Notes on Jan Cox Talk 3169 by cFish
/Jan Cox Talk 3169 - July 5, 2004
Copyright Jan Cox, Jan’s Legacy 2017
Notes by Fish July 2017
Suggested Title: Can a Heartbeat Wander Away from the Heart?
Begin: The last couple of weeks I have been describing things, that refer to the conscious areas of the brain, (where everything, not only the answers, but also the questions, exist.) in a physical way.
But I was again considering the metaphorical picture of the dog of consciousness/attention as being really yummy. Personally, I like my descriptions as literally as possible, but that is not always shared by everyone.
Several years ago I mentioned that attention was like a dog, and it was continually chasing carsthat drove by the house. Metaphorically, the cars the dog chased was the everyday stuff we see, hear, and read. (ex. TV news, etc.)
05:00 Ordinary consciousness could exaggerate their understanding of the dog in the yard, as their everyday attention. The ordinary could see the dog leaving the yard to chase cars as a metaphor for their attention.
But when ordinary attention is asked “what is their yard” (metaphorical dog’s yard) and if ordinary thought is still interested, I speculate the ordinary would say their brain. But is that the best description of “what’s going on?”
10:00 Can consciousness get out of your brain and go somewhere? Some mystics may bring up an “out of the body experience.” And to consciousness that picture does not cost anymore money than the question.
Consciousness at its most unruly doesn’t get out of your brain. Consciousness can picture earth from above but that’s because it has seen pictures taken from spacecraft. Consciousness can conjure up pictures from memory.
15:00 It’s not an analog or digital memory, it’s electrical and chemical energy. When ordinary consciousness says something is true, no matter how outlandish, who is in the brain to say “Hey wait a minute?” Nobody.
20:00 Don’t worry. I haven’t lost the subject. We are talking about the dog in the yard. Saying “this is what I think” is the same thing as saying they experience “out of the body” consciousness. But it’s just “out of the brain” consciousness.
Just like South American drug money is laundered, the brain launders the “out of the body” (ex. flying over a South American city) experience. The point: You better know what “your consciousness” is doing all the time.
25:00 Is there a difference between a spiritual dream you have, and thinking and saying it’s Cinderella, but the guy you are telling the dream to is thinking that sounds like Snow White? You can’t go wrong.
Back to the dog in the yard. The dog in the yard is not conscious consciousness. The dog in the yard is the consciousness people are used to. But it’s not your consciousness, anymore than its your dog, your thoughts.
Nothing in your brain is controlling consciousness under ordinary conditions. Your immediate response could be that maybe that’s not true. But if you keep looking (maybe with a wink) as often as you can, that alone will make a man realize everything.
It sounds correct, that the dog (attention) chases after sights and sounds continually, that it continually leaves the yard while chasing sights and sounds, and that if you keep it in your yard it is more or less under your control.
30:00 But it’s faulty symbolism. Your consciousness, your thoughts, never leave your brain. Your thoughts and consciousness can conjure up conversations, both real and imaginary, and it can picture places it has seen.
But consciousness never left the brain. The dog never leaves the yard. Even the ordinary may be able to see that ordinary thought is like an unruly dog (ex. “my mind wanders’) but it does not, cannot wander from the brain, the yard.
35:00 Consciousness cannot wander from the brain anymore than a heartbeat can wander from the heart. But something happens. So if consciousness/attention is not leaving a place, what’s going on?
I will tell you next time. I just wanted you folks to hear the question. If ordinary consciousness is out of control, (few folks admit it, ex. my mind wanders occasionally) and it’s man’s normal state, what does out of control mean?
40:00 If consciousness is needed for a physical problem, it is suddenly there. But when the mind wanders, it does something spatially somewhere. I hope I can come up with an answer next time.
End 41:25
