The few born with ThatCertainHunger innately feel that a piece of a puzzle
in their mind is missing; that there is one more step they need to take to complete some inner journey; that there is a room in their inner house that is unfinished. Same as any sane person, they see that physically they are “all there” --  present-&-accounted-for, but what no one can see, (including them), is what it is they unshakably feel has been left out of them  --  which so persistently agitates their mind.

A man & his thoughts’ initial inclination is to blame others; that it is their stupidity which causes his mind its unease, for it is certainly plain enough, he thinks, that the Earth is populated by posing, pretentious, pompous asses who both say one thing and do another, and speak in authoritative tones about matters which clearly neither they or any other human knows anything about. Many of the few never go beyond this first, predictable reaction to that special hunger; they become traducers of man  --  impotent critics, carpers & detractors; playing a completely mechanical role in the collective life of man, but understanding nothing about it themselves. (A wagon needs to know when a wheel is in any danger of coming loose.) No matter how glib or sexually charismatic he/she may be, anyone still finding fault with life is still totally in the dark.

Those who get through this natural bramble normally gravitate to a teacher of some sort; their assumption being that someone else must have already found the missing piece of the puzzle; discovered the completing step of the journey; learned how to finish the fragmented room in their inner structure,
for indeed there are those who publicly claim such, and why would they mislead?  If they did not know all about this strange hunger, they would not even be able to speak about it coherently to my ears, and state the claims of expertise they do. (And it always helps if the claims seem supported by hundreds or thousands of years of experience & success.) Where else is a rational person to look for instruction except to those already with the knowledge he wants?! What else is a sane person to conclude but that the place to turn is to those who know?!

May 21, 2002

This scene is no more avoidable than the initial one of believing that other men’s idiocy is the cause of your mental dissatisfaction, but is much more captious, while being ultimately no more helpful. Those who say they are awake or enlightened are not, and it is that simple; but more complicated is in ever grasping why this is so, and how people seemingly with the exact same hunger as you can accept their own words. This is where the great split occurs; hardly anyone (if that)  goes beyond this point; it is clear if you can see it --  if not, it cannot be shown, but it is here that the non physical heroes of humanity give it up; they drink what is there available, and decide that
that must be all there is to the whole affair. They may feel much calmer and certain of themselves and their ideas than they did when they began the quest twenty, forty years ago, and now seekers younger than them may be looking at them as teachers, possessing the missing piece, and knowing all that needs to be known; they may in fact have had a teacher older than them declare them to be awake, enlightened and completed  --  so what else is there left to do?!

They have spent much of their life in pursuit of this vaporous muse, and what is wrong with being recognized for all of your great efforts and extraordinary experiences?! What is wrong, indeed. Thus upon a never ending successions of, Peters has the catholic Church Of Getting To The Bottom Of Everything been established, and is sustained, which is a necessary stage in the few’s great adventure.

But to stop there --  there at the very spot the history of this curious church
says is the goal  --  is a downright shame. But, think the faithful parishioners: “Yes --  I am Enlightened, thank you. My guru says that I am.............and I feel it quite possibly so. Why, yes  --  after all this time --  surely I must be...............don’t you think?!?”

This is not ridicule of that stage feeling which all the few will experience;
the only thing, regrettable thing about it  --   is to remain in it.

If you are not sure whether you are awake or not  --  you are not; if someone else can say something that can change your uncertainty in the matter  --  you are not, and if you can say that you are awake and enlightened  --  you are not; if any of these apply to you -- you still do not understand what this kind of activity is really about, or what is going on in life.
May 21, 2002

Hardly any human ever does, (if that many), but if you BELIEVE –
SUSPECT  --   RECKON  --  THEORIZE, or take someone else’s assurance that
you are now  awake and fully realize what is going on – then you have given up and unwittingly accepted  --  failure as success. It sounds weird and highly unusual, but really no weirder than being born with ThisHunger in the first place.

There is something possible in the brain of some people, (some number for certain), that is beyond anything you have ever read or heard about, much stranger than the strangest of any mystical, new-age, metaphysical, science-fiction stuff, because the trail circles back on itself, and ultimately becomes
so mundane that few of the original few can ever comprehend and accept it.

ChasingTheThing is the one activity that never wears out; the buffet that never stops serving, the secret fun that never runs out.

If you have been enjoying thinking that you are maybe, “half or three quarters awake”  –   keep going -- and whatever you do, don’t stop when there is any notion of you being, fully-awake-&-enlightened – push on; in each person’s case, it is totally uncharted territory; there are no boundaries; no textbooks, bibles, teachers or schools; no right or wrong way to do what it is that you now solo do; the universe and reality are the only limits.

What you come to see and realize is what everyone sees and realizes --
but only a few humans ever come to realize this.
 

J