth and morality....................................(oh yeah, and include, “waking up” in that list).
 

Making intangible matters (that is: ideas about ideas, not ideas about stuff),
more complex than they already seem, accomplishes one thing,
(from the perspective of those seeking clearer vision) – further obfuscation;
it does so for everyone, but ordinary people (not having the aim of precise sight)
pay it no mind;
the more complex becomes such vaporous affairs,
the more they seem to enjoy it; the more there is to argue about;
the bigger do men’s minds make King Arthur’s domain
the more areas of imagined activity they have to debate
(or substitute Heaven for Camelot if you like).
The more facts a man knows, the greater is his expertise in that field
(remember, the fields being herein referred to are those which exist only
in men’s minds and not those of mining, chemistry, and mechanics).
 

The more “knowledge” (put here in the marks to distinguish it from that concerning the physical world) a philosopher, historian, theologian, sociologist, political scientist, doctor of literature adds on to his present cache covering his field, the more is he accepted as expert;
those who know the most about such subjects, are more complex,
and of course --  more “knowledgeable” (what else?!).
In the concocted world of ideas-about-ideas-about-ideas (pure intellectualism) complexity is the sole measure of success:
the more you know --  the smarter you are,
and you get to know more by adding on to what you already know;
plain, obvious, and undeniable.........................(if you’re satisfied with being ordinary).
 

You cannot bring on that extraordinary neural experience of having your
inner skull blown open and the fresh air of unprejudiced sight fill your head
by adding-on-to what is already in your head;
you cannot purge, then purify your conception of life by
making your present one more complex.
Oh, it certainly seems otherwise at first (same as with the other areas noted above):
if you are with that certain hunger born, you one day read something to the affect: “Although man believes that he is conscious and awake, he actually lives as though in a dream, but through certain efforts he can awaken from this dream and see life as it truly is” --  you slap your forehead with joy and think: “That’s it!
That is what has been bothering me all these years that I couldn’t explain,
but at least now I have the knowledge of what the problem is and can begin working to solve it ” --   and solving it obviously is to come from acquiring the knowledge of how to   solve it  --   except here (for one of the few times) obviousness lets you down.
 

Once you have accepted that what bothers you so intently is covered in some description similar to the one supra,
after that, everything you “learn” (add on to your thinking)
about getting free of the situation just sinks you in it deeper;
you further cloud your sight by every new piece of seeing-instructions
you stick in your eye/I.

  It’s fascinating but true: all directions of how to “wakeup” put you further asleep.
 
 

But before you get upset, this reality only becomes meaningful after you have
long overstayed your welcome;
as long as you are still a neophyte, a child, a dilettante, a week-end-warrior in all of this, you can continue to poke yourself in the eye with new “facts, books,”
and secret information on how-to-see-like-an-awakened-adult
while still crying out: “Baby wants to see!  Baby wants to see!”
(and of course, argue with those in the cribs around you who are fitfully
waving their latest batch of knowledge in their pudgy little hands).
 

The quite real, neurological reality that gave birth to the quite unreal sounding terms of: “Waking Up: Achieving Enlightenment: Being Liberated,
comes not from making your consciousness more complex;
not by adding on to what you already (Cough!)  --  know;
that extraordinary ability to see will only come by you stripping-down-consciousness,
making it simpler so that it sees more directly and to the point.
 

No question about it: amongst routine people, the more complex a man seems mentally, the more intelligent everyone takes him to be,
but the unrecognized opposite is true regarding a man beyond mere ordinary intelligence (intelligence-about-intelligence-invented-stuff),
a man who doesn’t think about what is going on,
but a man who knows what is going on;
such a man has a simplicity of consciousness that is inconceivable to
ordinary consciousness (or else all ordinary consciousnesses would be un ordinary, and with 20/20).
 
 

Hot wire, then drive your present consciousness, and mind-of-knowing
into a deserted alley, and strip that sucker clean;
get it so down to the bare frame that it’s unrecognizable,
and then the reality of all that you have been longing and looking for can come calling;
but it will never do so while you remain complex in the head;
a potential racing machine, but one loaded down with a bunch of useless add-ons,
the kinda junk a middle class (Ugh!) family man with kids & a mortgage
would stick on a station wagon;
...........................................(no wonder you can’t get any where).
 
 

If you have read more than five books about, “Waking up,
listened to more than three lectures concerning, “Enlightenment,”
and thought about the whole affair for more than a combined total of
two hundred hours, then you already know way too much;
much more than is needed;
much more than is useful;
much more than is good for you, hell --  much more than there IS.
 

Everything after the words: “Man is asleep but can awaken” is filler; time-killer;
a pacifier; stuffing for a too-long-dead turkey;
truth is, those 6 words are too much,
but things being like they are for a conscious creature in a four dimensional realm,
you have to have some verbal place from which to start any activity which
has no tangible reality,
so those 6 words are as apt as any, but get over ‘em as quickly as possible or else
you will roll forever in their arms,
feeling secure that you are on the right course, (which you may well be),
but you will never know that for sure until you simplify your own consciousness;
until you strip down your mind to its bare frame,
casting off all of the useless, added-on ideas that everyone else lives with-&-by,
and discovering for yourself what is underneath it all.
 

                     J
 
 
 
 
 

............(DO be prepared for a surprise.)