Notes on Jan Cox Talk 3177 by Cfish - The Three positions ( Sort of )
/Jan Cox Talk 3177 - July 27, 2004
Copyright Jan Cox. Jan’s Legacy 2017
Notes by Cfish October 2017
Suggested Title: The Three Positions of Consciousness (Sort Of)
Begin: Last time I was talking about the two positions of consciousness. (automatic mode/sleeping mode and the other mode/the awake mode) I was getting to the description of a sort of third mode or position.
But before I go there, there is another idea connected to it. The idea is that you cannot get gradually better at this. (waking up/the other position) And like any good statement, about any immaterial object, the opposite could be said.
So I could also say that waking up/enlightenment is a gradual process. But tonight, preferring to be truthful, you don’t gradually get better at this. You folks know you feel better after a few years of effort. (ex. self remembering)
And you feel like you are getting somewhere. But if you can look in a certain way, consciousness either naturally runs in automatic mode or it’s remembering to investigate consciousness running in automatic mode.
05:00 And by remembering to investigate the automatic running of consciousness, it immediately takes you out of the automatic mode into the other mode/empty box mode. So you are either in automatic mode or not.
Thinking that most/maybe all of you have yet to see it completely. Reads: “That everything that goes on in your consciousness under all ordinary conditions is totally automatic.” And it has nothing to do with you individually.
The automatic running of consciousness is just there. And with automatic consciousness, the unquestioned sensation is “this is me”, doing all this thinking, and the feelings that go along with the thinking.
10:00 Another way to look at the ordinary running of consciousness, is to look back at the memories of your internal life, (ex. intangible hatreds, prejudices, political beliefs,) and that it really hasn’t changed to any noticeable degree.
15:00 It’s shocking and discouraging, if you have the determination to keep looking, that your PHD educated, worldly and sophisticated mind is the same automatic running consciousness you had when you were a know nothing fifteen year old.
20:00 What goes on internally, who you are internally, (physically and hormonally you have changed) those beliefs and prejudices are still there. Seeing and realizing this is liberating and it spurs you on.
So you don’t gradually get better at this other mode/waking up. You feel like you do and I would not tell anyone after years of effort, they were not making progress. What happens is you develop three positions of consciousness:
The automatic/asleep mode, the other mode/awake mode, and then yet another mode/the third position. Not so much a third position, but a gradual shift in the relationship between the automatic/asleep mode and the other/awake mode.
25:00 It is not that you are partially in automatic mode or partially in the other mode, but something does happen and it gets harder to stay in automatic mode. Maybe its the idea that being a conservative is important in life. It becomes a ‘et tu Brutus’ moment. Enough of you chuckled at that that it makes me want to believe I made it clear. Automatic consciousness is just running as is proper for you genetically.
But it’s not personal. Over the years when you initially discovered the ideas of man is asleep and can awaken and the methods (ex. self observation, self remembering, counting breaths, etc.) all of these indirectly take you out of the automatic/asleep mode.
30:00 And put you into the other mode/awake mode. And it seems to be a running battle. You may even forget the other mode for days, weeks, or even months. But with the third position, its harder to go for even a day and not remember the goal.
35:00 The third position operates so that you go into automatic mode only briefly. The things your consciousness thinks about in automatic mode (ex. pontificating bullshit) are the very things that jolt you out of automatic mode.
Falling back into automatic is no longer the big deal it use to be because within a few seconds something in ordinary consciousness, something preachy, something judgmental, something dogmatic, jolts you out of it.
40:00 But not only does this sort of third position make “being asleep/automatic consciousness less annoying, it makes it more annoying. But it’s only worse for a split second. If you keep on with this, you don’t worry about being permanently awake. And I am not sure I would want that.
End 44:25
