June
26, 2001.
This
thing of wanting to, “wake up”
& “be enlightened”
is truly, one-of-a-kind;
you
are either instantly drawn to it as soon as you hear of it, or you are
not,
and
it cannot be adequately explained, nor justified to those who
have
no natural interest in it.
There
is a point past which you cannot proceed in this unless you undertake your
own inquiry into exactly what this activity is actually about,
(which
is to say):
you
can never “wake up”
without a personal understanding of what
“waking
up” literally is;
not
what you have read, been told & believe that it is,
but
realizing for yourself the inner, physical circumstances from which
the
desire itself arises; what it signifies, and what its true goal is
in wanting to bring about a radical change in how thought takes place in
you, (and note):
comprehending
what “waking up”
is
is
almost as difficult as
waking up, (perhaps more so),
but
there is nothing: no teachings, no rituals, no exercises, or anything else
that
is anywhere close to this endeavor’s potential to
shake
you from your routine, frustrating state of consciousness --
nothing.
The
greatest difficulty in getting started in this investigation is that
everyone
involved with trying to “wake up
& be enlightened”
believes
they already know what it is:
”waking
up” is whatever the school/system/method
they follow
says
that it is -- and
in the beginning, it cannot be otherwise,
or
else no one would ever be able to
begin.
To
ever get involved at all in this unique adventure
you
must initially undertake to become some sort of, “something-or-the-other”:
a
Sufi, a Zennist, a Yogi, a Cabbalist, a Fourth Wayer,
a
follower/student/practitioner of some externally identifiable group
that
proclaims its goal to be,” The Awakening”;
they
may call it by a different name, but what motivates such people
all
over the world & throughout history is always the same thing:
the
reality of what it is lies solely in the brains of such people,
and
regardless of their race, culture, religion, or any other condition
--
--
this is the constant,
and
therein is where the secret to awakening resides,
and
therein is precisely where the brains of men are not wont to look.
Understand
clearly, so as to not waste energy in erroneous criticism,
that
the various systems & schools dedicated to Awakening are in no way
at fault, for they themselves are all products of
the human brain,
and
thus have the same characteristics as their founder,
and
in the instance just noted, suffer from the same limitation:
the
disinclination, (or natural inability), to look-at & comprehend itself.
There
is no human conspiracy trying to keep you from “waking
up;”
no
evil-inspired gurus/teachers whose only purpose is to mislead you;
there
is simply the hunger the brain has to understand itself, (to wake
up),
and
its inherent physical disability to even directly -- study
itself,
(to
grasp the reality of what, “being asleep” is,
behind
that most captivating phrase that it
made up).
It
is your brain and your brain alone that wants to,
“wake
up -- be liberated & enlightened,”
and
it is your brain alone that stands between you and the goal.
A
simple, but un analyzed & utilized fact is that:
everything
a man ever wants is outside of him;
everything
that he needs,
clearly is,
(food,
water, sex, external shelter from external conditions),
but
beyond the essentials:
everything
that an ordinary man merely wants
--
simply
because it is pleasurable -- is also always outside of him,
and
the reason this is significant to the struggle to “wake
up”
is
that your brain -- by its very nature --
automatically
looks outside of you for the, “waking up
thing.”
It
(you) instinctively assumes that “enlightenment”
is
something
out there that you do not presently possess -- but can,
not
unlike such an everyday situation of going out to a store
and
getting a new CD/book/video game you want, and do not have;
to
your brain -- it is all the same:
”I/we
don’t have it -- but I want it, and I know it exists & is out
there,
or
else I would never have heard of it.
It
may be hard to locate, and may cost more than I expected,
but
it is out there, and the only question is whether I am prepared to spend
the time & energy it will take to find & acquire it.”
Nothing
could be more apparent to your brain;
it
does not have to stop and ponder such a situation;
it
is automatically & immediately clear:
“Anything
I (you/we) want, I obviously do not now have,
and
perforce it exists,
or
else I would have never learned of its existence;
thus
I will go and find it,”
and
you logically go to places which advertise that they have it.
Any
initial steps other than these would be irrational & futile,
but
not eventually realizing their limitations (dead end)
is
the supreme irrationality, and world class time waster.
Your
brain by its very nature believes that (well, it says
that)
whatever
the “waking up”
thing is
it
is something extrinsic to it or else it would already possess it;
the
brain breezily says this while pretending to ignore the indisputable fact
that it made up
the whole idea of, “waking
up” to begin with;
and
as insane as this first seems
it
is comprehensible once you add in what has been above noted
regarding
the operation of the brain,
and
which you should now undertake to see for yourself;
for
it is operating thus, constantly in your own brain,
and
what you can glimpse going on in there --
--
one eye-blink-moment at a time --
will
tell you everything you need to know about “waking
up” –
which
no school, teaching, or activity outside of your body can ever do.
Your
brain automatically looks for:
The
Answers, The Secret,
the-way-to-really-do-it,
outside
of you (and it),
and
it does so under all normal human circumstances
because
that is all that it knows about
doing.
If
it does
try to reflect on itself,
it
seems to be an impossible, and severely frustrating task,
and
ordinarily it will not -- and apparently, cannot
stick
with any such attempt for longer than spasmodic,
brief
bundles of seconds,
but
ordinarily your brain has nothing to encourage it,
or
counteract the innate sense of futility it experiences
when
faced with the prospect of examining its own operation,
the
present one having to be shut down so that it can be switched over to
taking
up the job of examining the operation --- which just shut down,
but
if you have followed carefully & taken in what has been supra noted
you
now have data not normally in man's handy possession that can act as a
temporary neutralizer to your brain’s present state of disorienting acidity.
If
you are truly, to-this-activity-born
then
it is possible for you to do that which is truly -- damn-near
impossible.
if
you act quickly and consistently enough in your, looking-into-this,
your
brain can get brief glimpses of its own operations & nature
of
which you are now unaware, and which will tell you more
in
these eye-blink moments than a lifetime of reading about it,
or
listening to someone else talk about it.
Anything
that your brain doesn’t get from the glimpses it gets of itself
is
second hand data at best, (and really not even that good),
for
such out-sourced info is ultimately self defeating
in
that your continued following thereof keeps you from dipping into
the
true and only well of “knowledge”
that is actually useful for the purpose of, -- “waking
up.”
Men sleep in bundles -- an individual awakens alone.
You have but ONE
brain -- ONE
mind, and ONE
self --
realize this, then --
use it.
J
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