Jan Cox Talk 0028

Growth Requires Conflict

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GROWTH REQUIRES CONFLICT

This diagram represents something specific. Picture the horizontal tube as a conduit for the energy of Life: the Primal, electrical flow of energy which contains the Three Forces, all forms of what I call the Life-of-Life with their aliveness. You

can see from the diagram that I have drawn man as open-ended, while I have represented all other systems as closed. These other systems include everything except man: birds, trees, mountains, and so on.

For form to be considered "alive," it must be accessible to the Primal Flow. And since man is the only creature, the only process, on this planet which is not closed-ended, then only man can be said to be truly alive. Because for something to live, to flourish, it must be capable of growth; it must be able to expand. Man alone possesses such a capacity. It is this gradual process of growth, this gradual expansion of the nervous system, that is at the heart of why no one at the ordinary level is ever satisfied; it is why no ordinary person can ever understand anything.

This growth of which I speak does not occur in a straight line. You have to picture expansion as a sphere, and then go into another dimension to begin to understand what I mean. But suffice it to say that the ordinary mind is incapable of such a spherical, dynamic perception. Any individual nervous system can only chop off pieces from the whole, slice up reality, and interpret those partial perceptions according to its particular wiring. That is why one person sees progress where another sees regression. But neither perception is correct. It is not that either is true or untrue; it is rather that each is incomplete. Life does grow, although on a scale that is incomprehensible to ordinary humanity. And it grows through man, because man is the only open-ended system in the organism of Life; it grows through what I have termed the Yellow Circuit of man -- that is, the intellect, the upper end of the nervous system.

A closed-ended system cannot expand. You have all read about scientists attempting to teach chimpanzees to speak, and similar experiments. There can be the appearance of some success, but I tell you that what happens does not come from the Yellow Circuit in chimpanzees, because they don't have one. Whatever happens arises from the lower circuitry. Life is not growing through rocks, or trees, or flowers, or cows, or chimpanzees. It is growing through man, and man alone. In a closed system, the energy reaches a certain point, and it takes form according to the limits of that closed system. That is all that is possible. That is what makes a tree a tree instead of a rhinoceros.

There is built into everyone the question, "Why am I here? What is the purpose of humanity?" And such a question has as a corollary, "Is it not to do the gods' will?" From "I" level down -- below the Line of consciousness -- there is no answer, there is no explanation. No system can conceive of itself, much less understand itself, at its own level. And remaining at Line-Level consciousness is all that is possible for ordinary humanity. Let me point out to you that Life does seem to offer religion as a salve for the dissatisfaction I mentioned. But you should be able to see that it provides no lasting relief. Religion does not, and cannot, do what it claims to do; if religion really did accomplish its aim, it would be the end of everything: ordinary religion would seal humanity's open end. I use religion only because that is what most people would view as an activity promoting growth. And in a sense it is, but not in the way that the ordinary mind would believe. Religion is a manifestation of the Forces at work; it is proof of Life's good health. But it cannot do what it proclaims to do. And that is part of what it does.

Just as the Primal energy is spent at the upper limit of a closed-ended system, so also is it spent at the Line of consciousness in man. But this expenditure is part of a non-ending process, wherein the Line of consciousness of humanity continues to rise, though not during any one person's lifetime. No ordinary person can expand his own level of awareness, raise the limit at which the energy ceases to flow in him, during his lifetime. But it is built into humanity to believe that not only is such a feat possible, it is in fact one's duty. Everyone's ordinary nervous system believes it knows what growth is; everyone's mind believes that it can analyze what is and what is not growth. Similarly, people believe that they really do know the proper order of things -- and that they objectively conclude that things are not arranged as they should be. And that is not true. Of course, from Line-Level it is true, because on that level perception is reality.

The Line of consciousness exists in man absolutely. It has always existed, and it continues to grow, to expand. That is why, in a sense, you are more conscious than your parents. The Line continues to move, but not to any degree in an ordinary person's lifetime to matter to them. But for those involved with This Activity, the Line can move, although it is not really a matter of the Line moving. It is more like it ceases to be of any relevance to you. You are not limited by it; your energy is no longer limited by it. It still exists, and you can still be ordinary, but you know of alternate uses for your energy. You know through experience.

I want to draw your attention to something directly tied to what I have been speaking about: only man appears to be in conflict with himself. You know that no rock is about to explode and stone itself. You do not find trees with limbs attacking each other. You cannot find anything on the planet in conflict with itself -- except man. Why? Because man is the only open-ended system. There is no need, nor any possibility, for any other system to be in conflict with itself, because no other system is an open-ended outlet for Life's expansion. Only through such an open system do the Three Forces manifest themselves: thus it is only through man that the Forces can be observed.

All of human life seems to be in some form of conflict. At first it appears that the conflict occurs within each person. But taken on a larger scale, the life of humanity on this planet manifests itself as composed of internal conflict. People argue: they kill each other over beliefs; they attack each other over opinions; some countries get richer, some poorer. Not only are such conflicts everywhere, but simultaneously, within you from the Line down and within all of humanity, is the continual cry that "We must stop this continual conflict." Once you catch a glimpse of this paradox, you should be astounded.

If I tried to tell that to ordinary people, it would be just a small step from them saying, "Yes, I see," to cynicism, if they were so wired. "You're right. Life is a joke. It's a pain; it's a farce. What's going on?" But that's only Line-Level consciousness speaking. That is a system trying to conceive of itself on its own level. That is a system trying to do the impossible. In order to understand this, you must have a small fissure -- a loose wire in your circuitry -- through which some of the energy of Life can flow; it is a nerve ending that never got completely cauterized. It is your physical potential to pursue This, and it's your potential to see both sides of all so-called paradoxes. When that loose wire is used you should be struck by the fact that such conflict and paradox has always occurred. People have always been in conflict while forswearing conflict. It has gone on in you, in your family, in your neighborhood; it has always gone on everywhere you care to look. It is the natural state of Life growing through man for these messages to be expressed, and you are a piece of it. The message is, "This cannot go on. We must find the problem and stop it." But what is not understood is, there is no problem. It is simply that Three Forces are at work, and Life does not grow in a straight line.

If there really was "a problem" and it could be solved, the solution would mean the end of everything. But there is no problem. Everything is just as it should be. Yet, from the viewpoint of ordinary man, what is happening cannot be understood. From that viewpoint, man is destroying the planet with pollution, just to use an example that should be easy to see. But that is not what is happening. Man is not going to destroy the planet. Life is not going to commit suicide. But from the ordinary viewpoint, that is how it appears. This is notwithstanding the fact that there is pollution and that it seems man did it, continues to do it, but is finally coming to his senses. On the ordinary level, that is true. But the ordinary world does not understand anything. The ordinary world is transferring energy. What passes for ordinary people is not people at all. "People" are outlets for energy. They just happen to appear mobile, independent and vocal.

You have all heard the saying, "Men start wars, and men can stop wars." On the ordinary level, that statement is beyond question. It makes literal and poetic sense. On that level, it is true. But it is incorrect. It is a manifestation of the ordinary intellect`s binary processing mechanism, wherein only two of the Three Forces can be perceived. The Three Forces operate so that nothing goes directly from "here" to "there." Life expands in all directions -- it does not go in a straight line -- and unless you are able to extricate yourself from such straight-line perception, you are limited to only perceiving two-thirds of reality, at best.

The expansion process of Life produces certain kinds of tension, and one way this tension manifests itself is through wars. You can also see it taking form in domestic quarrels, or just in two guys arguing over a football game. If not for the vital tension-of-growth, and its attendant conflict, all events and processes would proceed uni-dimensionally to a predictable, straight-line conclusion. Life would go in only one direction, to a certain point, and then stop.

Man cannot see the necessity for tension -- neither in Life or himself. But if a person were to become freed from the constraints of Line-Level consciousness, he would be able to perceive things from another viewpoint that brings such ordinary concepts as "conflict" into another, multidimensional focus. He might see, for example, that such a notion as "The planet was getting polluted and now it is getting cleaned up a little," is more like this: "The organism I call the Life-of-Life stepped in a mud hole, and then it went home and cleaned itself up a bit. It's washing its feet off; it's taking a bath. And it's assuming new responsibilities."

Here is something related to that. Your mind -- what I call the Yellow Circuit -- seems to be in charge of continually trying to educate the lower circuits. But that is not the way the Yellow Circuit sees it. The way it comes out in you, and the way it comes out in the social intercourse of humanity, is that there is a great debate going on between those who are educated and enlightened, and those who are not. One possible example of this is the continual debate between what appear to be "liberals" and "conservatives." The names change, but you can find this dichotomy in you, and you should see it in Life. It's just another example of Life's good health, for without this kind of tension there could be no chance of growth, of expansion.

Life's expansion process is occurring in all directions -- all, at once. It lurches here and then there, and then somewhere else, all simultaneously. I have referred to Life as a Great Machine, and you can use this picturization. You are a part of this Great Machine, down inside it. You can hear it creaking and groaning as it operates. Sometimes it's as though the machine moved in your very presence; gears rotated, emitting loud noises and noxious fumes. But an ordinary man can never see that the whine, groans, and fumes are simply part of a larger process, of which he too is a part.

Without some kind of internal self-contradiction, some kind of internal battle within a system, then no growth is possible. But also note that built into each nervous system is the absolute belief that Life could and should be different. Everyone is, in a sense, attempting to expand, to become ignited in the higher areas of the nervous system. But the possibility of individual expansion is not available in the ordinary world. Such a desire is the echoing of Life's larger growth throughout the collective nervous system of humanity.

Once you begin to glimpse the reality behind this tension-for-growth, it's just a short step to Seeing that there is no evil in the world. But as soon as you fall back below the Line of consciousness and begin to "think about it," then you say to yourself, "I know evil people." You read about evil people every day. There is no doubt about the existence of evil, until you trip Up the Line again and you See, "No, there isn't any evil, and there isn't any good."

There is a process of everything moving and changing. Nothing alive can grow in a straight-line fashion. There are no people out in Life who are evil. You begin to See that you have been surrounded by little geysers, little volcanoes, which you thought were people. Instead of spewing out lava and steam, they spew out ideas, statements, facts, and opinions. You were always fooled because these little geysers and volcanoes moved around, so you didn't recognize them. And of course, you were one of them, so it never came into question.

You begin to See that it is not a matter of somebody being evil, because there is no "somebody" there. You begin to See that what you always thought were people are processes. And these processes called "people" are part of the larger process, Life. There are no people plotting evil, no right people, no wrong people. There is simply the expansion of Life through humanity, and Life grows through apparent internal conflict.

I want to expand a bit on what appear to be the psychological aspects of a so-called personality. You are all aware that there are certain types of people who seem to have some kind of power over you. Perhaps it is someone who always acts excited to see you, and you know it is insincere. Perhaps it is someone who is pushy, and seems to make you feel submissive. Whatever the apparent circumstances, everyone knows people who they feel uncomfortable around, people who seem to be able to control them. What I want to point out is this: a magnetic field is at work in everyone. People are energy transformers; they are outlets for certain kinds of energy, and there is a current flowing through everyone.

There have been attempts throughout history to analyze such things as "Why are certain women attracted to certain types of men?" and "Why do some people like certain music, certain clothes, certain hobbies?" And of course, there is always the question of "How did I end up here?" -- whether it be in reference to a job, a mate, or whatever. Now psychology would explain such observed phenomena on the basis of environment, family ties, and so on. But I am telling you, there is immutable justice at work; certain people are outlets for certain types of energy, and they always happen to end up around certain other types of people who are receptors for that energy.

In your own system an absolute physical magnetic attraction functions just as it should. You should be aware of the power of this current. Simply recall the last time you were just watching people pass by. They were all absolute strangers, yet you had an internal comment, an instant response, to each one. It could have ranged from just a quick internal observation about what they were wearing, all the way to a physical reaction about the way someone stirred you sexually. Perhaps there was someone you immediately disliked enough to clench your fist. That is what I mean by being engaged -- being ordinary.

There have been many would-be systems which have taken the idea of engagement and attempted to use it as their basis. The leaders attempt to teach such things as self-remembrance, but they are in the same boat as their pupils, because they cannot do it either. The leader will point out examples of being ordinary, and the follower will say, "Yes, I see." The leader then says, "Okay, stop doing it." But, no one can -- including the leader. Under ordinary conditions, the magnetic field cannot be put on hold; it cannot be put into neutral. All you have is a very momentary lapse between when it is held here, and when it is held there. And that is regardless of whether the holding occurs in Life or in your recollection of things. I am telling you that human consciousness -- that which appears to be the great gift of the gods that people talk about and romanticize -- is a magnetic .pa

field, and it is going to be attracted to this or that continually.

If you attempt to turn your attention on your consciousness, on that which appears to be "I", something strange happens. You cannot find it. The consciousness that you are attempting to see is a continual flow, a pulsing flow of energy, and it cannot stop. If it did stop, it would mean you were dead. You cannot stop consciousness and look at it. You cannot stop a flow of electrical energy and look at it; it is either in operation or it is not. You cannot freeze it. In the attempt to find "I", all you are left with is whatever was doing the looking. You can only hold that for a second, then you are back to being "I". That is why religion cannot do what it purports to do; that is why psychiatry cannot do what it claims to do: if they did what they claimed, they would stop the internal process of the person they were attempting to help. It would kill him.

Many people ask questions along the lines of "How can I overcome whatever appears to be me?" Let me point out something for you to Consider. This question is always asked on the basis that the "I" doing the asking is part of the process of internal conflict. That is, the question is asked on the basis of "I've got these particular problems, these habits, these mechanical manifestations that I am trying to deal with and overcome." But you cannot somehow whip the old you into shape; you cannot solve those problems at the ordinary level. What you can do is get to a place where your ordinary process, what seems to be "I", is of no great consequence. It never goes away. It still breathes; it .pastill operates, but as your "aliveness" expands, it becomes no more than a rasping echo in your chest with each breath.

You must remember that if your problems seem pressing and real, you are merely ordinary, and This Thing has nothing to do with that. There is no freedom from ordinariness when you are ordinary: the only useful recourse is diverting your energy above Line-Level. Then you realize that there are no pressing problems. There are no problems at all. But as long as you are a part of the ordinary process, then "problems" aren't solved -- they just change names.

You cannot allow your mind to simply be part of the continual past, and the past of humanity. If you have an Aim, you lose the right to suffer; you do not have the right to be you.

You are either in the state of being you, or you are attempting to ignite your nervous system. Once you begin to See it, you cannot continue to be "I". When you rise above Line-Level, you'll See a continual, pulsating flow of energy. And what appears to be "I" is only a limited and continual expenditure of energy through certain small parts of the Yellow Circuit. At Line-Level "it" spends energy; that is where the blood is depleted of its potential to go further.

Once you experience this redirection of energy, you understand what you would never have seen under ordinary conditions: there is no "I" inside you, no personality, much less, a personality-with-problems. Only someone who has risen above the Line resembles a Real person. Because at Line-Level, there are no individual "people." So, you are either no one or you are attempting to become a someone by using your own Yellow Circuit as an instrument of Neuralization: you are attempting to push against the very limits of your own nervous system.

At the very least, you should have a continuing remembrance that you are attempting to ignite your higher nervous system, whatever that may mean. And you should be attempting to pull loose the lateral connections within you that keep you being "you." One way to describe this is that you must force your mind to operate in a non-reasonable fashion. By that, I mean do not accept the internal voices as being you. Do not accept what you hear internally as being some statement of what "you believe."

You cannot remain content to simply be a part of your own process. When you find yourself wallowing there, if you do not attempt to do something about it, you are beneath your own level of contempt. You must at least attempt to remember why you are involved in This Pursuit; try to remember anything that you have heard here that seems to be of any significance. Do not try to analyze it on some rational basis, because that will get you nowhere. Attempt to simply look at it, and remember your Aim. You are either caught up in the ordinary process or you are attempting to be non-ordinary; you are attempting to become my fictitious reasonably insane man. If you are not struggling to See, you are done for. You are simply ordinary.

Someone asked me, "Is it true that compassion and love begin when you can see yourself the way you truly are?" Let me ask you to Consider that it is only someone who has some extraordinary knowledge, gained from This, who can even begin to approach the reality behind love and compassion. And the initial step is to cease being a transferrer of the normal kinds of tension that I call hostility. That tension is everywhere, and you must cease exchanging it. This must happen before any notion of love or compassion can be approached. Remember, you have had your whole life to deal with such words, and where did they get you?

It is not that there is no truth to such ideas. But for someone in the ordinary condition, they are futile concepts. There have always been such ideas as "We must all love each other" floating around, and they serve a purpose. But you cannot take such commonly bandied ideals and expect to, in some way, ignite your higher nervous system.

Someone else asked me about illness: "What is it that causes people to get ill?" I have told you that in a very real sense, you have no right to be sick. Of course the physical body will age, and you will have aches and pains, but you can no longer suffer over it. Here is another way to Consider it. There are momentary gaps in the magnetic fields between people. It is like a pause in the energy being transferred. An example would be when two people ar talking, and suddenly it seems as if they have come to a stopping point. One looks at his watch, and the other says, "Yeah, I guess I'd better go too." These moments are so small, so short, that they are almost of no consequence. But they can be seen almost as open space -- almost like, to use a familiar term, "accidents waiting to happen." There is a hole there, and you can be sucked right into it. It can be a broken leg, a cold, new forms of depression, any kind of suffering.

There is only one way for a man to protect himself from such occurrences: that is to get outside the natural magnetic field that draws you to places. Then you find out that you can produce an unnatural, neutral state, wherein you are no longer subject to the pulls of your ordinary magnetic condition. Then you are no longer an accident waiting to happen.