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Summary by TK
Tape 232, Oct 30, 1986, runtime 1:46
[A 'tale' about the underground river; a possible fable. Periodically an underground river appears in the life of humanity; it comes and goes, surfaces in different times in different quantity and quality, great river or marsh flat but always the same, not different rivers with each appearance. Two ancient aphorisms: nobility is by worth and not by birth and nobility is solely by birth and bloodline. Each is true in particular circumstance and understanding, the former being more popular in modern democratic times. The underground River has a lineage. It is the Ultimate Mystery in spite of J's constant stripping away of the trappings of Yellow Circuit and Blue Circuit mythic attributes and religious hallowing. The River is as old as Life itself, predates man's Yellow Circuit --his memory. Wouldn't such a river by necessity have to possess/manifest consciousness and memory? From whence would its nobility arise? Birth or worth? The River is the river; water is wet. Tales of the River and wetness are something else. TheRiver can satisfy Real Thirst, tales of the River cannot. But for those so wired for lesser thirst, tales are good enough thirst quenchers; memory/recollection suffices. Consider the River as Life's own AMV12 in its bloodstream. The appearance of the River never endures longer than the lifetime of a community. It literally dries up, leaving no wetness; however tales of it survive and even thrive. However fantastic they seem, they are true …but SO WHAT?? The Few must understand so what? This is part of J's stripping away of mysticism; reducing the fat the Yellow Circuit feeds on --making skin and bones out of the your cherished myths. Only then can you begin to see the Supreme Mystery that the River is; not the mystery of curiosity and hidden questions; The mystery of The Smile --and when you see it, "you're gonna just die".]
[The Partnership feels its existence in the oscillation between 'me' then 'not-me': in control then out of control. But there is another possibility to consider: when you look at the process head on --then what operates? ]
[Dealing with a culturally accepted negative activity, e.g., wife beating (that should be changed, eradicated). It is seen as a cultural flaw of man to be rectified --but it is the "race of genes". How come the pathetic, no-account 'pretenders' to European thrones ('royalty') receive so much attention and acceptance as meaningful and important? Why the old stories of the reality of 'royal blood'? Why do wolf packs always have a leader? Consider AMV12 --is it allegorical? ]
[The 'tale' of the River, if true, would require the River to have a memory beyond the Yellow Circuit of man. But of what use would it be to men? How could man even hear/understand what so transcends him? Consider again all the seeming fantastic myths and stories of gods. How do accepted-as-noble stories become so? By birth or worth? How is it possible for blood to be transformed to nobility --'anointed' if blood is royal by birth alone? What if humanity is Life's AMV12? What does that mean for mythology?
Transcript
A RIVER TALE
Document: 232, October 30, 1986
Copyright (c) Jan M. Cox, 1986
I'm going to tell you a piece of a tale. Throughout the history of man, an underground river periodically surfaces. As far back as there is recorded history, as far back as the Yellow Circuit in man was functioning to the degree that man could remember and dress the memory in words, a certain underground river would appear. This river does not always surface in the same place, nor with the same strength, nor even in the same quantity. Sometimes this river rises to the surface in what appear to be tributaries or small streams. Sometimes as surface water or wet lands. But it always appears for a certain length of time and then dries up and appears elsewhere. It has different qualities when it surfaces at different times and different places. It can come out as fresh water. At other times it can come out as salt water. Sometimes it seems to nourish the ground around it and at other times it seems to have less then optimal nutritional value. Sometimes the people drink from it and benefit from its use and at other times, they apparently take very little notice of it. But, according to this tale, it is all a manifestation of one underground river.
Also, throughout the history of man there have been two aphorisms that humanity has continued to use. One of them is very, very old. The gist of it is that nobility is by worth, not by birth. The Partnership in everyone can find some, if not total, validity in that. Especially Partnerships that are not of royal heritage. But there is also an equally ancient maxim which states that nobility comes from birth alone. At Line level, you would be incapable of agreeing that both of these maxims could be correct.
On the one hand you have the belief that the worth of a person is not dependent on their birth. That is, that someone is not a worthy person simply because they were born into an extant or deposed royal family. "That fact alone does not make someone noble. Nobility must come about through one's own effort. It is the manner in which someone lives their life that will prove whether they were noble or not."
It is safe to assume that all of you would find, under certain conditions within your own Partnership arrangement, that to be a valid notion. It sounds like a democratic and unprejudiced view. As I said, those not of royal lineage would be most likely to find favor with this viewpoint. They would be more likely to believe that through individual effort someone could in fact become more noble, more truly royal than those born in castles and referred to as "your highness." But I suggest to you: don't overlook the fact that there must always be at least two sides to a reality, for anything to be alive at the 3-D level. There must be at least two sides to any coin.
In my strange world of human particle physics, that which ordinary consciousness seems to accept, is in direct, constant, and immediate contact with that which it appears to reject. So, on the other side of the coin is the idea that nobility resides absolutely in birth; you are either born noble or you're not. At the most superficial level this would seem to be a rallying cry or justification for the existence of the horizontally noble or royal. Those born to royalty would say, "There is such a thing as nobility and you simply must be born into it." To most people, in this part of the world and at this time, that strikes a very undemocratic note. It would even strike many people as being non-spiritual or non-mystical. But notice, both ideas exist.
Try to remember that under all ordinary conditions it is impossible for you, and was impossible for all those who came before you, to absolutely make anything up. I have attempted to strip away most of the mystery from This Activity and all the so-called mystery from ordinary life and religions. You may believe now that things such as humanity's dreams of life after death, or beliefs in the occult and astrology, are some of the most fanciful uses of man's ordinary imagination, but remember: no one, no matter how unsophisticated or unenlightened, can make something up. Everyone is left with the flying pig dynamic. That is, believing they have come up with something new and original because they have stuck two previously disjointed things together. Human consciousness cannot leave the boundaries of its own existence and suddenly pluck out an absolutely, totally extraneous concept. It may now strike you that many of man's current beliefs, such as man's belief in an afterlife, are spurious and beyond any degree of worthy attention. You may say, "Well, it was man's fear of death which caused him to make up the idea of going to some paradise after he dies." You can say that the whole notion is ridiculous because no one has ever died and returned with proof of such a place. But fear of death falls within the same confines as whatever spurred man to "make up" such stories. There is nowhere to go outside the realm in which we live. A fish cannot invent a story which does not entail water. Water is always going to be the background of fish stories; it is always going to be the background of fish recollections and fish mythology. It will be a part of fish dreams of the future and fish dreams of life after death. Water is so integral to a fish's existence that he cannot see it, yet there is no escape from it. There are no sources upon which to draw absolute, disembodied imaginary ideas. What I'm trying to get you to see for yourself with these examples is that the idea, "nobility is by worth, not by birth," and the idea, "nobility is by birth alone," are both equally valid.
If the water which surfaces from this underground river could be three dimensionally tested, it would apparently test the same, regardless of where and when it surfaced. But if you then examined the water's effect, as it appeared in different times and places, each group of people would apparently have used it differently. One group may have used it as drinking water while another group may have used it for refuse disposal. One group may have conjured up water-god stories about it, while another group may have looked upon this water seeping out of the ground as being unprofitable or even dangerous. One group may have had stories about past floods in their folklore and thus looked upon the river as a bad omen. Another group may have ignored it.
Part of what I have been attempting to do for a long period of time with those of you who are involved in This Activity is to strip away much of the apparent Yellow Circuit mystical fat from what you were genetically wired to find mystical and inexplicable. I have drawn in the contemporary ideas of particle physics as a way of dismantling the so-called psychological and spiritual world to the point where many of you, compared to when you were first introduced to This, can cast a kind critical eye on areas humanity considers to be sacred or mystical.
This Activity is the absolute and ultimate mystery. But it is not a "mystery" by ordinary definitions. That is, that which cannot be understood. That is not what I mean. But it is still the ultimate mystery. This river has a lineage. It is a river that appears and disappears. It surfaces at different times and places with varying intensities. But whenever and wherever it does surface, the people seem to benefit from it, even if, at the ordinary level, their use and regard for it seems to be negative. From a greater view, they have all benefited from it. If one group used it to flush away their refuse, the river would still have served a useful purpose. There are people in the body of Life who are very thirsty and would drink large amounts of the river. And there are many people who need to drink less of it. There are people who almost seem fanatical in their desire to bathe themselves in it, and others who could go a lifetime without feeling the urge to wash. There are people who seem naturally inclined to use water to play in, and others who seem to have a fear of water, or who do not see it as a source of enjoyment.
According to this tale, it is all one river. This underground river has no name. People have named it, but the name was all they had left after the river disappeared. All they had left were their stories and recollections of it, because the river never stays in any one place. It comes and it goes and is usually gone within one lifetime. And yet, according to this tale, the recollections of the river and its effect on some group of people continues to play a very emphatic role in what humanity takes as its past and in what humanity dreams of as its potential future, including its future after the body dies. All of it is based on recollections of the river surfacing in a certain time and a certain place.
Once a river mythology develops, you can no longer go and find the river, itself. As soon as it takes on a mythology, the river no longer exists in that time and place. As soon as the people begin to talk about it and a Yellow Circuit mythology is established, the river goes underground and resurfaces in another time and place.
At any given time, the river can appear at numerous different places on the planet. It can appear as a river in one place and as half a river at the same time, in another place. It can surface as a river and be accompanied by many, many streams which come out in different areas, but they are all a part of the same river. They may not be as deep or as swift as the main river, but it all comes from the same river. They are all tributaries coming from the same river and you cannot separate them. Even if it only appears as a wetland -- a dampening of the surface in some area -- it is a part of this great river. You cannot separate the smallest amount of moisture which might appear at the surface from the full-fledged appearance of the river. It is all a matter of degree.
I have left certain parts of this fable unsaid. But, certainly I have made it plain enough that this river is a very serious matter indeed. It is very serious. It could, in fact, be part of the beginning of Life itself. No one has ever asked whether the river had a birth of its own. And if it did, was it a noble birth or did it arrive at a noble state through its own efforts?
Some of you still want to cling to some of the myths, tales, and religious ideas which you have had for as long as you can remember. Parts of you and your Partnership still protect certain ideas and cherished beliefs, by almost turning a deaf ear to things I say, which seem to strike at these cherished beliefs. Others believe I'm speaking allegorically when I begin to "hit too close to home." Some of you, at times, might believe that I have finally gone overboard in certain areas. I have not gone overboard. I know exactly what I am saying. And many of you feel that I have stripped much of the mystery away from This and you have been left with something which has a very hard-nosed scientific feel to it.
Let me tell you this: in a certain way, this river has never been as cleansing, almost stripping in its nature, as it has recently. It is not that there is anything wrong with religious tales and mystical allegories, or with the sensation (which most humanity has) that Life is indeed a mystery. I could say that people who get involved in This Activity feel even more strongly that Life is a great mystery and that someone, somewhere, has been told what the mystery is. But people cannot be told what the mystery is. I have talked about this from various viewpoints. I have conjured up paradigms which I clothed in all kinds of guises, from jokes to apparent attacks on religion. But you cannot take all of this on an act of faith. You must be able to jump past the 3-D workings of the Yellow Circuit.
Let me ask you this: what if you were dying of thirst and someone who had lived in an area where this river had popped up, stumbled across you? You're lying on the ground with your tongue swollen and lips cracking. You are about to die from this thirst when this person stumbles across you and says, "You should have been here last week. The river was here, but it has dried up. But I'll tell you about it. I'll tell you about the miraculous properties of the river." And they talk to you and diagram it for you. They try to convey their recollections of their taste of it. I ask you: what good would it do? It would do none, of course. Not for a real thirst. There is no amount of telling, of picture drawing, of singing, or chanting which is going to have any real effect upon the thirst of someone who came along after the river disappeared.
There are those who have a thirst, but it is not all that serious. Those people, including some of you at times, seem relatively satisfied to hear about the river. They will smile and ask, "Will you tell me about the river? Was it really that great? Will you tell me about the people who put their hands in it and seemed refreshed, or possibly were even cured of some ill?" For a great many people, hearing someone's recollections of the river is quite sufficient.
There are also cases of people who were actually alive when part of the river surfaced. It may have simply dampened the ground where they were living. It appeared during their lifetime and they pressed their fingers into it, then licked their fingers. There may have been barely enough there for one person to drink, but it was sufficient for that community. They would then have stories about it. And if you attempted to judge it quantitatively, in a 3-D manner, your conclusion might be that there would be a great deal of difference between the river arising in some area, as swift and full of force as it has ever been, and arising in another area to the degree that it only created a small damp spot. You are right and wrong. I remind you again, it all comes from this underground river. It does not take on alternate forms at different times and places. It does not become a different mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. It simply appears with varying force, speed and duration, but it is all the same river.
Another part of this tale: the river is not only as old as man, but it is as old as Life itself. At one time I posed the question: could any of you conceive of the fact that humanity might be the AMv12 in Life's own circulatory system -- in Life's own blood? This is not a rhetorical or trick question.
The river appears, disappears, and then reappears in another place. And wherever it surfaces, the people name it. In each time and place the people affix a name to the river which is appropriate for their time and place. But it is all the same river. It carries the same water.
Many of you would believe that I have directly attacked the idea that there exists a continuing lineage of a secret teaching. This is not an incorrect observation. I have verbally pointed out to you that there is no lineage to This. I have pointed out that you would not belong in This Activity if you still believed there was a serious necessity for an unbroken lineage. you cannot sit here and wait for me to tell you, "So and so taught me This." No one told me This. I did not get it from a book or another human. And I have purposely not inferred that there is anything whatsoever mystical about This. I have purposely made it sound as "everyday" as possible.
But, according to this tale, you can find a trace of this river somewhere on the planet right now. It is the same river someone spoke about 2000 years ago. It arose in a different place and they had a different name for it. They described its properties in a different way. The need for the river was different 2000 years ago. The time was different, the place was different, and the needs of the people were different. Human consciousness always looks at what is apparently "Not-I" and attributes properties to it. And consciousness does not ordinarily ask itself, in a 4-D manner, "Why do I attribute certain properties to this particular object or process and never take into consideration what I already seem to be made to need?" People judge an object on its worth or its desirability. Their Partnership, and you and your Partnership, attributes the attributes to the thing itself, as opposed to observing, "There are certain things I need. Does this thing seem to fill those needs?" If it does fill them, to some degree you attribute positive qualities to it. If it seems to be in conflict with the automatic needs and desires you seem to have, then you attribute negative aspects to it. If someone were to point out something which you had not previously noticed, and they tried to describe its attributes to you, it would not exist for you, if there was no dovetailing between their description and your needs at that time. You would look at it and it would almost be the epitome of white bread incarnate. "This is bland, walking on two legs. It is totally irrelevant and uninteresting." It seems to have no attributes because ordinary consciousness cannot see any connection between what the person is describing and what seems to be your inbred needs. It appears to have no connection to what birth has required you to seek out. Therefore, to you, it is lacking attributes.
The river has no verbal lineage. It never exceeds the lifetime of a community. The community may not remember when it sprang up, but as far back as they can remember, it was there. But, I repeat, for all practical purposes, it only lives through the lifetime of a community, then disappears back into the ground as though it had never been there. There is no scientific basis upon which you can look for some proof that it was even there. It cannot be proven to the Yellow Circuit that it ever existed. But it is the same river when it comes out a 1000 miles away, 5000 miles away, or 1000 years later. It is the same river.
If this entity, the river, had such apparently noble qualities, would it not surely have some kind of consciousness? Would it not have a memory? And if it did, and if this tale had any real 4-D validity, then think how far back this memory would go.
If nobility is by birth alone, as the second axiom states, what could one do with the idea of "anointing" in its original meaning? There was supposedly a magical process by which a person who represented the nonsecular world caused an actual change in the blood of a king. It was not to recognize a king, to recognize a fait accompli, or to appoint someone king through a deal. The original use was to anoint that which was already a reality, except that the blood needed to be nobelized. That is, the king was not noble by birth. Perhaps he was a usurper or had overthrown a prior noble person. And in some way he went through a ritual by which the blood was changed and thus became noble. Why would such a story come to be when it is patently superstitious?
I will mention this again. According to this tale, as much as it is possible to say in words, this river never changes. There is no substantial change in the river when it appears today from when it appeared 2000 years ago. It had a certain kind of nobility to it. Based upon the information in this tale, you would have to assume it was born noble. Or else, you are left with the question: "How would a river become noble? What would it do to become noble? What would it do to improve itself? If it is a river, how is it going to change the nature of it being a river? How is it going to change its purpose? How is a river going to be anything but a river, no matter how miraculous, no matter how noble the river may be?
There is a purpose to this intro. And insofar as possible, I have to say that there is no such tale. I made it up. But then remember this: I cannot be completely free from the flying pig dynamic, so I got it from somewhere. But in This, there is the supreme father of all genetic mysteries. And I don't mean it in the sense that I don't know what I'm doing, or that I don't know what is going on with Life. But in a quite real sense, This is the absolute, ultimate mystery. In this process that I have gone through with all of you, I have apparently stripped down what people regard as religion, psychology, sociology, everyday accepted wisdom, and the accepted workings of one's circuitry. I have apparently gone through a process of stripping most of the mystery away from This. It has been a very purposeful detailing of the river. But let me tell you this: when you do get some idea of what this river is -- you are just going to die! Because every tale, every mythological story about gods, every religious story, no matter how ridiculous, was true. Every one arose in reaction to the river's rising above ground and flowing out in a very quick, dramatic, and purposeful way during one community's lifetime. And every tale, including the one about flying pigs, is true. You must understand that part of the purpose of my stripping all of this down is this: all of it is true. But, so what? Really -- so what? It is not a casual "so what," a smart-aleck "so what," a negative "so what," or a reactionary "so what". It's simply -- so what? There are tales of when the river flowed at one time, in one place. So what? If you listen to the tales or watch the attempted ritualization of something which at one time had some validity, and it satisfies you, then that is all you need. If you can hear someone talk about the river and it satisfies you, then that is all you need. There's nothing wrong with that. But if that is not enough for you, if it does not satisfy you, then you must understand the reality of "so what."
I'm telling you: it is all true -- from the strangest occult, mystical book, to recollections of tales from the Dark Ages, to people talking to dead spirits, to someone who claims to have mystical powers because they are the direct descendant of Moses. All of it is true. It is as true as flying pigs. Humanity cannot pull something out of nothing. Be it a shifty eyed aluminum siding salesman or someone who has spent thirty years studying the scriptures of some religion, whatever they say, is true. It is not imagination. It is the retelling, the recounting, and the genetic memory of a time and place when the underground river came out in force. And it is the supreme mystery. it is not a mystery in the sense of being some kind of curiosity or something unknown. It's not that kind of mystery. The mystery is really... a smile. Or, as I put it before, when you really see what's going on -- you're just going to die!
There is a reality to both axioms about nobility. Of course, I mean nobility in a wide-reaching sense. It is not simply a matter of being part of a royal house. It is, especially in your own case, any improvement over what you were to start with; that you have done something willfully, which has changed you.
Part of the approach to a real, potentially profitable, and interesting mystery would be to look at what has taken place in the past. Look at the fact that there seemed to be an activity which centered around one person who seemed to have a decisive, direct impact on a segment of the flow of humanity. People were changed when this person was alive and they are changed now by his influence, even 2000 or 5000 years later. 2000 years after the fact, someone is teaching ideas which they proclaim are based upon what happened with this extraordinary person, and people today say they are changed by it. What reason would people have to lie about the effect it apparently had on them? That is, assuming men could lie. Why would they say, "My life has changed after hearing about what happened back then. I have studied and contemplated what happened with this extraordinary person and it has changed my life." Why would they lie, if they could? What purpose would it serve? Is it all a mass hallucination? These are not simply rhetorical questions. There is a purpose in my asking you this.
Here are a few matters I'd like to draw your attention toward. Some of you have had little dust bunnies under your Yellow Circuit beds, that I'm going to sweep together. I refer you back to the grand ole Partnership, which, from a certain viewpoint, is one unrecognized description of one's personality. This Partnership exists within everyone and feels its existence is made up of "me" and "not-me." Remember, it takes two to have a Partnership. At any given moment the Partnership feels, "My existence is 'me'," and in the next moment, "my existence is in 'not-me'." This is the molecular basis for people feeling temporarily in control and then out of control. And this feeling is not simply based on what takes place externally. It is the control and lack of control, which people feel they have over their thoughts and feelings. Their own secret little self seems to be absolutely at the mercy of the ebb and flow of what is going on in the world.
There is another possible way to look at this. You can look at it and see that the ordinary feeling that is the Partnership, consists of, at times, feeling as though there is a "me" in existence and then, at other times, a "not-me" which is in control. People call this sensation "uncontrolled feeling," a neurosis, psychosis, or hearing voices. Or, they have no specific name for it. But everyone feels it.
What I have described in words here, is accurate. If you look in a certain way you can catch it "after the fact." It is like seeing a person run through the door with a can of film. You get a glimpse of the last few trailing frames of film, and right then, you realize that the Partnership's sensation of "me" was, at that moment, under the control of the "not-me." It is the feeling that your existence at that moment was "not-me." Then try and look at it head on, and you'll come across a third question or possibility...alright, now who?
Here is another example of a possible small spring of this river. Social observers have pointed out that the phenomenon of so-called wife beating is looked at, in large areas of society, as somehow being culturally permissible. And they state that such an attitude is part of the problem. Like everything else, it is true, but like everything else, there is more to it. You have to see this if you're ever going to discover that this fabled river is right here; you cannot simply live on tales and secondhand stories. You can't simply hold up a mirror and look for the reflection of someone talking about the river. You must see that there is a structure that protects the river. This structure protects the river when it is gone and it keeps humanity operating in a certain way. Educated, sophisticated people state what seems to be accepted reality. That is, in this case, that part of the problem in dealing with wife beating, is that in certain areas of society, it is culturally permissible. They cannot see that what they are calling cultural is simply the unrecognized material manifestation and socialization of the race of genes. Not the race of man. Not the race of americans, or poor americans, or latinos, or ditch diggers. It is the race of genes.
Without the specific need for this underground river and its appearance, everyone is left with having to deal with concepts such as "culturally," "psychologically," and "spiritually." Periodically I pull out certain religious leaders as archetypical, contemporary examples of apparently titular heads of a religion. Many people would believe that I have laughed at religious leaders or made fun of and ridiculed the whole idea. They would say that I have, perhaps cynically, pointed out that it is just a political office and these other guys get together and vote on who should get the job. But is that true? Do these guys become the leader by accident? There is apparently a kind of political process which goes on after the death of a church leader in order to choose the next leader. The other church officials consider the candidates, discuss the choices, vote in secret and tally the votes until they have whatever majority of votes is required. But is that what is going on? What could be, in a sense, any more socially ludicrous to educated, sophisticated, liberated, democratic people like us than the idea of royalty? Those who are not catholic can have a good laugh at the pope. A large part of the world can laugh at Islam; at people laying down and wearing out their foreheads.
There is a race of genes. Blood lines can apparently be altered. Blood can be adulterated. Blood can be watered down. Blood can be infected. But according to this tale, the river never changes. And, according to this tale, the river is as old as Life itself. What in the world would cause such, shall we say, silly, or simply useless ideas, notions and tales of nobility and royal blood?
To those in our particular place in the race of genes it is almost impossible, in a certain Yellow or Blue Circuit way, to conceive of how royalty ever came about. What could possibly have been going on 200 or 5000 years ago when people were led by a royal house or a king? You could look at it and say, "Well, the king paid everyone off. Or, he had the biggest sword and he simply defeated everyone else. He killed off enough of his enemies and those still alive agreed to let him be king. That's how someone became a king." Are you sure? Are you sure that makes any sense once you get past sequential thought? Does it even hold water?
Any of you with a fairly decent Partnership should have had some passing questions about such matters. In this day and age, countries are seldom ruled any longer by royalty, yet there are areas on the planet where there is not a lot of freedom. Are you sure those people are being forcibly held by some individual? Even using sequential thinking -- does that make any sense? Does it fit into any observation you can make about the nature of human life? Although this is not completely comparable, it is more comparable than you imagine: how is it that every wolf pack has a leader? He doesn't discuss it with the other wolves. They don't vote on it. There is simply a wolf in charge. There is no question about it. And if the leader is challenged by another wolf there is a direct fight and one of them emerges the decisive winner. The head wolf, when challenged, does not go off and think, "Well, maybe I have gone too far. Perhaps I have been too hard on the pack. Perhaps it is time for a new regime." You can say that we are not wolves or lions. But are you sure the idea of a pope is so funny? Are you sure that royal houses are a joke? Are you sure that what I have told you about man's blood and the substance in the blood, AMv12, is allegorical? Are you sure, even though I keep saying it is a tale and a fable, that the underground river is a tale or a fable?
If the river did exist it would have a memory. But This Activity seems to have little to do with the past. It seems to be about always being one second ahead of where you are. It's about the struggle to be something else, the struggle to become noble -- at least more noble than you are now. What place does memory have? If this river exists, it has a memory. And the river is as old as Life itself. Therefore it knows what Life is. Or, it knows as much of what Life is as Life does. Think what a memory that would be! And, I remind you, the tale says that if the river popped up right now it would be substantially no different than it was 5000 years ago. It is obviously older than man's Yellow Circuit. It is older than the known history of humans. Think what the river knows. Of what use could such a memory be? Of what use could such a memory be to you -- to any human? What if there are people who had the kind of memory that could go back that far? Of what use would it be? If anyone had it, why don't they talk about it? Or, what if they did talk about it and you didn't know what they were talking about? What about the things men believe they worship -- the kinds of secrets they believe are hidden in the bosom of their god? You may hear them talk about such notions and you might say that it is their imagination or their mythology. To you, the idea of gods and religion are outmoded. What if you don't know what you are hearing? Of course, that also implies that the people talking about such things don't know exactly what they are talking about.
They are talking about memory. I'll use the story of the river again. What if these stories and ideas are a retelling of recollections of a river they have never seen? No one alive, who talks about such things, has seen the actual river. They are talking about the river surfacing in place X on this planet, in year X, and it comes out as something else. And it sounds as though it is absolutely mythological. To you it sounds like imagination, or at least, an allegory.
Stories, like everything else, come and go. I guess we could say stories have a birth, do they not? Could we then say that some stories are noble stories? If so, were they noble by birth? If we could find the birth of the story, if we could find the first person to tell it -- was it a noble story? Let's assume it was. It seemed to inspire and comfort. But was it noble by birth when it first came out of a human's mouth? Or, over a period of hundreds and thousands of years, did the story seem to serve a purpose and now it is noble, not by birth but by worth? Did the story work for its own nobility? The story served a useful, inspiring purpose and now it has taken on a life of its own. It is no longer important whether something silly like an old man with a long beard came down from a cloud and created the world. That is obviously not true. It defies all known laws of physics. But has the story, in some way, helped humanity? Has it helped give humanity allegorical explanations for the inexplicable? Has it helped calm some of humanity's innate fears over being alive and being mortal? If so, even if you were not religious, could you not say, from an intellectual perspective, that the story is almost noble in what it has done for humanity? Again, my question is, was the story, or any story, noble by birth from its very inception, or did it become noble by worth?
When you begin to see what is really going on -- you're just going to die! As I said, I have apparently stripped down and slapped around a large part of collective reality for the people involved in This. I have slapped around a collective recollection, a genetic acceptance of what should be religion or what should be man's spiritual history. I have attempted to strip it down and turn it into an almost cold, clinical thing -- even apparently an imaginary, misnamed, misconstructed thing. It is all hand tricks.
Within the area of entertainment known as stage magic, there are several specific subcategories. One is known as close-up magic, that is, doing tricks with things "close up." It is the area of magic where a magician makes cards disappear and scarves turn into pigeons. Then there is the area of illusions which uses large props. In this area, the magician makes cages of lions disappear. And those who are in the entertainment magic business end up having to specialize. Like anything else, if you're going to make a name for yourself, you have to work in one area. But This Activity is all of that. Sometimes it's close-up magic and sometimes it's stage illusion.
For no historical reason and for no reason which will necessarily outlive me or you, I have apparently stripped, poked at, dispelled, shaken up, ridiculed, dismissed and filed away almost every recollection of the underground river's surfacing. I would not and could not do it without the river, assuming the tale is true. In a sense, within dimensions spreading beyond the lifetime of this community (of our time and place on this planet) the reality of anything I have told you, encouraged you to do, suggested you do, or directed you to do -- is moot. It's important, but it's useless to debate. But whatever it was, I didn't make it up. It has been a non-ending series of events, discourses and writings which range from close-up magic to stage illusion.
What if humanity is the AMv12 in Life's blood? What ramifications would that have? What would that do to every story you have ever heard from every religion, large or small, in every part of the world? What would it do to every story of every religion you ever found yourself interested in, or which you rejected as foolish? What would it do to all the mythological tales, including such tales as the underground river? What if there are people whose memory is as old as Life itself? What if there are people who know where Life came from, insofar as Life knows where it came from? If that were true, what would it do to your perspective of what's possible? What would it do to your perspective of what is probable in your lifetime?
What if the stories of a priest being able to anoint a king are true? There is a reality behind the original notion of a person being able to anoint another and literally nobelize their blood. That is, turn them from a commoner into royalty by actually changing their blood. To one's Partnership that is about as ridiculous and childish a notion as one could imagine. But I ask you, what if there was a reality to it? If you take all the stories of all religions from all over the world -- from those which seem the most barbaric and uncivilized to those which would seem to be the most contemporaneous and civilized -- a theme runs through them all. This one theme is blood. All the way from bloodletting, blood curses, the revenge of blood, the use of blood in crude or even cannibalistic rituals to obviously allegorical rituals in which blood represents something else. But remember, to Life there is no such thing as allegory. Unless, of course, something in Life could get outside of Life and come back and know something that Life doesn't know. That would be allegory to Life. But you have never had an allegorical thought in your life that was foreign to Life. You cannot get wet without water. You can't breathe without blood. Change may look to be impossible for almost everyone, but what if it's not? What if it's not impossible for even a large group of people? What if it is true that you can't become noble by some sort of worth? If you begin to understand my kind of physics, then the other axiom must also me true. It's also true that through some kind of effort you can become noble, that is, you can change. But if you can change, you are exposed to something exceptional. And if you are changed, it is not because of your adaption to, or adoption of, the tales of this river having surfaced in the past. Memories and recollections of the river will not create the kind of change which those who are attracted to This seek.
For those of you who have sincerely listened and attempted to neuralize and consider it all, I think I have pretty well succeeded in dispelling the unprofitable cloak of mystery around This. But I must tell you -- it is the supreme mystery. But it is a smiling mystery, not a curiosity. The mystery lies within the fact that when you see what's really going on -- you are absolutely going to die! Part of my job is stripping the excess weight from This. It was my intention. But everything I did was made up and everything I have attacked was also made up. Likewise, everything that I have attacked actually happened. Everything I have attempted to make you see as unprofitable, and imperfectly perceived, is, for those involved with This, based upon truth.
Everything that everyone on this planet believes, is fact. Every ridiculous tale you ever heard actually happened. It all happened. Everything which was claimed to have happened at one time which no longer seems possible, is true. The things humanity has said they believe may happen in the future, are fact. Once you get a glimpse of what is really going on -- you're going to die!
You can take the most childish so-called religious beliefs and they are a fact. And you can take the most complex so-called theological discourses and commentaries and they're true. You can take the strangest, most repulsive of rituals that have occurred in the name of religion, and you realize it was no laughing matter. It was a smiling matter, but it was never the concoction of a wild imagination. There were tree gods; there were frog gods.
I want you to understand that all of what I have said tonight is part of this tale I began with. When I started I said, "This is a tale..." It is not just about the underground river. Everything I say is a part of the same tale. Everything is part and parcel of the tale.
