The only rule is--there can be no rules. Our relationship while inquiring into the thought process must be unconditional and open, otherwise we shall not meet one another at the level of understanding. You may not agree with or approve of what you are about to read, but that is of no matter. I am not indifferent to your feelings; but for truth to emerge, it is important that one rise above the level of judgment and risk discovering that one's conditioned thought pattern may be invalid, merely an illusion. May I ask that you suspend judgment and quietly observe the reactions that arise within you in response to what is read. By doing so, you will gain insight into how your mind operates. Although the words are mine, you will be examining yourself. The beliefs from which you derive your security have been conditioned into you by society. It begins at birth and, for most of you, will end only at death. You have been conditioned to be a good, productive, respectable member of society, to fit in and follow the dictates of your leaders. You have been trained to think and live within this social, economic, and intellectual mind-set. This limited way in which you view things is where you find your security. It is also what separates you from others who hold a different viewpoint. This mind-set is the source of conflict that can be found in all of your relationships. It is difficult for anything to be perceived anew while holding on to this particular, exclusive mind-set. The degree of truth operating within you will show itself if you passively watch the fear, anxiety, and the resistance that arise within you in response to what is read. In the process of reading this book, you will be psychologically exposed to yourself.
Truth is the most powerful thing in existence. At the same time, it can be delicate and subtle. Whatever resistance that may be brought to bear against it, one finds that truth can never be destroyed or diminished in the least. Truth requires no effort to exist--It Is. It is not your truth or my truth; it cannot be personal. If it is, it is merely the idea of truth and therefore only an opinion or judgment. It is most important that you don't fall into the trap of assimilating what another says at the level of belief. This is not a work based in knowledge. If you don't see the truth for yourself, don't believe it! I, fortunately, am not an expert in anything. I have no credentials to display so that credence may be given to what is said, for that is the game of those who seek to exploit you. I have no measure of proof to offer toward anything that will be said. Truth can only be seen; it cannot be proven. Only the idea of truth is subject to the concept of proof. This subtle distinction is most important for you to understand. I am just another person going through life whose common sense has somehow remained intact in spite of the pressures of society that are common to all of us. It is most important that you keep this in mind; for as you read on, you may see how your life has been shaped by these same pressures. Understanding, having insight into these pressures, liberates one from the limitations imposed by society with its power to condition. Again, let me state that I am not an authority. This cannot be stressed too often, for there can be no direct communication of truth between individuals when authority is present. So, while reading this book, keep an open mind and pay attention to your own inner responses.
Nearly everything that follows may be considered to be outside the realm of what is thought to be normal. To determine what is normal, we must ask ourselves some fundamental questions, then sit back quietly and watch how our mind responds to them. Let's start with the questions: What is authority? What is understanding? What is energy? What is judgment? We must probe deeply into all of these things if we are to discover the barriers our mind sets up to prevent understanding.
Let's begin with the question of energy. What is it? Is energy not Life itself? Without energy could we think, work, play, or love? Without energy would we not be inert, immovable, dead? Every action taken through thought, word, or deed requires energy. Where does it originate? How is it initiated? One must ask these questions of oneself, for it is only from within that one comes to the understanding of true reality. What is real? What is not real? Energy is required to delve deeply within and penetrate the barriers created by the intellectual mind, the mind of opposites. When the limitation of thought is transcended, one enters the realm of the unknown, the nondualistic mind. This is where truth can be perceived. One can only see the truth, the fact, the "What IS." There is no opposite to "What IS."
We are born into this world complete, whole human beings. Our energy is intact, unfragmented, unlimited in nature. We are like a blank slate, and society begins to write: Thou Shalt... Thou Shalt not... You Are... You Are not... Society begins to shape you, to define you, to limit you. This goes on from birth to death, relentlessly. This is conditioning. It is imposed on us at all levels of our existence. It manifests in consciousness through one's parents, the family, our schools, the church, government, the work place, the country one lives in and one's own race. This is society. This societal relationship, structured in thought, is where authority is found.
What is authority? Is it not an outside agency perceived by one to have some measure of control over one's thinking process? Is it not one's idea of something that is relied upon for the sake of security? It may take the form of a person, an institution, a group, or even one's own projected thought (projected outwardly, then identified with). Is not authority the entity that makes you doubt yourself? Insertion of doubt by another is always limiting. It is the cause of fear, uncertainty, and confusion which can have a devastating impact upon one's mind.
It is a psychological fact that one is the master of his own destiny. It therefore follows that these limited thoughts which manifest as doubt need the infusion of one's own energy for their continued existence. When these conflicting thoughts are energized, one becomes fragmented out of his wholeness and suffers a loss of energy. At the same time, the energy-infused thought, the authority, gains in strength, in power, in ascendancy. Authority is truly an illusion. Our giving in to the power of authority in others, because they say they know and will solve our problems, is the very source of our suffering and confusion.
Let us examine the relationship you have with authority. Authority creates a doubt in you. You give in to it. In the next moment, for life is found only in the moment, you are caught, held fast to the authority through your doubt. You have just entered into the relationship of behavior modification with the authority. The authority panders to your confused state while it guides you toward the behavior it desires through the positive reinforcement of praising your strength, courage, patriotism, loyalty and faith. You will notice that all of these things are accomplished through suggestion or threat. This results in the application of psychological pressure upon your consciousness. Your energy has been extracted through your doubts, and you are thrown into a state of confusion. As a result of being blocked from any clear action, fear takes over, bringing with it the attendant feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and ultimate despair.
Have you not, at some time in your life, experienced this and, with a sense of panic, found yourself turning outwardly in search of help, more often than not to the same entity that was the source of the pressure? So what are you given in return for the energy that was stripped away from you? A promise of a better life in this life--or the next? A more appealing concept in which to seek refuge? A symbol the mind can identify with and cling to for security? An idea separating you from others, creating the opposites of superior and inferior, identifying with one at the expense of the other? What nonsense!
How do we live a life of peace in a world of seemingly endless conflict? Is that a possibility or merely wishful thinking? Ask these questions of yourself, don't look to another for the answer. Self-Inquiry is the process where the understanding of oneself is the key to the understanding of others. This statement is absolute truth; for we are all one, are we not? This truth has been spoken of by others at different times and in different ways throughout the history of mankind. Unfortunately, only a few have been able to penetrate deeply enough to merge with the essence of the statement and extract its meaning. To the rest of us (who are trapped within our ignorant, limited thinking) this lack of understanding has resulted in the conditioning of the mass mind by those who seek to rule and exploit the lives of others.
Let's examine our minds together to see whether it is possible for us to live in harmony with all or whether it is only an illusion propagated by our minds. We said earlier that mind was thought, for without thought could mind exist? Our consciousness is the One consciousness of all mankind, past and present. You must see that where you were born geographically as well as to the particular family, race, or economic class to which you belong, are your own unique, peripheral circumstances. It is merely the starting point on your journey through life. These are the cards you were dealt and only you can play them. However, if we approach life while remaining on the periphery of our mind, spiritual progress will be blocked and understanding will not be possible. This surface, intellectual mind is the source of man's confusion. It is divisive and judgmental. It throws up obstacles, creates clutter, and exhausts itself with its busy-work activities (in its attempt to escape the pain of its existence). With this mind, we are all too familiar.
If we look at ourselves, actually observe what we are, now, in this moment, we can see ourselves factually. This is reality; this is the truth. The mind, however, is subject to conditioning. It is caught in time. It finds itself subjected to manipulation through the stimuli of outside pressure. It is conditioned into the state of becoming. It says I am this, but I want to be that. I am poor, but I want to be rich. I am sad, but I want to be happy. I am weak, but I want to have power. I am nobody, but I want to be somebody. Is this not the endless struggle of contradiction that is found when one is caught in the trap of becoming? This is the mind of duality. The mind of time; the mind of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. This is where the pain and suffering of man exists. It does not exist in this moment unless the moment is held captive by the time-bound mind, the mind of the past.
There are so many things that must be established before we can have a solid base for communication, otherwise we will not understand each other. The first thing that must be seen is that the conditioned mind is only an instrument. It is limited in nature, mechanical and repetitious in operation. This repetitive action of the mind is awakened in response to an outside stimulus. In other words, it reacts to an outside challenge. Thought can never create. It can only respond with knowledge contained in one's memory.
A distinction must be made between the mind and the brain. The brain is the material organism through which the mind operates. The brain is electro-chemical in nature and allows for the experience of thought, along with the transmission of those thoughts to other brains. There is but one mind. It is not your mind or my mind. It has been called the "Universal Mind," the mind of all men. The brain cells are merely the receptacles of past experiences and knowledge that form the basis for one's memory. In addition, the brain serves to regulate and coordinate the activities of the physical body.
One can see that the mind's psychological function is to respond to a stimulus, a present challenge. It meets that challenge by recalling a past experience or standard it has stored within its memory. Because the mind functions in fragments, it fails to see that it is attempting to meet a whole, new experience with its limited, old response. This inadequate response only causes more problems for the mind. Our educational system, our schools, have trained our minds to see life in fragmentation, to take one thing at a time, to be sequential in nature, analytical in process. Unable to see the whole and able to grasp only that part which is concentrated upon, the conditioned mind finds problems with most everything it perceives. In creating this compartmental thinking approach, our educational authorities have conditioned the mind into seeking solutions. One must see that the solution is only part of the whole, which is not apprehended and therefore overlooked. This "unawareness," or "unwholeness" of perception is the source of all problems experienced by the mind.
A problem arises when the pure perception of the moment is altered through one's judgment or interpretation. Such judgments are based in the recollection of past experiences found in the intellectual mind. The newly interpreted perception of the moment becomes the thought of that observation and instantly creates the time-bound reality of yesterday, today and tomorrow. If looked at quietly, the mechanism creating this time-bound reality can be seen operating quite clearly. Such silent observation dissolves the walls that are erected by the mind. These walls of partition create compartments of thinking which divide us from one another and separate us from our wholeness of being. This quiet watchfulness is passive awareness, akin to the meditative state, the state of nothingness, the state of aloneness.
Before we continue, a word must be said about judgment. How does it fit within the perception process, and what are its effects upon the mind? Please follow this carefully. There is perception, observation, contact is made with the fact through the sensory organs. Sensation arises, which is the response to the challenge. Thought enters in the form of naming or categorizing that which is perceived. Thought, being a response based in memory, draws upon similar experiences and standards gathered in the past. This is the moment of judgment. A slight turn is taken by the mind, twisting the direct perception of the moment into the thought of that which is perceived. In doing so, a partial reality is created; an alternate reality which is confused for the true, direct perception. It splits the wholeness of the moment into the judge and the thing to be judged. It creates a schism, a dualistic reality, which is the cause of one's inner conflict and contradiction.
If one were able to stop the process at the level of direct perception, prior to the naming or labeling taking place, judgment would not manifest in one's consciousness. The normal psychological state of duality would not come into existence. One would be living in the moment, in the now. Living in that moment, conflict does not exist. One would be living freely, wholely, honestly, clearly, simply, in the moment. Contradiction is created when separation occurs, splitting the one into fragments. One, being holistic, indivisible, has nothing to struggle with. It must be split into fragments for conflict to arise. It is this dualism that is the essence of conflict.
At this point, a distinction must be made between the psychological and technological aspects of the mind. The operation of thought creates confusion, clutter, and conflict in the psychological mind, yet it functions quite well in the technical area. The mind is absolutely necessary for us to function technically in this world. We must use our memories to do our jobs, to recall directions, to drive our cars, to cook our food. The simplest of mechanical things would be impossible to undertake without memory. All mechanical matters are technical in nature. This is the mind's proper place. However, in the realm of self-image dangerous games are played which wreak havoc in our lives. When a mechanic, an architect, or an engineer, responding to the demands of his self-image, ambitiously goes beyond the limited function at hand, he steps into the psychological realm when he perceives himself, through comparison with others, as being the best in his chosen field. This places him into a competitive relationship with all others who perform similar, technical tasks. This pulls him away from his holistic state, his atoneness with all. This is where the mind creates the alternate reality which inflicts psychological conflict upon itself.
Competition is the conditioned way of life that is the demand of our modern society. It creates specialists. It leads to expertise in a very narrow, limited field. This field is then exploited for one's own self-aggrandizement, status, pleasure, prestige, or for some other advantage, usually at the expense of someone else. This conflicted, competitive spirit is the very nature of violence. When one deals with the "What IS" directly, factually, there is no conflict. Everything is in its proper order. Only when one separates himself psychologically, competitively, does intrigue enter one's life. Thus the competitive schism that is formed makes life a painful struggle for the ego. It can be seen that the experts--people who "know," who derive power, prestige, and status through their expertise or talents--are unbalanced people.
Let's look at it this way. All living persons (relative to their environment) excepting those who are limited by physical or mental illness or handicap have sufficient energy to live a balanced psychological life. Yet, when one's energy is directed into a narrow channel of activity, proficiency soon develops, followed by a sense of empowerment. From such power, one derives a great deal of pleasure. However, the rest of one's life is lacking. There is a measure of self-gratification that is enjoyed from the benefits accrued to one's narrow field of expertise. In that, addiction to the activity develops. One has been seduced into the trap of expertise. The psychologically addictive hold that expertise has on the mind is the source of imbalance to the rest of one's life. When balance is lost, fear takes over. One fears that he may be outdone competitively; he fears the loss of approval from others regarding his work; in later life, he fears the loss of his talent, energy, and his acquired expertise which he has sacrificed so much for and relied so greatly upon.
Fear prevents us from dealing with the unknown, which is life as it actually is. It blocks our path, preventing us from proceeding further. It engenders inertia; it causes us to cling to the known, the limited, the secure mechanical, habitual existence that we mistake for living. This too, however, evokes further fear as one deeply feels that there must be more to life than what is manifested. Is this not the pain and sorrow of life that is the trap of existence for most people? Psychological fear is always a sign of a conditioned state of mind. It manifests itself as ego. The ego is nothing more than the selective thoughts that one holds on to for the sake of security and permanency. It is caught in fantasy when it seeks to perpetuate itself through the illusion of permanency. This inclination of the mind to make the illusionary and transitory appear to be permanent is the greatest source of fear for the ego. It will resist anything that threatens to expose it or end the illusion. This is the intellectual mind's fear of death to its own limited, repetitive activities.
The man Jesus talked a great deal about the limitations and sorrow found in the intellectual mind. He explained how the mind, with its affinity for confusion, was the ruler of the civilized world; how this plane of existence was actually a place of learning, a way-station they must endure before returning to their true home; how the world offered them the opportunity to transform their dead, limited, conditioned thought patterns into the life-giving energy of Love through the understanding of their interactions with one another. Although His simple words were spoken to a simple people, the profound impact of their truth can still be felt today. He spoke on occasion of the "blind leading the blind." The meaning of this was missed by the multitudes but was heard by those who were open and ready to hear. Although many myths abound of His ability to heal the sick, it was merely the truth of His words that returned an afflicted one back to his wholeness--his understanding. Since truth and life are eternal, they cannot be confined within time. The living truth spoken by anyone in the past is as true this moment as it was then. With that in mind, let us look at the meaning of Christ's illustration of the "blind leading the blind" and "the dead burying the dead." As stated earlier, life and truth can be found only in the eternal moment, now, which is outside the limitations of a time-bound mind. As such, it has no beginning or end. Living truth can only be seen in the moment. One cannot think and experience truth in the moment, as thought is not to be found outside of the mind. If one is living in the mind, in one's memory, one is living in the past. The past is a dead thing. Clearly, one who is living in the mind is unable to see the truth and is, therefore, both blind and dead.
In His speaking, Christ revealed the ways to the deeper, nondualistic levels of the mind and beyond, the levels of understanding and Love. One such quote pointing to the deeper, nondualistic level of mind can be found in the statement "Except that Ye come as little children, Ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." This clearly points to the fact that children have not yet been fully corrupted in their thinking (through conditioning) and are still free, honest and unencumbered in their perceptions and actions. Unfortunately, this state of grace is soon lost as the child is inexorably drawn into the thought structures of adult society.
To the adults of His time, who were already trapped by their conditioning, Jesus spoke of dying to the past, putting an end to their conditioned state of mind and being reborn of the spirit. In doing so, He clearly showed the way to salvation. He cleared a path for those who were able to see. He pointed to the transition that must be made from the intellectual mind of opposites to the nondualistic state of wholeness, of oneness. He showed them the way to the state of being that transcended the limitation of the mind. This was the promise of life everlasting that could be found in the vast unlimited, unknown--beyond all parameters. Certainly when the mind's barriers have been transcended, one is living in a state of infinity, without beginning or end. In this dimension, one is living a loving, timeless existence, not bound by convention, yet living peacefully, effortlessly, cooperatively, coexistent with it.
These truths have been spoken of by men of understanding throughout the ages. Unfortunately, the expression of it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. The peripheral idea, the words used to encapsulate the essence of these truths have been subjected to the limitations brought about by the particular cultural influences and expressions of the time. As a result, the truth has been interpreted in different ways by those who hold power over the mass mind. These leaders, religious and political, have caused a great deal of confusion by dividing people over whose way was the only way to Truth, to Heaven, to Nirvana. One can see the enormous power that leaders have secured for themselves through the use of this psychological device.
To understand how the power and influence of the illusion has been allowed to hold sway over the mass mind for all these centuries, and remains intact even to the present day, one must carefully examine the mechanism of our mind's capacity for identification. If you delve deeply enough into your mind, you will come to a point of emptiness, of nothingness, a void which evokes a reaction of fear. The deeper the penetration into the void, the greater is the fear. This occurs because we are all conditioned to time, to the state of becoming, to be somebody. Since we are conditioned to seek pleasure and avoid the pain that accompanies fear, we find that we are seduced by almost any diversion which will allow us to avoid facing our own emptiness. It is rather an easy step for one to take by identifying himself with something larger, greater, or grander in scale. Is this not the very essence of self-expansion? This fear of helplessness, of insecurity, can be covered up with the simple identification with a family, a group, a political party, a church, one's race or country. Something, anything, that can be perceived to be greater than oneself.
Can the truth be known if it is beyond the limitations of the mind? If it can, how does one come to it? To investigate anything we must meet it with a clear mind, free of any preconceptions or bias that would either color or prejudice our observations. In other words, our minds must be unattached and objective, free to look, able to move quickly, adjust subtly to the moment. How is that possible, you ask? The answer to that lies solely within you. If your conclusion is that it is not possible, you have already blocked yourself from further exploration. You have effectively trapped yourself within the limits of your intellectual mind, which is the realm of the possible, the repeatable, the predictable. Your own limited ideas, found at the intellectual level, make up the mortar you use to build the walls of obstruction, isolating you from others, keeping you inside your wall. It prevents you from exploring into the deeper levels of your mind and beyond. You've lost the ability to penetrate, to probe any deeper. It makes truth unreachable. Truth can only be found beyond the mind. Only the idea, the reflection of truth, the image of truth is held within the walls of the mind.
If, on the other hand, you determine that it is possible, you find yourself in the same place, do you not? You're still trapped in the realm of the limited, the possible, the predictable, that which is the comfortable known of the intellectual mind. Isn't that the essence of duality? You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. One must have the energy to see what truth is not and negate it, let it go. This, in essence, is the dying to the known.
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