Self Help

     We are responsible to help ourselves, and there are many different ways of doing that. You can find a job or find a better job, work hard, advance, save your money, invest wisely. You can learn to play the real estate game, the stocks and bonds game, the commodities game. You can cultivate social relationships and sexual relationships. You can develop your body and improve your health. You can be socially or politically active. You can create a beautiful home for yourself, have a family of your own, try to raise happy children who will be able, in turn, to help themselves. Only a person who is able to help oneself is able to help others. As we know, sometimes we encounter obstacles in our quest to help ourselves. For instance, it is increasingly difficult to get ahead economically in today's conditions. A lot of people are having their homes foreclosed. A lot of people have been laid off and can't find a job. A lot of people are working for low wages with few benefits.

     Sometimes we really don't know how to help ourselves. We want to be happy, but we really don't know what would make us happy. Death waits for us all, reminding us that we will lose all this, lose our bodies, lose all our friends, lovers, family. "You can't take it with you." Religion offers us comforting stories, which can often appear to be just as childish and magical as tales of the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. Faith in such stories is inevitably accompanied by a shadow of doubt, and many of us reject them outright. But what, then, is the meaning of our life and death?

     We are not like cats and dogs. We have more imagination, we have our language and our thinking. We need to know why. Animals don't. Our consciousness is different from the consciousness of animals. It is more developed. At the same time, in all honesty, very often the consciousness of animals seems to be more effective than ours. Animals very seldom seem to be at a loss regarding how to help themselves. They might be frustrated by an obstacle, like a fence. Usually they give their best effort to get over, under, around or through, and then give up if it is impossible for them. They don't acquire a mental disorder over it. But we do acquire all kinds of mental disorders, so called, and many people become dependent on "shrinks" and pills. I know, because I am a "shrink" myself.

     Human problems are unique to humans. Like all forms of life, we have needs, and we are responsible to help ourselves to get our needs met. For animals and plants, this process is natural. If organisms can help themselves, they will. If they can't, those needs will go unmet for the present. Eventually their needs will be fatally unmet, as with us. For animals, it isn't a problem. For us, it is.

     None of us can walk in anyone else's shoes. We cannot observe anyone else's experience, and we certainly can't observe the experience of animals. But we can try to empathize. Animals can't tell us, except by their behavior, that we really don't understand at all, or that we do, but people can, which is one reason why I became a professional counselor.

     If it is true, and I think that it obviously is true, that human problems are created by our consciousness because it is more developed than animals, then is it not logical to look to our consciousness in our quest for self help? I think that the condition of our consciousness is extremely chaotic. It is more developed than animals', but the development of our consciousness has gone wrong. Metaphorically, it is like a city where once there was the natural world, a city with skyscrapers, slums, suburban sprawl and all the chaotic activity of our thoughts. Our development has gone wrong, and that is the trouble with us. What to do about it, in one's own consciousness?

     Many of us have never considered the condition of our own, personal, individual consciousness. I, on the other hand, have been not only considering this, but also intermittently actively working on my own consciousness, by means of practicing awareness of reality, for more than 40 years. It is evident, if you think about it at all, that our consciousness should be synonymous with awareness of reality. It isn't, and that is the trouble with us. It is the cause of our mental disorders and the source of our human problems. There is no more reason why life should be a problem for a human being than for any other organism. Life is a gift, and to live as a human being, with our talent of consciousness, is an even greater gift. Why do you think that Genesis tells us that we were created in God's image? Do you think that God has a body like ours- male, of course, with a beard? No, Genesis is not suggesting any such ridiculous idea. It is our human consciousness that is our shining silver talent, and woe to us if we fail to develop it. And you aren't developing yours, which is why you have to experience woe. I haven't developed mine sufficiently either, but at least I know how to work, and I am not lazy all the time. I can even be grateful for my suffering at times, because it reminds me that I need to wake up to reality. And this is a great benefit of this practice: it makes sense of our suffering, and offers a readily available method of working for reconciliation with reality. It is the same as reconciliation with God. We are estranged from the reality of God because of the condition of our consciousness. Sure, we will see God when we die. That's no big accomplishment. You won't be able to help it. I hope that great enlightenment will not reveal to you that you have completely wasted your gift of life.

     Our consciousness at the present time has two characteristics that cripple our awareness of reality. In the first place it is chaotic. Our attention flits around and it is divided. Sometimes we say that we are "multi-tasking," as if this were a virtue. Who says that we have to do several things at once? Who is our slavemaster? But distraction is a way of life with us, at all times. We don't know how to keep our attention simple.

     In the second place, our consciousness is dominated by our thinking. Thinking is a very useful servant to us, but a bad master. Thinking is inseparable from language. Language consists of narratives or stories, which always express only partial aspects of reality. In allowing thinking to rule our consciousness, we give up our possibility of being aware of reality. Plato was talking about this in his Allegory of the Cave. The parable of The Blind Men and the Elephant is also trying to explain our situation- your situation, as a person whose consciousness is under the heel of your own thinking. 

     And where do our thoughts come from? From our culture, of course. Every person whose consciousness is led around by the nose by thinking is a slave to one's upbringing and culture. This is not a free being, made in God's image.

     Practicing real consciousness, awareness of reality, will show you the state of your own consciousness beyond any shadow of doubt. It will also prove to you that real consciousness is possible for you. It will give you a sure means of self help. It doesn't detract from all the other ordinary ways that we need to help ourselves. Your life will go on, you will continue to have your own individual needs, biological, animal, human, and you will continue to try to help yourself to getting them met. Enlightenment will only help you.

     As I was taught, I encourage you to practice awareness of reality in your life, rather than thinking of it as taking time off to meditate. There is no such thing as taking time off from life. We live 24 hours every day. We have needs at all times, we behave at all times, we are responsible at all times, and we need awareness at all times. Of course we need to sleep, and you will soon discover if you try that awareness, although theoretically possible at every waking moment, is very often practically impossible. That is because we have no dexterity in practicing awareness of reality. It is like learning to ride a bicycle. Efforts to practice this, if made correctly, are rewarding for a person. This practice will help you. There are indications and instructions in previous posts on this blog of how to begin. Try this, and let me know your results. This is a great opportunity for you. You will not find this kind of guidance on your T.V. or at the supermarket. Your friends and family don't know about it. It will not be mentioned by the so-called liberals, conservatives, or even by the Tea Party. Your psychiatrist or psychologist don't know a damned thing about it, and neither does your minister, pastor or priest, in spite of the fact that Jesus Christ was talking exactly about this.

Comparing and Contrasting

     A practice is a way of working for a better life. I take it for granted that people understand the necessity of doing something, being active, making efforts in order to be happy- maybe happier, maybe to suffer less, however one understands it. Obviously life demands work of us. We might enjoy being lazy and having pleasant daydreams, but the satisfaction of spending time in that way is limited, and we certainly have real needs that are not going to be met by fantasy. We live in reality. We can imagine whatever we want, and take whatever pleasure we can derive, but reality is, as is, and daydreaming isn't going to change that. If we would like to make our dreams real, that will require work- and how to work? So one needs a practice, and people do have practices. The list is endless. Acquiring money can be a practice; cultivating social relationships of certain kinds; promotion of health and physical fitness, including maintaining a good body weight and eating what is considered to be a healthy diet; cultivation of satisfying sexual relationships; political activism or any other kind of social activism; cultivating good relationships with animals; taking care of children, one's own or not; art, philosophy, learning of any kind; science, including medicine or psychotherapy; becoming a good practitioner of any skill or profession; developing and maintaining a beautiful home; hobbies of all kinds, and sports; following the guidelines of any religion; etcetera. These are just some of the many ways in which people work for a better life.

     Animals, apparently, just "do what comes naturally." Sometimes they are active, and sometimes not. Cats sleep a lot. They do whatever they feel like doing. If they are frustrated, they express their frustration. They don't brood over that, or anything else. Cats don't have practices, nor do dogs. They have no need to work for a better life, but we do. It has to do with our consciousness, which is different from that of animals. This is obvious, and it might be obvious therefore that it is our consciousness that we need to work on, but this is not obvious. That is our culture. We pay attention as we have been taught. It is human to have culture, to be raised in a culture, to be part of a culture and pass it on to our children.

     There really is no alternative to having practices, for people. You might think of it as having some kind of equipment that animals don't have. Since we have it, we have to do something with it. We can choose to let our equipment lie idle and deteriorate, but we aren't going to be happy that way. Animals aren't in the same position. They weren't gifted and burdened with human consciousness.

     Practices that specifically work on our consciousness are rare in our culture. Buddhist or mindfulness meditation is the best known. The practice that I learned is a little different. I am not a Buddhist, and I was not taught to call this practice "meditation." I am actually a "Gurdjieffian," of the particular "sect" associated with Willem Nyland. This practice, as taught by Mr. Nyland, represents a somewhat different slant or angle of working on one's own consciousness than does Buddhism. There are differences and similarities.

     My life experience has been somewhat unique- actually, it would be truthful to just say "unique." Some people do become devoted to Buddhism in our culture, and to mindfulness meditation. Some people also become devoted to the "Nyland version" of Gurdjieff Work. It is a much smaller number, but there are some of us and with good reason, because Gurdjieff Work as taught by Mr. Nyland offers some advantages over Buddhism. The uniqueness of my experience is that, although devoted to Mr. Nyland's version of this practice, I was "plucked," as it were, by really unusual circumstances out of the group in which I learned this, and strictly isolated from that group for over a decade. The same unusual circumstances placed me in close proximity to a Zen Buddhist group no less devoted to their practice than Mr. Nyland's group. So I, being the kind of devotee that I was, had to adapt to life in circumstances that were very unusual for such a devotee.

     One outcome of this unique experience has been that I have learned a great deal about the practice that I learned from Mr. Nyland. That is to my benefit, and I would also like to turn it to your benefit.

     Human beings are social creatures. Our practices are social. Other people can understand our practices not only by what we say but also by what we do. Most likely they have somewhat similar practices, so we can relate. For example, most people have some sort of home. Some people take pride in their home, others not so much. Those who take less pride in their home probably take more pride in something else. "Different strokes for different folks." We can and do relate somehow, even if we dislike people who let their property deteriorate and the grass grow wild, or maybe we dislike people who landscape the postage-stamp yards of their "little boxes," to quote Malvina Reynolds.

     The practice of working on one's own consciousness is social in that it is learned from someone else and from some group, but our consciousness is our own individual experience. We cannot observe anyone else's consciousness, only our own. This makes it more difficult for devotees of this practice to relate with each other and also with our fellow human beings who are not, as yet, devotees of this practice. The difficulty can be overcome relatively easily when one is in communication with fellow devotees. My fellow members of Mr. Nyland's groups also understand that we are working on our own consciousness. We all understand that our consciousness is invisible to others. It is invisible, but it is reality itself for us, as it is for every human being. We are working on our reality itself by working, so to speak, on our reception. Of course we also continue to work on partial aspects of our reality, like everyone else. We still walk the dog, make breakfast, take our the garbage, go to work, and all the rest.  This practice has nothing to do with abdicating any aspect of life. It is not joining a monastery, physically or psychologically, which is a clear advantage over some understandings of Buddhism. We all know that we can't invite others to look at our consciousness, as we can invite them to look at our homes, or at how much money we have, or how far and fast we can run, or our fit and beautiful bodies. We can invite people to become our sexual partner and experience our expertise in dancing in a truly intimate relationship, but we cannot invite even our most intimate partner to experience our own reality. But we can tell those who understand this kind of work, this practice, in the same way, about our work. They can understand what we are trying to do, our efforts, our experience, because they make similar efforts and have similar experiences. They can see our practice in our behavior, by comparing our behavior with theirs. Obviously a person who does not understand this practice cannot see our practice in our behavior- although maybe they do see something unusual, hopefully something good. We do this practice, make these efforts, in order to have a better life. That does include behaving better, more appropriately and effectively. I might illustrate what I mean with the example of playing golf. Some people get involved with the practice of playing golf, more or less seriously. There was a time when I was seriously interested in golf. Golf is a very interesting game because it isn't directly competitive at all. For example, in basketball one might become very adept at throwing the ball in the basket, but in the actual game one's opponents are trying to prevent it. In golf, no one is trying to prevent you from performing the simple task of knocking a golf ball into a distant hole with a collection of implements designed for that purpose.

     Success in golf is determined by one's score, but in fact, many people are not especially trying to shoot the lowest score possible. Many of us really have other objectives- to hit satisfying shots, for instance, especially shots requiring a full swing, to be able to make good swings that generate power in a comfortable way, relaxed and forceful, precise, to be able to hit the ball where you want it to go and as you want it to go. Many of us are more interested in how we hit the ball than in the actual result. Also, some of us really enjoy working on this independently. We enjoy the quest of it. An outside observer sees only the result, although fellow golfers certainly can understand the quest for a good swing.

     We can see the behavior of others, but only they themselves can know what they were trying to do, and why. A practice involves trying to do something, for reasons that make sense to the practitioner. The practice of working on one's own consciousness might be compared to playing golf if the golfer were invisible. All you get to see is the flight of the ball. I really play golf for the experience of trying to hit the ball, and anyone can see me trying to hit it. A person watching me play golf could see why I play, and also why I don't play more. But with the practice of working on one's own consciousness, no one can watch you play. We can still see the results, though. We do observe the behavior of others. It really can't be judged impartially without knowing what they are trying to do and why, but our behavior should be appropriate, becoming, responsible and responsive. One of the main reasons for working on our consciousness is to enable us to behave more appropriately, as judged impartially. Another even more impelling reason is to be able to HAVE an impartial judgment of our own behavior. But of course, we have the advantage of access to our own intentions. We are in no position to be able to judge anyone else, but we have a judgment anyway, based on our own experience.

     And here is the stark reality, the reason for working on one's own consciousness. If we have never specifically worked on our consciousness, our behavior is literally stupid. I am going to make some accusations about your sins, based on my own sins. I accuse you of almost never being aware of your actual behavior in the present moment, and much of the time, you aren't even paying any attention to your behavior at all. How can you be responsible for what you are doing unconsciously? Yet we behave at all times, and we are responsible for behaving appropriately. Obviously, the condition of our consciousness is not adequate to enable us to live as we should live. The only excuse for not working on our consciousness is that we are so stupid that we don't even know how stupid we are. In other words, we don't know that it could and should be different, and must be made different, by our own work.

     The deficiencies of our consciousness are not limited to our obliviousness regarding awareness of our own behavior- and again, I must emphasize that it is our inability to be aware of our behavior simultaneously with its occurance that is the real deficiency. Without that, we are not aware of our actions at the time that we are acting. Let's compare our behavior to driving a car. We are operating the voluntary muscles of our bodies. Driving a car requires attention, not necessarily conscious attention, particularly once we are skilled drivers. But physically, you had better be paying attention. Your eyes had better be looking at the road, and it is desirable to be able to hear the sounds, for instance of other cars. Even paying attention to smells, like burning rubber or an exhaust leak, is very useful, and of course, there are physical sensations like the bumps of a flat tire or of running off the road. All this information is being received by you in the present moment when you are driving, and you need to be responding to it. Given that you have the necessary skills, this is the formula for being a good driver. And most of us are good drivers, once we have learned. Some behavior is rather like driving a car, and we can be similarly alert at times, but we are almost never really aware of our behavior. For instance, we aren't really aware of our behavior when we are driving. We are just driving. Sometimes our objective of the moment is as clear as when driving- to get from point A to point B at an acceptable speed and above all without having an accident. Sometimes our objective at the moment is much less clear, but in any case, we are very rarely actually aware of our behavior in the moment, and without such awareness, we aren't really able to direct our behavior.

     This deficiency in our consciousness is bad enough, but the situation is far worse than that. We are only partially aware of our own thoughts and feelings. We are only partially aware of our physical sensations and of our perceptions. We are alive in reality, and we have human consciousness, but our consciousness is not adequate for our purposes. It is not even adequate for us to know what our purposes are. If you compare us to golfers, we are in fact a bunch of miserable hackers. But some of us think that we are Arnold Palmer, or let's say Tiger Woods, before the fall.

     Let's consider some practices that people have. Our philosophy, without awareness of reality, is as meaningful as the learned dissertations of blind men groping at the elephant of their own life. Without awareness of reality, our art is simply bad. Our science is partial, and what is so great, so valuable, about partial truth? Religion deserves special attention. We are incredibly stupid about religion. Religion means "reconnection," but obviously we are connected to all that is, and certainly to God. Where is the disconnect? Why, in our consciousness, fellow idiots. The problem of religion is with our consciousness. Our original sin is that our consciousness is not as it should be. We are not aware of reality. Awareness of reality includes awareness of the immensity and sacredness of life. We long to wake up, but we misplace our longing. When Jesus counseled us to pray that God's kingdom should "come on Earth, as it is in Heaven," isn't it obvious that he was talking about the need for a change in our consciousness? God is omnipotent and omnipresent, but not even God can wake you up unless you wish it and are willing to work. We have to do it. God has given us consciousness, it's up to us. He gave us the talent, it is up to us to use it.

     Honestly, I get very frustrated with writing. I am not a writer and have never aspired to be a writer. But I have become a writer in fact because I have this need to express this practice to people who don't understand it at all, or to people who understand it differently from me. Maybe if I had not been forced to separate myself from Mr. Nyland's groups I would not have that need, but I do have it. There are disadvantages to living in a community of fellow devotees. I prefer the wide world. Unfortunately the deficiencies in our consciousness are pervasive and global. They are not remedied solely by recognizing the need to remedy them. Work on oneself of this kind is a process. It requires efforts and in order to really be as we should be and need to be, continuous effort and correct effort are required. This is a quest, and it is really an eternal quest, because we really live in eternity, as we would realize if we were aware of reality.

     Groups devoted to this practice, including meditation groups and Gurdjieff groups, are subject to all kinds of stupidity of their own. Living in the wide world is lonely for a devotee of this practice, because we are few and far between, but it has advantages. We need to be aware of reality, not reality as imagined by any kind of culture, subculture, or cult. In the wide world the need for a common denominator helps to remind one of this aim. And we are driven by the need for a common denominator with our fellow human beings. We are social creatures. What we have in common are human bodies, obviously, but also human consciousness. At the present time, my friend, we have stupidity in common. We also have the need to wake up in common. I know that, and I am afraid that I am going to be compelled to keep on telling you about it, until you wise up, or I lose the power of writing.

    

Introduction

               "You can't always get what you want,

                 But if you try sometimes, you just might get what you need."

                                                                   -Rolling Stones

     Those two sentences, which represent advice and encouragement, touch on the basics of the human condition. We have needs, and also wants, which as the song implies, are what we THINK we need. The Stones suggest that we try, make efforts, to get what we think we need, and that thereby, even if we don't get what we want, we "just might" get what we need. Pretty good advice from young people, I think. It represents already some wisdom, as well as faith, hope and resiliency of spirit.

     But what if you don't know what you want, much less what you need? What if you have become discouraged with this strategy of trying to get what you want? Maybe it has gotten you into trouble, resulted in some form of punishment and humiliation. As the Stones also said, maybe you "can't get no satisfaction." That doesn't seem to have been true for them, but they did have to keep trying, as they also said. 

     Many people do become more or less discouraged, and the times when they do try to get what they want become few, far-between and feeble. Sometimes we want something that we can't have, such as the return of a loved one who has died, or maybe the secure and protected childhood that not everyone experienced. Sometimes it seems that we really want only that, that our other wants are superficial. It can lead to a feeling of alienation from life. Trying to "get what you want" is quite a good description of mental health. Not trying is often called mental illness. It really isn't an illness. One quits trying because trying hasn't been very rewarding. Of course it is associated with depression and anxiety, even psychosis. A body at rest tends to remain at rest, and so one becomes lazy, and likely obese. Psychotropic meds will facilitate both of those developments with a hell of a lot more reliability than their alleged benefits. The only effect of those products that is more reliable is their profits for manufacturers and marketers, not to forget rakeoffs for prescribers. But I digress.

     We need to try, to make efforts. I am suggesting to you that you should make efforts to experience awareness of reality. Obviously awareness of reality would help you to get what you need. You should learn to "want" this. In our culture it is an acquired taste, as I know. I am an American too, you know, suburban, middle class, with the "complexion and the connection." I know about the American dream, and quite a bit about the American reality too. We Americans do not pay any attention to the state of our consciousness. We ass-u-me that this is all fine, that we are "free." Freedom is a property of human consciousness, for your information. I wouldn't want to join our bloated prison population, and it is nice to have a job that pays decently so that one has a little money, an experience that fewer of us are having these days. But how free is a person who has subcontracted ones consciousness out to one's T.V., computer and "smartphone?" Being "smart," or the opposite, is an attribute of a human being, you know, not of a gadget.

     Efforts to experience awareness of reality are rewarding. This will help you. There are no harmful side effects to this practice if you do it correctly. This is a practical, effective and available way of maintaining or reclaiming your mental health. I am offering it to you on a silver platter and for free, much as it was offered to me. I didn't manufacture it, there can be no patent. Awareness of reality is from God, just consciousness pure and simple.

     The "mentally healthy" are busily trying to "get what they want," and having their strategy of living maintained by "intermittent reinforcement," at least for the time being. As Jesus said, "they have their reward." So long as they aren't exploiting others too brutally, what's wrong with it? But we all need awareness of reality, whether we know it or not. As Jerry Quarry once said to Muhammed Ali, "your ass can be had too, you know." We will all be victimized in the end, by ill health, old age if we are lucky, by death in any case. The human condition, and our personal condition, can look very bleak in certain moods, when we aren't trying to get what we want. We can try to counteract such moods by repeating comforting stories that we have heard, for example about life after death with God in Heaven. Stories are stories, whether religious, scientific, philosophical. Any kind of statement about your life is a story, any statement about how you feel and the accompanying rationalization and justification for why you feel that way. None of those stories tells the whole truth. 

     There is a widening gulf between those who sneer at the stories of religion and those who refuse to part with their faith regardless of the weight of evidence apparently on the side of our materialistic science. God is not a theory. Religious faith is faith that God is reality. This cannot be proven or disproven by argument. Reality is not known by thinking about it. Reality is known by awareness. Can you experience awareness now? Why don't we have real consciousness instead of living in delusions and hallucinations? Aren't we called to wake up and be what people obviously should be?

Anybody Home?

     One learns about this practice from someone who knows about it. It has its own subculture, an underground or deep current that has flowed from ancient times. This current has to exist because of the actual condition of our consciousness. Sometimes it breaks out into the open. Happy is the culture that honors this practice.

     Somehow or other one hears about this, becomes interested, reaches the point of actually trying it, learns with more or less difficulty how to do it more or less correctly. There are results of doing this practice even approximately correctly, and these results are very positive for a person cognitively, emotionally and physically. They are also positive for others who interact with the practitioner. But one must persist. Sometimes it is quite difficult to discriminate "fools' gold" from that which is of real value. We continue to think and we continue to be captivated and fascinated by our own thinking. Our thought cannot discriminate reality from imagination because our thought is essentially imaginative.

     Our suffering is a reliable compass needle, directing our effort to that which puts our suffering into its proper place in God's creation. It is odd that the first of Buddha's Noble Truths is "life is suffering." In awareness, life is not suffering. Life is now. But life in waking sleep is suffering. Awareness of reality requires continuous effort. That effort is not suffering, and it is life, real life. As Gurdjieff said, "life is real only then, when 'I Am'." Life is effort, obviously. Our hearts work even in our sleep, even our dreams roam around restlessly. It is God's will. This practice is taking stock in creation. Instead of being only a slave for God, I work also for myself. Creation belongs to me too. In awareness I do not need to suffer. But when I have forgotten awareness, back in my default mode, I thank my suffering for reminding me that I need to wake up.

     I hope that this blog could become interactive, obviously. It is simple enough. Gurdjieff talked about creating "clubs" in which this practice is discussed. It is a culture that must grow. I have been involved with this for more than 40 years. Of course I know something about it. I know the value of it by personal experience. I want to teach it, I want to associate with people who also wish to follow this way of life. As Chaucer said of the Clerk of Oxenford, "gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche." It is not only a way of life, it is the way of life. We are alive, in life and of life. We need to be aware of reality and live accordingly. We can talk about this practice, compare notes. "It is no secret, what God can do."

     I know nothing of this Internet stuff. At the present time, I can't even find this blog myself by searching for it by name or address. Probably I will figure that all out in time. Gradually I will direct people who might be interested to it. I had imagined that anyone who wished could simply post comments, to which I could then respond. It is not so easy as I would like. One friend alerted me that to post a comment, one has to disclose not only one's E-mail address but also one's password. It is very intrusive in my opinion. My E-mail address is kerrymillay@Yahoo.com. I suggest that if you have any comment you E-mail me, and I will respond both privately and in the blog. Of course one has questions if one is paying any attention to this at all, both theoretical and practical questions. "We can talk about it now." Criticisms are welcome, so long as they don't constitute assault.

Just Do It

     The point of this practice is not just to think about it, but rather to do it. This is not only philosophy, it is science. The difference between philosophy and science is that science requires experiment. Just do it.

     Actually this is the science of psychology. Psychology as it presently exists is no science at all. It has no clarity about what it is studying. Psychology should be the science of our consciousness. That is the psyche to which this "ology" is attached. The psyche is the experience of a human being. It is not really possible to observe the psyche of others. The only experience that I can really know is my own. I can try to verify that the experience of others is like mine, but I have to rely on the reports of other observers, observing their own psyche. It is completely absurd to try to define psychology as "behavioral science." The mirror that reflects reality for us is one's own consciousness. Rocks behave, so do chemicals and robots. We also behave, but unlike rocks, chemicals and robots, we are aware of behavior. I am conscious, therefore I am. Descartes didn't have it quite right. It is not my thinking that makes me a person, it is my consciousness. Certainly having a body is also a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for personhood. If we were only bodies, our world would not exist. Our world is the world of human consciousness. 

     There are "perfectly good reasons," as Mr. Nyland said, for doing this practice. The point of it is to do it. In our culture, we are not accustomed to thinking along lines that reveal the necessity for this practice. For example, our understanding of religion tends to be based on the false belief or delusion, or even hallucination, that God is a person. This sidetracks our attention from the main issue. 

     The meaning of "religion" is "reconnection." But obviously, we are connected. The sense of estrangement exists because we are only partially aware of our own reality. The fault is with our consciousness. But the point is to remedy that fault, to experience healing in that sense. It will not be accomplished by thinking.

     I have learned by frustrating experience that few people in our culture seem to be able to hear the angels singing, or to identify where their song is coming from.

     Unfortunately, the same cultural stupidity applies to those who would teach this practice, such as myself. Awareness of reality, putting aside "gifts" and accidents, which are by definition unreliable, is experienced only by those who know how to experience this, wish to experience it, and are presently making the necessary effort. Our default mode is "waking sleep." In "waking sleep" our same old habits of thought, cultural habits, continue by momentum. It is true that our thought is informed and improved by our experience of awareness of reality. Still, thought is only thought. Awareness is how reality is known.

     Our culture is not "the best of all possible worlds." To me, there are certain basic questions regarding the nature of reality and the reality of God that must come up for a human being, but those questions actually seem to come up rather rarely in our culture. One reason is that paying attention to these basic human issues, to our actual business as persons with the potentiality but not yet the actuality of real consciousness, is not encouraged by the immense power of accumulated capital concentrated in often multinational corporations.  There is no profit for them in such concerns. Other concerns have real profit potential. When I, a complete Internet neophyte, was trying to set up this blog, I happened on a survey of the day's hot blog questions. Number one was, "what gives you a boner?"

     You are suffering from the state of your consciousness, even if you don't know the difference between consciousness and an erection. Our consciousness is the direct cause of our suffering, of course.

     Our religion and psychology are full of blatant nonsense. Our so-called mental health system is a bad joke. And of course, our political system is no democracy. It is, as is. There is one saving grace, and that is that the reality of our suffering cannot be entirely ignored.

     Jesus Christ, a great teacher, emphasized that it is the "poor in spirit," those who suffer, who can benefit from this teaching. He put it very forcefully: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of Heaven." "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven."

     The poor in spirit may be too depressed, too anxious, too psychotic to understand the kind of psychological statements that I am making here, which are a bit off the beaten path of our materialistic and hyper-commercial culture. Many of them may wander into the web of our "mental illness" system, where they will be encouraged to take medications that routinely have harmful side effects and to depend on the expertise of doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, counselors, social workers, case managers and other support professionals. Their poverty of spirit will be attributed to their alleged "mental illness," that will o' the wisp. All these dependencies constitute a practice, a remarkably passive one. You know, the attribute highlighted by the word "patient" is waiting. "Hell of a waiter, old Joe. Never saw a person wait better. Waited his whole life, until he died." Jesus did not advise those who suffer to merely wait for "pie in the sky by and by." He advised action. "Come with me, and I will make you fishers of men." The rich also suffer. "Sell all you have, and give to the poor."

     The point of this practice is to do it. I have explained why one would want to do it. Of course, that can be explained otherwise. I have also explained how to begin. One must do it correctly, which is always a learning process. One must also do it seriously. An occasional half-hearted effort is not going to bring much result in this, or in anything else. This is not to say that a person has to buy this practice whole-heartedly without trying it. But one has to try it seriously and persistently at times, in order to have a realistic assessment of its value.

     Depression and anxiety are the two most common emotional states associated with "mental illness." They are also associated with poverty of spirit. Depression and anxiety are not just some kind of impersonal "chemical imbalances in the brain." A person becomes depressed because one's needs are not being met, and one doesn't know of anything that one can do to get them met. It is an emotional reaction of a person to reality as experienced in the partial consciousness of that person. The same is true of anxiety, which is the apprehension or fear that one's needs may not be met. When that fear is chronic, the "fear itself" prevents us from getting our needs met, which frequently and logically leads to depression as well. This practice is a much better and more available remedy and protection against depression and anxiety than any amount of pills and therapy. It has no harmful side effects if done correctly. But you have to actually do it.

     Sometimes truth is expressed most clearly in dreams. This blog is an expression of the truth of this practice by me. I have a right to make these statements, which refer to my own discoveries, discoveries made however with the benefit of good and rare guidance, and not for either the first or last time. It is like the movie of the Neverending Story, my personal quest but also the ancient quest. I have felt a need to create this blog, and now I feel that I have recorded the essentials, a sufficient indication. "Those who can hear, let them hear." Last night I dreamt that there was going to be a nuclear attack, and we had to flee. (This does not purport to be prophetic, it was just a dream.) What would I take, aside from immediate necessities, something from our culture that must be preserved? Knowledge of this quest must be preserved. It is the Neverending Story of humanity.