More re:
        You consist of: WHAT-YOU-ARE,
           concurrently combined with:
           WHAT-YOU-THINK-YOU-ARE.
 
 

What-you-are equals: how-you-feel, and
what-you-think-you-are equals: how-you-think;
 the ramification of this being that 
you can know something to be so, 
but feel so yucky that the knowledge is rendered momentarily irrelevant.
Thus, for the few, the practical result is: 
               You can know enough to BE awake, 
                yet because of how you feel,
                not be able to make use of what you know.
 

                          Shocking but true,
                          shocking but not true,
                          true but not shocking,
                          true but not true, (and as always): 
                          neither here nor there for a grizzly bear.
 
 

Everyone is comprised of what-they-are, and: 
what-they-think-they-are,
and what you are is evidenced primarily in your health, gait, and temperament, and from ordinary minds’ views is totally genetic and inalterable,
while what-you-think-you-are is, 
by common conclusion,
post natally acquired inclinations that are purely experientially based, and therefore malleable.
 
 

To routine minds, this picture is satisfying, 
and makes all the pieces fit --
but it is just attractive bullshit;
a schematic for an ESP driven, brick dirigible.
 
 

Standard issue intelligence tells its mortal hosts that men acquire a public persona that is solely fashioned by the influences of other such hollow shells, 
and which, to varying degrees, 
has little to no relevance to the person’s 
innate individuality, and which eventually -- 
--  to the person’s great loss --
overwhelms and snuffs out their true essence.
Again, a most pleasing linguistic diagnosis,
but like all maps,
one which when closely examined, does not --  cannot
adequately match the physical reality of the landscape.
 

Mundane men muse: “I may not be able to effect the shortness of my stature, but I can change how I feel about being so,” or say to another: 
“You should not be so timid; there is no need for it; simply exert yourself and stop it” --
all being pleasing assurances that even though you cannot change the complexion of your skin, 
you can -- your sense-of-self.
A pleasing notion, but one which if passively accepted
results only in disorienting a man who
seeks-the-understanding,
for the idea is the mother of all speciousness.
 

Ventriloquists’ dummies do not teach themselves
to speak;
and Zeus did not overthrow Prometheus 
without human help; 
and Delphi’s Oracle didn’t have a single good idea until the Greeks built her a place to stay, 
and the human cortex does not coach itself 
into producing thoughtful consciousness
any more than the eye invents sight.
What do you say to all of that?! --  whatever your 
stomach/spleen/pancreas/liver consortium
directs you to say  --   that’s what .

Fans of enlightenment who have 
never been in the game
believe that the state is something that is:
              experienced once  --  permanently in place!

Unwaveringly do their minds weave dream scenes of 
a man-with-the-understanding being 
totally & forever free from the mundane restraints of  mortal life, and the routine restrictions of the flesh.
Ah, those  most excellent dreams: 
a man of enlightenment: walks on water; 
heals the sick; reads minds; predicts the future, 
and is recognized and honored wherever he goes, 
and lives naked in the snow -- suffering ne’er a sniffle   --   but above all:
their conception of an enlightened man is one who never ever again, feels as crummy as they do, 
(whatever be their particular form of crumminess).
Such people are evidencing no more insight than 
run-of-the-mill clothed primates;
they are still listening to their own,
it-was-here-when-I-moved-in consciousness,
which relentlessly speaks of itself as being something apart, and separate from the body in which it resides;
it thinks about itself  --   aloud  --    in your brain  --
as being something entirely -- ON ITS OWN,
after all, 
it can think about Monet….or it can think about Degas,
while the lungs can only breathe air, 
and not carbon monoxide.
Because of mind’s ability to think  about this,
or to think about that  --
it conceives of itself as being literally free, 
as compared to the remainder of man,
but never considers that its freedom is confined to 
meaningless areas.
You may certainly enjoy painting,
and The Impressionists, 
and personally favor Monet above the rest, 
but such preferences are vacuous, (particularly if compared with what enters your lungs), and even if such mental prejudices are  taken solely on their own
they are still without literal significance in a man’s ability to physically live out his days. 
 

The public, visible self of a man who loves art 
may be based on his, 
thinking-of-himself-to-be-a-recognizable-man-of-the-arts
regardless of his height or complexion;
his mind may easily believe that he is the cultured, genteel persona he displays verbally, in dress,
and in demeanor,
regardless of what contrary feelings may in him, permanently reside.

       Not all ventriloquist dummies dressed in tails
                      are operated by gentlemen.
 
 

Those who seek the understanding,
and carry on the search above the kindergarten level of looking for it in behavior,
beat themselves about the head,
(which is to more accurately say),
their own consciousness berates, condemns,
and beats its own self about the head --
--  and for what?  --
according to common, “enlightened thought,”
the consciousness of the few condemns itself for 
not being IN an enlightened state.
As dictated by its operational construction,
consciousness only exists and manifests itself through
its perceiving of itself as being separate from everything else.
There simply is no consciousness without consciousness OF something else.
Consciousness in man exists to look at the physical world as a thing totally apart from the consciousness doing the looking.
It is only via this approach that man ever thinks about reaching out, and altering the materials that 
naturally make up this planet 
in ways that better suit his needs,
and offer him pleasure.
The only evidence that consciousness even exists 
is in its feeling of being something totally 
separate from whatever it is being conscious of.

Consciousness looks at a bamboo shoot and says to
itself, (without having to actually say it): 
“That tall, thin, yet strong plant is not me. 
I could cut it down and do with it whatever I please --  --  since it is not me. 
I could fashion it into a pole with which to catch fish, 
or into a spear to kill deer,
and thus more efficiently feed myself.”
No animal without consciousness has such a relationship --  a detached relationship -- 
with their environment,
and patently, no creature thrives as does man 
as a result of him feeling --  via consciousness --
separate, apart, and individually distinct from the physical world around him.
 

While consciousness' perception of itself as being something different and separate from the objects in the outside world, (not like the instinctive reaction of other animals which is to unanalytically treat those things in their environment which sustain them as though the sustenance, and the consumer are one, and to unthinkingly ignore everything else as though it had no existence),
serves well regarding things tangible,
it does not fare so well when turned in 
the other direction.

In that the basis of consciousness’ operation is its 
instinctive feeling of separateness from whatever physically is the focus of its attention,
it cannot suddenly, or simply abandon this programming when it turns its spotlight on matters that are intangible, (primarily speaking) -- 
--  when it turns its attention on itself.

(Amongst the ordinary this results in such fantasia as:
religion; philosophy; psychology; literature; literary criticism; cinema, and the cell phone phenomenon.)

Consciousness can only think about itself as it being something that is somehow separate FROM, and
other THAN itself:
a notion which , when put to paper, is ridiculous,
and  yet, 
if you but check in your own head you find that
this is undeniably the way consciousness 
looks at itself ......whenever it tries to  --  look at itself. 
 

                 There it is and there it is.
What-you-are, (which is physical and inalterable),
has no image-of-itself;
does not think about itself,
has no verbal consciousness of itself,
while what-you-think-you-are -- 
which seems to consciousness to be otherwise --
is only daisies in the flower bed of the former.

What-you-think-you-are grows entirely from the soil of
what-you-are,
and a drab land the latter would be 
were it not decorated by the blooms of consciousness.
 

What is of unaccountable benefit for a person seeking the understanding is a clear personal realization that:
You are a combination of: what-you-are, and:
what-you-think-you-are --  and that:

what-you-are equals: how-you-feel, and:
how-you-feel is: what-you-are, and
what-you-are equals: what-you-think-you-are, and: what-you-think-you-are has nothing at all to do with
                            how you feel.
 
 

Just because you have had real glimpses of what is actually going on in life does not mean that temporary indigestion cannot render you again, blind and ill tempered,
(which put more accurately would be to say: 
“Allow you again to BE your naturally blind, and 
ill tempered self.”)

He who says: “I could not help myself” is a fool;
he who says: “I could have acted otherwise” 
is the fool’s twin.
Only consciousness talks about consciousness,
and if it knew anything in the least worthwhile about itself --  would you not have had the answers to everything ten years ago? 
Everyone would have…….but no one does,
(leastwise none of those who say that they are,
this-kind-of-person, or that-kind-of-person;
the voice in a man which makes such statements
has no more idea what kind of person the man really is
than it does of what’s beyond the edge of 
the universe.)

Don’t keep hanging out, and listening to idiots --
you see where it has gotten you thus far. 
(No profit in being upset by them either;
just give up political news and pick up on Mozart;
turn off your phone, and turn on Verdi,
and above all: quit treating the voice of your own 
consciousness as though it means anything.
If it really knows anything, and has any potential to help in this curious activity, 
ask it to explain this one statement for you: 
“There is only one thing to know, (which is): 
         I only have only one mind, and it knows nothing.”

                                         J