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Summary = See Below
Diagram = see Below in transcript  #053
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Summary by TK

Jan Cox Talk  169, Aug 8. 1985, runtime 1:30

  [Diagram 53]  
  [Both tempo and temperature must be increased in the channel of consciousness for there to be Real Passion. Increases in one or other = ordinary passion. Real Passion = tempo X temperature (or intensity X heat) where both parameters are increased. Only way for the energy necessary to willfully act, change to occur. Ordinary inclination to change is always preceded by a Not-I (external) occurrence which precipitates same (e.g., drunk crashes car becomes teetotaler). Not so for willful action.]
  [The specter of "enemies among us" raised by Life in the channel of consciousness produces constancy and stagnation. The continued involvement with imaginary enemies. Relation to contemporary psychology's dictum: "I'm OK, you're OK" as the low level, inconsequential attempt to deal with the fear of "enemies within" (i.e., worry over faults and inadequacies --all imaginary since virtually no attack or defense actually occurs).]
  [Life's D/recoiling mode absolutely approves of passivity. "TV is the work of the Devil" syndrome as reflection of Red Circuit type orientation against D/recoiling. In extreme case this attack extends to any form of entertainment--e.g., movies, dancing, alcohol, jewelry. Shouldn't "waste time" --do something useful, protestant ethic. Yet Life always approves of passivity in part of its body at all times.]
  [Variation of "men are machines" map. Analogy of the "largest corporation in the world" with an absolute recluse/hermit as its head--CEO. He is never seen but nevertheless known to exist. Not known whether he ever hears of the day to day operational details of the corps whether he is aware of complaints and suggestions made at the customer level. But you must deal with the company/employees, no choice but to. Therefore you must operate on the basis that your complaints and suggestions for improvement are meaningful and being heard by the chief. Must deal with employees who are absolutely limited to working within the company policies and procedures because THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE.]
  [New explanation in Life: "This problem is the result of computer error". New level of acceptable, satisfying excuse/explanation for Life's surprises. Computer can err where mere mortal would be held accountable.]
  [Public and private voices. Question: what voice should I listen to? Should not listen to any voice that says anything you've ever heard before.]
  [Public (shared) Reality vs. Private (personal) Reality. Shared Reality is greater extent than Private Reality. The greater the separation between the 2 = the greater difficulty to recall, support, entertain, defend/explain, understand the private experience/reality (e.g., a mystical state). Connects to: too drastic = not true. ]
  [1:15 (approx) following portion for erasure in ATL: J's comments on Group members. Something is amiss if you feel This Thing as supportive of your weakness. You should now have a feeling of strength such that you can/must support This Thing. Consider the biochemical basis for your "depressions and psychological wounds". You should feel the strength of an ability to deal with anything in Life (incl. Grandaddy Death). Cannot be part of the "walking wounded" with This Thing as crutch. ]
  [TASK: Neuralize that if getting angry can result in apparent heat gain, enthusiasm, why do religions make forever injunctions of "thou shalt not get angry". Why is anger disapproved of generally? Where does this connect with "sin = heat loss"?

Transcript

REAL PASSION = TEMPO X TEMPERATURE

Document:  169,  August 8, 1985
Copyright(c) Jan M. Cox, 1985            

        I want to reinforce and detail a bit more about how tempo and temperature affect the Channel of Consciousness.  In the everyday world, and in the everyday person, an alteration in behavior requires that either the tempo or temperature of the Channel be increased.  For example, let's say a drunk has an auto accident one night in which his wife is killed and his child is injured, or an alcoholic is told by his doctor that his liver is damaged -- in order for what appears to be an external occurrence in Life to alter a person's behavior, either tempo or temperature must be increased.  My concept of passion is directly connected to this.  I'm not speaking of ordinary passion, but of creating a kind of Real Passion wherein you willfully increase both the tempo and temperature of what constitutes you, thereby altering not only your behavior, but your understanding, as well.  When someone experiences a period of some extraordinary understanding, what has occurred is that both the tempo and temperature of the Channel have been increased.  

     Heat exchange is a process that occurs in all human interactions.  When a salesman tries to sell something, when a man of the cloth speaks to his congregation, when a faith healer addresses his audience, in every interaction from the sublime to the sexual, heat is exchanged.  Whenever someone apparently tries to gain something from another, heat is exchanged.  Examples of this can be seen everywhere.  Someone tells you, "I was standing in this auto showroom waiting for a friend, and a salesman came up to me and started talking.  I didn't need a new car, and I had no intention of buying a car, but the salesman was so good at what he does that two hours later I found myself walking out of the place with a car key  and a signed sales agreement."  People regard it as a kind of magical occurrence -- "I don't know what happened, I didn't see him do it, but he sold me."  But what happened was what happens in everything from car lots to churches:  it was an increase in either the tempo or the temperature of the Channel.

     But real magic, which is included in my concept of Real Passion, requires that you willfully increase both your tempo and your temperature.  I can give you a formula for it.  Real Passion equals tempo times temperature, or Real Passion equals intensity times heat.  One is multiplied by the other.  It is through this means that you can willfully change.

     Everyone feels that he should change in some way.  But the desire for a specific change is always preceded by an apparently external occurrence.  For our alcoholic, that occurrence might be a terrible hangover or a period of hallucinating.  Maybe he wakes up and can't remember what happened since 7:00 last night, or maybe he's spitting up blood.  The occurrence that triggers the desire to change is always something that is apparently not-I.  To even mechanically alter behavior, the Channel of Consciousness must be changed through an increase in either tempo or temperature.  The real trick, the direction in which I'm pointing, is to increase your tempo and temperature willfully, i.e., to increase them without having had any preceding external event triggering the change.  Such willful action could only be based upon an extraordinary understanding of what you're doing.

     Let's continue with the example of drinking alcohol.  If you were properly attracted here and involved long enough with a certain kind of effort, you would not be drinking alcohol daily. Not because I made a rule against it, or because you're blacking out or spitting up blood, or because drinking is the work of the devil, or because it's bad in a moralistic sense, or because medical reports claim that it injures your health. You would not drink because, to put it simply, drinking interferes with your effort to do This Thing.  There is no preceding triggered event.  In a sense, you are doing something that is not necessary.  You are willfully acting, rather than merely reacting.  But for ordinary people, attempts to change are not based on a greater understanding.  A friend tells you that he's decided to go on a diet and lose weight, but you soon find out that his "decision" came right on the heels of his last doctor's appointment.  It was a non-I occurrence that preceded his resolve to change.  What I am describing instead is the willful act of increasing your tempo and temperature with no external provocation.  It is the same alteration that occurs in those extraordinary moments of being able to See.  It's the same rush of excitement.

     Now let me turn your attention to the idea that those in power continually raise to the populace, the specter of impending enemies.  This is true not only in the external world of politics, but also internally within man.  His Line level awareness produces an endless line of enemies and threats.  And as long as that stream remains constant, the Channel of Consciousness remains stagnant.  The Channel of Consciousness has the ability to expand and contract (or to put it another way, Line-level consciousness has the ability to move up and down) but as long as your automatic awareness of your internal enemies runs unchecked, as long as you give full hearing to those voices, consciousness cannot expand, and you will not change.  As long as your life's energy is involved in fighting and worrying about imaginary foes, you cannot heat yourself up;  you can't increase the tempo of the channel, you can't produce the molecular agitation necessary for Real change.  This is difficult to talk about directly, because it sounds as though I'm agreeing with certain schools of psychology that contemporary humanity is already involved with.  I'm referring to the segment of modern day psychology that proposes the idea that, "I'm okay, you're okay." They propose that, "You're not as bad off as you think.  We're all victims of the same traumas and bruises that contemporary life inflicts on everyone.  The fact that you're scared of brown paper bags does not mean that you're less of a person, because I understand that you also play the harmonica, raise flowers, and treat your mother decently.  You may be scared of paper bags, but I'm uneasy being around wax paper, so you see, we're in the same boat.  Your phobia about paper bags is just right.  But if you don't think it's right and you want to change it, that's just right, too.  If you decide it's not weird and you can learn to live with it, that's just right.  And if I'm sophisticated and hip enough to understand that your problem is just a small idiosyncrasy, then that's just right.  So you should understand that what you're doing is just right, and what I'm doing is just right, so now let's go and have some quiche."  In a sense, that attitude is true and correct; yet not true and correct.  If it were true and  correct for everyone, we would not be here. You should be able to see that everyone's apparent self ("I") is continually raising the specter of fear.  It's always pointing with suspicion at a non-ending stream of potential enemies and immediate threats.  You think, "I'm no good.  You don't know what really goes on in my mind and in my little heart.  Surely I can be better, if not in a religious sense, then in a psychological sense."  Consciousness expends energy over fear and in imaginary preparation to defend itself.  It's in a constant state of worry.  It's as though there's a dictator in power.

     Even in a democracy, people are not democracies.  When did you ever vote that you were in charge of you?  As soon as you got old enough to vote, somebody was already in charge, and he's been there ever since.  The one common denominator of all dictators is that they keep the populace frightened.  Plus they have a story to explain everything that happens.  Now keep in mind that what I'm describing pertains not only to political tyrants in the external world, but also to the internal dictator inside of you.  The dictator says, "I know that you're dissatisfied, but that's nothing.  You think things are bad now, but wait until you realize that right over that hill the enemy is planning an attack.  Do you know there are spies in our midst? In fact, do you know why food supplies are down?  Think about it.  There are enemies at work -- fifth columnists."  The dictator keeps the populace in a state that ranges from nagging uneasiness to abject fear.  He can suppress all potential uprisings by continually crying out at visions of the enemy.  From one perspective, I could say that the enemy is imagined, that the dictator makes him up.  From another perspective, though, that's irrelevant because to you the enemy is real.  As long as you remain in the clutches of the dictator, you remain part of the "I'm okay, you're okay" generation, which functions at Line level.  I'm assuming, though, that you understand that there is another dimension of possibility.  What I'm pointing toward is not some sort of would-be pop psychology.  It's not some way in which to turn your circuits back on themselves, to say, "Well, I'm not as bad as I thought I was," or "A textbook on abnormal psychology has shown me that other people's quirks are much worse than mine."  Rather, what is involved is the effort to be aware of the fact that the running static of all your circuits culminates in what appears to be you pointing fingers at enemies.  The dictator is continuously printing special editions of the day's newspaper that describe the threat of attack.  He can keep the populace distracted for life, i.e., for the length of your very real lifetime.  Every time someone hollers that the sewers are not working, he replies, "You're going to talk to me about sewers?!  Do you realize what can happen to us at any moment?  We can be overrun, we can die, we can be attacked and killed, we can be tortured to death, and you're talking to me about sewers?"  It works.  It has always worked.  You don't have to look at history.  All you have to do is look at you.  What I'm talking about is connected to tempo and temperature, as well as to the Kinetic and Recoiling modes -- and Everything Else.

     Consider, if you will, the Red Circuit religions and their association with contemporary phenomena.  Red Circuit religious people are a part of Life's body that, to use one example, cries out against the evils of television.  They claim that television is not only interfering with the way Johnny learns to read, but that it is actually an instrument of the devil.  Let me assure you that even in this part of the world there are many people who would agree with that.  Note that the D-Recoiling Mode approves of passiveness, and watching television is a passive activity.  If indeed there were a satan, demon, or lucifer, and he came into your house and saw you curled up on the sofa, half asleep, watching television, he would think, "This person is all mine.  He has bitten the dust."  The D-Recoiling Mode absolutely approves of nonaction.  The belief that watching television is bad is not limited to Red Circuit people, but I use it as an example, because Life is still talking predominantly to Red Circuit people.  The more fundamental the religion, the more Red Circuit oriented are the people in it.  The most fundamental of the churches are opposed to all forms of entertainment.  They don't allow dancing, drinking alcohol, wearing make-up and jewelry, going to movies. Anything that smacks of entertainment is evil.  It is through these people that a part of Life speaks out against wasting time, for doing something of importance. "The sun has gone down, but you should be studying how to increase the yield of your crops.  You should be taking night classes so you can get a second job to earn enough money to buy a tractor."  And there is a Red Circuit part of you that agrees wholeheartedly.  You should be able to see that you are a sitting duck not only for internal attacks from your dictator, but for attacks from your employer, your parents, your rabbi or priest, your friends and associates.  A friend might say to you, "We live in a modern age, and even I occasionally watch educational programs on television. But why watch television when there are so many ways you can be improving yourself?  Why lie around like a baked potato and watching television when you can do something useful?"  A part of you will vibrate in agreement with that.  So you have one part of Life (and one part of you) promoting useful activity while another part of equal strength (the area I've designated as D-Recoiling) approves of doing nothing, of being stagnant and passive.  So from one viewpoint we could say that television is an instrument of the devil, if such terms were valid.

     Even though it is impossible to correctly turn any kind of external map into a personally understood form of action, I continue to push further and further toward the edge in my verbal descriptions. Specifically, what I want you to Consider is an old idea that has been around long before me -- the idea that people are machines, that they are mechanical and helpless, that they are predestined.  It is easy for me to point out the truth of that idea, but it is difficult for you to see the reality behind the appearance of things.  Some of you have wondered, "How should I treat people if they are simply machines?" or "If people are machines, are they not worthy of my consideration or affection?"  I have tried to sidetrack you by pointing out that people are not simply machines, but people are simply people, no more and no less. They are outlets for Life's energy, but they are not solid, stable entities, responsible for their thoughts, words and actions.  But with that statement you are left with the binary impossibility of any personal understanding.  If you think, "I've had a direct glimpse of people, and I can see without any doubt that people are absolutely helpless and mechanical," then you have not gone far enough, you have not made sufficient effort.  Remember my description of environment versus heredity.  There is no such thing as environmental causes.  If your father mistreated you, who mistreated him so that he'd end up mistreating you?  His father?  Who then mistreated his father?  You say, "Well, I can't deal with all of that.  It's too complicated."  From that conclusion, I guess you could go into some super form of depression in which you can become a  completely inert hermit, or you could take a side trip of "I'm okay, you're okay" revisited, neither of which serves any profitable purpose for you.  To say that people are helpless machines is both true and not true.  In a quite real sense, free will is a laugh.  The concept of it is one of Life's brilliant master strokes.  But you cannot live your life on the basis of that statement, because just as it is true, it is equally not true.  It is binary.  It is two-thirds of reality even at our level.  Some of you think, "I have this internal struggle that goes on when I think about my parents.  I think of my mother as a kind of armor-plated machine that doesn't know what it's doing, but at the same time I care about her."  Caring about her is proper.  That is a proper feeling toward blood kin, and you should not look at your parents as machines.  But it is also proper for you to understand that they never willfully did anything to you.  They did what they had to do.  They did what they did.

     One way to Neuralize the proper way to relate to people is to picture the world's largest company.  The company I'm talking about is very, very, very, very large.  No matter what field a person works in, whether it's umbrella repair, computer software, or the arts, if he is going to live on this planet, he eventually has to deal with this company.  The head of this large company is what can only be described as a recluse.  As far as is known, he has never actually been seen, but we know that he is there.  It's not known if he receives complaints from customers or suggestions from employees.  It's not known whether he has a continuing awareness of the minute, day-to-day details of the company's operation.  He may be paid the highest salary of any executive anywhere, he may put in twenty hours a day, and he may be sincerely committed to the welfare of the company, its stockholders, and the public;  but it's reasonable to assume that he cannot know on a continuing basis how many employees on the assembly line are goofing off in the bathroom or that a group of them are throwing soda tops into the car doors before they put on the panels.  Furthermore, the dealerships have only a franchise relationship with him.  He doesn't know how many salesmen in one location are misrepresenting their latest product.  However, that does not keep customers from writing to him and complaining.  It does not stop assembly line employees from putting notes to him, in the suggestion box.  As an employee yourself, you have no choice but to deal with your fellow employees.  What I want to point out is the fact that you must deal with them on the basis that your interaction with them matters.  You must participate as though every transaction with them were meaningful.  You may suspect that your fellow employees have no freedom of choice and no sense of individual responsibility, that they can only do what company policy tells them to do, but you would be an idiot to relate to them on that basis.  There is not even any assurance that the head of the company will receive any of your complaints should you voice them.  You really don't know if he'll find out that you shoplifted in one of his stores or that you cheated one of his cashiers, because he simply has not been seen by anyone in your lifetime.  For the head of the company to keep this company in business for as long as he has, he must be unusually intelligent.  He must know what he's doing.  Therefore, you cannot treat fellow employees as though you're dealing with an inept corporation.  There are people who do treat those in the company as inept, and they are not the ones that make the world go around.  They cannot even tolerate being in any of the buildings that the company owns.  You may believe that the company runs mechanically, but people are not machines.  They are employees of this very, very, very large company that is run by a never-seen recluse, and they have no choice but to operate on that basis, that every transaction, every relationship, no matter how brief or seemingly insignificant, is meaningful.  And that is also the way you must appear to operate.

     Along similar lines, let me point out something that is now a part of people's everyday consciousness in a highly selective part of Life's nervous system.  The explanation for something that has gone wrong in business is, "It was due to computer error."  Note that this explanation is used only in certain parts of the world presently.  A poultry census taker in New Guinea would not say such a thing.  But in selective parts of the world, you can frequently read newspaper and magazine articles that describe how "computer error" caused such-and-such a problem.  For example, maybe there was a six month period in which the government issued social security checks made out for twice the amount of money than they should have been.  The article talks about how difficult it will be to collect the over-payments from the recipients.  Someone with a college education, a good political job and a three-piece suit will go on television with a very straight face to say, "This error of 3.2 million dollars is an unacceptable loss to the taxpayers of this country, but we've tracked down the problem and found that our new computer system had a bug in it, so everything is fine now," and that's the end of it.  Can you see what has happened?  The highest Yellow Circuit part of Life's nervous system has shifted in this area.  Computer error is acceptable, whereas errors that are made by mere mortals are totally unacceptable.  Do you not find that interesting?

     Several months ago I directed your attention to what I described as public and private voices.  Since then, some of you have asked me which voice you should listen to.  I can answer that question quite simply and directly:  You should not listen to any voice that says anything you have heard before.  With regard to my descriptions of greater and lesser realities, there is what I call a Private, Personal Reality versus a Shared, Public Reality.  The Shared Realities will change primarily from one distinct culture to another, from one nation to another and from one religious group to another.  One religious group believes that a certain historical figure was touched directly by the gods, and that is one Shared Reality, while another group believes that the same historical figure was of no great importance, which is a different Shared Reality.  The further one's Private Reality is from his Shared Public Reality, the more difficult it is for him to see, maintain, explain and defend the Private one.  Let's say that someone describes an unusual experience he's had as, "I perceived reality in a way that is beyond comprehension, but I know it was valid.  It was extraordinary.  It was so meaningful that I cried."  The more removed that experience was from the shared reality of his religion, country and culture, the more difficult it is for him to remember and hold onto what happened to him, much less explain and defend it.

     You develop a certain kind of strength from the effort made to do This Thing.  This strength is a kind of clear understanding that you can face every aspect of Life's diverse body.  You can face failure.  You can face illness.  And you can face the horizontal granddaddy of them all -- death.  You also understand that the only real way to fail is to not attempt anything.