Personal attacks

When a person is attacked, the natural response is to attack back, to "come out swinging," as they say, and usually the retaliator is given an immediate pass (at least this time), because everyone believes they have some "inalienable right" to retaliate when attacked.

That may be true, when it pertains to physical, bodily attacks, as one's sense of self-preservation kicks in automatically - one usually can't help it, or stop it. But, is that also true, when the attack is only verbal?

When a person is verbally attacked - against their person, or their ideas - there is perceptible time, wherein one can make a choice, whether to attack back. Usually, the scales are heavily weighted on the side of "do it," and rarely on the side of "don't do it," and this may be a carryover from the past, the pre-civilized past.

The more civilized one is, the more the scales are weighted on the side of "don't do it." And when you think about it, even for just a few moments more than is natural to you, that really makes more sense, than always immediately defending yourself, or attacking back. Even children know this: "sticks and stones will... but words will..."

The impulse to "get civilized" pre-dates the impulse to "awaken" (enlightenment, nirvana, waking up, mindfulness, etc.) When people started living in close surroundings, there needed to be a method to keep the upstarts in line, so that the community would not crumble, hence, "getting civilized."

Now, consider: if everybody was truly, civilized - as civilized as humanly possible - would there really be a "need" (or desire, or wish, or calling) to "awaken" (enlightenment, nirvana, waking up, mindfulness, etc.)

Perhaps, those buzzwords above, are merely futuristic terminology (or descriptions) for the ordinary, common word/phrase: "being civilized."

Now, consider: how would an email list operate, if everybody was truly civilized? Hell, how would life on earth operate if everybody was truly civilized? Would there even be discussions about "super-civility," or "awakened-civility," or "enlightened-civility?"

Perhaps, the personal and individual AIM to be civilized, is just about the highest AIM one can take upon oneself, for without that, what is one but an animal?

Are you a hot-head?

Consider the phrase: "s/he's a real 'hot-head'." We've all heard that one, probably even used it against someone else, if only under our breath (coward!). But, THINK about it. Hot-head?

It doesn't make sense. People who are "hot-heads" don't have hot heads, in fact what they "have" is hot hormones - and should really be called something like "hot-chesters" (lousy choice of words, of course, because there's no way to point to it clearly, because you can't map temperament - felt most strongly perhaps in the chest - very easily upon thoughts.)

Hot-heads, are those who are run by their hormones, and are thus quick to anger, quick to retaliate, quick to confront others.

In fact, their heads (brains) are not "hot" at all. Their heads (brains) are not functioning at all, except as the hand-maiden (mouthpiece) of their hormones (some call them emotions, but I call them hormones).

People who live "more in their heads" (you know, the more civilized...) rarely if ever exhibit anything like the hot-headedness of the more aptly named (though lousy choice), "hot-chesters" - those with over-heated temperaments.

Think about it.
Is the other guy a hot-head, are you a hot-head, is anyone a hot-head? HARDLY!!! (With few, few, few exceptions - and when you meet a true HOT head, you'll bow to him.)

A true HOT head, is one whose neurons are on fire, and when that is the case (observe it for yourself, if you can), the hormones are in check, because once the hormones raise their hackles, the fire instantly subsides, and the person becomes a hot-feeler, a hot-chester - run by their hormones, with mouth and lips in slavish service to them. (until they subside - yeah right! - on their own, in their own time...)

"consciousness is all"
What a phrase, what a phrase!
Sets some minds literally on fire - "That's IT!"
Sets some minds into blank stares - "Huh!?!"

Some, apparently those with minds already "set afire", actually start careers, in the public sector no less, telling other people, essentially, that "consciousness is all", and then spend the next 30 minutes, or 30 pages, or 30 years, explaining "what the hell they're talking about", usually to other people whose minds were already "set afire." (You apparently can't light up a mind with "just words" unless that mind is already lit to some extent. Probably for the same reason, that you can't get someone turned on about soccer, unless they've already got a "thing" about kicking balls around.)

Anyway, what is it about that aforementioned phrase, that so "inspires" (if that's an acceptable word) so many? What really is going on, that otherwise normal people find nothing more enjoyable and entertaining, than discussing the meaning of those three little words? (Hey, he said, "three little words" - and we all know what that phrase conjures up, eh? Many so-called artistic-types, seem to find similar enjoyment becoming mentally, if not even emotionally, "intimate" with that one, too... maybe there's a connection?!?)

Anyway, "consciousness is all" is certainly power-packed, ain't it? ("How was it for you?") But, really, what's going on? Are not those people simply trying to define one word they don't understand in the slightest, with other words they don't understand either?

No one "knows" what "consciousness" means.
No one "knows" what "is" means.
No one "knows" what "all" means.
(Beyond the hyper-simplistic dictionary definitions available even to 6 year-olds.)

They are just, three little words, the sight or sound of which stimulate some few neurons in their brains, that a very few in the grand-scheme of humanity alive at any one time, feel almost compelled to talk about further, as if talking about those three little words (words they have absolutely no prior understanding about), will make them >>understand<<.

But, it's a trick of mind. People are made to think about everything, from soccer to samadhi, for a hidden, secret reason, that almost no one ever gets nose-to-nose with. Never! (Well, almost never... ok?) But, when they do get nose-to-nose with it, that phrase not only loses it's apparent power over them, they discover what the power was/is all along.

Then, the conversation undergoes a somewhat mysterious transformation, or at least alteration. Silence becomes more communicative than Talking. Vagueness takes precedence over Clarity. And "knowing" loses the lifelong attractive force it has for most others.

The pointy thingy

Once, in a far off land (off earth in fact), lived a small group of molecules, that grew and expanded and eventually assembled themselves, over time, into organs, and later into a unified body - a Thing.

The arm called the totality - Arm. The leg called the totality - Leg. The blood-pumper called the totality - Heart. The electricity-mover called the totality - Brain; and so on.

And they fought and fought and fought about this, but it was all in fun, and they all knew it; so they stopped. Then, the fun began.

Eventually, the Thing turned into a pyramid-shaped Thing, with a pointy top that reached to the stars, a long slender torso of light, and a globe-sized stump of living molecular propensity that grew deep into and out of the ground. Kind of a galaxy-sized ball of living matter on a chain of light.

Later, much later, when the last of those stars went out, and night fell upon the place, the pointy thingy broke off from the far off land, and like a singular shooting star, shot across the universe, landing here, on this little planet.

Once, in a nearby land (right here in fact), lived a small group of molecules, that grew and expanded and eventually assembled themselves, over time, into organs, and later into a unified body - a Thing.

The arm called the totality - Arnold. The leg called the totality - Leo. The blood-pumper called the totality - Brenda. The electricity-mover called the totality - Edward; and so on.

And they fought and fought and fought about this, but it was all in fun, and they all knew it; so they stopped. Then, the fun began.

~~~~~
ps- just kidding, they never knew it.

You do not "own" anything, including knowledge.

The subtle belief that you "own" anything, your emotions... your feelings... your body... your mind... your history... your self... even your knowledge, is of course, the burden of being, simply, human - which leads to carrying the burden, which is the pain and suffering of human existence - being "encumbered".

However, that should not prohibit one from investigating the territory, just as the gut-felt realization that one does not "own" the land, certainly did not keep native americans from travelling far and wide in the land which was finally grabbed away from them, sometime after "The Big Landgrab of 1492"... ;^)

Of these things which one does not own, the mind - just that capacity to think - is the most extraordinary universe (in the Universe), man has never (hardly even) begun to investigate, let alone discover anything about (putting aside astonomers - and their simple siblings astrologers - and neuroscientists, who all know almost nothing.) Rather, mankind has spent the last 6000 years inventing soft sciences to study everything BUT the mind - psychiatrists don't study the mind, they only study "cases", they only study what other people say they remember, and call that: studying thinking. This is the same reason why people can not self remember, self observe, be constantly mindful. People think they are studying thinking (the mind and it's operations), but what they are studying is only what "the case" says is remembered. It's because they can't study themselves, they just don't know how.

This sorry condition, would be like being born as a native american, and never exploring your own land that you SAY you love and cherish and feel so much a part of. Staying at home, is the ordinary fate of humankind, coupled with the gut-felt desire to "return home". Venturing out, in that most extraordinary universe (in the Universe), is the work of, well, explorers.

(Of course, that job title, which one must self-select, does not suit most humans, anymore than Escape would suit most prisoners, upsetting as it would the safety and comfort of their homeland/cell.)

~~~~~
ps- even if some occasional prisoner does escape (for a moment or an hour or a day), he always refers to that "experience" as "home" (or seeing the face of God, or returning to the godhead, or other similar allusions), and he immediately wants to "return there" again, that is, he wants to go BACK TO PRISON... and, of course, he does! (go back to prison, that is.)

"I am not the body"

Humans are thoroughly fascinated with their bodies. Whole teachings, systems, even religions, are built up (in thoughts) dedicated to discovering their bodies, from sensing, to watching their breath, etc.

But, they never realize that the mind includes their bodies, in the same way a prison includes all the prisoners. Teachings, systems, which specify the need to or importance of discovering their bodies, is no different than the prison warden believing in the necessity to understand the prisoners under his control.

One idea, found in most teachings is, "I am not the body." True enough, but then the rest of the teaching, seems dedicated to instructing people how to discover and know their bodies. If "I am not the body." is correct information, then why is there virtually nothing extant in the literature, instructing people how to discover and know their minds? (You can work on this at your leisure, for a lifetime.) In fact, there seems to be almost an aversion to even considering such a concept, and developing it further (in their own thoughts). Many such people say things like, "Hey the mind is a chaotic jungle" ... so just "stop thoughts", or "stop thinking so much", or the capper, "it'll only get you into more trouble". And, not surprisingly, many more (most) believe that. Why? Here's a reason, because they can't think about their own minds, but don't know why. (The mind knows why, just, not the person confined by that mind!)... (You might want to work on that one too.)

This, then, is the exploration fit for a King, if not for an Escapee. One thing you can be absolutely certain about, once a prisoner discovers he's in a prison, ALL his thoughts will be about escape (unless he's damaged, or dense). Not about accepting his sorry fate (unless he's damaged, or dense).

People who accept their fate, as bodies on earth, subject to all the physical and mental laws flowing through their veins, are destined to live and die, just as others have lived and died - suffering, resigned to their "fate."

But, surprise surprise. There are other "fates". (Look it up; once you know what to look for, investigation reveals it's secrets!)

The Big Landgrab of 1492

People can not generally think of the mind and it's operations, geographically, but only metaphorically. They often call it's operations non-material, non- localizable, non-touchable. But, if they could think of the thought- cloud surrounding their brain- globe, as territory, physical territory, they might begin to see what Talk really is.

(Remember, talk occurs somewhere, not only just sometime.)

Consider: ordinary conversation occurs between the confused, and the objectively stupid (what have they, really, got to talk about?) Two enlightened sages sitting quietly in a room together, will not often be found gloating** over their own or each other's accomplishments, travels, or exploits.

(Afterall, they both know the territory is ONE.)

Now, the fun of exploration, exploring the mind, begins to make sense.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**aggrandize, attract attention, bullshit, bully, crow, exaggerate, exult, flatter oneself, flaunt, flourish, glorify, grandstand, preen, puff, show off, showboat, strut, swagger, and all sorts of other colorful words like that.

The Right Effort

All attempts to be 'mindful' (remember yourself, remember the name of god, the face of god, the sound of god, etc.), is just another mis-naming of the more obvious, direct idea of >concentration<. Or, put another way, you would be in an entirely different state of consciousness - you would be a new man mentally, your perception of yourself, other people, and Life in general would be permanently changed - if you could just willfully concentrate on one thing all the time. Screw all this other, extraneous stuff (remember yourself, remember the name of god, the face of god, the sound of god, etc.), if you could just concentrate your attention at will, then all that other stuff, is just dressing-up a dog - and why would you ever want to do that? But, even when told point-blank, the mind will NOT accept it. Why?... Why!!??

The Sage said: "You too can enter the Kingdom of God, and all you have to do, you sorry sonofabitch, is >>concentrate<<. Just concentrate, even when you don't have to!" And what does the mind immediately say to that?

---"On what?"

"Nah, nah, nah... Just concentrate!"

And consider this, nobody would want to awaken, if they could concentrate at will.

Yet, hanging from a 50foot ledge by your fingertips, trying to save yourself from a sabre-toothed tiger or a bill-collector, you can't HELP but totally concentrate on what is going on in you and around you. Just try to think about something else. ("Gee, will the Dems take back the White House this time?", "Will bell bottoms finally come back?")

Why can not the mind accept this correct detailing of what is necessary to awaken? Why must it invent other ways of saying what is so obviously simple to say - concentrate. (Not concentrate on something - just concentrate.)

This line of questioning, requires thinking more than you have to, because if you just allow your mechanical mind to work with it, you inevitably fall into the same trap everyone else has already fallen into - confusion through mis-naming and mis-direction.

Thinking for yourself

You might notice from even a cursory view of the archives of the Direct Way forum, that probably 90% or more of the posts, are "original topics" of the author's choosing - not, replies to someone else's previous post.

You might also note, that on most other lists you're on, the ratios are quite reversed - probably 90% or more of the posts are simply replies to replies to replies ad infinitum, and less than 10% if that, are "original topics" of the author's choosing.

So what?

Here's what: if people did not have Gurdjieff, or Jesus, or Buddha, or Nisargadatta, or Maharshi, or Krishnamurti, or Whomever to talk about, they'd literally have NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT.

This, in the classic sense, is what "thinking only as much as you can" (versus, "thinking more than you have to") is all about. You get interested in "waking up", or getting "enlightened" (because your Mom or Dad or Friend told you about it <---key point), and then you go buy a bunch of books, hole up in your room and read most of them, and then start talking about them with everybody you meet, until they can't stand you anymore, and you start looking for "birds of a similar feather" (like a study group, or a "work group", or even, a *Conscious School*), so you can talk about the books with other people who will, generally, tolerate it.

That, in the classic sense, is what "thinking only as much as you can", is all about.

The Direct Way forum, is about the other thing exclusively: "thinking MORE than you have to, about everything." And the very first thing you, personally, can start thinking about, is "what the HELL is that guy, Bob, actually talking about?" And, for yourself personally, what does "thinking only as much as I can" actually mean? And, then further, what could "thinking MORE than I have to about something" actually mean?

I'll assure you, Gurdjieff, Jesus, Buddha, Nisargadatta, Maharshi, Krishnamurti, have nothing to say about this. So you'll just have to "do your own thinking about it" for yourself.

The glorious paradox

The glorious paradox: "He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know"

So, given that "wisdom" - cliched as it has become; even from the mouths of babes one will hear it, even applying it to mundane topics - how does one, "talk about enlightenment?"

As soon as one buys a book, ostensibly "by Buddha", or "by Jesus", or "by Gurdjieff", the interminable conversation begins - "talking about enlightenment" - even if only, in the head, but inevitably, >>in the head<<.

As soon as one opens their mouth, and tells someone else (what they "know", or what they "believe", or what they "think") - they, at least according the "wise maxim" above, they don't know what the HELL they're talking about.

Ah yes, the glorious paradox. The conversation can not begin, until you hear about it, and then the primary Rule, the Prime Directive, is to not speak about it.

(Well, if the first Guy - Mr. G - followed that rule, he'd never have told his friends, nor would they have told theirs, and so on... down to... you, there in your soft chair, twiddling your moustache or your hair, or whatever it is you do when reading boring material like this...eh.)

It's not so much that English is a fascinating language, as that the mind is even more fascinating being driven by it, or any language for that matter. The mind, is a fascinating and glorious paradox.

Dig it.

Having a good day.....or not.

People everywhere talk about "having a good day", or "having a bad day", but when they say that, what are they really talking about? There are almost always talking about their first, external life, and not their second, inner life.

The connection between the two lives, is felt or experienced, in pleasure and pain, and all the dualisms describing man's ordinary experience of being alive. Having a good day, or having a bad day.

People rarely realize that having a bad day in their first life - you know, the car breaks down on your way to that great job interview -keeps them from having a good day in the second life, whereas having a good day in their second life, obviates the need for feeling one way or the other about their first life - it becomes irrelevant.

The more one knows about one's first life, changes nothing with regard to their knowing about the second life - the first adds nothing to it, and they remain completely ignorant of it. However, the more one knows about their second life, the more they know about their first life and then some. In fact, an all-knowing second life creates their first life, and they know it.

"So near, yet so far away."

Is it possible, that the closer one approaches unadulterated** reality, seamless reality, Knowing, the murkier things become?

When electron microscopes print "photographs" of subatomic particles, they have to be put out of focus to be seen. If they were left in the focus that the electron microscope saw them, the particles would be invisible to the human eye. They have to be shifted out of focus to give them the appearance of being something.

Surprise, surprise.

Considering all this, starts with being able to remember something without thinking about it, being able to see something without looking at it. Staring, or being ordinarily conscious, makes anything invisible. You've seen it before, and you don't see it anymore. You don't see the people you're living with, or what you do everyday, or what you were thinking 4 hours ago (or 4 minutes ago?), or even what you look like in the mirror. You can't see your surroundings or anything else, because it's all invisible. Staring, which includes pondering and studying and conjecturing and discussing and arguing and just plain "thinking about stuff", is the neural processes in you electrically and biochemically running the same old routes, with the same neurotransmitters connecting at the same junctures.

Funny, how a little science goes a long way to explaining that which was heretofore unexplainable. Funny, how in order to see something, you can not look at it directly, because it disappears.

Surprise, surprise.

From the out-of-focus to the crystally-clear.

ps- in the game of "connect the dots," it's not always necessary to connect all the dots to see the image, and not only the flat 2d image, but the solid 3d and the timely 4d versions.

pps- **un-adult-erated is a VERY interesting word - most already know what it means, but there is an obvious "definition" you will never find in the dictionary... know what it is??? Think: children, very young children, not yet taken with long, deep, conversations about things. What is their frequent answer to almost every question an adult might ask them, about "why did/does that happen?" - from "why did you hit your sister?" to "why does the sun rise over here in the morning, and go down over there at night?"

...mind loops around itself...

A human being is nothing more than his genetics. All attempts at adding more parts - like "essence", "personality", "features", "centers", "states" - is the mind attempting to name that which it believes it dwells within.

The mind does not dwell within a "something" which can be named, as to it's parts or to ITself as a whole.

What mind is doing - reading, writing, talking, discussing, trying to work out the details of all it's statements, trying to write the perfect sentence - is trying to get outside of the very dynamic which is creating all the sentences. Mind ruminates (thinks) about everything, in an attempt to get outside itself and SEE itself. But there is no out there.

No, there is no essence, no personality, no features, no centers, no states - other than This one moment. When you let the mind start running after itself, picking out things to talk about, that's taking your EYE/I off the ball.

Mind is trying to make you believe there is an outside, from where to see what's going on, because you can't see what's going on from inside - and IT (mind) knows it - but it tries anyway.

There's nothing BEHIND the intellectual, emotional and physical, when they're operational, and you don't even know when they are operational unless/until the mind is - brain death means no intellectual, emotional, physical to be aware of.

There's no point trying to direct attention at what lies BEHIND anything, as the effort cancels out both - if you GOT behind, there's now nothing in front, so you never actually "GOT behind".

Mind is a monstrous time loop, which you are not taking into consideration, can't take into consideration, because when mind is operating, time is looping.

Everyone's dreams about "other (better? higher?) states" are part of the problem of being asleep, as one is right now, RIGHT NOW!

What everybody like us - rebels, neural explorers, mystics in the making - is trying to do, is become alone and loving it.

Conversation, in general

Conversation lives and grows in the minds of the young, and dies and withers in the minds of the old. It doesn't matter one's physical, chronological age, it only matters the rigidity of the thinking-process which began at birth, ramped up until late teen years, and started declining ever since.

Lurkers on email lists - always the bane of more active posters - must have brain damage, or old-timers disease, based upon the frequency of their offerings on their chosen list. ;^) There is no other acceptable rationalization (justification) for this lack of output to an email list where the Prime Requirement is mental output (since without it, the email list disappears, of course!) - not home life, 9-5 work life, nothing - but the decline of your intellect.

(Oh yeah, you're saying otherwise, in your own reactions right now, but Verbal Output is Quantifiable. Either you can control and direct it to some extent, or you can not.)

This condition, of course, is quite natural in all men - they stop talking so much the older they get, and at an accelerating pace of enforced silence.

AND THAT IS THE CHIEF FLAW in ordinary humans that prevents their initiating an accelerating conscious evolution after they reach their mid-twenties.

You need to think much more about everything (than you ordinarily can), and when you can achieve this in greater and greater degrees of conscious execution, you will experience more and more moments of true Realization - where you SEE things you (and others) were not specifically designed to see, due to your inherent mechanical association-engine you call, "my mind".

Most people's response to questions they can't understand is, "Don't think about that, because you only get tangled up in greater confusion." But, that is the justification for "doing" what's already happening mechanically anyway, and noticeably more and more everyday - NOT THINKING more than one has to, to get by (pay the bills, do your job, fill the fridge, keep the car running, the pets fed, etc.) Of course, everyone starts at the same level at this.

Here's the classic rationalization for not thinking more than you have to about some topic which confronts you: you're either not interested, or you don't agree with it. Those two are the dual strands of illusion, keeping everyone from fiddling with the descending octave which is their ordinary minds - or brains - capacity to Think: "I'm not interested in that, so I won't think more about it." or "I don't agree with the topic as being useful/relevant to me in any way."

Lies!!

All thought is useful and relevant - to The Thinker. The problem with ordinary mind/consciousness, is that it can't engage intentionally; and know this too, when you can engage your Thinking intentionally, you can "put away" thousands of ideas in the "sweep of a hand". God, faith, love, will, honesty, morality, etc., can be relegated to that part of your common presence you call, "my mind", so that it does not further confuse and upset your better, higher efforts. Send the goddamn gods/dogs to the other room, where their constant yapping doesn't disturb you so much.

Bottomline, if you can't run a successful journal, weblog, diary, of your journey into the unknown - membership ONE - you can't know the thrill of the game, the art of awakening in the 21st century. Then, and only then, will you understand the relationship, speakers and listeners actually represent - both out there and in here - teachers/students, the awakened/asleep, will/mechanicality, etc./etc.

Heated conversations

Some people say things like:
"Friction creates heat, heat creates fire, fire cooks the food." And, "Such firey conversation is productive."

Well, sometimes.

Humans don't like the heat, in their brains - though many have higher tolerance in their body, and even more in their emotions. Some humans can actually BEAR the sudden loss of a major limb in an accident, or even the death of a blood loved one, even if horribly murdered, yet (I repeat), YET can not bear the introduction of an idea which utterly and in-their-face contradicts some prior belief....

Like the fools who say they believe in God, and when confronted with someone who states categorically, God doesn't exist outside their brain wave activity about that "topic", will start to argue with them, but eventually walk away in disgust, disbelief, or disdain, calling the person all sorts of personality-killing names - "SATAN", evil-doer, etc.

Only the rebel-in-consciousness, 1) knows how to generate proper, ongoing heat in the brain, 2) knows how to use the higher temps involved in the cooking/cracking of the raw fuel (thoughts), to produce much, much higher octane fuel for Future-Thinking projects they might be engaging in... say, right now!!

"Oh, my lazy mind."
When you start realizing the source of your REAL dilemma - your lazy mind - it will have the utterly amazing effect of turning UP the volume and volumn of information being pushed through your lazy mind, and you might even have an Epiphany.

Once you have the Epiphany of what mind is, you see what's going on, and you can't forget it. Rather than association of past memories being that which drives your mechanical thought, the Realization of what you discovered will drive it.

You go from trying to be direct - telling yourself and everybody you know things, and thereby being confused, confusing and indirect - to being intentionally Direct - and knowing you (mind) can't know anything at all EVER. Sans a brain, you're brain-dead, and will die as the dog. With brain, your chances are not improved, until you improve them.

Mind is just that confluence of inner events occurring when thought is being mechanically pumped through you - like right now as you're reading this. You didn't write my words. You couldn't write my words. You won't be able to write your OWN WORDS until you give up trying to be "direct" (thereby being only confused and confusing), and start being intentionally DIRECT - point-blank, in-your-face. That means coming from your own Understanding, not your goofy theories about what Gurdjieff said, or Ouspensky said, or Jesus, Buddha, Ramana Maharshi, or Nisargadatta, or anybody else.

Your whole environment is the "cause" of your sleep, and you're allowing it to govern you.

Waking UP, simply means, to stop letting prior beliefs govern you -start inventing your OWN new understandings about what's going on.

Waking up in one lifetime

You can take this to the bank. ;^)

Waking up is starting over, but starting over in a way you CAN NOT imagine today - not with your theories, your logic, or your spiritual science.

The desire for waking up, is wanting to be ONE person, in the head -not the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands or more, pseudo-peeps that currently occupy your (as I've called it) city.

And not just one person, but truly alone, and never at home.

In the beginning, everybody is a rebel who seeks enlightenment. They leave their ordinary home - of their family's religion, upbringing and education, etc. - and search for a new home. Buddha did not find the answers he was looking for in Hinduism, so he went looking elsewhere, hence Buddhism. Jesus did not find what he was looking for in Judaism, so went looking elsewhere, hence Christianity. That, was simply finding a new home. But - try to think about this non-formatorily - changing from one home to another home, is not, being enlightened.

Home, the way I'm referring to it, is your ordinary genetic neural temperament. You can't train or re-train that termperament. Buddhism can't help you, Christianity can't help, Fourth Way can't help you.

Everyone wants to call themselves, something - Catholic, Christian, Buddhist, Gurdjieffian, Ouspenskiite, etc. - and it doesn't matter what they call themselves. They are born, in a home, and they want to say, "I am a [fill it in]."

How do people become [fill it in] - they simply live the life their genetic neural temperament dictates. They gravitate toward people, ideas, and geographies, NOT because "they" chose to do so, but because they couldn't help themselves. For an entire life, people can not help themselves - all just happens to them, INCLUDING the crazy, nutso, irrelevant ideas and theories that they identify with.

Becoming truly alone, is starting over, without guilt (for having disrupted your prior beliefs), without fear (of possible potential failure), and with monstrous unquenchable courage. It's an act of Will that keeps giving and giving in ways you can't predict, imagine, theorize or philosphize about in advance.

A Real Rebel, one who has started to understand the only journey worth embarking upon, is the discovery of the inner landscapes of their own mind, will quickly discover to their utterly awesome amazement, that all the "higher knowledge" they "thought" they were "seeking", was just low-rent impertinent junk stored by a mostly faulty memory-process they never had any willful control over, and the real Higher Knowledge they start to acquire, was born into their genetic neural temperament - but now, they understand what to do.

The externally and internally oriented

There are two kinds of people: the externally oriented, and internally oriented. All people are born externally oriented - they can't help it, they've got senses that are only stimulated by outside pressures, and only stimulated by internal pressures when something is very wrong. So, if a person is reasonably healthy, he can spend his entire life never even realizing he has an untapped inner world. We all know countless people like that.

Once a person chances upon the notion of an inner world, the real trouble begins, because that entire inner world can only be investigated by mind alone. Senses will not help you. Only mind can undertake that investigation. But, the problem is that the mind is ill-equipped to do what's necessary to see what's going on, because it continually - because it can't help it - confuses the external for the internal and vice versa.

The classic "work on yourself syndrome" is based upon trying to understand oneself, from the outside in. The Work - which is older than Gurdjieff, of course - is about trying to understand oneself, from the inside out.

The Work must proceed from inner to outer, and not from outer to inner. Thus, there is nothing to understand about the Universe, per se, but only about the mind. Understand what's going on therein, and everything else falls into place.

Women

I've noticed this for 30 years, and I'm going to comment upon it right now for the first time...

Women, in general, are not "well-suited" to the Work of Thinking. They are, however, extremely well suited, to the Work of Feeling. Thinking and Feeling are the two realms of existence which lower forms of Life (that we know about - animals, plants, etc.) are incapable of experiencing to the degree possible by a Human (with a capital H).

I've subscribed to email lists and usenet for 12 years. In general, they are populated 90% or more by men, and participated 90% or more by men. Women have much less patience dealing with the vagaries of thought than men. That's why technology and science are, primarily, the domains of men. Technology and science are, first and foremost, the ordinary work of thinking.

On most lists, one will be very hard-pressed to even name more than one or two women posters - of course there are exceptions.

Women need to overcome their chief feature of lazymind, and start thinking more. And Men need to overcome their chief feature of crazymind, and start thinking better.

There are two halves to the brain - the left and right hemispheres. These are the male and female parts of the brain - speech on the left, emotions on the right. Everybody needs to develop their rightbrain, and there's a way to do this by concentrating on the left. Believe it or not.

ps- Think, marriage, union, and the present-day flak being generated over "same sex" unions...

pps- Are you thinking???

Humans are living a life inside-out.

It's not so much that WE are the BigBangingBlackHole out from which all things spew, but that we KNOW about the BigBangingBlackHole. Even pre- or un-civilized humans know about it, but they just can't call it that, they don't have the science to do it, only myth and religion - so they call it, Birth.

Humans, are living a life inside-out. Can you feel that?

Inside out. It's not that the external world emanates from humanity, it's that humans can think about externals - but there is no external, there is no out-there.

Inside out. Can you feel that?

From that realization, comes the enlightening idea that Thought is both the Key to all the secrets of the Universe, and of the Mind.

Without thought, none of us would exist (and that includes lurkers and the recently un-subscribed). Lurkers (ordinary humans living an ordinary non-mental life, from the "outside" in), don't exist, and their job, should they wish to EXIST, is to find out how to activate the nervous system in a certain way, which produces conscious thought.

Done correctly, new parts of the nervous system become conscious that are not already conscious, in the same way that new blood vessels growing in the brain can feed currently dormant neurons, activating them, enlightening them.

There is no "out there"

Akin to the idea-cum- realization that there is no "out-there", is the realization that, without mind, your normally functioning mind, nothing exists.

All that people talk about - except for the material objects they can touch - refers to "non-existent things", non-things, just energy patterns in flux.

That includes, all talk about "truth", "love", "hate", "conspiracies", and other "non- things" that can't be held in your hand. 95% of the English language refers to non-things, the remaining 5% about physical things you can touch.

Therefore, Waking up, is about becoming constantly aware of the distinction between the inner and the outer, the unreal and the real, the mental and the physical, and Growing Up, is about knowing the difference.

Children, and the insane, can't tell the difference between bunnies that talk to them, and bunnies in the zoo. That's where adults come in - to teach them the difference. Even with that, however, many children NEVER grow out of the incapability to see the difference, and even, in the most bizarro, topsy-turvy way, start believing that external physical reality does not exist, only their internal mental fantasies - like "a man can consciously love", "a man can consciously hate", "there are conscious men behind our civilizations", "men never landed on the moon", "God talks to me", and the inanity goes on and on till they die. They have mechanically externalized their inner chatter to the point, that it becomes more real to them, than chairs, rocks, and waterfalls. But, of course, this is what mind is made to do, supposed to do, because Life made you, and you do what Life makes you do.

In fact, adults with this quirk-of-fate (that may even be genetic), start calling their incapacity, metaphysics, spirtituality, and other terms signifying absolutely unsee-able and untouch-able "things", never realizing they are forever non-things.

From one very specific viewpoint, thinking is the only existing THING in the universe. Just, Thinking, the process: Thinking.

From that, All and Everything unfolds in an unending expansion, from the apparent, original Birth of the flow of energy which is Thinking, to the transient anomaly resident in some scattered througout time and space creatures who can Talk and Listen, and a fewer still with the capacity to distinquish and determine Who's Talking, and Who's Listening, when it's happening.

That is very very very rare.

The outer and the inner

There are two halves to the brain - the left and right hemispheres. These are the male and female parts of the brain - speech on the left, emotions on the right. Everybody needs to develop their rightbrain, and there's a way to do this by concentrating on the left.

Believe it or not.

But, the male and female parts are coordinated differently with respect to the drive that draws them together. It is much like sex in the physical world.

If a beautiful naked woman approaches a horny man of any type, he won't usually be able to resist. But, if a naked horny man approaches a women of any type, she will usually resist him.

Man are drawn to naked women for sex, like moths to a lightbulb. Women resist naked horny men trying to screw them, like cats from big dogs.

The male part of the brain, is the talking/thinking part of the brain, and the female part of the brain, is the feeling/sensing part of the brain, and the two halves are in a, hate to use it but here it goes, mobius twisted relatship with each other - the one irrestibly attracted to the other, while the other uncontrollably resistant.

To put it grossly, cave men ran around looking for women to forcibly rape, and women ran around trying to keep from being raped, and the two twisted creatures are still engaged in the same activity today, EXCEPT that culture, civilization, laws act as an "external decelerator" - without which, they'd never actually come together, so important for the expansion of the species.

The inner drive for Sex, is the same as the inner drive to Think -but only the first is actualized in the physical world. The second must be actualized in the mental world.

That, dear friends, is a key, could you but use it.

The news

Everybody listens to the news, but nobody understands it - not the writers, the editors, the presenters, the hearers. Nobody.

News, whether it be from CNN or Fox "fair and balanced" or the Underground Press, is created, by the "great thought machine", Life, so that ordinary "mini-brains", people, will have something to "think about" - but that form of "thinking", is not the kind possible in some non-ordinary humans. And, if that's not enough, that which most people call consciousness, is not the kind possible in some.

People view life from the outside in. That's what "being confused" is all about. Wars, and world strife, and loss of freedoms, has nothing to do with it, if you're not Free internally (Free to think or NOT think whatever you want, AND to be able to THINK about something in a new way, not the ordinary formatory way.)

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time there was a guy who said he was the son of the guy who created the world and everything in it, and though a few people were compelled to listen to him, many people did not like him saying that, so they nailed him to some boards fastened in the shape of a cross, until he died. Then they put him in a small cave and sealed it up. Afterwards, a few days later, some people said they saw him walking around and talking, and concluded he must have escaped from the cave, to live again.

Then, a few days later and for several more years, people talked about this, and wrote down their memories as best they could. Much later still, hundreds and hundreds of years later, a couple billion people believed those stories, give or take a few most likely, although not one of them was actually there. << http://www.adherents.com/rel_pie.gif >> In the law, all this would be called hearsay (they heard the story from someone who heard the story from someone else who...), and hearsay is not allowed as evidence for anything, and for very obvious - once you see it - reasons.

Now, there's a movie about the last 12 hours in the life of that man, before being nailed to the cross and dying, and because of the state of worldwide communications today, tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions of people are thinking about this story, perhaps more than they ever have thought about anything before.

The story is considered to be true, all true, and nothing but all true, and because it is so considered, it is - or at least, that's what is believed.

Funny, though, if you think about it just a little bit, history may be altered by the memories and beliefs of those who follow, and every year that follows the more certain is their belief in the truth of it. Now, very soon, humanity will have an onsite witness to the events of that time so many centuries ago.

Yet, if you could somehow rewind the tape, back a couple thousand years, and experience the unfolding - have a direct experience - you might discover things happened quite a bit differently than people afterwards believed. If you think about it, you can't be sure, you can only >>believe<<. The certainty many millions of people claim to have, is so intertwined with the stories about it, that the certainty is based on the fact, sufficient alone, that the stories exist, not that the events even happened or happened that way.

This is not substantially different that believing the Alice in Wonderland story, not only actually happened, but that the characters in the story actually lived and walked the earth - but, ahem, no one (in their right mind) does of course.

Why? ("Slow down, you move to fast, got to make the moment last.")

Question: if one could control the mechanism of automatic belief in one, that makes this person a christian and that person a jew and the other one an atheist, could one have direct access to alternate futures?

Ok... just kidding, no friggin way!

Life is in charge

Humanity is not in charge of itself, anymore than some small group of men are in charge of it, anymore than is some megalomaniacal political leader or financial group. Life is in charge of life on Earth, and if Life wants to extinct humans or any other species it will - there's absolutely nothing one or more humans can do about that, no matter what someone believes.

But, it won't do it. Humans represent the thinking process of Life itself; Life doesn't know what it's doing without humans - we are the thinking ends of it's nervous system.

Life can not get off Earth, and populate the moon or mars, without Men to do it, and Men can't do it, except for the fact that Life wants it to happen. Therefore, Life will not extinct mankind, in fact, what it is doing, is advancing their mental capacities by Leaps and Bounds every generation! The very idea that 100 (or so) years after a couple bike makers took that first airborn flight, we would be able to walk on the moon and mars, is almost beyond the capacity of most people to fully appreciate. The very idea that 100 (or so) years after the first telephone connected two people, we (everybody on the globe with a cell phone) would be able to receive instantaneous news, video, and other interesting information over those cellphones at the same moment in time, is almost beyond the capacity of most people to fully appreciate.

And the idea that some smart 10 year old (or two or three...), will not discover - in time - a method of energy that solves the oil dilemma, and many other things "plaguing" mankind, is unimaginable, unthinkable.

You heard it here (first? second? whatever!)

Human physical causation.

Inner chatter, unfocussed, becomes staring at externals, and reacting thereto. The line becomes blurred between the inner and the outer, and as such, the human diffuses, becoming just an amorphous outline, hue-less, in the background of existence.

Consciousness on the external, attention on the inner chatter, realization of the absolute unbridgeable distinction between the two, may eventually lead one, to realizing what the realization is.

You can wring more out of the words than Life meant to put into them, but only by intentionally aiming to do so. That pressure squeezes out energy that was not originally meant to be there, and it fuels the realization.

Waking up, and staying awake, is the intentional fueling of the realization.

The Fourth Way

The Fourth Way, as it is manifesting in life today - intellectually, by those who to themselves, profess to be "followers" - is primarily engaged in resolving the fact, intellectually, that the system presents the world as particles: bodies, things, the Newtonian and Einsteinian views of _things_. Smaller than the particle, the Fourth Way never even attempts to go - because, for one thing, quantum mechanics were not fully fleshed out until AFTER Gurdjieff and Ouspensky wrote all their books. All the extant maps and diagrams, at best, only infer the idea of sub-atomic scales, but do not detail that world, nor seem to realize the connection between the paradoxically dissimilar views of Reality. As if, the only level worth trying to understand, is the sensory view obtainable by the body and it's Life-given parts (blood, bones, organs, nervous system, brain).

The demonstration of this, is it's description of the most basic element in the Universe, as the "atom" - carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen - and the Tables, and Maps, are all entirely consequent of that paradigm.

Today, we know, that sub-atomically, things do not exist at all. Life is a bunch of probability patterns of interconnections - energies on the move. Probability patterns all schmeared out across the filmic surface of the plenum, each reaching out to connect to other interconnections, which are reaching out to still other interconnections.

The energy which drives the human intellect, is not static, stable, or definable, per se, but is a process seeking to be "on the move". Thinking with energy alone, has the effect of removing periods, question marks, exclamation points, nouns, pronouns, adjectives and other qualifiers, and - to be honest - is the most pleasurable form of thinking man can achieve.

To describe it one more way, it's the process of thinking without revealing "me".

Language is the First Law

Language is the First Law of the 48 orders of laws...

Language, as it is expressed through humans, consists primarily of nouns, verbs, and qualifiers - subjects, objects. Language, as it is expressed through humans, creates the "me" saying it, thinking it.

The continual attempt to think in verbs, processes, relations - as distinct from nouns, pronouns, adjectives, qualifiers - pushes the energy of thought down the line, out to the extents of the nervous system cortex rarely if ever reached, where New thought is possible. In such a brain space, thinking with energy alone becomes possible, everywhere else, quite impossible.

The Fifth Way

The Fifth Way - as in, "taking the 5th"; as in, saying absolutely nothing to incriminate yourself, or as knowing _anything_.

That is, the Fifth way, is adopting a continual inner posture of 'taking the 5th' - not incriminating yourself. Which, of necessity, requires knowing what incrimination means - and, most who can read this sentence, do not.

Incrimination - the thought/belief that you _know something_, that you _are something_. That particular form of self-observation, "creating the 'me'", gives your location away, to the city-folk, from whom you're trying to escape their constant condemnation and accusation of you.

To escape the city, you must not incriminate yourself, not give your location away, to the city folk trying to find/jail/kill you.

******

The Fifth Way - is the Work as taught with full knowledge of Quantum Mechanics, and even String Theory (not yet mechanics, but an interesting theory). It is an entirely DIFFERENT story, than the Fourth Way (as you presently know and understand it), yet it is entirely consistent with The Great Work - Awakening, Enlightenment, Liberation.

It is written by any human, who would care to compose it, for whatever purpose he might imagine.

Language

Language is the First Law of the 48 orders of laws, which you need to verify at this level, to ever realize the existence of those above you. Thought, as it's pushed through your craniums, instant by instant, is wholly mechanical in you - this must change.

Although you can control the foods you eat (and must or die), and can even to some small degree control the feelings you feel, you can't control your continual "takes on things," the continual running commentary on your life as it is only partially perceived. Conscious thought, Intelligence, is a rarity in this Universe, and mankind MAY (who reeeeeeeally knows?) be the only example of it.

The highest thing a person can do with his life, is talk. It's also, interestingly, the most mechanical thing he does. (You should be able to immediately verify this, by noting you can control your body, postures and movements, and somewhat your feelings, likes and dislikes, but never your ordinary, mechanical thoughts - which seem to run on automatic 24-7-365.)

Yet, again, the highest thing a person can do with his life, is talk. Humans admire great writers, and humans admire great thinkers - not because of what they did, but because of their thoughts, ideas. (This is the hidden from everyone, key to the Universe. A new ray of creation, in you, starting at the initial note DO and harmonizing with moon in you. Thus, the idea of "creating moon".)

The ascending evolutionary octave needs to START somewhere. It starts with an idea, an implanted idea, and it grows/evolves from there.

Civilization

There is nothing of which you can avail yourself, that is outside civilization. If you are reading this, then you're civilized - ordinary, normal and sane - though some believe they are super-normal, super-sane and, perhaps even, super-sized.

Heroes, and super-heroes, are the dreams prisoners share of those who've escaped. And, who better to ask of the life of prisoners, than those who've escaped. But, they can't be found to interview.

Existence and Awareness

Civilization is a velvet cell with all the modern electrical conveniences.

While in confinement therein, prisoners can only picture their captivity theoretically, which, if it actually exists, is why they can do so little about it. They must believe that theirs is a more complex life than it actually is, as they are only schooled to count to two. But, they dream of heroes having escaped.

Few prisoners care to hear a prophet not as annoyed as they are. No matter what's being discussed, prisoners think they're being talked about. Prison is a noisy place.

Once a year on the Prison Island, they'd turn the prisoners loose for a day, ... ... but they gave it up since no one ever went anywhere.

***********

The condemned man, being the true intellectual that he was, asked, for his "Final Request" that something, anything, be shouted just as he was shot. In an adjoining cell was a more physically-based man who, as his "Final Request" simply asked that he be let go. (As trains pass through tunnels, many a passenger will cry out: "Oh conductor! Conductor! Does it always get dark so soon around here?")

***********

If you do accept the fact that, mentally, man is imprisoned, and then believe he is so for some particular human reason, you've removed yourself one further step from the cell door.