July
24,2001.
This morning, the father spoke again to the son:
”Something
I mentioned briefly in our last conversations yesterday
is
worthy of more specific attention
for
it bears on the very gristle of what makes the
realization
of our family’s traditional goal so elusive.
This
thing we experience that men call, Thought
has
significant collateral affects that pass, un thought about
--
that
by their very nature -- pass un thought about, hence un noted.
It
is easy enough to intellectually dismiss religion and man’s idea of a god
as nothing more than a fearful, juvenile reaction to his awareness of death,
and the unknown,
but
I tell you that once man began to have thoughts --
religion
was inevitable;
I
say to you further that without the idea of god & religion,
collective
man could not go on.
I
will not bother to offer any proof to you of this assertion,
for
I do not see any way in which it could be proven,
but
once you see what is going on, this will be clear to you.
It
has nothing to do with supernatural deities with dogmatic agendas,
but
everything to do with thought,
that
very feature which, from the earliest days of man,
has
molecularly motivated and fascinated those in our family line;
the
thing that dangles before us, questions that titillate & frustrate
us,
and
the only thing from which their answers may ultimately emerge.
Thought,
for all of its power, (witnessed by the marvels of our technology), is
yet vulnerable in a way, almost incomprehensible.
Thought
has produced weapons that can destroy planets,
and
artificial hearts that save lives;
it
constructs snares that trap the strongest of beasts,
and
builds planes that out fly the swiftest of birds,
and
ships that put all fish to shame -- yet, thought has a vulnerability,
(this
is the closest word for what I will point to, but by no means exact,
in
that this condition is unique to thought,
and
one of the self evident qualities of uniqueness is its,
lack
of comparableness,
and
without the ability to make a verbal comparison with something already
known,
no
new word can be brought into existence;
so
it is that I say to you in full truth
that
the singularity of this characteristic of thought to which I refer,
[and
am calling, vulnerability], is beyond normal mental conception,
and
thus, description), but if you will, listen-up, I am confident that
you will eventually glimpse what I am pointing to.
Once
men began to have thoughts,
the
thought of god & religion were inevitable,
for
once men began to have thoughts,
one
of the first ones they had was the thought: ‘There
is a meaning to life:
a
purpose to me being here, and being me,
and
having the thoughts that I do.'
And
again, there is no proof of this comprehensible to routine thinking,
but
I assure you that my words track its reality
as
faithfully as can be done.
Consider
what I say with a cleared head, and you can almost
feel
its
certainty;
roll
the idea around in an unrestricted thought area and it will ring true:
collective
man could not live with the condition of having thoughts
without
one of them being that there is some meaning & purpose
to
him being such a living creature;
ordinary
men simply could not bear the weight, the strain of having thoughts unless
they had one thought which says that life has a meaning, and that there
is some purpose to their individual existence.
As
useful and enjoyable as thought can be, I tell you that
no
ordinary man could tolerate having thoughts if he did not think that
there
was some metaphysical purpose to being alive,
and
being a creature with thoughts.
Thought
is like a gift one is given, but which would be unacceptable unless it
brought with it the promise of an even greater gift.
Ordinary
men could not tolerate being conscious unless they thought
that
consciousness had some higher purpose than itself.
The
ideas of god, religion & life-after-death
are
not merely manifestations of fear & ignorance,
for
men are not simply afraid of death & the unknown –
men
are afraid of thought, (better put still): thought
is afraid of itself.
This
statement sounds insane, and admittedly the words miss
the
bulls eye of my target -- and yet, I say them to you, my very own
son,
and
by them, I refer to something quite sane & most significant to the
pursuit of our Family’s Tradition.
As
soon as man began to have thoughts, his first ones had to be about physical
matters pertinent to his survival;
his
first thoughts were about the making of fire; the growing of crops;
the
construction of wheels; the pumping of water,
and
the harnessing of wind,
and
after so attending to practical matters in the external world,
thought
turned inward; man began to self-reflect,
(which
is nothing other than thought attempting to think about itself),
and
by this time, thought had experienced many great triumphs
in
the outside, physical world, and was surely much shocked to discover
its
incompetence in the inner one.
Through
its manipulation of abstract symbols & Logic,
thought
could figure out the height of a tree without having to climb it,
but
found that it had no means by which to figure out how it did it;
thought
could figure out how fire works, but not how thought works,
a
startling experience whose effects continue to color
the
entire inner landscape on which men attempt to reflect on themselves and
the meaning of life, (and more radically where),
thought
bristles & rattles to conceive of itself.
Thought
makes men say that they seek the meaning-of-life,
but
what is actually going on at the cellular level is that
thought
is seeking the meaning of itself,
but
since, within that context, there is no place from which to start,
thought
came up with the idea of creating the image of
something
external to man: god & Co.,
which
it then -- and now tries to use as a sacrificial-lamb-lesson;
a
paper-tiger-teaching-experience,
as
though by setting up in man’s thoughts,
something
outside & away from him that thought itself had created:
(a
super human overlord & externally sourced principles to live by),
thought
would then contemplate these extrinsic entitites,
and
that they would reflect back to thought
revealing
information about its own creative nature.
Thought
thus attempted to create a non-physical mirror by which
it
could then learn about itself through the reflection of itself
in
these creations.
A
brilliant concept,
but
thought does not have the same record of success in its
internal
undertakings as it does its external ones;
the
useful knowledge of psychology cannot even be spoken of in the same breath
as that of chemistry, or theology with physics;
it
is not criticism – merely obvious fact,
but
a fact that thought in collective-man
is
not programmed to acknowledge, for to do so, (I say),
would
entirely cripple thought’s continued ability to so
profitably
assist man in his dealings with his external environment.
Thought
can, (to its satisfaction), understand the nature of novas,
and
black holes, millions of light years away,
but
thought does not understand, (to any acceptable degree) –
itself --
and
this is frightening,
(or
if that sounds overstated: it is disturbing -- off-putting),
and
the unrecognized aftermath of this constantly reverberates in every man’s
mental universe.
Of
specific significance to our family’s particular interest is that
thought’s
creation & setting up of external reflections of itself,
(through
which to study itself),
unavoidably
brought along the thought that there
must
be some purpose to all of this,
(from
thought’s view, ‘all-of-this’ being – having-thoughts),
and
that predictably led not only to the creation of religion,
but
of, wanting-to-wake-up as well;
collective
man got religion; the few got Zen, Yoga, Sufism, etc,
but
the ultimately inhibiting result is the same;
a
man wants to become a Sufi instead of, Waking up;
he
will insist otherwise -- but it is fact,
his
thoughts have no idea whatsoever what, ‘Waking up’ means,
so
they invented, Sufism,
and
since they made up it and all its aspects,
they
damn sure know what, Sufism is.
And, there it is:
as
soon as man began to have thoughts,
he
had one that said: ‘There must be some purpose to life,’
and
now this one man’s purpose is clear: To become a Yogi;
thought
simply cannot directly grasp the reality of, Waking up --
---
and indeed there is one,
for
that alone prompted the creation of the word in the first place,
but
thought can no more look head on at the reality of what,
Being-more-awake
is than it can look head on at itself -- for indeed,
they
are one and the same.
Speaking
comparably to everything else known to man:
Waking-up
HAS no purpose;
and
there is no MEANING to, Being Enlightened,
and
as long as you listen only to that thought or two -- in you
that
says otherwise,
you
can never discover what awakening & enlightenment truly are.
Any
thoughts that say there is a, purpose -- a, meaning
to
this
kind of activity are not insightful friends to be welcomed
into
your skull;
they
are moronic, left over dinosaurs from thought’s earliest days
and
have no understanding at all of what this family treasure is about,
(on
that my boy, you can firmly rely).
Ergo,
our delightful quandary, and delicious position:
you
cannot go anywhere unless you have a place you want to go;
you
can never experience, Awakening without trying to, Wake up,
but
the reality of, Waking up is such that,
even
though in the beginning you must want to go there
to
ever get started,
you
ultimately must see through and past the idea of it being a goal,
or
else it will stay forever: just over the hill; just around the bend,
always:
just-out-of-reach -- thus that, head’s-a-fire frustration,
and
feeling of chasing-your-own tail.
As
fitting as it sounds, it is not so much a matter of you,
chasing-your-own
tail as it is thought,
chasing
its own reflection in creations of its own design --
and
acting now as though it has forgotten the
genesis
of the circumstances.
The
nature of the state cursed by this family,
and
the one in which normal man is raised
is
that of a father who does not recognize his son;
a
condition in which an artist looks at one of his own paintings
but
cannot be made to see/admit that it is his creation;
this
is, thought asleep -- not, man asleep,
as
our camp followers would say it:
man
is not by any measure asleep in his body;
he therein is most alert, perceptive and bright;
it
is only in thought that he slumbers, and is dull & clumsy,
and
only then, when thought tries to turn its attention onto itself
rather
than on the outside world -- and not being able to directly
do so,
it
creates imaginary intermediaries, (zeus, zen, history),
that
it can apparently confront directly,
and
thus saves itself from additional embarrassment of having to
coldly
face its own limitations.
Thus,
so will -- unwittingly -- in essence, say thought:
’Yes,
I may not be Awake -- but by god I HAVE become a Sufi.’
It
is predictable, and totally unavoidable;
thought
has no other initial alternative,
but
drifting along indefinitely in the arms of that thought in you that coos
so sweetly and mystically about the,(capital M) -- ‘Meaning’
of,
Wanting-To-Awaken
will
get you nowhere;
as
irrational as it sounds,
you
have finally got to work out and see for yourself the fact that
there
is no meaning or purpose to this activity,
and
believing so will keep you from its full experience.
How
insane do you WANT your insanity?!”
The
father paused and looked out a window for a moment --
then
returned his eyes to the son, and concluded:
”Only
in the external, physical world in which we live
is
there a meaning & purpose --- the nature of which is obvious
to a child;
but
in man’s inner world,
thought's
attempts to reflect on itself, and its various creations,
has
no meaning or purpose, (not that thought,
the
only thing capable of making such a determination, can determine),
it
just does it! -- (or better put): it just tries
to do it.
Thought’s
inability to understand itself, frightens/disturbs it'
in
ordinary men this is handled via the invention of religion; politics;
academia;
sports teams hometown loyalty, etc;
in
our family we deal with it by trying to, Wake up,
without
letting anyone -- especially our own hometown thoughts --
know
what we are up to.
Once
man began to have thoughts,
he
could not have collectively carried on without soon having had
a
thought that said there is some metaphysical meaning,
some
goal, some specific purpose to being alive and having thoughts:
thus
did ordinary men come to live internally in a thoroughly contrived, never-never-world
-- but a world which spoke,
and
which said it held the promise of something -- EXTRAORDINARY,
something
that the physical eye can never see.
Men
listened -- and men believed,
and
now the ordinary think of this thing extraordinaire as,
life-after-death-in-paradise
while
we the few know it as, one day turning a corner so quickly
that
our thoughts bump into themselves, and the game's over;
the
jig's up;
the
minuet's sideways;
the
cat's out of the catsup;
the
cows have come home to roost,
and
you finally -- get it."
The father stood:
"See you later,” he said…then added:
”Unless of course you, catch-on in the meantime –
then I won’t be so easy to find any more.”
J
(All
inside -- one person's head.)
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