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Hmmmmm......               

Document:  45,  October 21, 1982
Copyright(c) Jan M. Cox, 1982                                         

     I just happened to see an article in a popular magazine about a well-known actor.  It said, "After the death of his pal, actor so-and-so wants out of his frenzied world.  But, can he slow down?"  Now, remember, we are not laughing at anyone in this story -- so I ask you -- doesn't that sound like a proper question?  "Can he slow down?"  If I were to use this as an example of what an objective question might be in the context of This Thing, there could be several better questions -- such as, "Can he slow down and continue to be who he is?", or, "If he could, would he like it?"

     I want to speak tonight on several apparently unrelated topics, but you should realize that there are none.  So, bearing that in mind, let me begin with a subject on which I often receive questions or notes -- that of so-called human relationships.  A tension in Life holds everything together.  It is not some kind of evil on the part of people; it is necessary for the proper function of humanity, from politics to religion to what is known as interpersonal relationships.  For those involved with This Activity, you cannot let yourself be governed by this tension.  In the case of your relationship with others, I'm telling you a fact:  you cannot be hostile and Do This Thing, for it will destroy everything you are trying to do.  You cannot get caught up in the ordinary whining, the disapproving looks, the insinuations that manifest this tension.  To do so, you are literally killing your potential for this activity.

     You should be able to hear this:  You will allow a stranger, or casual acquaintance, to speak and act in a manner that you would not long put up with in a relationship with someone of the opposite sex.  Even people of the same sex living together will let things go by, which in a sexual relationship will be construed as problems and will fuel anger and discontent. Such is the power of sex. A similar power exists between blood relatives -- that is why a great percentage of physical hostility goes on in the world among family members.  It's not quite the same as the connection between those sexually involved, but the same potential for dangerous passion lurks.  You may be tempted to say, "Well, my own situation is different.  I certainly expected more of her (or him)."  But, you are looking in the wrong place.  It should be, "I expected more of ME.  I should be able to put up with anything."

     If you absolutely, objectively, cannot put up with a situation, then leave.  Other than that extreme case, you must find a way to keep a relative amount of peace with those around you.  If you cannot, then you are merely dreaming of mystical states.  You are dreaming, but you can't keep from banging up your car every time you go out of the driveway, or breaking a dish every time you eat.  You might think, "Well, that is because my mind is on greater cosmic affairs -- my consciousness is being held in never-never land."  But in the meantime you are wreaking havoc everywhere you go.  Havoc is not what This Thing is about.  You cannot let things just go their own ordinary way.  You must remember The Aim, whatever that may be, and you must remember yourself.

     Now a small jump to something else.  An idea in every religion is normally translated as the "unforgivable sin".  As with any idea, there is a reality behind this concept -- there is such a thing as an unpardonable sin.  It has to do with putting your hands on that which you know you should not.  Once you Understand something, once you See something extraordinary, if you then go back and put your hands on it, and fall back into doing what you did before, it is almost an unforgivable sin.  And I do not mean by this that you are going to die and go to hell.  What you have done is at a higher level; it is upping the stakes of the game.  Once you Understand something in that secret place, once you See the unprofitable nature of something you ordinarily do, then you cannot listen to the voices, you cannot obey them and fall back into being your ordinary self and do that which you know you should not.

     When I spoke about not letting your attention rest, it was in part a physical description of being able to Neuralize.  It's refusing to accept whatever flows up the nervous system as yours, as you.  If we picture the spine as a tube, it is as if radio waves are sent up, and nobody knows their origin.  But people take them personally; they say "They're my thoughts, they're my feelings".  Enough of you are getting glimpses to Understand what I'm describing.  You can be just walking along, or attempting to Neuralize something, and it seems the kind of grasp you normally labor under has loosened, like a little fresh air blows through your skull.  But normally, it is as if somewhere down in the base of the spine there is an unknown, pilot radio station on a frequency attuned to your nervous system, and it sends out an unending series of programs. You don't know how limited they are until you begin to get above the Line.  When those radio waves rise all the way up to the screen of consciousness they can also activate what seem to be mental pictures.  Once you allow that to happen, once you allow the signals to get up the spine uninterrupted to consciousness, then the signals ARE you, the film IS you, the sounds ARE you:  "These are my thoughts; my thoughts are me".

     If you possess the two criteria for pursuing This Thing -- the Potential and the Desire -- you must establish a place within far removed from the workings of the mechanical intellect.  You must hear the waves coming up the spine.  As long as you are alive, the signals continue to run up the spine -- even when you are asleep, in bed with your eyes closed.  As long as you are alive, as long as the electrical energy is keeping the flesh alive, these radio waves continue.  If they go all the way to the Line of consciousness, then there is no hope -- it IS you.  Whatever it is saying, is you.  You can complain, you can attempt to discuss it after the fact, but that in itself is nothing.  The world is full of people doing that; psychology has reached a point where people are discussing such things as "Where am I coming from internally?", or "Why am I like this?"  But it is always after the fact.  Such endeavors accept whatever has reached The Line as "me".  People discuss it, and other people say, "Yes, I know what you mean."  And yet, nobody knows, except for the Few of This Thing.

     It is not enough for some of you to say: "Well, I suspect some reality to everything you are talking about".  That is not enough.  You must get to the level of specifics, such as your dealings with some other person or some situation.  You must have enough Understanding so that even if I died and all this fell apart, you would be able to function far beyond the way you used to think and react.  You would Know at least one secret without any debate, beyond discussion with anybody:  You cannot let the waves become YOU.  Once it gets to the point that you Understand this, then you should be getting closer to the reality of the unpardonable sin.  When you hear someone say:  "All religion is bunk!" and you let your automatic reactions to such a statement reach the Level of consciousness and become YOU, all you have done is put a period on it.  You cannot then go back to that particular situation and undo it.  You have prevented yourself from being able to go back and Neuralize that person in the way you should have been able to. You have put a period on that person and thrown him away.  And it's not just that person, it's everything connected with that situation.  And of course, everything is connected to everything else.

     Everything's connected with that situation and every possibility connected to it.  In that case you have almost approached committing an unpardonable sin.  It's almost like you're laying in a coffin with the lid down, and somehow you've got your arm outside and you're helping to nail the lid shut. You have to stop and not let the voices, the waves, the automatic radio signals reach the Level of consciousness and become "I".  As soon as you see the signals coming you have to learn NOT to be them.  You have to learn that you can simply look at the voices, and as long as you can look at them, they will not culminate in "I" -- and thereby you will have kept your hands off other people.  That is a taste of freedom -- the freedom of not being engaged, of not wasting your energy through the same channels.

     It is a running battle for a long time, until you find out that to stop the voices is as much pleasure as you ever had in your entire life.  To be able to do it does not mean that there will always be a blinding flash of cosmic understanding, but the day will come (and this is one of the few things I can give you my word on) that all the circumstances surrounding your separation from those voices will come together at a moment when something apparently unrelated is going on, and you go: "Hmmmmmm...!"  And the "Hmmmmmm!" is all you can do, because what you See cannot be expressed.

     Somebody wrote me an extensive note, and among several observations was this:  "My existence, this hidden creature or machine, this assembly of "I's" seems to be the other side of a certain coin...." then the person adds:  "I seem caught up in my own involvement with this creature...where is the stream of consciousness coming from?"  This sensation occurs during everyone's initial involvement with This.  It is a feeling that turns into a question:  "How do I know what's happening here?  Nobody tells me exactly what's going on with me".  As I said before, it is a matter of having the Potential and the Desire to do This.  You have to be able to ask yourself in some nonverbal way if you are satisfied with your own internal ordinary situation.  If you ask that question to the Yellow Circuit, it will say:  "No; there are things I want to change!" Remember, that is the nature of being alive.  It can never be satisfied.  But that is not what This Thing is about.  This Thing is about changing WHERE YOU LIVE.  This Thing is not about changing what's coming from below the Level of consciousness; it is to find out that there is another floor beyond the ordinary level -- that there is another place wherein you can cultivate a new consciousness.  In that place, what seems to be "I", and whatever is going on below the Level of consciousness, becomes irrelevant.

     All of you should be able to glimpse that when you observe your own nervous system, the act of observing immediately alters the process of "I".  Before you remembered to observe it, "I" was something. All you have to do is Remember to observe it, and it all disappears, it stops.  Of course, that is not something "to think about", or something to ponder whether it is meaningful or "going somewhere".

     If you have the Potential and the "insane" Desire not to be "I", then you will See an astounding arrangement the world knows nothing about.  It is so astounding that I have, time after time, drawn it for you: the spine symbol.  It is not a symbol to look at, or have it tattooed on you -- IT IS YOU.  All you have to do is look below the Line, and there it is.  And when you do look at it, it stops -- when you look at it, the process stops!

     The question is:  Are you satisfied being whatever process you stopped by observation?  Are you satisfied to be that?  This Thing is not about rearranging the past, or what seems to be your personality.  It is to See that what appears to be "I" is a part of a process, wherein you are continually transferring energy.  You are being used when you're limited to "I".

     One piece of you isn't being used as a kind of currency.  This one piece is like a coin of the realm that hasn't been minted yet -- no one knows how to use it.  No one has ever heard of it, except to call it "God" or "mystical states" or "enlightenment".  What you can do above Line level, no one can touch.  When you begin to see it for yourself, you See that you have something internally that no one can take away.  It is possible to be conscious in a way that is not dependent upon what goes on from the Line down.

     Here is another question from someone:  "Does allowing the sexual attention to wander mentally deplete the supply of energy available for one's actual sex life?"  Questions periodically come up about this subject, and my first answer is -- it sure doesn't help.  First Consider this:  Sexual imagination seems very important to people; sooner or later everybody perceives this as a potential problem.  Sexual imagination runs continuously and is based upon something real:  the preservation of the race.  So, sex has always had a unique power.  But as far as sexual imagination per se, part of it has to do with the Red Circuit as opposed to the Yellow Circuit. When sexual imagination stems from the Red Circuit, it operates so that enough people have sex with enough people, and thereby a suitable number of these walking spinal cords keep walking around the planet.  But, when the sexual imagination reaches the Yellow Circuit, it feels similar to other types of negative imagination, such as hostility or greed. But, remember, sexual imagination still originates in the Red Circuit, and its voices are no worse or better than any of the other voices. What you consider to be strange, terrifying sexual daydreams, are part of Life's mass signals sent into people's different receivers -- and you take whatever you receive as being you.  Furthermore, whatever you fear to be such weird and perverted sexual dreams that you'd rather die than have anybody find out -- they are not secret at all.  It's only a random radio signal which you happen to listen to.

     An observation was submitted in which the person described a vague sense beforehand of how things were about to develop; a certain type of intuition.  Everyone has experienced that in some measure in the same way that I have mentioned people experiencing touches of awareness above the Line.  After those moments you were left with a poor choice of descriptions.  In the same way, all of you have had moments of knowing what was about to happen, and I have pointed out to you that "deja vu" may be working in reverse.  But, there is a reality in what people call intuition, as well as a reality to descriptions of vibrations and colors around people.  The basis is the actual magnetic field produced around everyone, but do not connect it with your readings about mediums, ESP and the like -- no matter how famous those people were, they had no understanding of it.  When people say that they knew what would happen, sometimes they are lying, sometimes it's their imagination, but there is nevertheless a reality to it. You begin to See for yourself that there is a kind of mechanical rhythm, a kind of predictability to life that nobody can see.  In fact, everyone else expects everything to happen, except THAT WHICH WILL HAPPEN. Once you See it, that which WILL happen is only whatever COULD have happened. It is all very predictable.  It has to do with my joke about arriving in a big city and announcing, "Here it is! A city of eighteen million "stories" -- all boring, and all the same!"  The reality behind knowing what is about to happen is based upon Understanding.  It is not something you can plot, figure out, read a book about, or take a drug for.  It's simply that a mechanical, predictable rhythm transpires in life. Once you become attuned, you begin to See it.

     Another question submitted read thusly: "How can one keep the vertical energy strong?"  As I have said before, attempt to do anything that will put a kind of shock into your system.  Some of the very first tasks I gave were directly connected with putting a shock into the body.  It shouldn't have been such a big secret.  I've required that all of you engage in some physical exercise, and all of you by now (assuming you belong here) should understand that you need to feed the body with proper nourishment, proper rest and adequate exercise.

     Most pseudo groups use physical shocks to the system, but that's where they stop.  And these pseudo groups continually come up with a new shock, like getting on your hands and knees and crawl to a particular "holy" place, expecting and hoping that the gods will bless you.  But after that kind of physical shock, they have to keep looking for additional physical shocks.  And mere physical shock is not what This Thing is about.  You have to keep exercising regularly, but it's just taking care of feeding your body. If you have not exercised for days, and you seem to have strange nightmares, strange feelings in the body, all you have to do is get up and run, and you're over it.

     Beyond this physical aspect, the way to revive the kind of vertical energy the question refers to is to do something different -- put a shock into the system.  The better it works the higher you go.  A Real shock is to refuse to talk about the body; not to do whatever your body is now habitually doing.  Whatever happens in the Yellow Circuit, interfere with it -- that's the Real trick.  It is not just taking an opposite view of whatever is going on in the Yellow Circuit; it's being able to stand aside, hear the voices and watch them float.  Those who properly Understand will know that my description is nothing, because it is not just standing aside -- it is an experience of Doing.  You See energy and form rise through the tube of the spine and you then find out what I mean by Neuralizing.  Absolute enjoyment derives from being able to stand aside from the voices.  It's the Struggle of becoming Ignited.  And it's the most fun in the world.

     I received a lengthy note regarding my comments about men and women, particularly comments I made regarding men going to hardware stores and fixing automobiles, while women would go shopping, etc.  The note went on to explain that such examples did not apply to this person in particular, and they wondered why I spent what seemed to them so much time in comments about sexually based interests.  I am not going to explain forever what I'm doing, because if I start explaining what I'm doing in the sense of This Thing, a part of it would be killed.

     Such comments are a form of what I could call Objective satire.  It is an attempt to point you beyond mere appearances.  In a sense, it is trying to get you to objectively glimpse a situation.  Not in the sense of laughing at people, but in the creative sense of, "Isn't that weird?"  Besides, I don't always point out the "punch line" (which is an understatement).  Half the time you don't know what the punch line was supposed to be.

     Sometimes I bring up a certain subject, and it will elicit some laughter; sometimes I can just walk in and say, "Hello", and some of you will laugh.  What you have to Neuralize is not the surface of the objective satire; it is not horizontal humor and it does not apply to each and every person. It is: "That's the way that apparently is -- or is it?  If you laugh, what is causing the laughter?  Why does it appear to be that way? Why does everyone else believe it's that way?"

     Any time you find yourself objecting to anything, and you don't learn from it, or you don't stop and go: "Hmmmm!", you have missed a wonderful, wonderful opportunity.  You just can't allow "I" to be at the center of everything internally.

     Another note says: "Can you say something about physical sleep -- how at times is seems that if one doesn't give in to sleep, what follows is a very creative time, almost as though one has received a 'second chance'".  There is a reality to this observation, and it is proper to assume that most of you have had some taste of this matter.  When you get fatigued, it seems as if you can think in a different way.  That is why some people feel attracted to the use of amphetamines, even though they don't recognize that it is not just that the drug activated the nervous system.  It has to do with the fact that amphetamines will take you beyond ordinary fatigue.  Amphetamines weaken the lateral connections and make you have "strange thoughts" and hallucinations.  But, staying up without sleep for a few days will produce the same effect; it does not take a great deal.

     After a couple of days without sleep, you could be driving your car late at night, and suddenly turn around and swear you see John Paul Jones sitting there beside you.  You can stay up two or three days, with no alcohol or drugs, and even get to the point of being able to pursue any strange sexual daydreams you might have.  (That is part of the attraction for alcohol; it makes you apparently think and, to a limited degree of tolerance, ACT in ways that you would not normally.)  You can simply get fatigued enough to walk into an all night truck stop, and sit down near a four hundred pound, seven foot tall truck driver chewing on a cigar.  He's the type of guy that you would normally not even get close to, and yet you might say to him: "Hey Mac...what time is it?  Sure is hell on the highway, ain't it?"  And the truck driver might say, "What!?"  Because he "knows" you are not the type that is supposed to talk to him.  Fatigue has just weakened your habitual lateral connections -- that's all it is.

     Here is another query, "You have occasionally referred to the universe as a machine; is the word "machine" truly accurate?"  In one of the last few papers I wrote, I referred to the LIVING MACHINE, and yet it is truly a mechanical process.  It is a mechanical process in the sense that, in four dimensions, everything is geared to work in a way that is profitable to the machine itself.  It is the entire Life of Life, but it defies understanding.  It is dangerous to use the words LIVING MACHINE, because the mechanical "I" can say: "Well, the words 'living machine' do not make any sense, because a machine cannot be alive."  And yet, it is alive, and you are part of it.  When you begin to See, then you begin to realize that everything else is simply a magnification of you below the Line.  From the Line down everything is as it should be -- it is a LIVING MACHINE.  If it were not a living machine in the full sense of being mechanical, nothing would be predictable; nothing would operate as it should.  Your liver and kidney would get into fights; your spleen would decide it wants to move closer to your heart, and so on.  Below the Line, everything is a mechanical process, and meshes just as it should.

     Another note asks, "Where would you say an artist's loose wire is?"  In terms of the spine symbol I have drawn for you, I will say again that some people in life have loose connections.  Some of those with loose connections can be judged by Life at any particular time to be criminal or insane, and there is a certain similarity between that and those deemed to be artistic or creative in the ordinary sense.  It has to do with a loose connection laterally, and it serves a purpose.  Consider the Life of Life, the living machine of which we are all a part.  This living machine is growing.  Reality is expanding, and you can see it in new facts, new information, new scientific ideas, new philosophical ideas, new religions -- and this expansion is called "progress" by the ordinary world.  Those in the artistic world serve a real function in this growth process. And this progress does not necessarily take place when those artists paint a picture, write a book, or come up with a new mathematical theory; it may take twenty years before those apparent events may have an impact. The entire system moves out laterally, makes new connections, and then goes up -- the Line inches up, and from there it grows again laterally just to inch upwards again.  It is a process of growth, and Man is the means.

     Someone else said "One of these days I'm going to sit down and describe what 'the guy down below' is like -- funny, dumb, pathetic, etc."  Ultimately you should find out that the "guy down below" can be literally irrelevant; no more than the noise of the system in operation.  What you ordinarily accept as being you does not arise directly from somewhere within you. It's the moans and groans of the living machine expanding and moving.  It is as if a distant radio station sends signals constantly, and you decipher the messages and claim as your own.  But such messages do not describe what is happening to you; what you say is only what you THINK is happening.

     Questions periodically arise concerning fear.  I know how strong that feeling is, and what a serious problem it seems to be to many people.  If you can attempt to be conscious right at "see" level, right where the loose wire is, and not be caught by the automatic sounds and pictures (that is, if you can attempt to be objective) then ask yourself, "What terrible thing can happen to me?  What, terrible, HAS happened to me?"  The answer is f -- almost nothing.  Nothing!  Some of you have probably broken bones, or had serious dental work, but -- here you are.  The truth is, you have survived -- you are here. Somehow you get through each day on the ordinary physical level.  Yet, why does it seem that terrible things HAVE happened, that some calamity is just waiting to happen, that terrible-ness is lurking everywhere?  The feeling is ingrained.  It is part of ordinary life. It is necessary, and it is proper to keep things moving in the Living Machine.  It's suffering, and it is everyone's job below the Line. The actual experience of what you would think of as "terrible" is nothing compared to the attendant suffering.  And yet, below the Line, that is not true.