People feel they are being forced to wear a disguise.
 

Though not a common topic of conversation, 
if asked about it, 
people will say that they are not allowed to --
-  be themselves.
They believe they are being coerced into pretending 
to be people they are not.
This feeling is historic, and world wide,
and gets symbolical airing in man’s myths, religions, 
and notions of political conspiracies.

Aside from perfunctory mumblings about, 
“social pressures concerning morality”
people are unable to identify who or what it is
compelling them to act unnaturally,
nor can they enunciate in a way they find satisfying 
exactly what they would be like if they were freed
from this forced play acting.
But what people do feel most clearly & adamantly is that they are being forced to wear-a-disguise,
and not allowed to be themselves.
 

While there continue to be situations where in 
a people, under physical threat, 
are forbidden to speak ill of their, "Great Leader,"
and are strongly encouraged to display 
public affection therefore,
even so, in their private lives they still feel that 
above noted restriction, quite apart from any 
prevailing political ones.

        This feeling of being forced to live in disguise
  is something totally detached from external conditions.

If two people were dropped on a deserted island,
they would both still feel victim of this coercion.
Even in such extraordinarily unstructured circumstances where in there is no enforceable law, or morality, and no rational expectation of  any such being adhered to, 
they would yet feel themselves unable to simply, 
and forthrightly --  be themselves.
(This is not a speculation: be honest, and think about it yourself for a second, and you know that it is true.)
 

Whatever it is that makes people feel that they are being forced to wear a disguise,
and that keeps them from being themselves,
it is not physical, or overt -- 
and as far as ordinary people are concerned -- 
neither will it ever be correctly identified  --
…it’s just a feeling!
    …a feeling they learn to live with,
(or else get squashed-by,or separated-from the herd.) 
 

From one view, the desire for the understanding
is a desire to just --  be yourself,
but the very thing that causes people to feel unable to just be themselves
is also the thing responsible for trying to 
fulfill such desires in humans,
and its instinctive approach is one of --  acquisition.
Its response to any new demand is to seek 
additional information --
information to help plan strategy to meet the demand. 
This all goes well regarding physical matters -- 
outside a man,
but when it concerns one residing solely within a man --
--  things do not go so well.

By this approach  --   does this thing, (mind),
in the attempt to help a man shed the disguise,
in essence --  bring him additional ones.
Every time a man thinks about being free of this 
coercive force, (mind)  --   he reinforces its hold.
Each dream of its overthrow 
further subjects him to its tyranny.
 
 
 

Everyone who has mind ---  wears-a-disguise;
and no one who has thoughts is allowed to just -- 
be themselves  -- 
--  that’s the whole point of the arrangement! 

To understand this is to:  have-the-understanding! 
To not understand this is to:
have routine thoughts; 
wear a disguise; 
feel like you’re not being your real self, 
and be just generally irritated.
 

                       No need  --   no need.
 
 

                                      *
 
 

Everything that bothers you is make-believe,
caused by mind;
when you do good, it is make-believe,
caused by mind;
when you do ill, it is make-believe,
caused by mind;
when you sow, it is make-believe,
caused by mind;
when you reap, it is make-believe,
caused by mind; 
when you are confused, it is make-believe, 
caused by mind;
when you are certain, it is make-believe, 
caused by mind;
when you are asleep, it is make-believe,
caused by mind, and when you are awake
it is also make-believe, and flies on mind.
 

                      No way in,
                      no way out,
                      that’s what mind is all about.
 
 
 

                                               *
 
 
 
 
 

How To Recognize: the understanding: 
              It destroys whatever it touches.

….(thus, thought’s difficulty in grasping it).
 
 

There Are Two Possibilities: 
you can seek the understanding --   or
let your mind try it.

….(one of the 2 won’t work).
 
 
 

                                       J
 
 
 
 
 
 

…oh yeah, something else:
the supreme example of the “forced disguise”
is in feeling coerced to pretend to know things that
you don’t …...  in fact, if you want to know the truth,
this is the only aspect of the whole affair that has 
any significance to a man seeking the understanding.

The only difference between a man WITH
the understanding and those without it is that
a man with it doesn’t pretend to know things that 
he knows he does not know,
while everything that everyone 
without the understanding knows -- 
       --  they just pretend to know. 
 

It is more likely that you could dress up like 
Stalin-in-drag, and still “be yourself”
than for you to talk knowingly about things that 
you know you don’t understand, 
and not feel like a strange intruder in your own body.

Long before you got here, 
mind, man, and life was arranged so that,
almost as soon as their brain begins to 
produce thought,
people start pretending to know things that they
do not know.
Such is mind --  such is the power & TALENT of mind,
but it is a disguise, 
a costume men naturally wear that makes them appear, 
to themselves, and to each other, 
as more intelligent, at the moment, than they are.

A stunning, and generally useful talent --  except when blindly exercised by a man who wants to 
get-to-the-bottom-of-things --
for what IS at the bottom of everything is mind,
and you can never suddenly --  understand it
as long as you keep staring at its little fingers, 
waving in front of your eyes/I’s,
hypnotizing you into pretending to be a man who,
knows-what-he-is-talking-about.
 

Wake up! --  NO ONE knows what they're talking about --
--  that's what talk is for.

It’s  well past sunrise  --  don’t you think it’s about time to
get up,
take off that ridiculous pedantic disguise, 
and just be yourself -- 
--  a regular person who doesn’t know shit.
 
 

It’s never too late and it’s never too early --
it’s always  --  right now --
the only closing time possible for the costume shop.
 

Be a person who wears only one garment  --   
and internally  --
            --   be a person with nothing on.



Don't forget: The Open Door Policy,
and the fact that it doesn't matter if the
     Invisible Man (mind) is naked or not.