Jan Cox Talk 0171

The Pyramid of Pity

 

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Diagram = In transcript #55 (in video @ 38:26 )

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Summary by TK

Jan Cox Talk 171, Aug 22, 1985, runtime 1:25

  [Diagram 55.  Only The Few can be focused on, aligned with C-kinetic action. All others must furnish resistance. The Few are "fused"--all others "confused". Only that which is by necessity C-kinetic will be strongly opposed, must be strongly opposed. True in external world as well as internally.]
  [Free will. Life's masterstroke which has aided man's successful dominion of the Not-I. Not-I as fuel for I's struggle. Free will as "environmental influences", or (secondarily) psychological influences. Free will is an illusion but man's belief in its reality almost makes it true.]
  ["Survival" in its finest sense is the art of minimizing stagnation, fear and destructive acts.]
  [Psychological problems as the "abortive flight of memory". Fear can't exist without memory. The flight of the ordinary voices in memory = fear. This Thing is the tethering of that flight, making it the aborted flight of memory.]
  [Yellow Circuit cannot "feel" thru its verbal interpretation of memory. This leads to the establishment of the Yellow Circuit ("mind") as a "platform of passion". It thus steals the Blue Circuit's "coat of many colors" and wears it as its own.]
  [The "Pyramid of Pity". The development/evolution of the circuits in humanity. Red Circuit and Blue Circuit are not going to become endangered species or left behind in evolution. Life aspires to higher, more complex circuitry but the lower provide necessary foundation. It is impossible to care for somebody at your own level (exception: Red Circuit level with blood kin) of circuitry-centering. Can only "care for" or "sympathize" with those at the next lower level. Red Circuit centered people therefore are virtually incapable of sympathy (except for blood kin); almost without feeling for their fellow man. Consider caring-for = understanding. Neuralize the continual attempt by higher circuit types to refine, educate lower circuit types--an impossibility...which keeps everything growing/moving. Neuralize the Justice.]
  [The stages of understanding: 1st stage--born into mechanical life. 2nd stage--This Thing (only realized when you "live for" This Thing). 3rd stage--living a day-to-day existence of enriched simplicity.]
  [The philosophers search for noumenal Reality, objective truth, the unconditioned absolute. But can there be truth apart from man?]
  [TASK: Neuralize what is an example (possible) of objective truth, i.e., truth apart from man?]
  [Do not ever laugh at another's hobby. It may be their "art of survival".]
  [Consider: Death is the ultimate "employment transfer".]
  [Write down your 5 favorite: books, movies, songs, historical figures--on a sheet of paper (to be collected in box for anybody's random perusal in the Group).]
  [You should not be doing anything that requires an audience, i.e. where feedback is part of the activity as approval. Something is amiss if your interest is dependent upon approval; and audience approval = your approval.


Transcript

THE PYRAMID OF PITY

Document:  171,  August 22, 1985
Copyright (c) Jan M. Cox, 1985             

         Since I have told you before that the varied and sundry things I speak of are all, in reality, about the very same thing, tonight I'll take a different approach.  Nothing I'm mentioning this evening is related.  It's just an odds and ends assortment...stuff that just never fit anywhere...all of it totally disconnected (wink, wink).

     Only a few people can be outlets for the creative force in its kinetic mode.  Everyone else serves to oppose creativity and change.  This seems unfathomable, your voices immediately decry this idea and point out examples of people involved in positive, creative pursuits.  But only the Few can be willfully focused; everyone else is mechanically driven to, in some degree, oppose radical creative/kinetic change. Said another way:  only the Few are "fused", everyone else is confused.

     This is not to deny that people desire and talk about attempting to change or that some individuals are pursuing creative interests.  That's not incorrect, but they have no choice.

     Consider this in relationship to what I've said before that for anything to live it must be strongly opposed.  Without opposition it would die -- whatever the "it" is -- ideas, institutions, inventions.  Almost every day you can scan the newspaper and read of a new theory or social cause.  If strong opposition to it arises, then its immediate health is insured.  As long as it remains necessary for Life's continued growth it will be substantially opposed.

     You needn't look externally for illustrations, look at your internal circuitry and you'll see that whatever you're involved with, opposition to it is as evident as the attraction.  Men and women have always been disturbed by this unrecognized reality and it's voiced in many ways: "I'm being driven by two different minds, two different beliefs."  Even regarding their sincere attempts in This Thing, they find that one minute it's the most important aspect of their life and an hour later they're convinced it's a waste of time. There's nothing unusual about that.  On the contrary, if a person did not possess internal opposition they would have the wiring of a fanatic -- This Thing would not nourish them nor would they be useful to it.

     Also unconnected (hem, hem) to any of this is the subject of free will.  Can you begin to smell how Man's belief in the possibility of free will is at the heart of his continued struggle against Not-I?  Only by believing that he could change and had the power to effect change would he even try.  To update the concept, substitute "environmental influences" for free will.  Man's virtually indisputable acceptance of environmental influences is part of the masterstroke ensuring Life's growth.

     Consciousness accepts that a physiological "me" exists; my thought, eye color, are genetically determined and unalterable.  There is also an unquestioned belief that a psychological "me" exists, and this "me" is the result of environmental influences.  "Other people had a part in my turning out as I am.  I would not be so flawed were I not mistreated and ignored."  And what goes unanalyzed, but accepted, is that the psychological me and the environmental influences can be changed:  They are not a fait accompli as are the genetic features.  This is the basis of man's continuing struggle over the not-I, always to Life's advantage.  This is the fuel that compels men and women to invent lasers, design new clothes, harness the power of electricity, to manipulate the environment, always, albeit unknowingly, in furtherance of Life's greater growth.

     There is another element to this masterstroke that's very slippery to grasp.  The idea of free will is an illusion but all of humanity, with very few exceptions, is wired up to believe it and to operate within that belief.  And damned if it just about works.  For example, an army is sent on a mission and told their destination is 50 miles away when in actuality it's 1500.  With insufficient gear, minimal food, no extra clothing, they embark on this impossible attempt believing it's possible because that's all the information they're given.  And the impossible occurs:  they succeed!

     From one viewpoint there is no such thing as free will, but everybody believes in it and operates on the basis that:  "I have choice, and the potential to effect change."  And though there is no free will, it almost works.  Another of Life's masterstrokes.  It's almost true, true enough for me to mention.  But it's not absolutely true.  There are a few people who have understood the reality of free will.  But, as justice prevails, they're the ones who would never speak about it.

     Here's a new definition for your continually expanding Neuralizing dictionary:  "survival" is the art of minimizing stagnation, fear and disaster.  Don't let your ordinary ear hear this as negative, "Is that the best a person could ask for, merely averting a series of catastrophes?"  Nay, nay.  Survival, in the finest sense of the word could be defined as the art of minimizing, (since you can not totally eliminate) stagnation, fear and disaster, and you could profitably use that definition while playing in the traffic of Life.  You will find it is at the heart of This Thing.  I told you none of this was related and for once I might have been right, 'cause I'm about to move on.

     Everything that people classify as psychological problems -- that "something" separate from "me", that something that plays havoc with my emotions or "gets into my brain" -- could be seen as being memory in flight.  Without memory, you would have no psychological problems.  You might well assume, since this is not therapy, that I mention this for very good reason.  Watch those everyday little disasters, your own personal fifth column worrywarts, those mad bombers diving through your Blue and Yellow Circuits -- they can't exist without memory in flight.  Any time you're suffering -- just that touch of depression creeping in on little bitty cat's feet -- it's memory on a flight that should be aborted.

     I have hinted about this to you before, via the rhetorical question:  "Can you accept the possibility that a more evolved man or woman might not even have a memory?"  Not that the person, when he needs to buy groceries, can't remember how he last got to the market or for that matter if he even owns a car. Obviously a certain use of memory is requisite for functioning in Life.  But this man or woman, in their sustained alertness does not allow memory to fly.  Any time you're suffering in any form, no matter how small, no matter how much you try to overlook it -- any time you're suffering, it's memory on a flight that should have been aborted.  Would you trade a world free of psychological problems if all you had to do was abandon memory?

     Another odd and end.  If I asked which circuit could not feel anything you'd respond, correctly, that the Yellow Circuit was incapable of feeling.  Yet ordinary consciousness accepts the mind as a platform of passions.  It mistakenly takes the Yellow Circuit's verbal interpretations of what has transpired in the other circuits to mean that the intellect has passion.  It does not.  The notion that feeling and thought are two different things is wired into humanity; yet, despite that knowledge, there remains an unanalyzed acceptance that the mind is a platform for passion.  I'm moving on again but further considerations along these lines would be to your profit.

     And another unrelated morsel.  The diagram of the Three Circuits is a 2-D reflection.  The reality of the internal circuitry is better described as three rings in simultaneous contact floating in a 4-D world.  I'll refer again to the circuitry diagram, while you're remembering it is a 2-D description, to address a question that continually resurfaces.  The growth process in you and humanity starts in the Red Circuit and evolves upward with the addition of the Blue and Yellow Circuits.  But the Red Circuit does not die out; its operations, in a sense, are not even diminished.  You'll find even today, with much of humanity living in the Yellow Circuit, Red Circuited tribes and cultures have not become extinct.  They are not even an endangered species; large numbers of Red Circuited people are, and will remain, on this planet.

     Consider the continuing dream among occultists and would-be mystics that the only thing barring entry into the gates of enlightenment is "my sinful, carnal body."  Horniness, gluttony, laziness are the culprits and by ignoring the body or torturing it, spiritual development will ensue.  If you could, in your lifetime, activate this next and  higher circuit, do you think your Red Circuit will suddenly shut down, that you'll no longer need it?  You will not, let me assure you, become so enlightened that you don't need to eat or exercise.  You will continue to experience certain passions.  Just as Red Circuited people are necessary to the planet, your Red Circuit is your base.  If it ceased operating, it's the end of you.

Diagram # 055 illustration

Diagram # 055 illustration

     This diagram depicts another aspect of man and humanity's growth.  This hierarchy could be called a Pyramid of Pity.  The largest number of people on this planet are transformers for predominately Red level energies, less are Blue Circuited and still less, Yellow.  It does not mean that those Red Circuited types have no Blue or Yellow Circuitry but that their primary function is to transform energies through the Red Circuit.  Everyone, whether they mention it or not, has been curious about certain groups of people on the planet who seem to have no feeling for their fellow man.

     This Pyramid of Pity will shed some light on your previously untended curiosities.  It is impossible to care for someone at your own level, with the exception (for humanity's continued existence) of blood kin. The mechanical caring of one person for another can only be done with people at a lower level than yours. This is why those wired up to transform and transmit primarily in the Red Circuit are essentially incapable of sympathy, except for their blood kin.  Need I remind you that this is not an attack on anyone?

     People who seem to you to have no charitable instincts, tribes you read about who allow children to starve while the adults feast, are operating at the lowest level of development.  It's impossible to care for people at your own level, and when there's no one lower than you then there is virtually no one to care for except your blood relatives.  Red Circuit people are virtually incapable of sympathy.

     Now substitute the word "understand" for "care for" and you'll realize that people can not understand others at or higher than their own level.  Take the extreme archetype of a Red Circuited transformer, and do you see that it's incomprehensible to him that someone will cry over a poem, or that a widow will lose the will to live after her husband's death.  It's as incomprehensible to him as communicating in a foreign tongue.

     The tension necessary for Life's growth has Blue Circuited people fund-raising to build arts centers to expose their Red Circuited brethren to finer elements in Life.  They feel it's their duty to cultivate finer feelings in these "poor souls".  In a sense, it works, but not in the way people believe.  We're back to the free will idea.  Everybody's wired up to believe these things will work -- that free symphonies will help develop the uneducated, unrefined -- and they almost make it work.  It won't work, but it certainly keeps things moving and assists growth on the greater scale.  Another example:  Intellectuals have done studies and claim that virtually no one with a doctorate  is in prison.  They conclude that those inclined to criminal behavior need education, and if we educate everyone, we'd have no crime.  It sounds so right, so close to being true.  It's not true, but it keeps things moving.

     Traveling up the hierarchy, I'll illustrate another example of the inability of one circuit to sympathize with anyone but those on a lower level.  A Blue Circuited person hears about a professor who presented a new theory to his colleagues.  The theory was soundly rejected, he became the laughingstock of his profession.  The last heard about him was that he left his post, began drinking and was seen in a Union Mission, a desperate fallen man.  This is unfathomable to your basic Blue Circuited man or woman.  They can certainly understand taking to drink after a love affair ends, but over a THEORY being rejected.  It seems ridiculous.  They are not wired up to be capable of sympathizing with the professor's plight.  It's not wrong.  It's not a flaw, for example, that certain people have no concern for animals; after all, they're wired up to be hunters.  There's nothing wrong with them, they are operating at a very basic level.  What is lacking, from a certain viewpoint, is that these people are not part of Life's extended development through man.  Certainly they are necessary, just as it's necessary for you to eat and move.

     It's wired into the developmental scheme that you can't care for or understand anyone at your own level, the exception being blood kin.  Much of what has seemed inexplicable to you will become clearer once you See this.  All of your ordinary voices of outrage over the way people treat each other, your criticisms over people's callousness, your immediate desire to strangle those seemingly selfish people will lessen the more you Understand this hard-wired hierarchy.

     Let me add, none of this is a matter of becoming heartless.  You see a picture of a child begging for crumbs while the army officers are sitting on barrels of food, and you might feel like crying.  (I'm not saying you should or should not feel that.)  I'm trying to hint to you that there is the potential for you to understand their apparently unsympathetic behavior, and no longer be mechanically incensed and automatically indignant.

     Yet another totally unrelated item.  Throughout Yellow Circuit history, Life has spoken through commentators, novelists and philosophers about the possibility of objective truth, "a truth apart from man's conception thereof".  In your very own Yellow Circuit, if you tried to ponder the possibility, and it didn't give you a supreme headache, you too would agree that an objective truth must exist separate from all the conflicting opinions in the land of Babel.  No matter what anyone's opinion was, this objective truth would stand apart.

     So let me ask you:  "Could there actually be any "truth" apart from man?  Would life have any way of knowing "truth" on this level were it not for man?"

     Here's a new invisible tattoo:  Don't ever laugh at someone else's hobby -- from collecting stamps to collecting 2 x 4's, if you entertain those internal voices you're fulfilling your role as a forced critic on Life's daily paper.  Right there on national television is an orthodontist from Denver at a bottle cap collector's convention, and he's smothered in bottle caps.  They're even stuck to his ears.  And your voices proclaim, "That's the most ridiculous thing I've seen...."  Don't ever ridicule anyone's hobby.  It may be their art of survival, their very means of minimizing boredom, fear and the disasters of being alive.

     For the last completely unrelated, totally unconnected item (wink) let me describe three stages that a person goes through within This Thing.  The first level everyone is born into, that is, living a mechanical everyday life.  The second stage that anyone sincerely interested in This must reach is to begin to live for This Thing.  Unlike a once-a-week religious meeting where you'd be dependent on my words, you must begin to realize the nearly overwhelming complexity of This Thing by using this information.  The second stage is living for This Thing, and that doesn't preclude having hobbies and vocations that please you; but it's a discernibly different stage from your mechanical existence.  It's unavoidable, and it's absolutely necessary, that you reach this second stage where This Thing is what you live for.

     Then you must quickly transcend the second stage and move to the third stage where you live an everyday life.  It sounds suspiciously like my description of the first stage does it not?  This description is the reality behind my telling you that all your imaginings about how utterly exciting it would have been to have lived with one of history's great teachers are mere dreamings.  Everyone with any interest in these activities has thought that just going through the day to day activities with the guru would have been a continual thrill.  "You know, just bein' around the guy when he was off duty."  I hate to destroy your dreams but....

     Or, even worse, what about your dreams of how exciting you'll be once you've reached some supernatural state?

     Once to demonstrate the basis of Real Talent, I described to you a musician who'd sit at home for 10 hours picking on his guitar.  He needed no audience to be delighted with his composition.  I suggested that if the audience's response is absolutely integral to your receiving pleasure from a particular pursuit then it might not be a real interest of yours.  That's not to, in any way, diminish your interest and affairs in Life; if I were suggesting that, we'd be living in a monastery.

     Obviously many people have jobs where a consumer must be satisfied with your product.  They are paying the bills.  The point is, if your interest is absolutely dependent on an audience, not merely that a buyer should be pleased enough to pay the bills, then you'll gain no unusual nourishment for real growth in that situation.

     You might be pleased that another likes your music or cabinetmaking, but your pleasure is no less without an audience.  If you are pursuing something and the excitement is totally dependent upon an audience, reconsider your apparent interest in it.