Long before it had a public face, and had contracted religious & metaphysical connotations,
the activity that was:
Zoroastrianism, Yoga, Taoism, The Mysteries, Buddhism, Zen, Cabalism, Sufism, (and their many offshoots),
was known to its few actual practitioners
by its real name:
You Either Are, Or You Aren’t:
You Either Understand, Or You Don’t,
which, even though it said it all,
still said more than was necessary,
in that a smile, a wink, a finger in the air
covers the subject quite nicely.
 

Even though every culture, every period in history has its version of a teaching dedicated to achieving 
a state of consciousness, and understanding 
which its proponents find preferable to the one that comes natural to man,
in truth, no such teaching exists, nor is possible.
There is no teaching, no method by which to 
make a person directly aware of the one simple fact that is the actual basis for all the activity mentioned,
for the fact is the anti matter TO the matter of
all ideas devoted to its discovery.
Like looking for a light source, 
and employing the blindfold approach.
 

You cannot be told that which reveals the 
impotency of words,
and there is nothing you can learn concerning the
illusion of knowing.
 

Not due to stupidity, nor nefarious schemes,
but due to the inability to directly confront this 
mental situation have men unwittingly conjured up the concept of , ”Teachings” related thereto,
for once you have a teaching,
there is something to confront  --  The Teaching.
 
 

As is clear to everyone:  to study physical objects outside of yourself, what you do is --  look at them,
look directly at them,
but when men attempt to study that which is 
inside of them, and which is not physical,
clarity is replaced with distortion, 
and of such quality as to go undetected. 
 

The eyes and mind of a man can look at an object
he finds, and thereby learn something of its structure and nature,
but when he looks inward, he sees only by the mind, 
and since, (regardless of what else he may call it), 
it will be the mind that he will be attempting to look at - --  he has a problem,
but one of such singularity as to pass unnoticed.
Men continue trying to look at their mind with their mind, with none ever being the wiser of the folly.

 
But with the few who not only want to know the mind, but who want to know the secret of improving it --
their predicament is magnified.
 
 

The mind cannot directly study the simple, secret fact,   (which is the exposè & butcher of all study), 
so the mind invents --  then studies 
a teaching about the fact.
    “Never look right at the sun,” ‘tis said: 
    “Catch it in a mirror, and study its reflection”  -- 
      --  and there you have it: 
      “To see the light  --   Study a teaching.”
                  Cover your eyes with words.
 
 

There is no way in which a person could ever even get started in this sort of activity without initially finding, and adopting a teaching about it that feels right to him;
it is unavoidable …………..and FUN!
The mind is constructed to learn --  it wants to learn,
and when it is not so engaged with physical objects
outside of itself,
it will turn its hunger to learn inward  -- on itself,
and on those non-physical affairs fabricated by other men’s minds in their leisure time.
It is pleasurable to the mind to be engaged in 
any sort of apparent learning, 
but when it begins to deal with non material matters that it itself created, 
and which cannot be sensually experienced,
it loses all objective perspective, and is able, 
(and just as likely), 
to treat ideas concerning the causes of 
The Renaissance with the same seriousness it would 
the reasons for 
Dallas’ domination of the NFL during the ‘70’s.
 

         When it comes to matters that are strictly mental,
                  the mind is strictly --  indiscriminate.
 

A man may sincerely study a teaching that talks about the secret, but he will not be studying the secret. 
He may carefully peruse words about the understanding, but the understanding has all words for lunch.
When the mind looks away, (which is to say):
away to a teaching  --
away to words --  to any teaching, to any words --
--  even those about itself  --
it looks where nothing of any benefit lies;
it indeed looks where nothing exists 
concerning itself 
save the dreams that it, and its ancestors have fathered.
 

A ship shape man is not discouraged at all by this --  what would be the point?! 
What he would do is consider:
”If this description of what I am interested in 
is accurate,
what does it offer to reveal to me about the 
true nature of my interest, and how, most efficiently,
to pursue it?”
That is what a land loaded man would ponder:
”Why does the achieving of this goal seem always just beyond my grasp --   just beyond?!
And why do I constantly feel that I almost know the secret  --  almost?!?
Always – ‘just beyond,” and --  ‘almost’….
is there something obvious, and important 
that I am missing here?!”
This is what a galactic geared man would be asking himself --  the eternal --  the cosmic --
the infinite and infinitely delectable question:
”Who is it in me at this very moment that is 
asking: ‘Who is it in me at this very moment that is asking…?”

       He who gets to the bottom of this --
                       understands it all.
                       

                                              J