JAN'S FRESH, RUN-FOR-SOMEONE'S-LIFE
                                  © 2002: JAN COX
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January 8, 2002.
 
 

A slightly shifted view of what was written about here yesterday can prove most useful in one’s attempt to understand what it is that drives a few people to
want to radically alter the operation of their consciousness,(wake-up,be-enlightened, know-what-is-going-on at a level not normally provided to man, et al),
which is that this singular attempt (called by various names) is the desire to establish in one’s consciousness a one to replace the many;
“being asleep” is “being many;”
“being awake” would be “being one,”
this would also be so regarding the reality underlying religion, (if it were pursued to the sufficient intensity), which is to say that to actually BE a functioning --
not a would-be -- Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu would require that a  person be one solid “self” in their consciousness,
and conversely being a sinner, pagan, non believer, one-of-the-deluded
would be in a person’s consciousness being fragmented into many mental
(or, spiritual, as religion prefers it) selves,
for so long as a man is in such a condition, he cannot sustain any allegiance he may swear: at one moment he affirms his dedication to live by certain religious rules,
and the very next moment he betrays this vow, almost as though he became,
in the blink of an eye, an entirely different person.

This is not a great revelation in that some men have forever made note thereof,
and all sane men, (should they give but brief consideration), recognize its validity, yet life is not arranged for ordinary men to maintain this awareness,
and thus do routine people refer to themselves unhesitatingly as though
there is inside of them an intangible self which is just as solid, constant,
and permanent as is their physical body.
This game of verbal/mental pretend is an inextricable, integral part of
collective humanity’s normal existence and demonstratively does no mischief,
save to the few.

So, in varying degrees of clarity, you find in psychology, mythology,
religion, mysticism, and in ordinary men’s everyday-common-sense,
the awareness that, speaking non physically, everyone seems to be as though
there are various people  -- different versions of their self –
inside of them who take turns being in control --  especially of their tongue:
this is tacitly accepted by all --
then all promptly pretend to have no specific awareness thereof:
just another facet of that unique sport known as: being human.

So, even though what has thus far been limned is in no wise mysterious,
occult or out of the mainstream of ordinary human awareness,
a relentless, constant personal consciousness thereof is extremely rare,
(forever on, in fact, a secret endangered species list);
everyone knows that they are subject to ever changing moods,
and can express their love for another one instant,
and be assaulting them the next --
always with after-the-act explanations,
but at the time of these life long incidents -- they just happen,
and the actors take no conscious notice of what occurred within their consciousness simultaneously with the, has-to-be-explained speech or behavior;
the self in them that perpetrated the necessary-to-justify deed is long gone --  leaving it to another self to verbally clean up the mess.
This is simply the way of man, but more accurately:
the way of man’s consciousness, for his liver, heart, lungs and hands
do not change in nature, attitude, or mood, not from moment to moment,
(and taking into account the inevitability of normal aging), not throughout a life time.

Men’s bodies are tangible, permanent, solid, stable and predictable,
it is only his inner, invisible, self -- his personality –
which betrays these attributes,
(and remind yourself a final time that this is not pathological –
this is humans’ natural, normal psychological condition).

For the few with the need to see it: your private, non physical, inner self
is composed of nothing you can find other than the never ceasing thoughts
which pass through your consciousness;
delete them and there is no “you” there;
to see this is, (to say the least and confess the obvious), extremely tricky, 
even for the few with the potential;
you are in essence asking an apparent something, (your mental, inner self)
to see that it does not exist;
and this description, while honest,
is yet as incomplete as is the nature of words themselves,
but once you vigorously interrogate the situation for yourself,
you will come to appreciate its poetic perfection and precision.

On the verbal surface it verges on the insane, or at least, improbable:
to get something which can think, speak and command
to comprehend its own non existence;
the statement itself is the height of irrationality, nay --  impossibility --
for if something does not exist in the first place,
it could not be present to contemplate its proposed, non existence.
Oh --  no doubt about it --  it is a most bewildering notion in words,
and one almost totally lacking in common human expression;
historically, even the most bizarre, out-of-it, mystics will not touch it,
preferring instead to deal in thoroughly irrelevant ideas of gods, fates,
and other supernatural forces to explain man’s otherwise
inexplicable condition of looking to be as solid an entity as any other living creature,
but turning out to be a never ending string of unpredictable, unreliable,
apparently different people inside of one body.

Things are so arranged that human thought will pretend to take seriously
the idea that distant planets, or alien spirits are responsible for
the routine inconsistency of his non physical existence
rather than simply look at itself --
the incontrovertible field upon which this forever fragmented game is played.

A man seems to be many because the thoughts which constitute what  everyone accepts as being the “man” are many:
many and never ending;
many and some times disconnected,
many and some times not;
many and some favored by the brain facilitating them,
many and some denounced by same;
a normal man seems to be many for a normal man is nothing but his thoughts,
and the thoughts are many; many now --  many always,
and the desire to alter your state of consciousness --  to wake up,
is the longing to be one in your head, rather than the normal many,
and trying forever to change or improve one of the many as a means of achieving this is futile and must be ultimately realized as such.
 

A person struggling to “achieve enlightenment” is not in truth trying to enlighten something in him now --  one of his many selves, or I’s –
but is unwittingly wanting to create a real one – a real you, for a change:
a one-you that is not part of the many --
does not come from the ranks of many –
and will not be a remodeled, repaired or redeemed thought-you
from the old population of the many;
it will be a new one-of-you in your consciousness,
and being truly --  new -- it will not be, by definition,
any thought you have ever had before in your life --
…so at the least: there you have a quite definite hint:
                 be your own solitary musketeer: “All for all, and one for one.”

                                          J