added Jan Cox Talk 2596 - summary included here
/Jan Cox Talk 2596 October 25, 2000 ( Go To Talk Page 2596 for Audio )
Copyright Jan Cox, Jan's Legacy 2008.
These notes prepared by TD & DC on 10/25/08 from audio file.
Suggested title: Thoughts are Solely Responsible
Note: These news items are not recorded elsewhere.
00:08 [Reads] There is a beautiful symmetry to life that ordinary minds never appreciate, e.g., those who believe themselves sharp are dumb; the vain, pathetic; would-be leaders, puddle lappers and the loud mouths have nothing to say; a beautiful but unseen symmetry. And look not for where the symmetry blooms, for it blooms within thee.
00:42 [Reads] As long as men have spoken they have believed there is a magic in words. With the ordinary, the magic is in words' ability to help coalesce the group and make the individual feel more a part thereof through their shared language and current empowering words and phrases.
01:00 [Reads] But with the few, the potential magic is antipodal: it is in their hearing just the right words that will cut them free from the confining sense of reality which is the result of a slavish nexus to the collective thought and talk of man.
01:23 [Reads] In spite of my having said that, thoughts are not actual things, from one view, the characteristics of thought are such that they should not be considered organic either. They do more resemble things than something alive.
01:45 [Reads] One man says, "The truly exciting thing to me about the future is that it is one of the few things that may be safely considered inevitable. And to me that is somehow comforting."
02:10 [Reads] As distinguished from his friends, one man would never say "I am asleep" but instead would say "My attic is crammed to the rafters with stuff."
02:28 [Reads] Another way to spot an awakened man is by the fact that he does not take seriously any of the things that everyone else takes seriously nor does he take seriously any of the things that they do not take seriously. And you might ask, "So, what does he take seriously?" And right there is yet another identifying mark: no one knows.
02:58 You could also apply that in a singular fashion to your singular self. What is seriousness? "Oh Jeeze, I've got better things to think about than that" should be your attitude toward the question that you ask yourself...ignore those questions the same way you would someone trying to stop you at the fair with a clipboard...I have told you how to handle that...
04:25 [Reads] Getting your hands on the secret, you discover it is one thing that repeated handling does not wear down.
04:39 [Reads] If other people are your problem, you're not close to awakening. If simply being alive is your problem, you're not close to awakening. If you are the problem, you're a little closer -- but not much.
05:02 But notice immediately how many people laughed and responded like "Well, thank God we're getting somewhere." And I knew you were going to be embarrassed...being the trained comedian that I am, I know about timing...
05:30 [Reads] Thoughts will often invent a persona for activity they dislike. For instance from their dislike for uncontrollable drinking, they invent "the demon of drink". And from their dislike of not existing they invent "You".
05:57 The magic in words...you hear words..."...the last time I was in Rome, I was out for a stroll past the Colliseum," and you see in your mind right in front of the Colliseum...and you do all that while having never been there. But you do all of that, it just happens. It's just triggered by the words...
07:20 ...even though I'm not a mind reader, and even though we're all stuck solely with only experiencing what's going on in our own brain, at least in this lifetime -- I feel sorry for people who believe in successive lifetimes. But then you might come back as somebody else's brain's idea of a "you"...I find that somewhat disturbing...I don't mind the idea of dying near as much as I do the possibility that I'm not really dead, and at some future time there's going to be another brain in another human, a different brain -- and I know enough; it's not going to be better or worse -- but what if you come back, not as a cow, not as a worm, forget all that shit!...If there are successive lives, you come back as a human...there is no greater punishment...but then again there is no greater reward...but anyway, what gives me the shudders -- unpainted at that -- but gives me the shudders to imagine, in another human in another life, I'm good and dead, fought the good fight, ran the good race as they say -- maybe they're just trying to make losers feel better...I would dread the fact of coming back...and there's another human at another time and their brain is putting out conscious thought...
10:05 When human thought personifies something...in some way...it will be something of which it disapproves...or which [it does] not comprehend...it will be one of those two things when you find that the human mind has personified some activity..."Oh Lord! Free this poor man from the evil, demonic spirit of debt!"...
11:26 Thought will often personify, put a persona on an activity of which it disapproves...if you're an alcoholic...your whole instinct, your physique, your somatic self disapproves of it...if you are fast-asleep enough then you have no idea that you're asleep...due to thought's disapproval of uncontrollable drinking, human thought has invented "the demon of drink"...religious people that deal in this, they actually mean it...
15:31 And due to thoughts' dislike of them not existing they invented "you"...to be able to observe it in such a way...I thought some of you might find it useful...thoughts have in a sense invented us, that is, each of us, the sense of "you".
16:14 They're solely responsible; without thought there is no you. Without thoughts you have no sense of you. You don't worry about an objective measurement or decision whether you exist. To you there would be no you because there is no you unless you think there's you. I mean, you could be lying there in a sweet-potato coma...people walking by...could attribute a you to you...
18:11 Do you realize that Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians, they've ridden that damn nag now for four thousand years. Anything you want to pick on, you go, "There is a sign of the final days. We've about had it"...It's always the final days.
19:17 Thoughts...are confronted with something they do not like...the human's thoughts were dealing with activity that the total person was engaged in that thoughts disapproved of...when I said uncontrollable drinking...from the thoughts' view, they could not stop the person from drinking, that they could not have enough effect...So [Thought thought] "Maybe if I personalize it, if I turn it into a persona as though it is something, an outside enemy...a virus...it took four thousand years...now being a drunkard is no longer a weakness; it's a disease...thoughts will invent a persona for something that it cannot handle, does not understand and of which it disapproves...I don't find that all that allegorical.
21:23 But then...what [thoughts] really, in a singular way do not like is the fact that...there's nothing there; there's nothing to them...to put it crudely, they don't exist...what would be the things that I would dislike most if they were true? Wouldn't not existing probably be at the top of the list?...
23:16 Sit there...and you think about being dead...and then try and think..."Okay, what?"...
25:47 Maybe what I've done is just irritate myself into greater states of awareness...
26:16 ...it's your thoughts at the moment thinking, "How could I think if I wasn't here to think?"
26:27 Thoughts...don't exist...and there are other invisible things that do exist. You can measure speech; speech physically exists...but there's one thing known to humans that all humans agree exists and that's thoughts...thoughts are probably of paramount significance in our lives. And yet by any standards we know...they do not exist...which makes it even more interesting because here I am dealing with them right this second. That is, it's thoughts...responsible for what I'm saying...for standing here denouncing them, denying their existence. And so obviously something is fishy to put it mildly...
28:52 What else could be more annoying than to be something, and to be something that's at the center of a whole world, a whole sense of reality and then look down and find out that you don't exist? What could you possibly dislike more than that?
29:25 They dislike so much not existing...thought has not been successful...in curing this activity that they don't like...in this case, their nonexistence...and so in response thereto instead of inventing the demon of nonexistence, or the demon of existence, they simply invented "you".
31:43 Under mundane conditions, "I" am a persona invented by my thoughts in reaction to the fact of them realizing they don't exist. Does anybody see how clever it's been? They've now shifted the onus to us. They've invented us and now we feel like it's our responsibility.
32:16 They don't exist -- let me see if I've got this straight now. Work with me here...You're saying that there's this activity that compared to every other activity...does not physically exist...You're saying that that thing that doesn't exist then picks out things that it dislikes...[one being] that it does not exist, and in some way that we can see in other areas, one of the reactions it has...it invented us, and now...each of us is all tied up in the fact, and the results...the end result is imagination that was conjured up by something that is illusionary. Have I got that straight? Is that what you're telling me? If so, I feel a great sense of relief.
34:31 I wanted to do the magical words...I very often in my head substitute "words" for "thought"..."Wait a minute. If I don't watch what I'm calling things, if I don't protect the knowledge I have now...I could lose it." Hug/slap...It's nice to get to the point that you can't lose anything...I could have a mini stroke now and not lose any of my wisdom...you could at least come and stand by my bed and look down at me and have the awareness that I don't understand any less than I did before the stroke...
39:17 There's always been a sense of magic in words...the beginning of every holy book..."The Word was God"...it's synonymous with consciousness, with thought...
41:03 People who are not religious even today -- people consider there is magic in words...
42:30 Words bind people as a group. [They are] the gluons of the common consciousness of man...an identifying cohesive element...words help coalesce the herd of humanity...
47:29 It's a steroid shot inside a shared language is to have this feeling of shared...insider terminology, the latest hip terminology...even if it's no longer hip to the real hip crowd...it is still acting as sort of a booster glue to hold some herd together...
48:25 The magic of words is to hold people together...it acts as a binding agent...wanting to awaken, what we're looking for is matching words that act as a solvent, not as a glue.
50:26 You are not necessarily trying to become antisocial...trying to strip yourself from the social herd...what you're longing for is to be released from this confining nexus, this natural connection that you have got already with the collective mind of man, the collective speech of man...Wanting to awaken, you're wanting anything but words that are magical in their reinforcement of your connection. What you're really looking for -- that's the idea of there being "secret knowledge"...what's going to be the secret? Nobody ever thinks about that...
52:26 Words cannot give the secret because...the secret has to do with stripping away the power of words. And so there's no way that words can say what the secret is.
52:46 If you can get a glimpse of what I...am trying to point out, you understand...the apparent difficulty, the elusiveness of what trying to wake up is. Well, once you get into it. If you just stay an amateur it's never elusive; it's all quite plain...come over here and join us; we know what to do...if you know what to do it's a sure sign you don't know what to do because you believe there's magic in words, and what I'm telling you tonight is the magic of words is really the magic [glamour] to blind you...it's the magic to make you belive...in concert with the rest of humanity...
54:56 ...it seems that there are some groups of people...that what they think...is somewhat removed, somewhat different from where you are. But I'm telling you if you look at it, people all over the planet are thinking as though they're part of one great brain...
56:03 In the secondary world, there could be no greater division...those who believe in an almighty...god...and those who say there is no god...there are the two extremes...That's not two of anything...They're both in the same herd...It's nothing. That is the common mind of man...there is one that's been going on...for several thousand years...you're talking about something that doesn't exist. It doesn't matter whether you believe in it or don't believe in it. You're talking about something that the mind made up to start with.
57:11 The point is the magic of words is that it holds everybody...together in the secondary world, even when they are apparently at odds...they all accept ghosts and shadows as reality. Their thoughts have invented a reality that they accept. Of course, their thoughts have invented "them" so I don't know how you think it's not going to accept the rest of its invention...
59:22 The thoughts are to hold things together. The thoughts are to hold an individual man to the herd...
61:36 Cells do not walk out of some organ...part of the magic of words is to make people believe that they should be stuck where they are; is to keep all the minds working in a cohesiveness...I tell you, there are six billion thought processes operating on this planet, and they are operating as one. People trying to awaken, they are the lone exceptions...
63:36 What we're looking for is magic in certain words...that's going to cut [us] loose from the herd...there is this thinking that is shared by the planet...and that's what we're struggling to get free from.
64:21 It's a power struggle -- which is another story...
