Just the Facts, Man

Fact:  Those who believe that they understand the “problem” best, are always those farthest from its reality.  (Apply to your own ordinary thinking and how it believes itself the best judge of itself.)

Fact:  In the mentally based, secondary-world-of-man, anything has the potential to affect anything else.  Thus, in that realm, are such concepts as, “The Truth,” and “Valid Models,” fluid.

Corollary:  To those such as priests, philosophers, and psychologists who commonly profess expertise regarding the inner workings of man, how things really are remains a complete mystery.

Fact:  All models beget further models.

Corollary:  In the secondary world, finality does not exist; but in that thoughts are fluid and limitless – ergo, the contrary illusion.

One father’s advice to his son:  “Between those delectable bouts of designing in your mind, what life and awakening be about, walk down to the public square and see if life as lived there squares with mental designs.”  A mystic stuck on a “system” rather than on results will voice such strolls.

J.

What They Talk About

FACT:  No one understands what they talk about – but it is okay since no one believes they do anyway.  Remember:  The truth is not “out there,” and if you have to ask, “then where is it?” you couldn’t see it even were it directly pointed to…sorry, that’s just how it is.

A fellow makes this note:  “For many years the certainty and finality with which past masters spoke of ‘sleep and awakening’ was to me clear evidence of their having achieved the supreme understanding.  But I have come to have doubts, and am near seeing the situation in the opposite.  It begins to feel to me that the speaking in such absolute terms about such a wondrous matter may be the unwitting admission of their failure to go as far as the journey offered.”

Those who have spoken and written in such terms may have, under their individual circumstances, experienced Satori, yet never understood what had actually occurred.

Amongst seekers, a man can pass for being enlightened, simply by never engaging in conversation with them.

A man can only pass for being enlightened to himself, by maintaining such a position relative to his own inner head voice.

It’s not where you know but when;
It’s not when you know but why, and
For Revolutionist purposes, it’s not the why.

J.

How to Run a Business

Don’t be a good consumer of caffeine advertising and believe that; “Sleep is good to the very last drop.”  Not getting out of that “very last drop” is what sustains the belief that you’re asleep.

One man says this, “Everything I see in Life now I also see as a metaphor for what I see in me, my brain/mind specifically.  This makes me wonder, when I reverse this, should I then be realizing that what I see outside of me are but metaphors for that within?”  And his pronouncement, of this poser, led one of his alter selves to make an admission; “Metaphor construction and considering is SO pleasurable to me that I wonder if I’ll ever stay in any state of permanent awakening?”  (And I would refer him to the earlier comment of the fellow how noted the desirability of being able to use his mind “solely” as an experimental laboratory.)

Anyone “serious” about achieving awakening, (“serious” as in gloomy…grave…mournful, woeful or totally somber), anyone “serious” about achieving awakening is seriously confused.

Behind the ventriloquist’s solemn countenance, the dummy should be grinning or else the act is already going nowhere.

How To Run A Business: 
Put the dummy out front.

 J.

Some Guidelines

A man writes to say: “After listening to you for some time now, and personally pursuing many of your ideas into useful realms, I have come to this present opinion:  even if I never do “wake up,” whatever that may actually be, I would be satisfied if I could simply learn to use my mind “solely” as an experimental laboratory.  (I find no fault with his observation if you understand the key word to be “solely” – “solely,” my friends – “solely” is the secret ingredient herein.)

Now I present for your consideration and potential edification The First Lemma Regarding Analysis of This Kinda Stuff: 
Continually scrutinize your models for flaws – for they are there.  Subsection:  If none are obvious, take some “fact” from your model and see what it might reveal afresh if its opposite were true.

As long as we are here; The First “Law-of-Laws” Regarding The Totality Of This Kinda Thing: 
No perfect models exist, and no “fact” is valid on its own, and even when it may seem to be, it is, perforce, within its place in the model, connected to other “facts” which are inapt and inefficacious.

This Gives Rise To:  
If it can be put in words – don’t rely on it.  At best it might be temporarily a useful schematic, but it will never be the machinery itself.

Here it seems appropriate to bring up another of the official “This-Kinda-Stuff” Guidelines:
If something strikes you as being relevant and useful, that has to do with matters outside of you, it can also be practically applied to those inside of you.

J.

To "Know Too Much"

If we lived in a different universe, the notion of enlightenment would be presented as existing in two separate forms:  The first would be in the great pleasure, that some receive in a lifetime of reading about it, thinking about it, and talking about it with other of a like mind.  The second form would be in the “hands-on” effort to actually experience it, and then to do so enough times to provide sufficient study material, by which to ultimately see the physical facts behind the concept of “enlightenment.”

There is nothing objectively wrong with enjoying the first form of thinking and talking about Satori, but neither should a person suppose that any harm will be done by him being aware if such is the-case-with-him.

A “little knowledge” can only hurt those who do not comprehend the nature of knowledge.

To experience enlightenment
 is to “know too much.”

To understand what enlightenment is, carries you far beyond the realm of merely “knowing too much.”  (You’ll have to figure this one out for yourself.)

J.

Simply Leave No Room

Question:

“If you’re enlightened do you know everything?”
“No, but you have no room for not-knowing.”

“Then, if you’re enlightened are you awake?”
“No, but you have no space in which to sleep.”

“Then if you know-the-secret, and know-what-you’re-doing, do you at least – know what you’re doing?”
“No, but at least you no longer attempt to light matches on the sun.”

Be like a good radio announcer and don’t allow there to be any “dead air time.”  You don’t accomplish this by filling up all available space with more talk and noise; you just scrunch up all that already there.  You simply leave no room for, “dead air.”

Question:
“Professor, let me ask you, “Is that allegory flawed?”
“You’re catching on, my boy, now what you need do is realize that the ‘flaw’ is inherent in having room in your mind for an allegory.”

“But Professor, they’re just words!”
“Exactly, my boy, squeeze out the very last drop of toothpaste from the tube, (and if it is interested), you’ll have an enlightened tube.”
(Or, you could say, that you then have a tube that will no longer think of itself as being asleep or deluded.)

All-In-All; Today’s Written Wrap-Up:

If you allow any room to exist between what you have heretofore considered to be, “you,” and whatever may be left in your mind besides that, the space will be immediately and continually filled up with – “being asleep.”  (Don’t ever say that I didn’t attempt to convey that which you can’t say.)

J.

Vive la Difference

For people like us, being asleep is bad enough – trying to awaken just makes it worse.

The Difference between a sleeping man and an awakened one is that an awakened man never thinks about being asleep, (or even better put):  He doesn’t have any room in his brain to think about being awake or asleep.  No unnecessary space = No sleep.

Be a pushy visitor at the Aquarium; keep your face pressed right up against the glass, and don’t let anyone or anything get between you and the tank.  If anything gets between your face and the glass – it’s your ass!  Be like a marriage counselor; reconcile the two parties.

Trying to awaken while replying on the wrong neural system, is like trying to train a dog to stay in its own yard while driving it away through your attempts to train it to stay home.

Compensate for your apparent lack of musical pitch, and if you ever finally get the thing in tune –“WELD IT IN PLACE,” and never screw around with the tuning again.

J.

Be an Anti-Inventor

Be an anti-inventor; don’t say: “I have an idea for a new product.”  Rather, take an opposite route and find an idea that will free you from your present product, which distracts you into thinking that your ordinary “mind-condition” is improper, unsuitable and unworkable.

Be efficient when you go and apply: Don’t squander your time; step right up the front of the line.  Don’t let that imaginary unnecessary “figure-in-you-mind,” stand between you and the counter.  Move in immediately and fill up that space normally present in your mind between you and the pay-off desk, an avoidable space that is the cause of your “application distress.”

In truth, there is nothing in your mind bothering you.  What is annoying is the gap that comes from you identifying, “you” as being something – somehow – apart from your regular old, everyday, ordinary mind.

(Mediation is not required for the enlightenment:  Simply use Alum.)

Be like a good newborn calf and stay as close to Mama’s side as possible.  Stick so close to the very thing in our head that you’ve been studying, and struggling with; that there is no room left to be asleep, deluded, or any other bad thing.  If you wander from home – you’ll feel lost.

Don’t worry about the “Ghost-in-the-machine” – throw yourself into the machine.  When there is no mental “you” left to achieve enlightenment – you ARE enlightened.

J.

Don't Buy Retail!

Using the wrong system to awaken is:
like taking on an unnecessary partner in a business venture;
like wearing padded mittens while manually examining an intricate object;
like acquiring a brother-in-law when you’re not even married;
like paying more for an item than the asking price;
like singing one song to yourself while trying to listen to another.

(Don’t buy retail; cut out the middle man and deal directly with the source.)

Being “asleep” is being, “disturbed-of-mind,” and this disturbance arises from a struggle between two neural systems for dominance of your consciousness, and “wanting-to-awaken” can only be cured by seeing this situation for yourself.

Obviously, no one else can “see” it for you, but not so obvious is that no words from anyone else will make it clear to you.  You must keep mucking about and stirring things up internally until you discover it for yourself.  (Be a good union/management bargaining agent and “bring the two sides together.”)

Some men claim to know that your enlightened mind and your ordinary mind are the same.  But what is not easily understood is that the mind always says, “this is NOT their ordinary mind,” and not realizing this is what keeps them believing that they’re in the dark and asleep.

J.

The Two Powers

Verbal rambling from a so-called mind wanting to convey something physically outside the scope of the mind, (but, be-that-as-it-may): 
As I so-call “convey,”
you so-call “give heed,”
and maybe something
of profit will occur.

As soon as you think or say anything about what’s going on in your mind, you move yourself a step away from any possibility of understanding what’s going on.

Two neural systems fight for dominance of consciousness and cause, what we call, “sleep.”

Don’t contribute to your plight; make an astute political move: “Cement relations between the two powers.”

Give up mirrors and realize:

My neural activity – I am it; nothing more or less than it,  at every instance.

Give UPS a challenge: Immediate, direct – ‘Home Delivery.’”

J.

Predictions

It is easier to feel confident in your predictions if they’re made while extremely pissed.

And yet another guy says we haven’t heard the last of him.  (Which only further erodes my already shaky support of man’s belief, that truth should, “will out.”)

This guy I know from another world, spent part of his last visit here checking out man’s literature, and became particularly interested in three dimensional, mortal concepts of life and death, and when he left he gave me his own little “poetic version” which reads, “Death is an immense journey, and life but a short stop at a wayside inn.”  (You don’t hear much insight and sentiment like that since everyone died.)

All kings know that humor can’t be jailed, fined or put on probation; it can only be executed and the sooner the better.

Incongruity is the soul of discovery…(unless you “know what you’re doing” and then you’re not going to discover anything anyway.)

Once a year, on the dot, at the spot, this one man would call all his children together and announce, “You’re not my children.”  (They and he were always greatly relieved and freed, and would celebrate with preemptive abandon.)

J.

The Immortals

The civilized do not actually fear even the most barbarous of opposing philosophies, but rather those murderers among us who have no philosophy.  (The hordes of yore and the armies of today have no common battle ground, and hence all terror seems compounded.)

And yet another “ole sorehead,” (but I must be totally forthcoming with you and note that he handed me a card that read, “I Am Not A Sorehead!” but nonetheless he said), “Life is an illness without a cause.”

The immortals
never think
to talk about it.

Even while lying in his own bed, in his own house by the shore, this one salty captain would hear the sound of the waves and think, “Ah, we make good time this night.”

In reconsidering the “ole sorehead with the card,” I am inclined to contribute to the sea of info for secondary swimmers by offering this expansion: “Life is like an effect without a cause.”

J.

Labels

I ran across this other fellow, who sometimes made sounds that had a vague whiff of the Revolution about them, and what he’d do was periodically jump into wild pig shit up to his neck, and then not mention it.

All labels are nutritious, especially those men help attach to themselves.

A chap, just over that-a-ways, complains that his brain has finally and completely, “eaten him up.”

Once you’re dead EVERY one can speak Latin.

Part of being properly intellectualized in City affairs is in the ability to promptly reject any easy, obvious solutions.

J.

Looking at This

One guy became so taken with the concept of “being civil,” that he would go out of town whenever he had to spit.

There are two ways
of looking at This.

Every time this one guy with ears would hear the term, “superfluous sarcasm,” he would think, “What a waste of perfectly good words.”

Those not born to the sorehead life, often times marry into it.

All wars are inevitable, all wars are necessary.

J.

Safari Outfitters

When means are taken to be ends, the Revolution is put on hold.

The outfitters for far distant safaris are always in your home town.  (Which is just as well.  Hey don’t you see any connection between this one and that other, do you???  Naw!)

One guy did imitations of dead people SO good…

One reason Life has provided Secondary institutions is so that therein men may collect and make local phenomena seem…seem, oh, I don’t know, somehow “more important.”

There are reports of a developing race, over on a young planet, who are able to “say what they mean.”  (I think it should be noted that this is through no fault of their own.)

If “common knowledge” actually meant anything, people wouldn’t call it common, now would they.

J.

Growth

All by himself, this one fellow developed his own amusing mode: whenever he was asked about anything he had ever said about anything, he would respond, “Well, you caught me – I lied!  Yes sir, I lied and you caught me, simple as that.”

The plans for Jakarta’s zoo, are always drawn in Oslo.

Yesterday one kid told his ole man, “Sometimes I think you are and I are the same entity.”  And the elder thought, “Some of these items get TOO close for their own good – or should I say, ‘MY own good.’”

The answer to a maiden’s prayer, (in the City), is always feminine.  (And of course, “Real men” don’t pray.)

Meanwhile, back over at the City University in a Sociology class, a professor concluded a certain segment by commenting that it seems most men must have some other outside group they can hate.  And an ole sorehead’s student son spoke up, “That’s not necessary in my case Sir – I have me.”

J.

The Stupid Wallbanger

Enthusiasm in Secondary affairs is not unlike sexual arousal in Primary ones.

In the Revolutionist “Developmental Chart,” there is a stage of growth singular to itself.  It notes not only a “time-by-which a kid should be talking,” but also a time-by-which one should shut up.

Every time you find out that some particular “thing” doesn’t really matter – everything else shifts.

One evening, during the recent Philosophers’ Convention over on the Pithy Planet, one chap climbed up on the bar and announced, “Leaving footprints on the beach is no proof you can swim.”  And his mates were so swept along with the thrill of the moment that they had the bar name a drink after their exuberant colleague.  It’s called the “Stupid Wallbanger.”

A City service is not useless or fraudulent as long as men still call upon it.  From certain hillside views, however, it can seem to have “overstayed its visit.”

 J.

Heat-Seeking Missiles

Whilst nosing around at the university Nosh Nook, a natty historian nodded to me and noted, “So many astounding things happened in the sixteen hundreds, that it became inevitable they have the seventeens.”

The original idea for heat-seeking missiles came from knowledge trying to find some thinking to think it.

In the City, remember this:

People always write about
what they don’t know about.

After years of exercise, experimentation, and just plain hard sweat, this one chap says he has perfected his attention and memory to the point that he can forge ANY thing.

In the City, those who think of only one thing at a time, can HAVE a good time.

J.

Myths Worth Retelling

For those of you still interested in such rumors, it’s said that they have eternity locked up in a closet just over the hill.

Laying down the daily paper, and turning off the TV, the kid asked, “Why do they call it the ‘news’ when there’s never anything new?”

I heard tell of a fellow so ahead-of-the-game that his thirst could be slaked by hearing the pouring of water.

Only stable myths
are worth re-telling.

One guy’s most common cry was, “Hey, there it comes again!”

J.

The Forgotten Education

As believed by certain ancient, yet old people – three is a magical number.  Point of fact:  Note how mysteriously, though nicely, this sentence itself regarding that wondrous number fits into three words.

Everyone had an early education they’ve forgotten about.

I hear of this one little progressive City in Anthrovia’s Galaxy, whereon they have made the “Torture Of Talent” at least a misdemeanor.

Things spoken of critically can’t be changed.

Things described as broken can’t be fixed.

The enjoyment of having a secret cannot be fully savored if yours can actually be discovered by another.

J.