Except when the instinct to survival has automatically brought thought to its aid
in the physical, first reality,
man’s mind lives in a self created second reality, characterized by a constant
inner staring into the bottomless depths that is the mind,
with an incessant review and preview of one’s life that a man takes quite seriously,
and this constitutes man’s normal state of non survival-serious consciousness,
and is the very mental condition which bars him from FacingTheFacts –
FindingTheTruth, DiscoveringTheGreatSecret, AchievingEnlightenment.
And at the core of the condition --
the one feature without which the condition would collapse is  --  seriousness, specifically: taking that which is not serious  --   seriously.
 

Man’s entire second reality  --  all of civilization:
all art, religion, politics, fashion, fame, social position,
is totally dependent on seriousness  --
dependent on human minds taking the whole affair and everything in it  --  seriously.
Seriousness is to man’s second reality its blood and breath;
without men take it seriously, it would all vanish in an instant.
 

If man disappeared from this planet, everything that makes up his first reality
would still be here, just as it was before he arrived,
but if man was gone, so too instantly would be his second reality:
it would go with him  --  just as it came with him,
and it survives now only by his taking it seriously.
 

Life as man knows and enjoys it would not be at all the same without his second reality;
as sensually pleasurable as fulfilling survival needs can be in the first reality,
(eating, having sex, exercising and resting the body),
it is the trifles & distractions in his second reality that gives his mortal meal its definitive spice;
without second reality  --   civilization and everything that comes with it  --
man would be just another animal,
and without men take second reality seriously, it would be just another passing dream,  a thought that captured consciousness for but a brief moment  --   then was gone,
like all other neural ephemeras.
What makes the entire concept of the second reality linger is one thing –
                                   --  the seriousness with which men’s minds treat it.
 
 

None but the deranged would want civilization & the second reality to go away,
but a few  --  quite non deranged  --  would like it out of their private lives;
out of their personal, mental world, (or put alternatively):
they want to move the seat of their consciousness from its natural place
amidst  second reality, into another, presently unused area of the brain --
a process, in its nascent, trial stages, historically called by those
interested in the matter: waking-up, or, being-enlightened,
which puts a man’s mind in the decidedly unnatural position of being able to fully See&FaceTheFacts  --  about everything;
not about one thing; not about some things,
and not about things relative to one another, but  the facts about everything;
his mind suddenly sees how everything is put together  --
everything in the mind's second reality,
for it is only here that he seems confused and uncertain.
Men are not confused-by or uncertain-of the first reality;
by unthinking instinct do all men know to eat food when hungry;
drink water when thirsty; rest when tired, and die when their time comes.
Nothing about the first reality gives man, nor any other creature, any problem:
you live --  you die  --  even bumper stickers have got it down.
But in his unique second reality --  there is where all of his self-styled, problems lie,
but the distinction between the two is so subtle,
(the only word the mind will allow itself to create, pertinent to this crucial juncture),
the distinction between the two realities is so subtle that the mind is able to ignore it, e.g. men do not mind dying, (a first reality occurrence) --
what bothers them is thinking about dying, (a second reality activity),
and people are not upset by how others feel about them, (first reality),
but rather by how they say they feel about them, (second reality),
and so on, up and down all lines, and thus & so, across all boards.
And none of the problems, questions, quandaries, and strictly human ills that exist only in man’s second reality would exist and survive there did not men take them seriously.

It is simple --  and when put simply, all men recognize its veracity –
for the brief moment when first presented it.
In common experience, an ordinary man is not bothered by everything he hears that someone has negatively said about him;
the speaker of the insult must be someone that the man takes seriously;
if his thoughts do not so treat the source, he is not bothered by the critical words,
and when confronted with this fact, men will, for just an instant,
begrudgingly acknowledge --  sort of  --  that, “Yeah,
if you didn’t take what people say about you seriously --  it wouldn’t bother you” --
but their mind instantly shrugs to itself and mutters, “So what!?   What’s the point?!
I am bothered and that’s that!” and the momentary recognition of TheFacts
has passed and is forgotten, and mind snaps back --  as it should  --  into:             second-reality-is-deadly-serious mode.
 

All of this is merely how things are normally arranged
in the brains & minds of mankind in general,
but if your consciousness ever somehow breaks loose from this ordinary condition,
and suddenly shifts to a new area of the brain,
amidst all of the FactsYouWillFace will be one of core significance:
the fact that there is not one single thing in the second reality that is serious:
not one; not half of one; not a piece of one --
not a trace of anything that is serious.

This is not the view and understanding natural to man in general,
and obviously could not be,
without the complete, quick collapse of civilization and life as man knows it.
The statement is simple and rhetorically understandable to anyone:

But one even of the few will never realize the full promise of his unique neural potential unless he burrows fearlessly into the matter of seriousness,
for from one totally valid view,
seriousness is the only thing that keeps a sleeper asleep; a dreamer dreaming;
a prisoner captive, and a starer staring:
a dazed, distracted, disoriented starer  --
staring at an endless smorgasbord of tasties which have no reality whatsoever
except in man’s second reality  –  the one created solely by his mind,

The facts of this cannot be taught, shown nor proven to anyone,
anymore than a man who says there is no god can ever so convince a man who says there is;
or a lover of art win over one who dismisses it all as bunk;
or a political liberal argue a conservative to his side.

In the way things are arranged, man’s mental, second reality fiercely protects itself,  primarily by his mind being unable to hear, tolerate, or in any manner being able to make use of objective descriptions of itself;
the mind  --  the mother and sole creator of man’s second reality –
cannot FaceTheFacts of what it is --  and it is clearly not meant to;
and just as clearly, (for the overall weal)  --  should not,
(except as is demonstratively allowable in a small number of exceptional cases).
 

The ordinary mind of ordinary men will never  --  can never  –
suddenly take a sideways step and see itself and its creation, (the second reality),
for precisely what it is;
in this instance it is as though an artist is barred from comprehending his own creation;
a painter looks at a painting he has done and does not recognize it as from his hand:
it is truly as simple as that  --   when you see it for yourself;
until then, the whole idea is foolish, or blasphemous, or cynical,
or some other something that the mind will come up with to dismiss the notion
in the split second it takes it to forget about it........if it happened to hear about it.
 
 

The truth-of-everything is all around you  --   you are floating in it  --
you cannot get away from it  --   man cannot exist outside of it.
Everything one of the few needs to know to clear out of his old brain site,
and settle into a brand new, uncluttered one  --
with a magnificent view of the entire universe --
is everywhere you look --
behind every thought that passes through yours and everyone else’s mind,
and the only thing that keeps you from seeing the facts directly
is your taking of what passes through yours and everyone else’s mind  --  seriously.
 
 

If you are content to remain normal, then continue to passively  --   and naturally --

If your brain has that potential spot unique to the few,
it already knows that what has been said is so  --
it just can’t fully react or say anything about it  --  yet;
it is like child who can hear and understand language but cannot yet itself speak;
it wants to  --  and is sitting there squirming in its seat, dying to say something --
dying to yell out: “It’s all true!  That’s exactly how it is!” –
                                                  but until it can  --   it can’t  --
and it never will if you continue to take what naturally, normally and predictably
flows from your original, ordinary of mind, and that of others  – seriously.
 

And a few others ponder whether the desire to get your mind out of the pseudo seriousness of the second reality
is itself a serious thing.