JAN’S FRESH REAL NEWS
                            © 2001: Jan Cox
                                              **********************************************
 

September 10, 2001.
 
 
 

For those few whose preeminent interest is in privately understanding
as much about being alive & conscious as is possible,
the most insane thing about man is his criticism of himself,
(more precisely):  his mind’s criticism of itself,
(more exact still): his mind’s pretense of criticizing itself;
for you do not and can not criticize yourself regarding
non-physical matters in real time  --
not concurrent with the cause of your criticism;
the criticism comes serially  --   after the cause has occurred,
and moved on to make way for the criticism.
All criticism is forever after-the-fact  --    mere gossip:
idle chatter about an always absent entity.

At its pragmatic level, this does not concern the thoughts’
view of one’s physical self, for although life may furnish you with thoughts that do find fault with your weight, height, or hair,
they are causes of criticism about which you can clearly either
take some action to change them, or you plainly cannot,
(plus, a person really anxious to get on with the discovery
will make note of the slippery but bountiful fact that
if he not have thoughts, he would have no criticism of his
physical self no matter how he looked;
the body is alert to physiological abnormalities,
but it finds no cosmetic fault with itself; that occurs solely in thoughts),
but the faults that thoughts have with themselves
stand in no such position;
since they are never present simultaneously with the fault finder,
they cannot in any manner be altered;
(no matter your sincerity,
you cannot repair a toaster oven that is never there at the moment when your thoughts again declare fault therewith).
Your over abundance of avoirdupois is always there
for your censuring thoughts to see  --  but not so,
their own condemnable counterparts.
This fact in man is so obvious,
and open to anyone’s easy observation
that calling ignorance thereof  --   insane  --
cannot rationally be considered hyperbole.
Even those with the best education in neurology,
and the cognitive sciences that man collectively has to offer, (and people safely assumed to be of greater than average intellectual capacities),
take no note of this glaring reality, and indeed criticize their own self proclaimed mental shortcomings as readily as anyone else;
picture it: men trained in matters of brain & mind;
directly observing, measuring, testing human thought in action
and never realizing that thought’s own measuring & observing of itself is always completely separate from that which it asserts it is
studying  --    if the study was carried on in the investigator's own mind;
this is why psychologists et al always study other people’s thoughts,
and not their own,
for by establishing a position whereby --  in real time  --
they are apart from the subjects they are studying,
they are able to distract themselves from the fact that
thoughts run serially & not simultaneously,
for are they not questioning their subjects about their thoughts
simultaneously with their subjects’ thinking & reporting them?
If you turn such an investigation onto your own thoughts,
you cannot be so fooled, (or maintain the pretense).
Doing this is perhaps the most difficult thing a human can do;
clearly a man cannot by flapping his arms --  fly,
but executing a real time study of your own thoughts seems
almost possible  ---   then not  ---
--  then possible again   --   then it’s slipped away again.

If it is not the most difficult thing a human can do,
it is surely the most frustrating.
It is tempting to take the notion of a hand not being able to ever
grasp itself, or an eye to see itself
as the ultimate excuse&explantion for not pursuing this study,
and nothing can stop you from so availing yourself,
but anything less than this will leave you wandering a dusty,
though periodically intriguing road that never reaches a destination.
You can “work-on-yourself” forever, trying to control thought;
trying to stop thought; attempting to make the mind become as calm as the surface of a placid pond,
and thus a true reflector of enlightened reality,
and a source of extraordinary understanding,
but if you do not see for yourself the clear insanity of
one thought, appearing in your mind, and at that moment
operating entirely as “you,”
criticizing another thought which was previously there,
and which at that time was also functioning as the whole “you,”
but which is not now, or ever present simultaneously,
then you will never catch on to what is going on  --   in you,
which is the only thing of any notable interest to the true few,
for the understanding of that, answers all questions,
even those which may currently seem to be about the world out there.

While the above can give those with the proper innate credentials a practical place to enter this necessary study,
it is really a running-around-the-perimeter of the juicy center,
the sweet spot that is all but too simple to be
verbally described in much meaningful terms,
but if you want to try and drive head long into
the axle of this ever turning & distracting wheel-of-thought,
here is the briefest possible telling of it:
On what basis does your mind make critical judgments of itself?
There is no example of insanity that even comes close to this.
Thoughts may pop into your consciousness which declare the question to be meaningless; incomprehensible,
even silly and its answer obvious, but not so;
as simple as the question is  --  its realization is difficult.
There is no actual answer to the question,
but the sudden comprehension of all that the query involves
clears all illusions & vanishes all uncertainties.
When you know what the question means:
On what basis does your mind make critical judgments of itself?
When you suddenly see to what this directly points  --
you will be momentarily astounded that you lived for x number of years --  --  insane  --   totally insane,
while even sincerely believing that you were specifically involved in efforts that were the epitome of objective rationality.

Anyone of ordinary consciousness,
and of their time’s normal state of mind
is being constantly fooled by the automatic activities
in his own head,
and in particular as regards the activities’ self criticisms;
the activity has no existence outside of its momentary self,
thus no access to comparisons outside of itself,
and is not even ever present at the same time as the source
of its criticisms.

                       It is so simple that you will laugh when you see it.
 

                                                              J