Diagram 083

Re Talk: 211

      Let me direct your attention back to my equation, "I plus not-I equals everything."  This equation seems, at least at the basic level, to be noncontroversial.  The ordinary wiring in everyone has the feeling, "There is me and there is everything that is not me.  There are the limits of "I":  my feelings, my thoughts, my wisdom and my ingratitude.  Beyond the limits of me exists everything and everybody else."  But put all of that together and it spells everything; there is no way out of the equation.  Your forefathers believed in the ideas of gods and forces who lived outside this system, but this equation swallows everything.

     Particularly, Consider that what Life has had Man describing as vices, are actually attempts to further separate "I" and "not I" in the equation.

     I have described Life as a contact sport, and everything that can be referred to as vices could be seen as attempts to minimize an individual's sporting contact with Life -- to minimize contact with what seems to be outside the limits of "I."  They are attempts to limit contact either on the basis of quantity, or of quality. For example:  masturbation.  Throughout history, Life has continually been making announcements that masturbation is a vice.  Of course, there is a real basis for Life making such announcements:  for example, if someone became fanatical about masturbating, to the point of never having contact with the opposite sex, it would adversely affect the necessary process which keeps the race going and keeps Life's body populated.  If that vice became an overriding concern with a large portion of humanity, we could all be done for.  Quite simply, it would cut down on the quantity and quality of contact between opposite sexes.

     The intake of alcohol is a prime example of a vice limiting the quality of contact.  Life continually makes announcements that drinking is a vice not to be overindulged.  Once again, there is a real basis for these announcements.  If there is alcohol in one's system on a continuing basis, it cuts down on the quality of the contact between "I" and "not-I."  That is a simple fact and you only need a modicum of perception above Line level to realize that it is true.  Even humanity in general recognizes that a few drinks can loosen up a person, and can even make them more personable; but overall, it cuts down on the quality of contact.

     If you take a motion picture of some process, such as blood flowing through the system, the movie would be two-dimensional; yet that would be adequate for your own perception to understand the process represented.  Perception is based, quite adequately, on a two-dimensional presentation of a three dimensional world.  Lateral thinking operates within those same limits and is the automatic, hard wired operation, in everyone, of the Yellow and Blue Circuits.  If your own consciousness is limited to two dimensional awareness, then perception can never get outside of lateral thinking.

     On a 2-D level, consciousness -- thoughts, perception, knowledge -- must operate in a lineal, sequential fashion.  Little thought molecules are all lined up, like little cells, and they move in a straight line, one following another.  They follow one another as predictably as each blood cell follows it's preceding cell within the blood system.  As long as all of your human perceptions are 2-D in nature, you are left with thought molecules trailing one after the other. JC talk 211