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Summary by TK
Jan Cox Talk 0228 - Oct 2, 1986 - runtime 1:31
[J. tells a "story". Imagine we were in a religious time zone; religious format concepts and explanations. If this were true, the hero of the story, the Chosen One, to-be Prophet would be "talked to by 'the gods'", an 'external' source of wisdom (in place of Life's Body having no outside). The higher source tells the hero everything he ever wants to know --answers all of his questions, all the great burning questions of life. You would expect then that the hero would feel constrained to relay the message from the gods: humanity has gone astray, and now the true teaching to return men to the righteous path is available thru the Prophet. Actually it is never so simple; logically, sequentially it would seem to fly. The message from the gods would be welcomed by men and enlightening, beneficial --but such is not the case. Where it is the case, the message is very low level, useless. And if the welcomed message is very low level, where is the high level from whence it issues? The high level, equivalent to This thing is almost nonexistent; exists only at the fragile interface of 'the gods' actually talking to the hero/prophet, the answering of all his questions. It is to be expected that all 'chosen prophets' have largely got all of Life's questions figured out, except for a tiny little corner of uncertainty which keeps everything in ferment, and which they would seek god's answers to finally extinguish. But it is exactly this tiny corner of uncertainty that carries the total mystery --it's everything! Anyway, the Chosen/prophet would then be in the position of seeking mere validation from external god source of all the stuff he's already figured out except for that nagging little bit of unknown, it's here that he's really interested in mastering/ hearing god's conversation to him. Consider that there are two possibilities for anybody when hearing such answers: it sounds like 'old hat' (I've heard all that already) or else it totally freaks them out with its radicality. Neuralize why this is so. It is based on the constant and only available mode of processing: binary basis of ordinary brain functioning. This Thing info is always too extreme --even for Life, when it thinks about it. The portion of Life's Body that is 'freaked' out by such extremes greatly outweighs the portion that would yawn at it as yesterday's news. That portion is stronger and will crush it eventually; this is why all hero/prophets will recant their extremity and embrace their former religion on their deathbed. The exposure of This thing is very limited; Life does not think of it often or long, and when it doesn't think about it --it's for a longtime. When This thing surfaces again it is in a different part of Life's Body, in different terms, based in different circuit energies than before. In the story, it could be expected that the hero/prophet would eventually get "pissed and tired" and ask god "why did you tell me all this stuff?" A labor of Sisyphus to digest and propagate. In the face of such info one has two choices: fidgit and whine, theorize and fear, or invoke the "Tough Shit Canon" --cry out "tough shit" as a rallying cry, not of resignation or in resentment/aggression, but in recognition/understanding of what Life has dished out on your plate, on your lunch tray. With TS Canon you acknowledge everybody's lunch tray, see the whole lunchroom, know where the bathrooms are, how the food is processed --everything. Relation to your should-be daily prayer of thanks to Life.]
[There are only three available gods to worship for humanity. The extremity of This thing is that it isn't one of those three (ours, theirs, and the previously irrelevant which swoops down and conquers yours). This thing's god is all encompassing, indefinable and above all unstable. Information from such must inevitably be conflicting, paradoxical, impossibly extreme for the great preponderance of the Body ofLife.
Transcript
IF THIS WERE RELIGION, OR
WHICH GOD DOES THIS GUY WORK FOR ANYWAY?
Document: 228, October, 2, 1986
Copyright (c) Jan M. Cox, 1986
This thing has ofttimes been referred to as religion, metaphysics, philosophy, etc., but let's play pretend, and imagine that This is religion. If it were religion, then instead of me referring to it as This Thing and Life speaking on WDNA, we would be talking of gods. Okay, now let's further assume that the gods spoke to someone. They spoke to someone in this time zone, and on this part of the planet, and started telling this person real stuff. Not just low-rent stuff, but real stuff: specific information about the very things that have always been considered to be pressing questions, workable descriptions of how Life operates; explaining all the so-called confrontational disputes about good and evil. Imagine that the gods were telling this person the very things that humanity wants to know.
History writes the stories of the great prophets and religious leaders all in much the same way. There's always a certain predictable scenario: in a particular area of the planet, a group of people has been worshipping paper mache donkeys, brass monkeys, and Soupy Sales progenitors. The prophet tells them, "Nay, nay, you've been wasting your time and ignoring the real gods. And I am here to tell you some new information that will make a lot of sense, and if the information doesn't make sense, at least it's going to scare you away from paper mache donkeys and into the arms of the real gods."
Those attracted to This Thing in this time and place would not be expecting such a grand flash/revelation of a new religion. You would be expecting more of a low-level, semi-personalized confrontation with an enlightened person. Someone who had reached a superior state of consciousness through a sequential line of teaching that went back to the hoary times when all of This was common knowledge and before Man fell into his current disreputable state.
What if there was a person walking around to whom Life has told almost everything that person wanted to know, almost everything that you think you want to know? If you can hear me correctly, this is the kind of story on which all of the great religions are based. Simply, a message comes from higher sources to this person -- a prophet, guru, etc. -- and he tells other people. The people are happy to hear the message, and everything goes in a decently straight line, as though in accord with a plan or purpose. In fact, the prophet always says that there is some purpose. But what if I told you, in this make-believe story, that it is not that simple. And, in fact, when the sequence of events appears to be that simple, you are dealing with low-rent information, information that the many can use, but the Few would find unsatisfying. You are dealing with information, sticking with the religious facade, that seems to have had a religious impact over a large area of this planet, or over a community of such size that it has historical significance in the horizontal long run.
Let me suggest to you that there is always an aspect to these stories that is overlooked. The unseen aspect is this: if the gods were revealing information, anti-gods would be revealing dis-information, different information, conflicting information. I'll put it more simply: if the gods were revealing specific information, other gods would be telling Man not to listen.
Let's carry the story a bit further and assume that there is someone in this time and place to whom the gods are revealing all kinds of information that makes perfect sense. Bypass for a moment the possibility that the gods told this person, "Look, we're telling you this for a reason, and we want you to spread this information." The gods just told our fictitious person and that was it, end of message. Knowing that this information is what you had been seeking, would you not hope and expect that the person would do something? Remember, even though this is fiction, some of this story is based on fact. One of the facts is that the fictional gods told our fictional person the very specific answers and explanations to everything that you and all other intelligent, concerned, and humane men and women on this planet want to know.
Now, back to the fiction surrounding this fact. You would expect that the person to whom this information had been revealed would do something -- write a book, give a lecture, or just say something about it -- would you not? How could someone who knows stuff like This just sit on it? And would you not expect that this information would be welcomed? There would be not only groups of people hearing me who thought that they were in some way destined to pursue This Activity, but also large numbers of people, if not everyone, trying to get hold of this new information. Surely, I don't need to remind you that we are really in the land of fiction now. But verbally and sequentially does it not make a lot of sense?
This information is never disseminated in that way, and when it does appear to occur in that way, there are two possibilities: one, history is a bag full of garbage -- accepted intellectual descriptions of those who write history -- and two, that which seems to have had some historical validity was extremely low level information. Consider how low level information could be the basis of the world's major religions. The religions that by general account have had an indescribable impact on the history of mankind. I suggest to you most strongly that what I have described in this second possibility is not far removed from absolute fact.
If this second possibility does have some validity, then a reasonable question would be, "If that is low level information, where is the high level?" I am telling you that high level information hardly exists. High level information is hidden somewhere within the creases and folds of the first scene of my continuing piece of fiction: that is the gods, if we were under religious conditions, were telling someone everything that person wanted to know, everything that humanity wants to know, and everything that you want to know. That's high level information; it's there, but no one can hear it.
Not only is all of this fiction, but anything that is worth talking about does not exist out there. I'm not talking about this fictitious person, I'm not talking about religions, and I'm not talking about prophets. I'm talking about something else. What if this fictitious person tried to do something with the information, tried to, in some way, communicate it to others? Suppose he ran ads, "Information in which you might be interested if you are reasonable and sophisticated men and women". He took the information and specifically tried to communicate it to others. He just said it to anyone who would listen. What do you expect would happen?
The only way your organism can receive information is through the senses. That's it -- that's the only way people can receive information. But consciousness considers information of This nature to be quite different. Extraordinary information, secret information must be metaphysical; surely, it transcends the sensual organism. At the ordinary level, you think that you can imagine the transcendental, the metaphysical beyond the confines of the senses, but it isn't possible.
At Line-level consciousness, you imagine from what you have read or heard that the great prophets of history learned their secrets in an extraordinary manner: things were revealed to them in some mystical fashion that superseded the ordinary physical senses. Without any analysis, or even being aware of it, what you read or heard became the benchmark or template, and you thought, "If I ever find someone who has secret knowledge, it will fit somewhere into this category. It will fit because I feel myself so close to the Great Truth with a capitol G and T already. All I need is this teeny bit, and surely, there is someone to whom the gods have told everything who is better than me. With as much as I know, there must be someone who knows it all. I've already got 75, 80, or even 85% of the truth. All I need is a validation of what I know plus one or two minor details." Of course, the one or two details are those that strangle everyone. What you know is simply what was taken in through the senses and you're now waiting for some kind of extrasensory clarification.
My fictional person then said, "I'm going to tell you everything you want to know that is worthwhile, everything that serious, right thinking, spiritually hungry people consider to be answers to the burning questions. I'm going to tell you because I know. Here it is; the gods have told me and I'm going to tell you." You are there ready to hear this information from the gods. You brought one index card because you already know 85% and all you need is this little bit. You assume the first part is going to be a validation of everything you think you already know. You sit there with your index card saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," waiting for that little modicum of uncertainty and it comes, you get it down, and then everything is very clear.
If my little story did take place in as direct and pristine a fashion as I have described, then I must, surprise again, suggest to you two possibilities. One is that this person would tell you everything that the gods had told him and the information would be stuff that you "already knew". The second possibility is that the information would freak you out, but not on the basis that the information would be frightening or scary. It's not that. Let's take a quick jump now from the gods putting out this information to Life doing it. All of you should have been able by now to do something with my description of the life of Life. This is an apparently closed system as far as consciousness, at its best, can perceive it. We are not dealing with forces, read "gods", outside the system. The few people cannot use that anymore. If this was religion, I would tell you, as I start out my piece of fiction, that the gods had told me, "Hey, we're the new gods for the times, we keep up, trimmed down lapels, no more bell bottoms, we're up to date. Those gods everyone else is talking about, forget them."
I'm not interested in stopping right now and going into this, but I will point out something to you. The great prophets' messages began with something like, "Hey, you people are worshipping, studying, and listening to the wrong gods, outdated gods." And so their messages were a slight turn away from the established religion of their time. If this were religion, I must tell you that everything I know and have described to you is not a redescribing of anything that already exists. Religion included. This information is not based on, or reflective of, any established religion; it's not an updated version of religion. The best description I can give you in a 3-D world, is that This information goes off at a right angle to everything that is currently known. If I could verbalize it directly, so that you could hear it in its raw, potent form, it would freak you out. Remember the second possibility. The first one is: "Hey, what else is new? It's just another guy saying religion is no good. Everyone's heard that."
Since This is not religion, we're back to my description of the life of Life, the body of Life, which is a splendid description. Compared to what has gone before, with respect to the gods, there is no "out there". There is no source outside this system, outside Life. And there is no way you can apprehend information, no matter how extraordinary it is, other than through the senses. There is no "out there" between you and Life in the equation I + Not-I = Everything. There is no way to separate you from Life. It's a real shame if you don't have some continuing flash of that by now. You are a fish indivisible from the water. You are in a primordial soup. There is no "out there" away from you. If there were, you would be dead. You would not be conscious. To the body of Life, there is no "out there". There is no place to look for forces, much less gods, "out there".
So, why would this secret information not have a direct effect on you, or even large numbers of people? How would it fall into the two possibilities I mentioned? How could it either be yesterday's news, or simply freak you out?
Yesterday's news is always accepted. Thus is Life predictable. You can go down to the islands and live as a semi-hermitized recluse and after hungering for some news, dig down in the bilge and find a newspaper. After reading and rereading it several times, you realize it is not two weeks old, but five years old.
Back to the second possibility of this information freaking you out. Instead of the gods, let's talk about the life of Life which has a parallel to the life of an individual, if you know how to interpret it. I interpret it for you 90 to 95% of the time by what I call sketching, asking you rhetorical questions, and giving you suggestions. All that you know is based on a binary system, and in the same way that you take in and pass on apparently conflicting information, so also, in the entire body of Life does there seem to be a continuing stream of apparently conflicting information. Of course, the conflict is attributed to Man. Those who are religious would say that there are absolute and unchangeable truths by which we should live, and that man is the reason for all the conflict. There appears to be conflicting information because you have only two ears with which to listen. Everything appears limited to a binary solution because you have only two eyes with which to read. Those wired to be in the religious field cannot codify all the information. They would say they cannot hear the voices of the gods. All they hear is the confusion of Man. And it is not.
This activity is extreme, even to Life. I'm going to use simple terminology again. When Life thinks about such as This, and it's thinking about This right now, and we are part of it, This is freaky. This almost freaks Life out. The proof is all around you. Many of you are so far gone that you do not understand that if we took an average night of us getting together with me standing up here talking and put This on TV, where it got some real exposure, many people would look at it and get freaked out. I wear no turban; I'm not preaching the overthrow of anything; I don't make anti-jokes against any religion or group of people. What I'm doing would fit the basic requirements of being a good and decent, if not self-named, religious activity. But what you do not understand is that This would freak out many, many people. Your ordinary intelligence would tell you, assuming I'm telling you the truth, that many people would fall into possibility one. They just wouldn't hear anything. But many people would be freaked out, and your ordinary consciousness would ask why.
This Thing is almost too extreme for Life when it thinks about it. Once you get out of the areas of Life's body that are driven primarily by the lower circuitry, and move into this area of the planet where Life is most conscious, where Life thinks the strangest things, This is still too freaky for Life. This is never a widespread religion. It is never commonly popular. This area of the planet where Life is the most bourgeois, and, at the same time, it is where Life is the most conscious. Simultaneously, as Life thinks about This, it also goes free-kee, and the part of Life's body that says free-kee is much stronger than the places and the times that it thinks about this kind of stuff. If my fictional person to whom the gods have spoken attempted to present This in a straight forward manner, and got a big hearing, many people wouldn't hear anything. They would say, "I know all that," and leave. The majority, however, would be freaked out. The stronger portion of those hearing This, whether in numbers or otherwise, would turn a deaf ear to it, but they would not be passive. They would denounce it. They would say, "Free-kee". We're talking now about the larger part of Life's body when it thinks about This. It says, "No, no, not when I've just moved into a good neighborhood, got a good job, the kids are grown, got a little money saved,...no."
Even though I've suggested to you that all of this is fiction, it's not all fiction. There is an absolute schedule at work under which everyone must operate. At the ordinary level, the operations take place in very well known, observable manners that reflect something that people do not ordinarily consider. It is a kind of winding down; it is a kind of increasing bourgeois attitude in the individual. A recent example out of contemporary news is that of an old man denouncing sex shops in his neighborhood. The man was literate, and had a fair presentation. He pointed out that sex shops had moved within a block of his home. The old man was concerned and upset and said a few intelligent sentences about why this was not good for the community and the moral fiber of our country.
You should be able to feel in you what the old man was saying. You don't have to be 65 years old. The same reality is in you, and you should be able to hear it. Take that same man and move back in time 50 years to when he was 15. If he were told there was a little dirty book, the kind men like, at the top of a tree which was crawling with pythons and copperheads, he would have climbed up, given an arm, to get to it. There is the same reflection in Life. Life does not operate in the same way that people don't operate. Most of you are still just having to take my word for it. None of this operates in a sequential manner. Life goes through the same process that people do, but the process is not sequential. There are people on this planet who would crawl through quicksand and broken glass to find the little dirty book. At the same time, however, in this part of Life's body, most people would not walk across the street to pick up one of those dirty books from the gutter. All of this goes on simultaneously. Life is becoming middle class here, but it is simultaneously otherwise in other parts of its body. But wherever This is taking place, wherever Life is having thoughts about This Thing, its strongest reaction is that it's freaky. This Activity is too extreme, and Life is correct based on everything it has done. What I am telling you is, wherever This has popped up throughout history, Life's strongest reaction to it was, "Too extreme, This is too extreme." That is a fact based on what has happened. This cannot be heard directly or by large numbers of people. Life will not think about it for a long period of time. Life will not operate on it. Life will not move on it.
Now tell me, what is new about you? The continuing cry of those involved with This who begin to see and hear something is, "How can I increase this?" Life does not operate on This in the ways in which you imagine that you would operate on it. If there was a pill that contained the secret to everything you want to know, you think that you would take it. There is no such pill, and if there were, you couldn't take it. If you did, you would freak out. Life does not produce such pills. Life does not take those pills itself. When Life thinks about This, it is only for short periods of time. And then, it goes a long time without thinking about it. Then, when Life thinks about This again, it does so somewhere else in its body, and with a different terminology. Tell me, what is new about you? Doesn't this scenario sound familiar? "Yeah, but can't the gods do better than me?" Well, would you accept this: the gods could do a whole lot worse than you, but it would be on a much bigger scale. That's the same thing as doing better; all Life has to do is worse, but do it in a magnificent fashion.
Let's get back to my fictional story. What if the guy who had been given this direct information did decide to do something with it. He tries to tell This to some people. After a reasonable length of time and after some reasonable attempts, my fictional person becomes pissed; not depressed, none of the ordinary stuff. You must understand that my fictional person would be a different kind of pissed from ordinary people. Ordinary people suffer at the extremes. They worry about things that are either too large, or too small. It's either, "What's going to happen to me after I die," or, "I wish I didn't have a pimple on my nose." My fictional person, to whom the gods had spoken, would be pissed in a different way. Then, if he could find the gods, he would be well within his rights to ask, "Why did you tell me This? All right, I admit that I was pleased; you gave me just what I wanted, but now I want to know why. What's the point? What's the purpose?" Life can periodically think about This, but its strongest reaction is that it is too extreme to be acted upon directly. This almost freaks Life out.
Historically, it would seem that the gods sent forth what would amount to be straight line prophets. The prophets were told the Secret or Truth, and then told to go and do something with these revelations. It's very straight line and straightforward. The gods would say, "Here is the information that you and a large number of people want to know, now go out and tell everybody, because they've been waiting to hear it. The people hearing the information would be so delighted that they would say, "Verily, verily, hip-hip hooray, for he's a jolly good prophet." That is what apparently happens, if you're only looking with binary eyesight. You've got to find that if the information is popular, it's low level information. Straight line metaphysical phenomena that is fairly acceptable to large numbers of people is always low level. And it is not the kind or concentration of information that is satisfying to any of you people. It requires no individual effort. Low level information does not alleviate suffering. It appears to be a prescription for suffering, but the cure is never forthcoming. The straight line prophets are always crushed by Life at the end of the theater They are forced to revert to their former religions on their deathbeds. They all become bourgeois, they all become middle class. This is not an attack on humanity. It is not a shortcoming of people. It is something that is not normally seen in this way. Yet, it is a fact. Suddenly, for some reason, the straight line prophet will see the light on his deathbed and say, "Quick, send me a priest; send me a rabbi. Get a minister over here. I thank the gods for giving me these last few minutes to come to my senses. What a close call!" This is not an attack on the individual. It is the nature of Life finding things too extreme; it is the nature of middle age. It is the nature of Life being pretty well settled down. I guess it would give Karl Marx a glowing warmness to know that everyone finally becomes part of the middle class. On their deathbed, everyone, including Life, is middle aged, prim and proper, and does not care to be freaked out. We are not talking about individuals. We are talking about the stronger areas of Life's body and Life's reaction when it thinks about This.
There is some practical significance to what I am telling you. Remember, different time zones are occurring contemporaneously within Life's body. In the same way that you have so-called daydreams, you still relive the past: recollections of childhood hurts, insults and shortcomings. So does Life. There are areas of Life's body that are still operating in the religious zone, and they are contemporaneous with our time zone. But, where it is religious, there is another phenomenon that I want to point out to you, and it is this: everybody can and must worship only one of three gods. There are only three. The names change, the tongues change, and the times change, but there are only three gods out in the ordinary world that have ever been available. Whether it seems to have been a major or minor religion, a schism, a reform movement, or a return to orthodoxy, the focus was on one of the three gods.
If through some curious quirk This information I'm making available were to get a wide hearing, the major reaction would be freak out time. Freak out time not simply with respect to what I was pointing out previously, but also on the basis of there being only three gods available. Everyone hearing me would take This as being religion. Everyone would view This as religion. It is as far as they can tell. But, they would freak out on the basis that they can't tell. They can't identify, or even feel in their own genes which of the three gods are represented here. I am telling you that This Activity is supremely freaky to ordinary people. This is all encompassing, indefinable, and unstable. All of the very things that the other three gods are not in any given time and place.
People have worshipped a variety of gods throughout the ages, when a conqueror would invade a particular area he would tear down the work that had been done: break up statues, burn the places of worship, tear up all the holy books, and make people worship him or his gods. Over a period of time, you'd think Man would have run out of gods by now. You're wrong. The gods are simply renamed, and there are only three. In the crude areas of Life's body, people may still be worshipping tree gods. In another area, you can have the ordinary religions of worshipping a deity, a force outside the system. All of these descriptions are almost totally interchangeable in that they are unchanging; the truth is unchanging. The gods are the same today as they were throughout eternity. Those hearing This would be correctly freaked out in that they cannot analyze it; they cannot tell which of the three gods from which This comes.
Let's get back to my fictitious story and say that there would be another aspect to it. Let's say that there would be a truly freaky fourth religion. In this fourth religion, there would be all kinds of things that I could make up. One of them would be my P.S., which I could call the "Tough Shit" aspect; The Tough Shit dynamic, The Tough Shit ritual, The Tough Shit canon of this fourth religion.
In practice, The Tough Shit canon would be binary: you can either whine, fidget, and twist over what Life has dished out to you, or else you could holler "Tough Shit" and press on. "Tough Shit" would not be some form of resignation. It would not be whining. What I am describing as "Tough Shit" requires a four dimensional understanding. To you it would have to be the ultimate encouragement, a rallying cry. "Tough Shit" would go at a right angle to binary possibilities. Everyone stands there with a tray and takes what Life dishes out. Maybe there are one or two items on your tray that you like, but there is also this other stuff that you don't like. You can't go back and get a refund. You can't go back and get whatever is on your plate changed. All you can do is whine, fidget, and play with your food. You can try to hide what you have or you can suffer over it. But the "Tough Shit" canon is, at the least, at right angles to suffering over what Life has dished out. Everyone has been issued a tray with stuff on it, and the stuff is more or less the same. Everyone has their hands welded to the tray, and they're going to hold onto it for sixty or seventy years. They all whine and complain about their stuff, they theorize about returning it. For seventy years, people talk about what's on their tray. Little pamphlets are passed around that recount historical incidents of someone who actually returned his tray. No one is sure of how the return process works, because whoever was reputed to have done it is now dead.
You can go through all of that, or you can take the other possibility of a fourth religion. You start off like everyone else. You've been dished out stuff that is not much different from everyone. When the gods spoke to my fictitious person, I assure you that he was sitting there with the same stuff he was originally served. I also assure you that if you could see what I have described rather than whining, fidgeting, playing with your food, suffering over it, theorizing about, "What if, what if," and you were able to shout out "Tough Shit", you would find some very practical significance to it. There would be no questioning, whining, or aggression to the Tough Shit Canon; just Tough Shit and press on.
Believe it or not, all of this has something to do with what is taking place inside This activity and to many of you personally. On a good day, when you can get above I-level, you can see the whole lunch room. You can See where the food came from. You know where the bathrooms are. You know where all the food is going. It is there that you can cry out with a great deal of 4-D religious fervor and joy, "Tough Shit."
Those of you who have been around me now for a few months or years must admit that it's been a freaky, if not weird, few months or years. I pointed out to you recently that everyone should be engaged in a daily, even continual kind of prayer to Life. Thank Life for what it has made available through This, and for the extraordinary things you can See and Hear.
