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Summary by TK
Jan Cox Talk 118, July 26, 1984, runtime 2:00
[Hunger--loose wire. Hard not to fall into some kind of group in attempt to understand. ]
[This thing that seems to be knowledge--energy--that comes from J. and then individual efforts fleshes out. ]
[Consider: story of primitive part of world having contact with more civilized being. Try to explain TV to them; it would jump them from their beliefs to understanding what you have to say. Can you see what that would do? There is something (enlightenment) but it is not the end. There is a reality too. Things connect! ]
[Only the ordinary entertain the voices of their accusers. ]
[`T' and `O' lines. Tense or Open. There is tension between people if communication exists--for something to be transferred. Invisible lines, a kind of tautness must exist (attention, nonphysical reality). Tension exists at all times. The grid itself has tautness--required for circulation. To loosen tautness Yellow Circuit uses "meditation". RED Circuit uses alcohol, isolation tanks. ]
[Somebody reacting to the life of Life, knowing there is more than the limits of Reader's Digest. ]
[Everything is mechanical. It does not matter what you do because it is useless. The ordinary are unable to see this. ]
["I" the observer/commentator. The Blue Circuit cannot comment verbally.]
[By its very existence, the vertical line of the Xross divides the horizontal line in half. Ipso facto division of all that can be observed. A sense of being in the mists of time. Anything I can comment on has already by its existence been split. The observer is the splitting. God dividing night from day; good from bad. Blue Circuit and Yellow Circuit as god. RED Circuit is closed system. Blue Circuit buffer between RED Circuit and Yellow Circuit. Yellow Circuit tells good from bad. Gods are where the nervous system is reaching. ]
[If "I" is not stimulated then no division occurs--domain of the irrelevant. Ordinary consciousness is unaware of it. No judgment. ]
[Yellow Circuit as division of sense of time into past, present, future. You could not be "you" without a sense of memory of the past. Without sense of time, nothing could be accomplished. Analogy of fish being swept back and forth in ocean waves. Are fish going where they want to go, or only where they can go? Does Life know where it came from? ]
[Need for a freewheeling democracy verging on anarchy within to do This Thing. ]
[Seamless reality: unless seamed, it can't be seen.
Transcript
DO FISH GO WHERE THEY WANT OR ARE THEY CARRIED BY THE WAVES?
Document: 118, July 26, 1984
Copyright (c) Jan M. Cox, 1984
Nothing within the body of Life operates in a lineal manner. By now, all of you through your own efforts, should have a feel for how tricky, how nearly impossible This Activity is. Let's assume that everyone in here now has connections that Life would have never produced. By this I mean that there is perhaps one good area that you can see and feel beyond any doubt a certain kind of energy information that is not normally available in Life. You simply know that there are certain aspects of Life you can see, taste, smell and Understand that nobody outside of This Thing has any knowledge of. There is a trap for those attempting This Activity: if it was allowed to run a certain course, you could very quickly reach the point of being "satisfied." Many of you have already passed this point, but you must still remain aware of this trap.
To be satisfied is to stop moving, to stop making effort. There are popular systems based on producing this "satisfaction" in its followers. Certain rules and regulations are laid out, along with some kind of initiation or ritual, and then people are welcomed into the great, secret "Inner Circle." The majority of you sitting here now would have been more than satisfied with that scenario. If you had never gotten involved with This and had not gone horizontally crazy, some of you would have searched out one or two such gurus or groups before you died. Some of you would have been satisfied to just hang around and talk about "mystical activities." Some of you would have fallen into a fairly lower level rut at the very least. You would have had some children, gone to work, and lived out most of your life in front of a television set. You should have a taste of how tricky This Activity is.
There was a recent article in a nice, literary type magazine about an obviously sophisticated, educated woman whose daughter had joined up with a popular guru, and the problems she had dealing with the situation. She was periodically exposed to her daughter and once actually went to the place where these people lived. She saw her daughter and all the other followers file past this man and fall to their knees in reverence. Her daughter admitted that she had spent the last two or three dollars she had to buy the guy a gift. The woman found it very difficult to watch her own daughter kneel before another human who looked obviously well fed and give him presents. Yet she had to point out that as much as she suffered over this, her relationship with her daughter seemed to improve.
Although many of you thought that I have made jokes about such as this, by now you should have a different feel for it. This is almost all that is possible for ordinary people. In general, the kind of hunger, the kind of loose wire that all of you and many other people out in the world have, makes it almost impossible to not end up in a situation like that. It is almost impossible not to fall into "something."
By ordinary standards, making a "certain kind of progress," apparently understanding a little more, extending the nervous system just a small amount, is all that is possible for most people. This can happen to just ordinary people. They get to a certain place with one big shock. Many times it is just the shock of meeting somebody who apparently understands more than they do. They give themselves to him or her, and that's it. It is not an injustice. These swamis and gurus are not pulling some dastardly trick. It is a beautiful dance just like everything else in Life. The partners are fitted for each other and they seem to be satisfied. The head guru, of course, seems to be quite satisfied. The gods are happy and everyone involved is quite pleased.
But what is This Thing? It may seem sometimes that it's like trying to run a complicated backfield football pattern through a swamp full of quicksand, but that's part of a certain kind of stability. It is to finally See and Understand that which no one else can see. And it is to keep moving.
When you were a young, radical teenager, you were filled with dreams of what you wanted to do with your life: become a famous ballerina or famous author. You could just imagine it, all the positive pictures of what it would be like. "Boy, when I become famous everyone will be chasing me, there will be photographers everywhere." But once you get over the hill, the dreams seem to fade. This Thing is a certain kind of stability, a certain kind of attraction that helps hold everything together. But in the same way that Life cannot accept an infinite number of Attilas and Hitlers, it also cannot accept an infinite number of people involved with This Activity. If you are not careful there will soon come a time, even in This, when you too will become satisfied. It is a trap. Perhaps you might feel that you can improve a bit further, a slight refining of certain areas, but by and large you are satisfied. That is when you have stopped moving.
I am going to try to drag you into a very dangerous area, but as I have done many times in the past, we will talk about a few things first. This Thing appears to be knowledge. I've called it maps or sketches, but it is really energy. This energy seems to be coming from me to you, and you appear to be making some kind of effort with it. But forget where the energy is coming from. You should be past the point of wondering whether you are actually getting 100% from me, or whether you are getting a certain percentage from me and the rest through your own efforts.
Consider this, let's say we were in an area of this country or another part of the world that was still rather unsophisticated and uncivilized. Let's say the people of this area had a primitive, Yellow Circuit language, along with the expected set of beliefs, religion and culture. They had stories of the past, stories of what happens when people die and a priest who apparently connected them with higher forces. Let's say they had enough language that you could try to describe a radio to them. You might tell them that with a radio, you could communicate across large spaces. They tell you the nearest village is four thousand karquats away and you say, "Well, we have a small device that will allow you to instantly speak with other people in that village." That would be bad enough, but what if you tried to describe to them video tape or movies. You could tell them that you can bring back the picture and voices of people who have already died. Can you see what effect such information would have on these people? I am, of course, making all this up, but I'm trying to point you toward something.
They would try to make the jump from their current beliefs and trust in their own life and religion to this new information. Perhaps they believe that their own priest can talk to the gods and their dead ancestors. The jump would be from that to what you are presenting them, assuming that they took what you said as being the truth. It would go from their deep rooted spiritual and religious beliefs to the knowledge that, "Hey, you can buy a device for two pigs that will allow you to talk with someone a day's walk away!" Or, "You can see and hear someone who has been dead for many years!" If this could happen, can you see the danger such knowledge would present to these people. Their religious and spiritual beliefs are part of the grid system in that area. Think about it: a foreigner comes into their village and tells them that they can buy a small device that would allow them to do the same things their priests are doing. Does anyone see the danger in this?
You might now think that you have willfully, intellectually abandoned your father's religion, as well as the daydreams you had about some mystical system you read about ten years ago. You may now say, "I see through all that now," or, "After being exposed to This, I see that all that was childish." But it is more than that. I am drawing these maps closer and closer to the edge of absolute instability, wherein they begin to work on a level you don't even suspect.
Someone asked me if there really was such a thing as "enlightenment." You should be aware that I have tried to disavow all of you from a "something," whatever you want to call it. But make no mistake, there is a "something." I can use the word "enlightenment;" I have used it in the past. There is an "enlightenment," and when it hits you there will be no doubt -- you will not have to ask about it. But remember, it is not the end. It is not the means to an end. It is not the ends to the means. But there is a state, and all of you have had relative tastes of it. If you keep this up, one day it will strike you and you will no longer ask or worry about such things. All questions about "enlightenment" would be like the questions of children. There is a reality to it, so don't be mistaken. With the correct effort under my direction, a day will come when you See something. Everything will connect in a new way and your awareness will expand in unexpected directions. All of you should be past the point of imaginary expectations. It is not something that you are working for next week. There is no time limit on it. But when it happens all questions of such states will be ended.
I recently pointed out that ordinary people express the need to hear their accusers. Does anyone understand that, like all my maps and examples, if you take this on the external level you are completely misusing the information? It is externally true but it is also true internally. It is true inside your own nervous system. The external examples that seem to have something to do with the psychological interactions between people are true, but the real usefulness is in turning these examples inward. When somebody asks, "Do you know what so and so said about you?" if you are ordinary, you may try to play it cool and calm, but within two minutes you are finally going to ask, "Alright, I give up! What?" You have got to know. How about internally? Can anybody see the connection between not listening to your accusers and not suffering? Can anybody see the connection between that and never telling yourself what you are doing?
The ordinary side of you must entertain all the internal voices of self condemnation and guilt. It listens to them. "Would you please repeat that?" and the voices will always repeat it. They have been repeating them for years, and you have been listening. "Would you please repeat that?" "You are no good. You are ugly. You are probably a pervert." "You really said pervert?" "Yes, pervert!" "Well, I wonder how it would look to change my hair style?" "Still ugly!" Only the ordinary will entertain the voices of their accusers. Can you also see that all religions, in their own ways, reproach such behavior. Life's newest religion, psychology, cautions against such behavior: "It is not good to have frivolous or unprofitable urges. There is a reason for such urges and they are probably based in your childhood. Any self-defeating, unprofitable urge or belief is a kind of neurosis and we should work on it." All of that is the truth as far as it goes. It is pointing again to how the nervous system is expanding and what Man is up to.
Only the ordinary part of you will insist on entertaining the voices of your accusers. What is there to be accused of? It has already been accused. The system makes the same accusations over and over. Ordinary consciousness in whatever way it's connected to the grid keeps those accusations flowing: "Please, tell me again. Am I really ugly? Is it just a little or are we talking serious ugly? I knew it, I just knew it!"
I used to talk fairly specifically about the kinds of tension in Life. I have referred to it as a kind of "hostility." There is a kind of tension in the ordinary world, even when people smile. The lines of communication in the grid between everyone flow in every possible direction. To operate in an open fashion the lines must be tense and taut. Now since I cannot physically produce these lines and show you, we will jump back to the apparent world of psychology. There must be a kind of tension between people if there is going to be any kind of communication or energy transfer. For example, there is a certain type of magnetic attraction between you and certain others, whether it be with someone you met at a bus stop for fifteen seconds, or someone you have lived with for fifteen years. These lines of information/energy/communication/food must be taut or nothing will flow through.
What happens when the lines are not taut? Here is an example. Surely all of you have found yourself sexually attracted to somebody you just met. Let's say you end up in bed that very night, but when it is over, you realize that something was missing. You don't get mad, it just did not fly. You might think, "I don't have anything against him, but this just isn't working." On a secret signal you say, "Well, I'd sure like to stay, but I've got to go." And he says "I know, I've got to get up early, too. Be sure to call." "I will, I have your number." Ordinary people would describe it as, "Well, the spark just wasn't there. We weren't meant for each other." If the lines are not taut enough, nothing is communicated -- there is no transfer of energy. When it is over you realize it was a waste of time. You will never see him or her again. It should also strike you, after a few hours, that you don't know why but you just don't like the guy. "He bores me and his nose is too big. There is nothing really wrong with him, but in a sense nothing is really right about him. He is not stimulating. He is not exciting." I am not trying to limit this to sexual activity, but that is a glaring, piercing example. Nothing was being transferred. The lines were not taut. If we were ordinary we would say the person is not exciting to you. You cannot say why; it just didn't click. There was nothing they did that had a negative effect on you, but by the same token, there was nothing that had a positive, stimulating effect. I'll leave that with you to Neuralize. The words I use such as tension and hostility are not important. It is not simply that everyone is hostile and tense, but there is a reality behind these words.
For anything to get transferred, even if just for a few seconds, the lines connecting people must be taut. If you stop someone on the street and ask for directions, there must be tension in the invisible lines or he will not even hear you. You pull up in your car and ask, "Where is the Civic Center?" and the guy says, "What?" You can say that you didn't have his attention but "attention" is just a word. He didn't hear you. You ask again, "I am trying to find the Civic Center." "The Civil what? What center is that?" It would seem as though you and he are not communicating. If you are ordinary you might say the guy is nuts or on dope. There has to be a kind of tension, a taut line between you and the other person, if just for a few seconds, for any communication to take place. The lines have to be taut to be open. This is a non-non-physical reality, this tension that holds everything together. Within a person there is a kind of tensile strength in the cells of his body. Once he loses it, the cells die. With enough loss of tension you die.
For communication, for circulation, these lines must be taut and open. This is a refinement of observations I've asked you to make concerning the tensions between people. The grid that connects everyone to everything cannot relax. It can relax in certain areas, but you would have to be outside the grid system to see them. If I could take you out of the grid as you might take a fish out of the water and show you the grid, I could point out these slack areas. They would be places where no communication is taking place, at least for the period of time we were observing it. But the grid itself, like the human body, like the body of Life, has a tensile strength necessary for Life to remain alive and healthy.
You might also note that connected to this kind of required tautness in Life is the running static that seems to be your mind, the ordinary activity of the Yellow Circuit. People attempt to work on the tautness that ties them into Life in at least three ways that I can easily separate for you. A man may attempt to cut off the running static, loosen the tautness, that seems to tie his Yellow Circuit into Life via activities such as meditation. People attempt to stop the running static or tautness in the Blue Circuit by being "cool;" by being non-feeling and non-involved. The tautness in the Red Circuit can be affected to a lesser degree than the Yellow and Blue. One popular current attempt is through the use of isolation tanks which is simply trying to cut down the communications between the senses and the environment. I can also point out that in a crude way, booze slackens the tautness in the Red Circuit; the tautness between "I" and "not-I."
Each of you has a unique nervous system, and as such you do not hear and see the same things as the person sitting next to you, but I am going to try to turn your collective attention in a certain direction. One of the dangers of This, although it is regulated while I am alive, is that ordinary consciousness may hear me talk in a certain way and begin to feel as though it has absolutely no chance of ever doing anything. You may feel like the life is being taken out of you, that This seems to be taking away your desire to do anything. This is a common response for somebody who hears one of these lectures or reads one of the transcripts for the first time. If they had any real interest in This and tried to hear what I have said, a common response would be, "Why try? It is all useless." But justice prevails. Not only is that not true, but even if it were true, nobody could see it. You should know from your own personal perspective, with an additional taste from the descriptions I have given you, that if I could make people see and accept This Activity at just their ordinary level of sight they would say it is all useless. They might say that in fact, it is destructive. The would say that if there is any validity to my crude description of everything as an absolute machine, then there is nothing of any consequence that can be personally done. But even if there is some validity to that, an ordinary person could not see it. They are not allowed to see it. Now remember, I am still not saying that it is true. But at the ordinary level of consciousness it is reasonable. If someone listening with below the line consciousness took my general descriptions and could put them together, it would be quite expected for them to conclude that this is a useless endeavor.
A person's individual consciousness, his or her intellect, that which seems to be "I," can more efficiently be described as "I the Observer." Or perhaps more appropriately "I the Observer/Commenter." I am not speaking of the Red Circuit because if it could be isolated in a pristine manner, it could not verbally speak. Nor can the Blue Circuit. So we are talking about what seems to be the mind, which of course is connected to everything else, internally as well as externally. That which seems to be going on in the head must be able to comment on whatever it observes or you would not be conscious even on the mechanical level. This "I the Observer/Commenter" divides everything into two and places it on either side of the line. If you remember my two dimensional Xross with the long horizontal line representing the flow of Life, and the short vertical line representing an individual's consciousness at any point of time as it intersects the horizontal line -- the very act of existence is the process of dividing life into two parts. Now this isn't limited to two dimensions, but it is a fair representation. The horizontal line represents everything that you can observe. Not just the past and future but everything. And anything you observe is divided into two by the very act of being "I the Observer/Commenter."
What people call time is tied in a material, physical way to the existence of "I the Observer/Commenter." This is not a theoretical discussion to titillate the Yellow Circuit. The line I refer to as the horizontal line is not limited to ordinary consciousness' perception of the past and future. It is "I the Observer/Commenter" bisecting the horizontal line of time, bisecting everything, that has such limitations. By everything, I mean everything: time, morality, progress, profit, anything that you can comment on. "I the Observer/Commenter" divides everything into two parts, by its very act of existence. It has nothing to do with how you were raised. Don't say to yourself, "I was brought up in a liberal household and so my sense of propriety as opposed to impropriety is weighted more to the liberal side than somebody who grew up in a more conservative environment." Forget all that. It does not matter. It doesn't matter how it is weighted. The mere fact that there is an apparent conscious "I the Observer/Commenter" means that division has occurred. Consciousness physically splits reality in order to see it. If it did not split something then it could not be observed.
I have mentioned stories from various religions such as the belief that "The gods divided night from day." From a certain viewpoint such stories are correct. They developed during the early evolution of the Yellow Circuit. "The gods divided day from night, the seas from the earth, the good from the bad, the right from the wrong, the heavens from the earth." It is all true. But forget the notions of gods: it is not an external phenomenon. Back in those times, to the Red and Blue circuits, the Yellow Circuit was the gods. That which could observe and comment was the gods, and it did divide day from night. How are you going to speak of concepts such as time unless there are at least two times, unless you have something to compare it with? How do you know what comes first unless something follows? How do you know the difference between the heavens and the firmament? The Red Circuit can't tell you. The Red Circuit does not make such distinctions; the Red Circuit is already limited, a dead-end program, a closed system. If a man was nothing but the Red Circuit there would be no divisions; he would have the consciousness of a worm. To a worm there is no up and down, no past and future.
If only the Blue Circuit was involved, there would be no stories as "The gods divided right from wrong and day from night." Only when the Yellow Circuit appeared in Man was there an "I" that could observe and comment. That is where the stories came from. That is when some men thought that the gods were talking to them. They thought, "Well, somebody's talking to me. It told me there are good things to do and bad things to do." If the Red and Blue Circuits could talk, which they can't, they would say, "Hey, did we know any of this before?" and he would say, "No!" "Did we know the heavens from the earth? I never heard of them! Did we know right from wrong? We used to go out and steal someone else's wife and family. We took other peoples food. Did we know anything about good and bad behavior? We didn't even know what behavior was. But now, according to all the great books, the gods say tell us right from wrong. It's a miracle."
The gods were talking to men, and I'm telling you what they were and are. The gods are the point right above the highest level of the nervous system for any given time and place. It is where the nervous system is reaching. This is something very serious and powerful for you to Neuralize. As always, no one should expect instant "Enlightenment" from this information, but there is something very potent and dangerous in what I am pointing to. All the descriptions and maps I have given you lead to what I am speaking about now. Life has developed to the point that within individual humans there is what we call consciousness, and a sense of individuality -- and it operates by dividing everything into two. It divides everything or it could not see. And the observations of this single entity, you, me, or anybody, no matter how important they may seem on the ordinary level, have absolutely no meaning whatsoever. It divides everything or it could not function. The vertical line splits the horizontal line, and that horizontal line is the total grid system. Everything that the vertical line can observe is observed because it has been split. Everything! Do you get any further notions of why it is so hard to see a triad?
Consider this: Why does humanity as a whole persist in dividing all areas of Life? To return to an ever popular subject, what about sex? What about sexual morality; people worrying about who is sexually involved with whom. Or people worrying that somebody is going to show a picture of a naked man or woman in a book, and somebody else is going to buy the book and look at it. They want to get in the streets and march against such things. And apparently from your own personal viewpoint, you can look at an area that humanity has divided into proper and improper and almost draw a blank on one side. You just can't understand why someone would want to act a certain way. If you are ordinary you can pursue only one certain line of thought.
If you can't follow that example, what about political beliefs? You may think a particular belief is absolutely insane. Perhaps you read about someone leading a military coup in a foreign country and they express their very extreme opinions. You, and let us say the majority of people, find this man's actions insane. Yet you have hear me say that there is no wasted motion in Life. You might then say, "Well, here is one place where you are obviously wrong." But I'm not. The mere act of observing divides what is being observed. It does not matter whether you say with 100% certainty that a certain belief or attitude is insane, unprofitable, irrational and manifestly self-destructive. There is no such thing. Such observations are useless. The mistake, from the viewpoint of someone attempting This Activity, is in not understanding that the mere existence of "I the Observer/Commenter" divides everything in two. Without this division you cannot even be conscious of something.
The question of which viewpoint is better or worse is irrelevant. If anyone needs any additional prodding, let me point this out: When your "I the Observer/Commenter" is not stimulated by something you hear, or some situation that you find yourself observing, you do not divide it. You may physically see something happen, or you may physically read something in a magazine, but if you are not stimulated by it, in a sense, it never happened. Not for you anyway. We might be able to physically prove that you actually read the words, but if there was no stimulation you would have no idea what you just read. There was not the necessary magnetic attraction between your nervous system and what you were reading, or what you were observing. You did not divide it. That is when something seems to be irrelevant. You almost literally do not see it. If you are, in the mechanical sense, attracted to something, which is synonymous with being stimulated by something, you always split the observation. Even if you do not analyze it at that moment, there is always a feeling about it, there is always a describable reaction to what you are observing. But if there is no magnetic attraction, there will no transfer of energy. There is no taut line open. In a sense, in a very real sense, you are not conscious of what is going on. You can have a slight awareness or memory of the occurrence, but if the observation is not split in two, nothing has happened.
Remember, it is not a question of something "out there" being good or bad. The very act of being conscious in the Yellow Circuit and being able to observe and then comment, will divide everything. You have no choice. You have no choice, be you Christian, Muslim, black, white, male, female, tall, short, educated or uneducated. The mere fact of you being conscious enough to be "I the Observer/Commenter" will divide. Anything less and the lines will be slack.
N0w let me show you something about time. I have referred to the Xross as being a time cross. Having a Yellow Circuit conscious, "I the Observer/Commenter," divides everything into time. Without a sense of time, a sense that there is a past, present and future, consciousness would evaporate. An ordinary person would not be able to function. For one thing, you could not be you without a sense of the past. I've tried to point out to you there is an attraction, apparently psychologically, to the past. There is a need for a sense of continuity. People seem to have faith in that which is ancient. Physically it is more important than that. "I the Observer/Commentor" resides in the vertical line that splits the horizontal line. It splits the line so that it can see. If I could stop that and keep you conscious, you literally would not know who the hell you were. If we could cut off the past, cut off the consciousness of the past, nobody in the world would know who they were.
It is a little trickier to see, but the same thing applies to the future. If you could cut off an awareness of the future, everyone would sit around looking like a silly fool. Nobody would know who they are. I could say nobody would know where the came from nor have any idea where they were going, but that is really superfluous. Nobody would know who they are.
There is a necessary function that supports the illusion of one's self, the real illusion of one's self in time. Ordinary consciousness' "I the Observer/Commentor," needs a sense of the past and future to apparently be aware o its own existence. Nothing could get done unless this "I" had not devised the word time and then divided it into the two: the undoubtedly real, usable segments of past and future. Nothing could get done. I know most of you think you are not following this yet, but I am not through. It is similar to my previous example. If I could get everyone to see in a certain way that everything is mechanical, and make them hear that if they were left only with the consciousness they now had, nobody could do anything. On one level they could do nothing out of a sense of despair. If during an observation there were no sense of past and future, of a sequential movement or flow to life, then nothing would get done. Nobody could do anything.
That which appears to be the past and the future is analogous to that which man accepts and rejects. They are very similar, and for now I'll say they are the same. That which seems to be the past and that which seems to be the future; that which seems to come first in a sequential line of events and that which seems to follow, are in instantaneous, constant, secret communication. It is faster than the speed of light. Ordinary consciousness is now evolving to the point of being able to see some of this. (I am trying to put this in a way that may make sense to you, but let me also note that what seems to be a sequential line of events should be open to grave suspicion.) Back to my two dimensional grid system, which, remember, is sorely lacking. This horizontally laid out grid system contains everything: worms, trees, rocks, dogs, etc. And on this grid you would see tiny vertical lines popping up. That is where man is. It is where human consciousness is. A snake cannot see up or down. A snake is not missing anything because it can only see that which is apropos to a snake. Humanity breaks through the grid by using the Yellow Circuit. It can observe, comment and apparently even manipulate the horizontal part of the grid. Humanity creates artificial light, heat, cooling, clothes. It can observe, and pass along apparently nonphysical information which can be stored and reused. This process increases the efficiency of the transfer of energy. Humans can pass a more enriched nourishment to one another than snakes or dogs can. Everything below the Yellow Circuit, everything at the horizontal level of the grid system is simply, "eat and be eaten." Humanity, as far as they are stuck down below the grid, is doing the same thing. Even if you do not eat meat, you are eating something. And someday something is going to eat you. Little things are eating you right now. They are just so small you don't notice. But beyond what seems to be the physical level, humanity is eating and being eaten in ways that are not physical. That is what I mean by refinement. It is a more specific, more enriched kind of energy transfer than is possible between trees, plants, bees, dogs or cats. I have pointed out that dogs can have no sense of time. Even if they had a sense of time, or you could have a sense of time at the Red level, it would be seamless -- all days like any other day. The only way you can have a sense of time is to be able to comment on it. You must be conscious, and if you can be conscious you have got "I the Observer/Commentor." And by the very act of its existence, it has divided everything into past and future. There must be an apparent sequential line of events.
Do not expect instant "Enlightenment" tonight, because this is very difficult material, and that's why it is dangerous. There appears to be sequential lines of events. Things happen, and obviously some things happened yesterday and some things happened today. But don't be too quick to accept what ordinary people and your ordinary consciousness tell you. I am not going to hint much further other than to ask you, if there were a possible flaw in the concept of sequential occurrences, in ways that you could not automatically imagine, wouldn't that explain a lot? You should at least be able to see that without that kind of induced reality, that induced sense of sequence, the tension of this grid, what seems to be humanly possible, what seems to be every human endeavor, every possible human plan, would perforce collapse. You couldn't depend on anything at the ordinary level. You couldn't say, "I'm going out of town tomorrow so I am going to fill the car up with gas. I have to have gas before I start the trip, that has got to be true. When I run out of gas, I'll get some more." Or, "I would like to make this table higher so I will add something to the bottom of it." There has to be some kind of reality to that; there has to be some kind of continuity. "I'll go down to the hardware store and buy wood blocks to put under the table. It is too short. I will put them under the table and it will raise it." Without a certain continuity, nothing would happen; nobody would do anything; nobody could do anything.
Now let me put a question to you. Believe it or not, this is going to wrap up much of the last several years of lectures. This is a new idea and you should tattoo it somewhere on your body. All of you have stood on a beach somewhere, knee deep in the ocean's waters, with the waves ebbing in and out. You look down and see a school of small fish. They are darting around, chasing even smaller fish for food. They are all still darting when a wave comes up and goes two or three feet past you onto the beach. The fish are still swimming. The wave recedes and the fish are still going about their business. Now I ask you, are those fish going where they want to, or are they being carried where the waves take them?
Anybody who answers that question immediately is either an idiot or has ignited some un-ordinary parts of their nervous system. Are those fish going where they want to go or are they simply being taken where the waves, the movement of the oceans, are carrying them? There is something within this question that will explode the idea of, "I'm beginning to think everything is useless. It doesn't matter what I do." It may not matter what you do at the ordinary level, but until you get above that level, you cannot even theorize the possibilities.
What if you could talk to the fish? You ask them, "Hey, what are you up to?" "Oh, we're chasing dinner." "Do you seem to be having any success?" "About average. We know this is the place where we usually find food." "Are you aware of the fact that you are being swept back and forth in the ocean?" Are the fish going where they want to go, or are they being swept about by the motions of the ocean? Is it all useless? If you have to ask whether it is useless, then let me ask you this: Who is asking? Useless compared to what? You might say, "Oh, you're talking about the kind of sequence of events where you try to do something and are just moving along." What if that is not exactly true? Wouldn't that answer a lot? There has obviously got to be a sequence of events. Well, what if it is not what it seems to be? Would the fish know any better if you could take them out of the water, without killing them, and show them the ocean and how it moves? Is every movement useless? Does it matter specifically what you do? Does it matter specifically what you say next? Does it matter specifically that you have seriously been planning to make a career change, to go back to school or finally save enough money to get your nose straightened? Does it really matter?
Are the fish going where they want to go, or...? But it can't simply all be useless. There is nothing contained in ordinary consciousness that can feed off this; it can get no nourishment from this on the ordinary level. All the ideas of the gods, and answers to questions that people say no man can know, can be known -- but not on the ordinary level. Many times I have tried to burst all the imaginary, mystical balloons you have inflated in order to keep you from stopping. But I will tell you what is possible, and I can't guarantee it for anybody. There is a life to Life. Life is alive and that is a fact. The idea that it can't be known by Man at the ordinary level is true. But I am telling you that it is possible to know it. I know this, and I am not the only one who knows.
Those of you with a real slick Yellow Circuit might ask, "Does Life know who invented it? Does Life have gods? Does Life ask questions concerning its own creation?" And to that I say, every man for himself. But it is possible to know what Life knows, and to do this you must get closer to the far extreme of Life's nervous system, of it's growth. It is possible to know, more or less, what Life knows. When I say this of course, I am implying that it is possible to Understand what Life Understands. Everything that you have questioned, everything that you feel is a great mystery at the ordinary level, is known. It is not a great mystery. Life knows what it is. It can look down and know its toes. It has, on its own level, as you do, a general awareness of itself. Life's only mysteries are the parts above its own level of consciousness, which in one sense is humanity. The ordinary level of humanity is a great reflection of that. Life seems to be at times self-conflicting and self-defeating, but what is strange about that? Look at yourself. Look at the internal voices of accusation; the feelings of, "I don't know what to do next."
You can pick up a newspaper or turn on the news and see, in a capsule form what is currently happening in Life. I don't mean to encourage anyone to subscribe to newspapers or watch television because all you have to do is look around you. But while watching the news you may get the feeling that it is all bad news. It all sounds like everything is getting completely out of hand. You may hear that so and so is running for public office and he wants to do such and such. It seems to be a voice of complete insanity. Remember, I am not speaking about an individual man's voice, but the voice of Life. There is no such thing as an individual man's voice. But note your own reaction to this person, this voice. You think he's insane, that Life is surely going amiss. All you are commenting on is the limitation "I the observe/commentator" which has divided what it's seen in order to be conscious of it.
Let's see if I can verbally jump to another area, while reminding you that I am not speaking about politics, governments, etc. Those who live under more totalitarian regimes do not pick up the news and rarely, if ever, hear someone make radical, dissenting comments. It is not generally tolerated. Now can you quickly see (and remember that I am not talking about politics) that in a place that apparently offers horizontal freedom, there are always voices of dissent. There are always voices of insanity and unreasonable promises. The less the freedom, the less such voices can be tolerated and the less that part of the body of Life itself is close to "C" force. You cannot find, at any time in the course of the so-called history of Man, enduring art coming from a totalitarian state; from a place where there was apparently no horizontal freedom. Now listen fast. There is a way in which you can encourage a kind of freewheeling democracy within yourself. If you are living in an internal totalitarian state what have you got? An endless stream of oppression and intolerance. It is one endless stream of hearing your neighbors reporting your activities to the authorities. Except remember, I am not talking about neighbors; I am talking about your internal voices.
Note how common it is for so-called mystical books to relay the message that we are all searching for freedom. Freedom in a spiritual sense. But at the same time, note how these mystical groups normally end up with a set of strict rules and directions. Everyone needs a focal point, someone or some lineage to worship, as well as well-defined guidelines -- a specific place to put their absolute trust and faith. It is a totalitarian state. Remember, there are limits or boundaries to everything. Life is a closed system. You can't shoot a bullet into the universe without eventually shooting yourself in the back. But to pursue This Activity, you must internally develop a freewheeling freedom within these limits. And believe me, you already have more limits than you know what to do with.
Someone once said (maybe it was me) that a committee of twelve might get something done, assuming that eleven were out of town. Everybody is a committee at the ordinary level of consciousness. They are the primary points through which your system passes energy, your internal connections to the grid. Twelve is not a bad number, but do not look for any mystical significance. It is the way in which the primary energies that seems to be your interests and attractions are passed on to Life. But it is useless to attempt to stifle the committee. You had all your life to attempt that. Everybody is apparently attempting that: "I will stop the voices of dissent, I will stop the voices I don't approve of." Like everything else, if "I" can observe, "I" has divided it. There is no possibility of getting close to the Creative Force while living in a tyrannical state, in a state which will not allow voices of dissension. Yet that's exactly what some of you try to do while believing you are pursuing This Thing. "We will stop the voices." What kind of creativity, on any level, do you see coming out of Russia? Remember, nothing is broken; this is the way things are arranged. It is part of the necessary Line level struggle.
There is a kind of freedom that cannot be talked about, because it could also be seen as an absolute tyranny turned inside out. It is aligning oneself with the "C" force. There is a reality to the "C" flow, but it is not a flow going in one direction. It is not something operating in isolation. But there is within you, within each cell and within the body of Life, that which is profitable. On the physical level you eat food. To be healthy you might need a different kind of food than you are now getting. You may be low on a certain mineral or vitamin and have an intense craving for a green vegetable. There is a reality to that which is conducive to extended growth, and I am not just speaking of physical growth. There is no way to approach the "C" persuasion while living in a totalitarian state. It stifles everything. What is Russia? What is being middle class or middle aged? What is being convinced that you know what you are doing? What is being a Republican, a Presbyterian, or an American? In Life, at Line level, we would not have it any other way. This has nothing to do with politics, but if any of you have any doubts as to the best part of the world to live in, just find the place that is the freest in every possible sense and I am not speaking in a mystical sense. Today it is the Western world. Also note how everything is connected. The Russians could point out perhaps with some validity, that it is safer to live in Moscow than it is to live in Manhattan. You have less chance of having your throat cut or of being mugged. Let us say that's true. Given those two extremes, where would you prefer to live? Now forget Manhattan or Russia and turn this internally, where would you rather live internally? But when people begin This Activity, they are looking for Russia. Even if we said that this is the road to conscious freedom, they would ask, "Alright, what are the rules? I'm ready to join up. Give me the rules so I can get to work."
I have apparently given you rules prohibiting the expression of hostility, the use of drugs, etc. Not many rules. Most religions publish hundreds and thousands of little rules. Every decent religion or cult has many good, fast rules. They don't fool around. They have rules with a capital "R." But look at This Thing. Everything is vague. You can hardly tell what is going on. Nobody would be greatly surprised if the "rules" were suddenly changed. You are past the point that it is of any importance.
The committee, however, must have somebody in charge. At the ordinary level, everything that can be asked, everything that can be thought of at the ordinary level, every word that can be uttered always requires opposition. "I am either going nuts or I am not. This is either worthwhile or it is not. I am either getting somewhere or not. There is either an individual "I" in people or there isn't. We either have freedom or we don't." On the ordinary level, you can't even conceive of any other possibility. But where is my "fictitious-reasonably-insane-man"? He might wonder, "If there is a higher level beyond that of dividing everything into two parts, how could anything move without resistance? If there is anything beyond the ordinary level, then it could not be understood by just hearing and pondering these words. There it is, a seamless reality, but what in the hell could you do with something that has no up and down. No particular sequence of events. No "this" followed by "that." It would render almost everything moot. It doesn't matter what I do personally. I can do this, or I can do that. If I didn't care, I could go ahead and do it. It just wouldn't matter." But you still have not told me whether the fish go where they want to, or whether they are being carried by the waves.
For those of you that want something dangerous to play with, try this. No matter what you are doing, I want you to try and feel the physical sensation of a vertical line that passes from your forehead to the bridge of your nose. The vertical line passes from the top of the forehead, down between the eyes and ends at the nose. A line running through the two eyes represents the horizontal grid of everything. As you are aware of this vertical line, remember that by the mere fact that you exist, you are able to observe and comment. Without any choice you have divided everything. You have split reality. That is consciousness at the ordinary level. The fish cannot tell you what is going on and you cannot describe to them the motions of the ocean. Likewise you cannot talk about a seamless world wherein a sequence of events is not as you think it is. Go ahead and play with this on your own.
Those of you who are sharp should notice that it is not necessarily true that consciousness has been divided, because it is just as true the other way around. But you can feel that by the mere act of being conscious enough at the ordinary level to observe and comment, you have split everything. I repeat, it is also visa versa; one does not cause the other. But this is the most efficient way to start out describing the process in a way that makes sense. The very act of looking upon what seems to be life, and having thoughts about it, splits it. The gods did indeed divide night from the day, and the heavens from earth. It wasn't even a big deal: All they did was come alive. The Yellow Circuit reached the point where it could verbalize and there it was, instantly. That is the nature of the existence of consciousness. Anything else is just a description of the behavior on the "Playing Field" of Life. It's a discussion of morality, sexual behavior, political beliefs, and the idea that there are such things as good and evil. The very act of that kind of consciousness is the mother and father of everything that can be described. Everything that can be described is always described as "opposed to." And both sides are always in instant communication with each other. As you are now, at the ordinary level of consciousness, if I could take away this line that divides everything, you would not be able to see anything. It would be like trying to convince someone who's absolutely tone deaf that there is beauty and enjoyment in music. Or like trying to describe a sunset to someone who is blind. If I took away this division that is ordinary consciousness and you could still stay "conscious," then that which you were apparently looking at would disappear. It would leave your field of vision. It would leave your field of consciousness. Unless something has seams, you cannot see it. (Talk about a cheap tailor.)
