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Transcript

OMNITANEITY                 

Document:  39, September 16, 1982
Copyright(c) Jan M. Cox, 1982                                   

    You cannot ignite the higher areas of the nervous system without some true understanding of the journey.  It is not possible to approach This Thing piecemeal or half-heartedly, yet many ordinary people imagine they're involved in the same struggle I'm conducting here -- and their attempts always involve only one isolated element of a multifaceted growth.  Consider the various approaches to so-called spiritual development possible today, which are freely described in ordinary life.

     One currently popular approach concentrates on health.  I'm talking about a wide definition of health, including diet, eliminating additives and chemicals in foods, learning how to have good posture, kneading people and having them knead you.  These days, such activities are presumed to be spiritual.  But it's the time-honored approach of doing what won't work.  It provides the illusion -- which is real enough at the ordinary level -- that something has improved:  "I've lost weight, I quit smoking and now I don't spit up blood every morning, so I'm obviously closer to the gods."  And we can't argue the fact if a person wants to live beyond next week, he is probably better off not spitting up blood.

     The majority of humanity's attitude toward any kind of metaphysical development is that in some way it is our duty, if possible, to reach a state of perfect health.  And there is no such thing.  There is no state of health.  You're all dying.  Everyone to some degree is in a state of ill health, varying according to genetics and circumstance.  The most useful attitude you can cultivate, from the point of view of This Thing, is to reach a state wherein you do not suffer over health.  You would not swing too much one way or the other. For example, if you were drinking twenty cups of coffee a day and stopped, and found that your headaches went away, then you should not drink twenty cups of coffee.

     The attempt to improve physically is the most common approach when people imagine they seek "spiritual development."  It does not have to involve fooling around with diet or exercise.  It could be physically kneeling down in a church -- or just making the effort to physically visit a place of worship.  You might light candles, bring a sacrifice, sit there for two hours and listen to a sermon.  Everybody might get up and in unison participate in some ritual.  But such activity only reflects Real growth at the absolute lowest level.

     Consider another approach that seems to have a fair-sized following in humanity.  This seems to apply to the emotions rather than the body.  It is more than a mere physical undertaking of diet or ritual or exercise; this approach can seem almost miraculous:  "Come in and give your heart to the prophet, give your heart to the swami, give your heart to the preacher or anybody!"  That is, "Relinquish all of your pain and sorrow and suffering.  We all know that Life is no good and will come to a very sad end.  You're going to have to forget all that and here is the secret juice -- here is the secret emotional food -- to help you."

     However, distinct from any physical or so-called emotional effort is what I refer to as igniting your own nervous system above the Line of ordinary consciousness.  This approach connects directly with what you accept as the mind:  Consider it as expanding the upper level of the ordinary nervous system where "you" seems to reside:  This struggle alone supersedes the seat of all information -- all feelings about yourself, the world, and everything you might call your consciousness.  At the optimum, mechanically speaking, "you" operates right up at the top of what seems to be the brain.  Until now you could not differentiate in any way between you and the brain.  I have pointed out that in the same way ordinary people feel, "My ankle hurts," they sometimes also feel, "I'm losing my mind," or "These thoughts are driving me crazy."  You feel an "I" possessing a body and a mind; that in some way "I" am separated from this flesh and this nervous system.  In order to do This Thing, you must learn to See the real relationships within your own system through your own experience.  Anything less will not produce real change.

     I have told you not to hold your breath waiting to help other people, even your best friends in ordinary life, or your family.  But momentary possibilities continue to appear in Life -- though not as "I" imagines. For example, you can refuse to handle the common currency of ordinary hostility.  You might refuse to play the ordinary game between you and your parents.  (Don't hold your breath waiting for them to notice your improvement and say, "How extraordinary!")  Any time you interfere with the ordinary flow of mechanical hostile energy, you have stopped exchanging ordinary currency.  You have quit transferring that unprofitable flow of electrical current between you and them, and it will have an effect -- first on your own nervous system, and possibly on theirs.

     It is possible to create the appearance of instant magic.  Let's go back to what I described as the apparently emotional approach to spiritual development.  It is possible to produce in someone a feeling of great relief, peace, and lack of certain kinds of fear.  But this apparent instant emotional magic is still an ordinary state, though it appears unusual.  It is not any form of igniting the higher nervous system, because truly extending the nervous system requires that you induce the growth yourself.  You have to understand how you do it to yourself.  That is why This Thing is so unpopular:  because at Line level, everyone just wants it to happen.  That is why it is so well hidden.  If you are still waiting for instant magic, you are in the wrong place.  All my descriptions and practical methods are to be used by the Few who are capable of actually conducting their own extraordinary growth.  Some of the methods you must learn to use are in truth so simple that at first you completely miss them.  

     For example, you might listen to me talk for four or five hours pointing out that a sequential line of events cannot exist; that no one thing causes anything else.  If you were listening properly, you would hear me give different examples and approach it from many directions, all describing the same thing.  But once you Consider this idea, you will see that it is not limited to whatever examples I used.  It is not limited to apparent events, such as you driving up to a particular intersection at a particular time and getting hit by another car.  It also has to do with things that appear to happen within you such as, "Why do I periodically feel this way?  Why have I always felt this way?  Why do I have this particular daydream or this certain nightmare that plagues me?"  You must learn how to phenomenally expand my picture of nonlinearity.

     I made up a new word which relates to what I have described as the nonexistence of a sequential line of causes.  The word is "omnitaneous".  I made it up to describe everything that could possibly be happening in all possible directions, all at one time.  (The "taneous" comes from "instantaneous".)  This word is a verbal picture to help you see that everything is going on right now.  It is not simply that there is not one sequential line leading up to an "event", such as a car accident.  There is, and also there is not.  You can look at any line going off from any event.  In the case of a car accident, Consider:  Why do you own a car? Why do you go home this way instead of some other way every day?  Why were you in the path of the other car?  What about the driver of the other car?  What makes him inclined to drink and drive when he gets mad?  What made him mad, was it something his wife said this morning?  Why is he prone to let women push him around?  What made his wife mad, anyway?  Everything that has ever occurred to you exists at that traffic light.  The point is, whatever line you follow will lead to a "cause" that is not the true cause.  It is an answer to nothing, because any real answer to all of it is that which your system cannot see.  That is, it's omnitaneous.

     One reason you cannot see omnitaneously is because of the self-centeredness built into ordinary human Line-level consciousness.  This attribute serves each nervous system's function of being one growing tentacle for Life;  one place where Life can continue to expand itself.  This self-centeredness is the reality behind ordinary people saying, "So-and-so is too egotistical.  He thinks the world rises and sets in his own back yard."  There is a reality to that beyond what each nervous system can see.  All apparent events are viewed in the context of how they affect "me"; everything that passes for consciousness is centered around "I" and all that you think revolves around this culmination of the nervous system.  I am not speaking moralistically.  This has nothing to do with an imaginary flow of egocentricity.  It is not that people are vain or that it's evil to be selfish; I am describing the reality behind that.  To always think of yourself is to be at Line-level consciousness.  It is to be ordinary.  And it's necessary.  But this is impossible to see directly.

     I make up examples, and then tell you to Consider these examples in terms of your own internal thinking process.  You must learn how to see the process -- because when this is in operation, it has you completely.  From the point of view of someone attempting to ignite higher areas of the nervous system, the most damage is done at a level where you are not even aware.  Everything is seen, experienced, and continually judged on the basis of "I".  All incoming information -- the kind of energy that you take in and transform -- is based upon "I".  And by and large, that's exactly what Life needs.  The nervous system is right where it belongs.  

     Now I'll give you a few examples of this in operation.  But you've got to listen fast, because I will just say two or three sentences and it will be over and you'll think, "Well, I missed whatever it was."  And you will have.  And also remember that these examples are not just you in operation -- they're everybody.  Despite each nervous system's claim of uniqueness, at Line level each system functions the same way.

     Suppose I said, "Look, instead of me making up examples, right now tell me who has followed this?" And you thought, "I believe I understood some of it."  That's a perfect example.  Can you See it?  Or I ask, "Did you get anything from this?" And you say, "Yeah, I can agree with some of that -- I admit it's a little surprising," or, "You know, I have worried about that."

     That's more than enough examples.  What you don't see is what just happened, and it's not because anything is personally wrong with you but because of how the nervous system operates.  As long as that which seems to be your consciousness is based upon, "I do see some of that," it's still wrong because it's still ordinary.  As long as you're in "I", you're not seeing anything new.  And the nervous system cannot comprehend that.

     All your nervous system can do right now is operate on the basis of "I", even in its relation to This Thing.  You have the feeling that you are involved in something productive:  "I don't just sit around and watch soaps all day -- I read philosophical books.  I stare at the sky and think important thoughts.  And I think I can see how some of these ideas are related to This Thing."

     It's not that everything you do is a waste of time.  But I am trying to point out that even these seemingly important things, as well as the most mundane activities, are always based upon "I".  And as long as it's "I", you're not seeing anything, no matter what you are doing.

     Maybe you're listening to a news program and the President comes on announcing his new plan for the economy.  And you think, "The man's an idiot."  What you have said, of course, is "'I'm saying the man's an idiot.  'I' am here to tell you, 'I' am here to tell me, 'I' am conscious of the fact, 'I' am deciding that, 'I' have no alternative but to say -- 'the man's an idiot.'"

     Listen quick.  I'm not talking about whether the President's plan for the economy will work or won't work. What I'm pointing out is that the only apparent "consciousness" available is always based on, centered around, "I".  It cannot be otherwise ordinarily.  This is not wrong.  As vague or theoretical as this may strike you, this "I" centered process transpires continually.  There is the constant sensation that, "I am at the center of all this."  And it is something you should Consider.

     "I" is at the center and everything operates concentrically around that.  The lateral connections of the mind radiate from "I".  And as long as everything comes from "I", you see no alternative to whatever "I" believes.  How could you?  It'd only be "I" deciding whether it agrees that it is in fact at the center.  For one attempting to do This Thing, it is not a matter of right or wrong, truth or falsity.  Rather, it has to do with the fact that "I" precludes any possibility of change.  "I" eliminates all alternatives.

     Picture a continuous line like a fence.  On one side of this fence is everything that connects to "I" within everyone.  Call this side the positive side of the fence.  It's whatever mechanically enters your consciousness.  It is that which would appear to be "good" or "significant".  On this side of the fence there would be good number one -- which would be laterally tied to good number two -- and so on.  Good number one might be tied to "true"; good number two could be tied to "proper".  This is a web of rational connections which you do not normally think about but which includes everything that "I" says is correct, true or proper.  It is "that which I agree with."

     Ordinary people do not even notice that there is another side of the fence, other than the fact that whatever does not fit in over on this side of the fence obviously is wrong.  Ordinary people "know" other people's beliefs are false, improper or evil.  But if ordinary I's consciousness were called upon to explain why this is so, it would be at a loss.

     I can explain it for you.  Suppose I point out that there always has to be another side to the fence.  On the positive side is everything that seems to fit acceptably into your mind.  Inside that loop, it all connects. It all must fit.  You're wasting your time to try to reason with any person's positive side.  It would not change anything to point out to someone, "Look here, you say everyone should love their neighbor, but at the same time you think all Republicans are idiots."  Inside the consciousness of that person, it all connects perfectly -- and it has nothing to do with any rationality.

     What the ordinary nervous system cannot conceive of is that there has to be an absolute negative reflection of the positive side.  Over on the other side of the fence, there is likewise a perfect web of connections.  But if an ordinary person could even entertain the notion of the "other side of the fence", he would view it as a sort of junkyard where everything he had rejected lay around in disconnected piles. Over there is a heap of garbage that's "evil".  And another pile of "improper" things.  And maybe on top of that one would be a smaller pile of stuff he believes is "false".  I would be a junkyard.  An ordinary person might admit that everything he thinks of as evil, improper or false has to go somewhere.  But he could not see how all these are connected, and how they are a reflection of the "positive" side of the fence wherein resides the good, the proper and the correct.  The other side of the fence is an absolute, mirrored reflection, an anti-web of connections; a complete set of opposites.

     Something in this description of the other side of the fence might strike even an ordinary person. People might be inclined to theoretically agree:  "That must exist.  It's like antimatter in physics."  Yet it is impossible for ordinary consciousness to actually see over the fence and benefit by experience as you here must learn to do.  Assuming that this anti-world literally exists, you cannot turn on your nervous system and say, "Look at that!  Look over at the other side of everything!"  Because, from the point of view of your ordinary consciousness, the anti-world is wrong.  It's a junkyard of the evil and insane.  It is inherently the mechanically rejected "junk" that ordinary consciousness cannot deal with.  Ordinarily, you have no view over the fence.  But by learning how to use the map to enhance your vision from above Line level, you'd be able to marry these opposites.  You'd see Life and all its forms as an interconnected living process.  There'd be no fence -- or, you'd be on both sides of it omnitaneously.

     This, by the way, is part of the secret hidden in the attempt to withhold judgment -- to find out that you can be aware something and not think about it.  Because once you have judged something, it becomes isolated on one side of the fence.

     Withholding judgment is a practical matter.  It is not done of the basis of some attitude of, "I may not like Democrats, but the gods made Democrats just like they made me and probably I could learn something by being nice to them," or, "I should love sinners because they can't help being that way."  It has nothing to do with that.  There is a reality behind such religious attitudes -- a practical reality.  But for one attempting to do This Thing, it is not a matter of cultivating some sham tolerance.  It is rather that as long as you have any negative judgement about another person, there is something on the other side of the fence you cannot see.

     There are no sinners.  There is nothing to forgive or tolerate.  People are just transferring necessary energy, processing food for Life.  But as long as you are living in "I"-centered consciousness, you will see others as sinners; you will believe that some people are just wrong.  "I" simply cannot see that there are no sinners; "I" cannot look over the fence.  "I" is the center of all ordinary consciousness.  But "I" cannot move and "I" has nothing to do with being able to See and extend the nervous system vertically.  

     There is something you can attempt in parallel with Seeing both sides of the fence:  Do not identify yourself -- not to others, and not to yourself.  You will find that ordinarily you continually identify yourself. This operates on many levels.  It's not just you walking into a room and saying, "Hi, I'm Fred, a world-famous doctor!"  It's not just wearing a T-shirt with message.  Consider, for example, what color is the T-shirt?  If you wear glasses, are they fancy or plain?  It's not that you .pathought about what to wear.  You just do certain things because they seem proper.

     You go into a store to select glasses frames and keep trying them on -- "No, that's not me" -- until finally, you feel, "Well, let me see those again.  I guess that's me."  It's not that you should always wear plain clothes and obsolete sunglasses.  Those are just very low level examples of you identifying "you" through even the most minute details of your life.

     You might be one of those people who goes out of your way to avoid making decisions in matters of so-called personal taste.  When you go to buy glasses, you might tell the salesman, "Just give me a pair." If he says, "What kind?"  you'll say, "I don't care."  But that is still identifying yourself.  There is no way out of it, ordinarily.  People who wear mismatched clothes, plain glasses and never fix their hair are identifying themselves as surely as those in flashy suits, red glasses and the latest hair style.

     To use a more subtle example, you might be in the grocery store overhearing two people discussing religion.  And you might glance at them.  Even though they don't notice you and nobody else sees you look at them, that glance was intended to convey, "What a couple of idiots you are, criticizing somebody's religion."  You have identified yourself as the kind of person who doesn't approve of that -- as the sort who would never agree to any part of it.  You turn and give this subtle nonverbal message that identifies you.  Even though no one else is noticing, you  are still announcing yourself.  You are spending energy being "you". 

     When you become adept at observing this, you'll see that you don't even have to turn and make a gesture.  All you have to do is tighten up a little muscle in your face for a split second.  You are still identifying yourself.  You are saying, non-verbally, "I don't agree with that."  You might be sitting in your car and someone walks by.  Something in you twitches, "I don't like that kind of person."  You can learn to feel it happen.

     I remind you that we're not talking about anything that is morally wrong.  The fact that you don't like that kind of person could be a reality at the physical level, because tensions exist between types of people. Physically, there are people whose presence makes your body feel hostile or fearful, and the same is true for groups of people:  a lot of religious and racial prejudice is an automatic hostility of the lowest circuit. No matter what it's called, there is a continual, immediate, physical transfer of energy throughout humanity. That's just the way things are arranged, at one level, and on that level, you can't do anything about this. But you can notice it.  You can learn to experience it in your own nervous system.

     Suppose you walk into a waiting room and another man comes in right behind you.  You glance at each other, he immediately goes to sit down on the far side of the room and you move in the opposite direction. Without analyzing it, you both make sure you two don't end up anywhere near each other.  You let him get out of the room before you make another move -- or you stand up and .pahe looks away.  Watch these subtle skirmishes and learn from them.  They reflect something far beyond, "I don't like you."

     People are continually saying (without words), "I am transferring a kind of energy different from the kind you are transferring."  And, in the process of verbally or non-verbally expressing that, they are identifying themselves.

     See if you can Hear something else:  A part of the way ordinary people are led to believe in the possibility of change is by seeing other types of people.  There are obviously people in the world who are not like you.  Everyone can see that.  And  this gives everyone the unanalyzed impression that change is possible, "Because there's me -- and then there are people like Fred.  I could be different -- I could be like Fred, if I really wanted to."  

     Built into everyone's system is the belief that change is possible.  And this belief is reinforced because other types of people exist mechanically.  The fact that Fred is alive is proof to ordinary consciousness that "I could be different." -- "I don't mean that I want to change, or that I ever will.  But I could."  And this belief serves a particular purpose in Life.  It keeps people from ever attempting to change "what I am" and finding out that they cannot.  As long as you are living in "I"-centered consciousness, there are no ordinary alternatives.  And the rare alternative presented by This Thing begins with the necessity of simply seeing the perfect arrangement.

     Do you suspect what  a supreme shortcut -- and what a super method -- it would be to attempt never to identify yourself?  Every time you identify yourself, you are letting the energy that runs through you travel the same old course.  You're doing what "I" would do.

     As long as you're living in ordinary Life, as all of you must, you have to wear clothes and cut your hair in some style.  If you're going for an interview at a law office, you have to dress a certain way, and if you're going out to dig ditches you can't show up with a three-piece suit.  But you don't always have to do everything the way "you" would do it.  Also -- in whatever situation you find yourself -- you can play a role, no matter how subtle.  Don't be "you" at the law office -- play the role of an interviewee at an office.  Or play the role of a ditch-digger, when the situation requires it.

     Suppose you go the store to buy beer.  Maybe you have your hand on a six-pack of your favorite brand, which you always buy, when suddenly a beautiful blonde walks up.  And you suddenly have the inclination to say, "It's a shame these places don't carry imported beer!" -- or at least buy a classier brand of beer in case she notices.  Once you see that this is what you want to do, do something else.  At the very least, leave without buying any beer and go down the street to get your Pabst.  But don't identify yourself in the same old way to her.

     I am giving you a valuable shortcut.  You must attempt to see how you continually identify yourself -- in obvious and subtle ways -- to others and yourself.  Then stop it.

     I am aware that many  of you are still dealing with what seem to be your own personal demons of fear. Consider what fears could possibly be real enough to actually affect you, should they present themselves. The fear of death has a certain validity.  The nervous system knows it's going to die, and all pseudo-mystical and religious systems seem to address this.  If you want, call that a real fear, though if you can ignite the higher areas of your nervous system it is almost as irrelevant as anything else at Line level.

     I'm not going to tell you that I know how to get back up, once you lay down and die.  If I do know, I guess the secret is going to the grave with me, because I certainly don't intend to get back up. But, instead of immortality, would you settle for living as long as you care to live?  I suggest to you that, from  a certain viewpoint, that is the same as immortality.  Of course, your ordinary nervous system will never see it that way.  "I" will always say, "I want to live forever."

     Consider other fears:  the fear of being sick, the fear of wasting your life.  The fear that one morning you will wake up and your last friend -- this man or woman you've been living with for years -- will tell you, "It's over."  One day nobody will talk to you; nobody will pay any attention.  As real as those fears seem to be to ordinary consciousness, can you begin to glimpse how all of that becomes invalid in This Thing?  It already has no validity to you at certain times.  If you have any such fears, you would find it almost impossible to conjure them up during those times when you're making any real effort.  If they are valid, how do you explain that?  

     Let's Consider a hard one -- the fear of sickness.  I want you to Hear something about the need to get out of the limitations of the ordinary system as quickly as possible.

     Let's say we're talking about Fred and Fred gets sick.  Remember, as this story unfolds, that we're not really  talking about illness or hospitals.  I want to use this story about Fred's illness to point your attention toward something else.  You should take this story as a physical, literal example of the weight of the universe keeping everything just the way it is.  Also, remember that this is no ordinary criticism of the medical profession.   Don't let "I" jump in and say, "I hear what you're saying and I have always thought the same thing."  I'm pointing beyond that which your ordinary system can see.

     So, let's say that after Fred gets sick, he talks to his doctor, who advises him to go into the hospital. Maybe Fred is suffering from a virus that seems to be attacking the muscles in his leg, and the doctor says, "We have some medication to treat that.  We have to give it to you every four hours and there are some side effects, and we need to watch you."  So Fred goes into the hospital for treatment.

     It is almost impossible to go into a hospital and not get sicker.  If you stay there for any amount of time -- a few days -- you will be afflicted with something in addition to your original illness.  The ordinary explanation for this may be, "Here is a whole building full of sick people -- there are germs -- we do the best that we can, but what can you expect?"  But the reality of it goes beyond that.

     What if Fred was your friend or your brother or cousin?  Suppose you heard me say, "Past a certain point, Fred is going to get sicker if he stays in the hospital," and you decided to try to get him out.  Now, Fred could have many different levels of understanding.  But if he understood any of this, you might tell him:  "Fred, come out of there.  You're getting sicker.  You have stayed in there such a length of time that you have given up responsibility for yourself and now they can do anything they want to you."

     It is impossible to convey this in words, but from a certain viewpoint that is absolutely the case.  If you ever have the opportunity to observe someone who's sick in the hospital, you can see that on a given day -- you could almost pinpoint the hour when the person surrenders all responsibility.  It normally happens after he develops a new illness.  The doctor says, "Fred, you're running a fever that has nothing to do with the virus in your leg and we don't understand it.  We're going to run some tests."  Around that time, Fred gives up all responsibility.  He doesn't decide, "Well, I'm giving up."  But that is part of the mechanical process -- the person has almost become indoctrinated into the hospital process.  It's like joining the Marines and going through boot camp, where they run you to the point where you will just get up and do whatever the sergeant says to do.  Fred has reached that point, in terms of the hospital.

     Suppose, because Fred was your friend, I agreed to go and talk to him.  Suppose I could direct his attention enough so he saw the cycle of illness in which he was immersed.  And suppose somehow he could Hear some of this and decided to leave the hospital.  Maybe the next morning, he gets out of bed and says, "Bring me my clothes.  I'm in worse shape than when I started and I'm getting out of here."  Do you realize what an uprising there would be?  Nurses would start to shout, "You can't do this."  They would try to physically put him back in bed.  Somebody in charge would say, "Call Dr. so-and-so and tell him Fred is trying to kill himself."

     Then Fred's family would come in.  And Fred would have to try to explain to his mother and father what was going on.  His wife would be crying, "Why are you doing this to yourself, Fred?"

     Now, picture the negative web of connections going on.  As Fred is running out the door his doctor is hollering, "You'll die!  Don't blame me if you just go home and die!"  And his wife is pulling out her hair, pleading, "Please, Fred, think of the children.  We don't want you to die."  Do you understand that Fred might very likely die?  Even though, in theory -- if I could pick Fred up and extract him from the hospital and all its negative connections -- he would be in better shape immediately.  Given the weight of everything, Fred might actually die from leaving the hospital.

     That which would appear to be magic, out in the ordinary world, is not what it appears to be.  At the ordinary level of consciousness, there is no such thing as a magical cure.  Everything is connected -- you are part of it -- and you are never cured from it.  Can you see, in my story of Fred, that whatever may have been theoretically possible -- the extraordinary feat of leaving the hospital -- is perfectly counterbalanced by the weight of everything pressing on Fred to stay there?  And we are not just talking about hospitals. That is the nature -- not just of medicine -- but of every facet of ordinary Life.

     It becomes a question of how much a person can immediately do for him or herself.  The only real cure for being sick and suffering over it is to ignite the higher regions of your nervous system.  No one can work magic and do that for you.

     Suppose you had the ability to Understand some of what I have been describing and you were told to go to the hospital.  Suppose you sincerely felt, "I should be in the hospital."  These are just words, but assume you sincerely felt that, based on some understanding.  Do you understand that in order to not go you would almost have to stop identifying yourself?  It would take an extraordinary effort.  For one thing, you would have to un-identify yourself with all of your family and anybody else who might put pressure on you.  And you would have to prevent yourself from explaining why you were not going.  You would have to do it for no reason at all.  That's how you Do things when you Understand what you are doing.

     If you came to me and said, "The doctor says I should be in the hospital, what should I do?"  It's almost as if you should go, since you have already identified yourself by asking.  I'm not making up this example to discourage you or say you are too weak to do otherwise.  But the pressures of Life are such that it's almost impossible to do anything out of the ordinary.

     Real magic is difficult and elusive for reasons people never imagine.  Ofttimes it is impossible for the most apparently mundane reasons.  Try to do any small thing out of the ordinary -- try to change one habit.  Try and observe ways you identify yourself and not do it.  Try not to be you.  It's almost impossible. Magic is hard because of the weight of everything.  Try to stop one small thing and suddenly the whole weight of the universe is on you, because of the great secret of omnitaneousness.  To do magic requires that you take on the weight of everything.  It requires that you be absolutely mad, insane enough so that everything that is "true" -- on this side of the fence -- at the Line level of consciousness -- is just irrelevant.

     If a man could suddenly ignite his nervous system above Line level, he would just quickly Do what he had to do.  He wouldn't ask if he should do it.  He wouldn't debate it or identify himself.  

     Going back to the story:  You might be on your way out of the hospital, already feeling better because you had begun to See something.  But to whatever degree you had improved -- to whatever degree you had suddenly become non-sick -- you would lose it to the same degree that a doctor, your mother, your spouse or anyone in the world could come in and get you to explain or identify yourself.

     Do you see the justice of it?  You See something, get up out of bed and head for the door.  But on your way to the door, you start denouncing modern medicine, telling everyone about what you understand and how you can heal yourself.  All the way to the door you are identifying yourself -- all the way to the door you are bleeding.  And before you get there, you drop dead.

     I ask you again, can you get a glimpse of why Real Magic is so hard?  It can't be explained.  You can't identify it.  All you can do is Do it.