To mentally agree with the ideas of ordinary life, man and consciousness
is to submit to an uncouth, semi literate, unsophisticated tyrant;
wave to the priest; smile at your neighbor; pay the taxman but don’t think about them, least it lead you to agree (or dispute) with them.
The city part of consciousness knows how to quite handily handle people:
all it must do is: lure you into town –  under any pretense  –  and you are had;
you can’t resist a viscid squid –  matters not whether you curse him or coo to him;  reach out for him for any reason  –  to strike him, or to embrace him, and he’s got you.
This is what ordinary mind is to some men’s potential consciousness.

* * *

The speech of ordinary men is but the noise produced by Life’s growth,
finding an aural outlet in our species --
and only those with no need to speak are spared having to listen to same.

* * *

The examination of a phenomenon changes it;
this can even be proven to an ordinary man  –  as long as it isn’t applied to him.
A city fact: Everyone is totally clear-eyed when it comes to their self.

* * *

Things can only see other things as things also;
it is no wonder the difficulty systems have in perceiving other systems as they are.
Forcing processes to peer through squinty eyes/I’s is what keeps verbs off balance
in their attempts to describe what transpires in life.
    (“It’s true: all reporters appear to be nouns: over there is Bob, and next to him,
       holding the mic, is Ellen.”)
From the human perspective: everything eventually resolves itself; forces feint,
dance, lunge, realign and consume one another and the alert man soon sees this
and does not remain passively attached to the endlessly passing parade of
illusory problems and quixotic outcomes;
he understands there is no ultimate finality to the twists and turns of Life’s processes.

* * *

Routine men are wont to say that one particular occurrence is a sure sign of
some other one, and it is not that they are wrong  –   just confined in their perception;
the whole story is that everything is a sign of everything else.

* * *

To inattentively agree with (or dispute) something is to submit to it:
to mechanically accept something is to die in it, be swallowed by it;
that’s why the certain man doesn’t believe in anything  –   you can’t  –
not and also understand what is really going on with Life.

* * *

It is not true that the blind can’t lead the blind; it’s just that they will never find
the dance floor before the band stops and the joint closes.
Any one or any idea your own natural consciousness can facilitate can take you into darkness, but only one neural hand can guide you to the brilliantly lighted inner area
of your own nervous system.
Are you aware that the Great Power Company In The Sky & In Your Head
charges the same rate to light a thousand watt bulb as it does for a ten watt?

* * *

The different consciousness of the man-who-knows
is a consciousness in no particular time and no specific place.

* * *

A man who might have actually known something once offered to share his knowledge with another, who replied: “What if this is a trick?”  –   so he left, and later made the offer to another chap who responded: “What if I don’t like what you tell me?”  –
he abandoned him also.
Some years later a man approached him and requested he share his wisdom and he replied: “What if this is a trick, and after I tell you what I know, you don’t like it?”   It’s a wonder that anything in man’s intangible world ever gets done.

* * *

There is a danger of which all might be aware: the illusory stability of words  –   ah,
but why single out  words –  they’re as stable as anything else in man’s second reality.

* * *
That which the certain man knows is knowledge of nothing in particular.

* * *

Ordinary life is involved in a gradual, mechanical growth while what the certain man seeks is an abrupt  break with this level of  process; it is an independent pursuit of personal expansion regardless of the prevailing mortal environment. Why listen to chamber music when you can hear symphonies.

* * *

An alert man should not personally refer to the constant electrical activity at the
upper end of his nervous system as: “I think,” but rather as: “the thinking.”

* * *

Only men in the city confess they can so love something that they will destroy it.
When a man-who-knows has a runny nose he sees two choices: tissues or another schnozz.

* * *

The distortion of ordinary consciousness can only affix itself to
identifiable individuals.                                  What did you announce your name to be? Even the certain man’s nom de plume has an alias.

* * *

The awareness that comes to the certain man does not turn him into an anything:
not a sufi, buddhist, yogi, christian or jew –  not an anything;
for to do so would be to kill him;
what a waste  --  after all that effort to get him well and in fighting trim.

* * *

Once a man begins to see what is going on he must be prepared to
objectively embrace the appearances of everyone else’s ordinary existence while conducting his own life as though the train-of-tomorrow has already left the station.
Never, even with bag in hand, chase after the morning garbage truck shouting:
“Am I too late?” --  for if you’re ordinary  –  and if Life so chooses, it has a possible response thereto which most humans would find quite a bit less than encouraging.

* * *

The ordinary cannot forgive the ordinary,
(more precisely: ordinary consciousness cannot forgive ordinary consciousness), hence do men look outside themselves to gods and the dead for such relief;
the alert might also note that a man’s own nervous-system-I cannot and need not
be forgiven for being what it is. If you can define yourself  --  you don’t know your self.

* * *
Pay the taxman and forget about it.

* * *

Ordinary men are required to hold tight to themselves:
to the image of a self produced in their brain by the nervous system,
while the alert must embrace only Life.

* * *

Feeding the ordinary intellect is like feeding a tiger:
no matter what goes in, it becomes just more tiger. That which the certain man knows supports no visible structure or cause.

* * *

That which is disturbing about Life, the certain man ignores;
that which is disturbing about him, he finds humorous.

* * *

If you were going to listen to someone talk and you’re not your first,
and perhaps only choice, you don’t know enough to make a decent listener,
(or probably a good martini).

* * *

Quite the opposite to standard belief: to be a true mystic would be to see clearly
and plainly, not in supernatural visions and distorted dreams.

* * *

Definition.
The Ultimate Foolishness: The Supreme Puzzle with the ostensible solution
in the back of the book. * * *

Which of the following two statements is the correct one:
Fake answers resolve only fake questions,
while fake hugs will salve even real sadness  –   or:
Fake answers will resolve real questions,
but fake hugs will not salve real sadness?

* * *
Life-in-the-city always has room for one more six thousand dollar mail order course in: “How Not To Get Taken.”

* * *

Some who have struggled to get-to-the-bottom-of-things have concluded that unexpected difficulties need be purposefully established for this pursuit inasmuch as whatever problems you currently face, life has already constructed you to adequately deal with  –  which for this specialized activity, is quite inadequate.
This is what some men believe is needed at one stage in their adventure.

* * *

A form of practical meditation would be to release all mental restrictions
to direct experience.
    “Yes, (noun or verb): you are in my mental sight  --  but I think about you not.”