Ravings of a Madman

     Raising and settling questions is a positive process, good for a person's mental health. Science and philosophy are about this. Science is better at settling questions than philosophy is, I think. Religion is a little different. There are questions in religion, but they are assumed to have a primordial existence, to have existed from the beginning. The possible settling of those basic, organic questions is also assumed to be primordial. I think that science, philosophy and religion actually have a great deal in common. The role of doctrine, of human thought in religion is undeniable by anyone, except the most fanatical zealot, the kind of person who thinks you are going to hell or are fair game to be killed because you doubt some formulation to which he or she clings as God's word. My dear friends, one ought to get over that attitude. God does not speak in words. Reality is God's speech. "God of our fathers, whose almighty hand leads forth in beauty all the starry band of shining worlds in splendor through the skies.." I wish that the authors of such beautiful, even if sexist, expressions of gratitude for our existence would stay off the thrones and things like that.

     I don't want to get into psychology too much. It is a most deep subject. It's really all about psychology, by which I mean, the reality of our experience as individual human beings. Religion, art, science and philosophy are all psychological. Obviously religion exists because human beings exist. Religion is about reconnection, which is indeed a basic need that human beings tend to feel, a question that does come up for us, as if it were created with us. Animals don't have religion. Their connection is not in question. The connection of pre-linguistic children is not in question. Our connection is in question. It is a psychological issue.

     I think that the process of formulating questions that express our emotional confusion, questions that touch on our pain, is good for our mental health. We suffer. Animals also suffer. We can think, and we do think. We can think about our suffering, try to understand it in our thinking. It is obvious that we do this, and must do it, because we do suffer and because we do think. It is inevitable. The inevitable is God's will. The question for us is whether our will is congruent with the inevitable.

     It is said that we have a free will, although this is also disputed. I think that this formulation does refer, beyond question, to an experienced reality of our lives, namely, that we seem to have the power and responsibility of directing the voluntary muscles of our bodies, and less obviously but even more basically, of directing our attention. And we really don't know what to do with either. So there are a lot of questions. We are exposed to both satisfaction and punishment, that is, positive and negative reinforcement, as a result of the choices that we make from moment to moment in the use of our voluntary muscles and of our attention. Therefore there are questions of great practical significance for us, essential questions.

     For me there is an organic relationship between feeling and thinking. In my feeling I experience both my satisfaction and my non-satisfaction, my gratification and my pain. As yet, I do not experience continuous ecstasy. What the hell? In fact, I experience quite a lot of pain at times, sometimes excruciating pain. It is inevitable that I think about this most serious emotional reality of my life. This is practical thinking. It is inevitable, and it is my responsibility as a thinking, feeling living being, also known as a human being.

     The point is, and this point ought to be obvious to anybody, I don't care whether the body is male or female (I exempt children, those with profound mental retardation, and the demented) that we have choices to make, innumerable choices, from moment to moment, and it certainly seems to us, and I do mean you, God damn it, that our choices make a great difference, and probably all the difference, regarding whether we are experiencing and will experience gratification or agony. Obviously, our choices do not make a bit of difference regarding what we HAVE experienced. What's done is done. But the present is up for grabs. We are free. May freedom crash down on you like a thunderbolt.

     The edge of frustration in my tone comes from this: I happen to be aware that our freedom does not just apply to how we use our bodies. Our freedom in the direction of our attention is even more radical, and more basic. But we neglect that freedom, and in this case "we" refers more to you than to me. That is a difference between me and many of my readers, because I have "steeped" in the practice of awareness of reality for many years, and you probably haven't.

     It comes down to a question, and beyond question, to the present direction of one's attention, to presence. One might direct one's present attention to feelings. But, that is a partial focus, that leaves a lot of my reality unconscious, including my present behavior and including my thinking, which goes on constantly. A focus on thought is no less partial, despite the vanity of men. A focus on thought does not exclude feeling and behavior, but it weights the scales. The same is true of a focus on feeling. I certainly don't believe that there is any inherent, organic factor that mandates the direction of any human being's attention. It is not biologically determined. It is obvious to anyone smarter than a post that culture, transmitted via language and modeling, does direct our attention, and in fact leads it around by the nose, because we are very poor excuses for what a human being ought to be, or, to express a little of my patriotism, what an American ought to be. Jesus Christ! Please be present to us again in spirit, and instruct our excessive stupidity, because we in sore need of a refresher course.

     Whether we are focused more on our thoughts or more on our feelings, our poor behavior is generally as starved of our attention as a stepchild, which is certainly alarming, since we are behaving constantly with all effects on other beings of all forms, on the Earth, and on ourselves. Thinking is good and necessary. It does not deserve the contempt of women or men. It could be said that men think to solve women's problems. That is facetious. I can already hear the feminists barking at my heels, and they are quite a vicious pack. Men think to solve their own problems. Their success in doing so is evident for the world to see. That is called sarcasm, if you are unfamiliar with that kind of expression. At least we men haven't managed to completely destroy life on Earth yet, although it is hard to put any limit on the creativity of our stupidity. Certainly we have destroyed much, In fairness, we do something right occasionally. Women's track record is just as good, and no better. We are all one. A person is not born from the crotch of a tree, you know. It is not better to focus on either thought or feeling. Both are realities of our lives, and neither is the whole reality. Behavior cannot be neglected.

     This blog, of course, is an expression of some of my thoughts, of which I have many. I feel that I need to express these thoughts. I also, of course, feel continuously. This blog is also an expression of some of my feelings, a verbal expression. Communication is 97% nonverbal, but for readers of this blog who do not know me personally, it is 100% verbal. So you're missing 97% of me, should you happen to have the slightest curiosity. I am not merely a man of words. Not that my behavior is anything to write home about. I behave constantly, including the behavior of writing and typing this blog, to the neglect of other obligations. I am in relation with my fellow humans, oh boy and oh girl, also with you who read this, and I wish that relationship to express Rogers' core conditions. I am constantly in relationship with reality. I need to be present, impartially and simultaneously. It is the only way that I can experience and express the core conditions, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Presence requires direction of my attention to presence. It requires the will and it requires the skill.

Presence

     Presence is one of Rogers' core conditions for human relationship, so that we can relate to others as human beings obviously should relate, "on Earth as it is in Heaven." But presence isn't just a condition of relationship, or rather, it is a condition of our relationship not only with other people, but also with each and every aspect of reality, the whole of which I call God, because it is our creator, our destination and where we are now, because it is sacred, profound, infinite, and loved in every atom of our physical being, and by all that is: "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; praise Him, all creatures here below; praise Him above, ye heavenly host.." That expresses the feeling. The last line, about Father, Son and Holy Ghost is awfully heady and reeks with doctrine if not dogma.

     When I speak of encountering the spirit of Carl Rogers, I am talking about my experience with a certain professional training last weekend. I am talking about something else also, something greater, but not separate from that experience which I really did have. At one point in that experience, referring to my own pain of relating to others in a social environment where the core conditions do not exist perfectly- although paradise can be touched at moments- and often the core principles are more or less violated, trampled underfoot in our stupidity; I said, expressing my feeling, "I could be on my knees on the floor." That is the classic posture of relationship with God also. What drives us to our knees, what inner command? It is love. "And when you're feeling sad and blue, you know love's made a fool of you." Love did not make me a fool. I have been that, because of my poor excuse for presence. Our love shows us, at times, what a fool we have been.

     The practice of awareness of reality is exactly about presence, of course. It is more precise, more sophisticated, more realistic and practical about this than Rogers was. But Rogers was focused on human relationships, specifically "helping relationships." This practice focuses on the individual's relation with reality. It is obvious that our relation with others can be no better than our relation with reality. I also believe that our relation with others can be no worse than our relation with reality. It is said that love will find a way. Indeed so, but not without presence. "Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven, and all else will be added unto you." In presence, I relate to reality correctly wherever I exist, in whatever conditions, even at the moment of death or whatever I might imagine to be the afterlife. I think that it is quite obvious that the imagination of those who are sure there is no afterlife will be falsified by their experience. We live in infinity, and while we exist, reality exists for us. We are either present, or unconscious. Corpses are unconscious, like rocks. We all experience unconsciousness every night, in sleep. The universe continues to exist, but we are unconscious, although we might dream. We know that we will sleep again tonight, and we might even look forward to that surrender of consciousness. And we know that our life here will end in death, that this amazing body of ours will turn into something like a rock, life having departed. But our actual experience, now and eternally is of presence. But am I really present? Life is real only then, when I am. So I continue on my way, seeking the kingdom of Heaven. Of course I am seeking Heaven on Earth. Earth happens to be where I live at the moment. And I am not on a deserted island like Robinson Crusoe either, thank God. I am here with my fellows, oh boy and oh girl. As someone once said, we are not born from the crotch of a tree. We are so profoundly social, for instance all our thinking, which we may experience as an individual, isolated, even alienated attribute of ourselves- Descartes is translated as considering it our essential attribute, "I am a thinking thing"- is cultural, it is received from other people, from Mommy and Daddy, brother and sister, old friends, people maybe no longer remembered consciously, but whose presence is still felt in our lives. Our culture, our thinking, our use of language is associated for each of us with those persons from whom our culture was received. Know thyself, for God's sake. Wake up. Get real. Be present to yourself. Be present to me. May God help me to follow that road myself.

     In reality, for me, my feelings in relation to another person with whom I am in relationship at a given moment shift very rapidly, very, very sensitively, not only in reaction to every single nuance of their behavior, including their speech, but also, for good and for ill, in relation to my own past associations which are constantly being touched and tickled from moment to moment. Jung's idea of the "feeling-toned complex" has relevance to understanding this. We all have complexes. It is how our memory is organized, associations with definite emotional tints.

     The fallacy of psychoanalysis is that it ignores the crucial need for presence, the sine qua non of growth for us. I can analyze my reactions at a particular moment, and indeed can gain insight into my complexes. But that insight won't eliminate my complexes. To have an emotional history is to have complexes. I wish to own my complexes. In a sense, I am proud of them. They are not really wounds, even the most painful. They are the sure proof that I am a veteran, a grizzled veteran of the human encounter, still on my feet, and in fact, in real truth, untouched. In presence I am innocent, virgin, presence is the Garden of Eden. In simultaneous acceptance of reality, my associations are accepted simultaneously for whatever they are. It is my present from God.

     I touch that kind of presence and I work for it, but I don't stay there. To stay with that requires that I keep my full attention on presence. I am getting better at that. It divides automatically, that is a reality of my experience. As long as I can continue to be single-minded about remaining present, the automatic divisions of my attention are simply accepted. But when my attention is focused otherwise, I usually am no longer fully present. Sometimes a full, nothing held back focus of attention on some activity can bring me to full presence automatically. I have experienced this in Gurdjieff movements and in a car accident, and in a variety of other activities. It is a momentary experience. To sustain impartial and simultaneous presence, I have to make the necessary undivided effort with will and skill.

     In interactions with others that are not superficial, I am paying attention to the other's communication and to how I am expressing myself. This is how it has to be if I am to have intimate, important relationships with my brothers and sisters. But it usually takes me away from full presence, although there are moments. I notice particularly that if I am talking about presence with someone, I may automatically experience full presence. Sometimes when I notice that I am fully present for a moment in a relationship, I try to maintain that presence. That is a highly advanced skill. In conversation with someone else who is sincerely interested in presence, it can be very easy. It was almost possible in sexual intimacy with my beloved, who "didn't get it" as yet about presence, but who understood love deeply.

     My beloved "didn't get" presence. That was her expression. I didn't call it presence or awareness of reality then, I called it Gurdjieff. I grabbed for intimacy with her, because she was so very lovely. I tried to explain this practice to her, at first so that she would know me, later because it was more and more obvious that she needed it, and we could be together in eternity in this practice.

     The Buddhists, I think- and not being one, I don't pretend to really know- are barking up the wrong tree to an extent. Maybe if you actually climb that tree, it gets you to paradise just the same. I have chosen to climb Mr. Nyland's tree, which he said was Gurdjieff's, and he ought to know. I haven't gotten to paradise yet, but I'm absolutely convinced that I'm on the right track. Anyway, to me there is a sense in Buddhism as if we lived in a monastery, which of course we don't and which I would never accept.

     Some day... "One bright morning when this life is over, I'll fly away. To that home on God's celestial shore, I'll fly away. I'll fly away in glory, I'll fly away in the morning.."

     But we live in eternity now. I'm getting mine now with ice cream on top. Some day, in eternity, I will become so dexterous in maintaining my attention on presence, impartial and simultaneous, so pure of will to make love in the Garden of Eden with all God's present, not partial, that even intimacy will become automatic. But I'm not there yet. Someday, in eternity. It's a destination. Buddhahood is a destination. The Bodhisattva path is a journey. It's really the same, and yet not the same. We live in duality and we live in God. Intimacy with others is an adventure. Intimacy with ourselves is also an adventure. Your mission, should you choose to accept it.

     At the present time, completely human as we are, maybe the best working compromise is to leave space for silence in our relationships, so that we can continually touch base with God.

     I just want to throw in one more personal note. Brattleboro is a lovely little town in every respect. Maybe I shouldn't say that. A few years ago there was an organization of Oregonians known as the Blaine Society, I think because they aimed to encourage people to move to Maine by spreading the impression that Oregon is a dreary place where it rains all the time.

     Anyway, I was out for a little walk, and there is a wonderful spot with a bridge over a stream which obviously can become a roaring torrent at times. There is a huge treetrunk that has been washed to that spot by some flood. It was right there the last time I was in Brattleboro, a year and a half ago. It couldn't go much further in any case, because it wouldn't fit under the next bridge.

     I like to linger at that spot. The village has grown up around that stream, and next to the river into which it merges just a bit further on. I happened to notice a building actually rising out of the water, which obviously runs much higher and fiercer at times. It is an old building, and it is a brick building, not with a visible foundation of massive stones. The bricks rise out of the water. I wondered, how can it endure, how can bricks and mortar encounter this stream? But obviously they can, because they do, and obviously those who constructed that building knew that it would be able to sustain that encounter.

     And then I wondered, how did they ever build it. Obviously the mortar would have had to set and cure, before its encounter with the stream. Of course, they must have employed a cofferdam.

     I also have employed a cofferdam in my relationships with others, because I have recognized the necessity of building my presence to a certain point before I could expose myself to the continuous flow of intimacy. It was not because of a wish to keep people at arm's length, nor even out of fear. It takes time to learn how to direct one's attention properly. I'm still learning, but at least I have learned how to return, again and again, to the right way. I can even do that now in an intimate relationship. Before, intimacy tended to wash my presence away, but now I have built something sufficiently that I no longer need the cofferdam. Now I can take the risk of encountering my brothers and sisters, which I have longed for, such hunger, such pain of estrangement. I had to build my presence. Grabbing for intimacy prematurely hasn't worked. It is a miracle that I have survived my attempts, it is a miracle that my complexes can be accepted at times. My beloved did not survive. Today is actually the fourth anniversary of the last morning I spent with her, actually right now. She is present to me in spirit. Lord, if I had been there, my sister would not have died. But we all die, and our spirit does survive and is present to those who love us. I wish that she were present in the flesh, pie with ice cream on top. But God is present, and so are you, and so am I. She is present in spirit, she will always be present to me in spirit. She threw away her chance for pie with ice cream. That was a tragic mistake, a stupid mistake, such as I also make all the time when I am not present. For her and for all souls, I will live with all my might.

Celebrating a Comment

     Oh boy and oh girl, a real comment! Thank you Garnet, from the bottom of my heart. Questions would be even better, but it is wonderful to know that at least someone that I don't know personally finds it worthwhile to read these communications.

     This blog is a way of taking the first step in what could become a more or less intimate relationship with any or all of my readers. Of course, with some of my readers it is not the first step, because we have a more or less intimate relationship already.

     Somebody always has to take the first step "across the great divide." It is risky, but the intimacy for which we hunger is a prize worth that risk, at least for me and at this time in my life. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." Obviously if one's last venture in human relationship has led to excruciating punishment, one may be very, very shy about taking the first step, or responding to someone else's overture. It is equally risky either way. It is really not so easy to say who is penetrated and who is penetrating. Human beings are in more or less intimate relationship. The quest for empathic understanding is fraught with risk for both, and the prize of intimacy, I think, is greatly desired by all humankind.

     I have the courage to take the first step, as you see. I have great skill in protecting myself, so it isn't stupid for me. For me, it would be stupid not to take the first step. Still, it is risky. Writing, of course, is intellectual communication, more or less. Poetry and fiction are less. It is still verbal. 97% of communication is nonverbal. That is the deficiency of the Internet as a vehicle of communication.

     Like many men, I am, as it were, right handed, dexterous, with thought. Women, in my experience, tend to be dexterous with feelings. It isn't a hard and fast distinction based on physical sex. Let's say, it's a thought that I have, but a thought that I believe many people could agree with.

     I am not apologizing at all for being a man. I am not guilty, and neither do I feel that I have been cheated at all. I don't get to have a vagina, periods, or give birth, but it is also an extraordinary, miraculous experience to have the equipment and capabilities that I do have. And viva la difference.

     Traditionally, it is considered appropriate that a man should be forward in relationship, whether with man or woman. The rules are in flux. In any case, for me and I think for any real person, that forwardness, that intrusion into someone else's personal space, is not any kind of evidence of invulnerability. The "man of steel," Superman, doesn't exist. A man of steel is dead, or more accurately, never lived. I am present enough to be aware of my vulnerability.

     One risk is indifference. The other may not even care that I have entered her, or his, personal space. That is potentially crushing, but I can deal. The other may be uncomfortable with my presence, may not like it, may reject me. I can deal, I am skilled in protecting myself in relationship. But it seems to me that the only response that I would really desire to my forwardness would be a question- not rejection clothed in the form of a question, but a real question. Then my interest is whetted, it doesn't wither. Potentially I am being invited to penetrate further, if I can present satisfactory credentials, if my intentions are proven, thus far, to be good, loving and stimulating, if I am showing genuine kindness of human kind. It is also a two way street. Maybe I hesitate to penetrate further just now. Penetration does carry commitment, emotional commitment. Only a fool can fail to learn this, or more precisely, only a fool is capable of denying it, the kind of fool who tells himself that he is a man of steel. Enjoy your stroll down suicide road, stupid. It might be that I just don't have time to become more deeply intimate with someone right now. Still, I do not wish to pretend indifference. We are all neighbors here.

On Carl Rogers

     Carl Rogers is certainly a better known and more accessible person than Gurdjieff. Of course, both are dead now. The dead are really second class citizens. They are history. They are invisible, untouchable, they have no voice. But their spirit is still with us. It occurs to me, for the first time, that this could be the metaphorical meaning of Jesus resurrection, which is usually understood as a physical event, in which one either believes, in the face of all experience, or not.

     In any case, the spirit of Rogers is still with us, if you can access that. I ran into the spirit of Carl Rogers last weekend in Brattleboro, Vermont. He hangs out there sometimes, in spirit.

     Rogers' name is quite well known, but his spirit is not well known, and that is too bad. I will tell you something about the spirit of Carl Rogers.

     Rogers stood for a kind of human relationship characterized by certain core conditions, conditions that can exist in relationships but that often do not, not in our culture. There are four of these core conditions. The first is unconditional positive regard, as Rogers called it. I think that could be fairly translated as love. Obviously Rogers chose to use a different phrase, and it isn't hard to imagine why. Immediately after unconditional positive regard, in my opinion, must be mentioned the second core condition, genuineness. That covers not only one's love, but also all one's other feelings as well, including dislike, repulsion, criticisms, judgments, rejection, and so on. I will not say indifference. In this kind of relationship, indifference is out the window. Indifference is a defense of ours. We are not indifferent to each other really, but we often act as if we were, and we learn to believe that we are, to protect ourselves in a culture in which real human relationships, characterized by these core conditions, seldom exist. We might not have strong feelings either positive or negative about another person at any given moment, but we are lying to ourselves, to that person, and to everyone else if we claim to be indifferent. Other people make a difference to us, a great deal of difference. Every person. Ever notice how a dog reacts, when encountering a fellow dog? We aren't different, just more inhibited.

     Unconditional positive regard and genuineness are complementary conditions. Both are necessary for either to really exist.

     The third core condition is the quest for empathic understanding. Obviously none of us walks in anyone else's shoes. This condition means that I would like to know how it feels, and what it looks like, to walk in your shoes. I would also like you to know, or most especially to want to know, what it is to walk in mine. This is love of course, expressed. It has to be a two-way street. I really don't think that I can love you more than you love me. I wish to understand you empathically, but if you don't have an equal interest in me, my interest withers. Somebody always has to take the first step, but it has to be reciprocated. I may be a bit shy about reciprocating this kind of intimate probing. I have certainly been hurt, and I have also hurt others. I tend to assume shyness on the part of others as well. I know that I will never really experience your life, but I would like to be on intimate terms of communication, emotionally, with you, both ways. As it were, I need your help to guide me into yourself, and I also want to guide you into me, if we can risk the intimacy for which we long. It is very risky, very tender. Any adult knows the risks, but the potential gratification is almost unlimited. It is a frankly sexual metaphor. Emotional intimacy doesn't necessarily imply sexual intimacy, but it is the only true foundation for sexual intimacy, if mutually desired. Trying to go about this in reverse order doesn't work out very well in my experience. I have certainly tried. I don't think that anything else in my life has produced so much suffering, for me and for others. One is exposed to the suffering of having one's trust betrayed, and the even more horrible suffering of knowing that one has betrayed someone else's trust. This can approach hell on earth.

     And the fourth core condition is presence. I have to be paying attention to my present experience to fulfill these core conditions of relationship, and so do you, if we are to have that kind of relationship. These core conditions are not attributes of an individual, they are attributes of a relationship, except for presence.

     I was quite fascinated by "Robinson Crusoe" when I was a child. If one were in Robinson Crusoe's condition, one really couldn't love, because there is no one to love. One really couldn't be genuine. There would be no one with whom to join the dance of empathic understanding. But one still could practice presence, in one's loneliness. Presence is an individual matter. It has to do with the direction of one's own attention. That is your department, and my department. No one else can direct your attention for you. They might like to try- that is manipulation- but you have to allow yourself to be manipulated. Of course, when one is a small child, one's attention is directed by others and by language, as we learn it. It happens automatically. This is the basic trouble with us. In our culture, we do not learn the crucial importance of remaining present. We learn to be not present as we learn language, we learn to live, and do live, in "waking sleep."

     Rogers had a vision, a feeling for the kind of human relationship that must exist, God's kingdom come to Earth, as we dream that it must exist in Heaven. We know in our hearts how it should be, we long for it, but we don't know how to have it in our lives, so we think that this pain of isolation, estrangement, indifference and stupidity must be just the condition of Earth, and pray to go to Heaven after we die, where we imagine that we will actually experience the core conditions. As the Reverend Ike used to say, "don't wait for pie in the sky by and by. Get yours now with ice cream on top." The dead don't get pie. They really are second class citizens.

Conscience

     Conscience is our emotional knowledge of how we should be. We know emotionally, but with our minds we don't know.

     I think that if we could really live in unity with our conscience it would be like the artistic sense of a really great artist at work, an intuition or simply a preference, an impulse that determines what we do from moment to moment with no need to wait for thinking, simultaneous direction in action and even in thought. That would be life in true consciousness, a condition in which our conscience could actually be our guide, and in which, as the "I Ching" puts it, remorse could disappear.

     At the present time for us, life with a conscience is life with remorse. Living in waking sleep, we are not remotely sensitive enough to be guided by our conscience. We are far too partial for that. The scales of our judgment are weighted by our thoughts. Our thoughts are heavier than our conscience. Conscience is fine, not gross, it is the touch of spirit, light as a butterfly's wing or an angel's hand on your shoulder. We are too slow and too insensitive to actually be guided by our conscience, and so we have to live with remorse.

     I think that one does learn lessons from remorse. They are hard lessons, but I think that the ability to learn in this way is crucial for a person. One has to be able to submit to one's conscience. We are so insensitive that we require a beating before our conscience gets our attention. But when we receive the beating of genuine, severe remorse and respond, adjust our behavior and our thinking in accordance with the inner punishment that we have received and are receiving, it is a proof that we are willing and of a mind to submit to higher authority, that is, to what we actually should do and should be. It is a good mark for us, it shows that we still have potential.

     Conscience is, as it were, the judgment of God, the way God feels when He regards us-and God regards us continuously, that is omnipresence. I think that it is as if God experiences a degree of indigestion in regarding us, usually not outright nausea. After all, God keeps it all in perspective, by definition, but regarding us must be somewhat disturbing to God. On the other hand, sometimes we have our golden moments, as if God says, "not bad." I hope that you have experienced both severe remorse and such golden moments. One such moment can warm your heart for a lifetime, at moments when you are in desperate need of a little warmth in your "cold, cold heart."

     I think that we live with a constant background of remorse. We tune it out. We really have to tune it out, because we can't do anything about it, until we actually learn how to become aware of reality. It is even mentally healthy to tune it out, so that we can experience our requisite minimum daily requirement of joy. If we don't have enough joy in our lives, we suffer from emotional malnutrition. There is no use in that, it doesn't benefit us personally or anyone else. In our present condition, it may be desirable to be able to tune out this baseline remorse which is unavoidable in waking sleep, while still being able to respond to extraordinary remorse. That is a "well-adjusted" person, adjusted to life in waking sleep. But we should not have to adjust to waking sleep. That is not how we should be.

     As awakening becomes a little more real for me, the possibility of actually living with my conscience, and not tuning it out, also becomes a little more real. There is an immense backlog of remorse that I have tuned out in my life, like water held back by Grand Coulee Dam. I don't see any benefit in subjecting myself to that flood. Of course, my sins are crushing.

     The remedy is to let the river of life flow. This is the practice of awareness of reality. "Remorse disappears." I have experienced such moments. "The very time I thought I was lost, my dungeon shook and my chains fell off."

     If you will pardon some frankly metaphorical thinking: God, of course, is very forgiving, exactly because He is just. God is just right, because God is reality. We are not as we should be, and we sin moment by moment. It isn't right, but we can be forgiven, because we did not know what we were doing. The past really isn't our fault. We were badly brought up by our culture. A good child of the universe wishes to be as one should be, to direct my attention and energy rightly and to do rightly, to decide rightly in all things where I have the power and responsibility of decision.

     The issue really is not my sins. The issue is that I wish with all my heart not to sin. In responding to genuine and sincere remorse, I prove that. Sometimes I do something right that wasn't easy, something that demanded my intelligence, my strength and energy, my intuition, spirit and goodwill. Those are the golden moments, when I recognize that. The point is not to experience remorse, but rather to live as we should live. God isn't into recriminations. "Go and sin no more," says the priest after confession and communion. But of course we are sinning before he can even get the words out of his mouth, long before we depart the church. Maybe we stopped for a moment, if the communion was actually real, and the spirit of Jesus Christ actually was present to us for a moment.

     We are troubled by anxiety because we know that we are ignoring essentials. Of course we are troubled by an uneasy conscience. We fear punishment because we feel that we probably deserve it. But God is just.

     I want to avoid confusion on this point. When I say that God is just, I am not, for example, endorsing the Holocaust. It is evident that a great deal can, and will go wrong for any individual on Earth, and some seem to get far more than their fair share of wrongness. Life on Earth is subject to many accidental happenings, often the result of stupidity and evildoing by our fellows. And we are also subject to ill health, aging and death, which sometimes seems all too cruel to us. These are the conditions of life here. From a partial viewpoint, we might think that these things represent horrible injustice, or on the other hand, we might at least try to find justice in it. It is much more than merely justice. We are gifted with life. Life is always found in conditions, which always are, whatever they are. But life is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. In impartiality and simultaneity, we know what it means, that we are created in God's image.

     We need to accept our gift of life, however it happens to be wrapped. In one sense, we have no choice about that. Acceptance is really the only way. For example, the apparent option of committing suicide is really an illusion. We will all die, when God reclaims His talent. In the meantime, we have our choices to make. I can choose to hasten my death, do something that I believe will cause me to die. But I am still alive for the moment, as we all are. We must accept that we are alive until we die.

     But "aye, there's the rub." In the present condition of our consciousness, we are not able to accept reality. We are stuck with a partial and usually vague viewpoint. This condition is our bondage, our prison, our "mission, should you choose to accept it." Our inability is not inherent. It is a consequence of lifelong bad habits, unworthy of our consciousness and conscience, even of our beautiful bodies.

     Conscience is part of our experience. Working on our consciousness is the only way that we will ever  really be able to live in accordance with our conscience. In the meantime, do the best you can. Don't try too hard to deny your remorse, and when you can change your ways as indicated by your conscience, by all means do so. But you must realize that, as yet, you are too unconscious to really be conscientious. Don't drive yourself crazy. Jesus advised us to "be ye therefore perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect." He did not mean that we should do the impossible.

     Perfection is a journey, the "golden road," made up of golden moments strung together. Jesus gave some advice that seems impossible, but none more so than this. I am supposed to be perfect like God? The practice of awareness of reality shows us the way. I cannot go to perfection, not only is it too far, infinitely far, but also I really don't know which way to go, because my thought is partial and perfection would be impartial. But I can take one step in the right direction. Impartiality is the right direction. This practice shows us how to take that step, and in watching it, made correctly, God says, "not bad, my child. Maybe you will learn to walk after all." Walking is taking one step after another, continuously.

     Some people happen to be born with a disability, so that they cannot learn to walk. That's a condition of Earth. Walking is good as a metaphor because commonly, we walk. We all had to learn and we do learn, barring extraordinary circumstances. But walking is not the criterion of a human being. Consciousness is the criterion. That is "the talent that is death to hide." That is the talent that we must put to use, but we neglect it. Of course, we have a guilty conscience. We see a person walking, and say to ourselves, oh, there goes a man or a woman. But we do not see the behavior of really conscious people because they are "rare as hens' teeth." We look like real people, but the sordid, stunted condition of our consciousness is invisible, except to ourselves and to God. Of course we experience shame and anxiety. Our conscience is like a noble woman, the "Eternal Feminine," regarding us with clear eyes, always with hope and often with despair, sometimes screaming, sometimes sobbing. She knows what we are, what we could be, she knows what a poor excuse for a consciousness we are. She cannot be the man herself. It is up to us.

Diagnosis and Prescription

     The motivation for why a person would be interested in the practice of awareness of reality is probably not basically different from the motivation of why people become involved with the mental health system. One becomes interested because one is dissatisfied with one's life and doesn't know what to do about it.

     As with the mental health system, which unfortunately is really the mental illness system, this practice offers a diagnosis of what is wrong with you and a prescription based on your diagnosed deficiency. But the diagnosis offered and the prescription provided are very different from what the mental illness system has to offer.

     The mental illness system offers a diagnosis out of the "DSM-IV," based on your behavior and experience which are presumably causing "clinically significant distress" to you and others. This practice offers a diagnosis based on the state of your consciousness, which presumably is functioning in a certain manner with which we are utterly familiar, called by Gurdjieff "waking sleep." This manner of consciousness is considered normal or just the way things are, because it is just the way we are. But according to us, and according to any sane and informed reasoning, it is obviously not the way that we ought to be. According to Gurdjieff, Mr. Nyland, and a significant number of other people, most of whom have no connection with Gurdjieff, and also according to me, the state of our consciousness is the source of our excessive dissatisfaction and suffering. It really is not an escape from suffering that one wishes, but rather reconciliation with life. I am willing to accept the experience of dissatisfaction, which is obviously the reverse side of the experience of satisfaction. I would like to eliminate UNNECESSARY suffering, suffering based on my stupidity. It is my stupidity that I would like to part company with.
                    "Hit the road, Jack..."

     The prescription for parting company with one's stupidity was called "Work on oneself" by Gurdjieff.  Sometimes it is called meditation. I am calling it the practice of awareness of reality.

     There is a tradition of this kind of diagnosis and prescription in Eastern civilization. Buddha was specifically criticizing the state of our consciousness and prescribing meditation as the crucial element of the antidote. I have some disagreements with the form of the diagnosis and the specifics of the prescription as they are currently translated into our contemporary civilization, but I certainly agree with Buddhism that our problem is the improperly developed or neglected nature of our consciousness, and that the solution is to be found in proper direction of our attention. I prefer to say that our attention should be directed to awareness of reality.

     In the West the tradition of indicting and working to repair our consciousness as the solution to our distress is not so articulated as it is in Buddhism. In Christianity, for example, it is as evident as could be that Jesus Christ represents a different kind of consciousness, definitely radically superior, an example to be emulated if we only knew how. Jesus did give indications about how, but we don't know how to follow them. For instance, how to "take no thought for the morrow?" How to "love your enemies," and "turn the other cheek," how to give not only the coat demanded but the cloak as well? Isn't that wildly impractical, irresponsible, even crazy? Mostly people don't even try to "imitate Christ." After all, he was God's biological son, according to myth, and therefore of course he could do things that we can't possibly do. And so the thrust of Christianity has gone in other directions of superstition and even obsessive-compulsive disorder, fueling not only abundant lunacy but also genuine evil, while the truth of Jesus' being and teaching lies neglected.

     Our stupidity is not easily dismissed. We are talking about the way our consciousness is. I am certainly talking about YOUR consciousness, which of course I don't experience. Obviously in one sense, and a very important sense, I don't know what I'm talking about. I know that I don't walk in your shoes, and I am also well aware that you don't walk in mine. I am criticizing your consciousness on the basis of long experience in trying to correct my own consciousness. I have become extremely familiar with my own stupidity as a result of trying to repair it. You, at the present time, just live in your stupidity. Of course, you might say that I can speak for myself, but it doesn't apply to you.

     In short, you can dismiss our diagnosis and prescription. That leaves you with your life, and with your dissatisfaction. Forgive me for suggesting that we, and therefore also you, are stupid. Why don't you try the mental illness system, like so many other smart people? Join the happy millions ingesting synthetic and alien chemicals on a daily basis to alter their unpleasant inner experiences, and paying a fortune for the privilege. You, too, can patiently wait in doctors' offices for a very time limited review by that professional of "what condition your condition is in." You too can hobnob with therapists, also within professional boundaries and for a substantial fee, to be counseled by someone who, for some vague reason, is supposed to know more about what you should do than you know. Did they study life in a book? At least they have a diploma, and they aren't complaining at the moment. Wait 'til you leave. Then, they complain.

     All this herd of victims of the mental illness system couldn't be stupid, could they? And the "providers," who prescribe these expensive remedies, with all their harmful side effects and negative consequences, surely they couldn't be stupid? And how about the rest of us, watching swill on T.V., occupying ourselves with trivia and consumption, "working for the Man" at some job, if we are lucky enough to have a job, which may have very little meaning aside from providing a little money so that we can continue to consume, and of course providing profit to our masters, the capitalists. How about those capitalists, "masters of the universe," surely they aren't stupid, in their childish pursuit of wealth? Surely their exploitation of others and of the Earth, their subordination of all spiritual and intellectual values to the "profit motive" isn't STUPID?
                    "So on we worked, and waited for the light,
                     And went without the meat, and cursed the bread..."

     Of course, one does the best one can. We are individuals, we are "pursuing happiness." There are many values in life, many goods are not illusory. Yet death waits for us all, and that casts a certain shadow over even the most satisfying pursuits. And before death, if we are lucky enough, we experience aging, and old age. We love spring and summer, and in some ways fall is the best season of all, but then comes winter, and we know that we will never see another spring, even if the fountain of youth flows in our hearts still.

     A person finds oneself at a certain moment, more or less alienated from life, more or less disillusioned, disappointed. One's hopes have been dashed. One was naive, but now one is confronted with "growing up," in the sense of beginning to die. And maybe one doesn't feel like beginning to die, not now, not ever.

     Probably any problem that can be defined can be solved eventually, given enough time. But the inescapable fact is that one runs out of time. "We grow too soon old, and too late smart." And that is not satisfactory. The remedy is to get smart right now.

     Your present state of consciousness is scattered and partial. Awareness of reality is clear and impartial. In your present state you are not impartially aware of your experience. That is stupidity by definition. If you happen to act intelligently in your present condition it is only by chance, because you happen to have developed fortunate habits. But we are actually unable to evaluate whether we or others are acting intelligently because of the partiality of our consciousness. "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." That was Jesus' generous spirit. But can we pray, "Father, forgive me, for I don't know what I'm doing?" Are we that stupid? For once, I can hear God's voice in my imagination, replying to that: "God damn it, wake up!" It might even make the Lord talk to himself: "Jesus Christ, do they think I made them that way?"

     The story of time and mortality, walking the one-way street of our individual life, ending in the grave or these days, the crematorium, is a story. I believe in it, but like all stories, it represents only a partial truth. Reality is much greater than any story, and reality is the whole truth. In the simultaneity of awareness, freedom from time is experienced. In the impartiality of awareness, unity with all that is is experienced. Now is eternal, and in impartiality, now is accepted. The gift of life is accepted only in awareness of reality. "Life is real only then, when 'I am.'"
  

Practicalities

     Much of what I have written in this blog is intended to impel the reader to the conclusion that one must try this practice. I suggest that you try it now. Put your attention on some physical movement, posture, gesture, facial expression, on some simple activity that your body is presently engaged in. Try to attend to the movement of your eyeballs as you read this. Put all your attention on that. Bring it back when it wanders. It is within your means to do that. You want to experience awareness of your reality that is simultaneous- that is, actual awareness, not thinking- and impartial, which is also a characteristic of actual awareness as opposed to thinking. In the beginning, one doesn't know how to experience that kind of awareness. But you do know how to put your attention on simple physical behavior. That is a good way to start. Don't waste your time trying this when multitasking is required of you. Practice it in simple conditions. You can practice it right now, when you have time to read this. Just let your eyeballs move over the screen. Put your attention on that. Let your actual reading be unconscious for now. As for thinking about it, you can do that later.

     I am suggesting this way of beginning to work to you. It is not identical with the way that I was taught. I am borrowing something from mindfulness meditation for you, and leaving out Mr. Nyland's explanations regarding the "little I." Mr. Nyland placed great emphasis on the fact that our ordinary mind is not capable of awareness of reality. This is true, but rather than accounting for it by a mechanical explanation, such as Gurdjieff loved, I think that it is better to account for it by deeply ingrained habits of distraction and dependency on thinking, and let it go at that. When you are able to experience impartial awareness of reality, the necessary "machinery" for that awareness obviously exists at that time. There is no real need to think about the mechanical structure of your consciousness, and it definitely can become a distraction. 

     Our habitual state of distraction prevents us from even "getting to first base" in awareness of reality. We cannot maintain our attention on this attempt, and it continues to be divided several ways and to wander. You have to develop the muscle of your attention. This is done by exercising it. You have to try this seriously for short periods of time. Even thirty seconds of real effort to put your attention on simple physical behavior is a long time. Five seconds is a significant time. Try seriously for five seconds. Of course you will be counting off the seconds. Bring your attention back to the behavior or physical activity that you have chosen, and return it when it wanders. You will discover a great deal about the wandering of your mind by making this effort. In five seconds your mind does a lot of wandering. If you aren't making this effort, that's how you live. Gurdjieff called it "waking sleep." Exert your will and keep bringing your attention back to the focus you have chosen, with no description and no liking or disliking.  If you can be at all successful, it is exhilarating. Do it for ten seconds, extend your effort. This is the taste of having a free will. You can make this effort at any time. You can be a free person. Do this for fifteen seconds, for a minute, five minutes. Extend it as far as your will can take you. But it is important to be honest with yourself about the extent of your will and of your skill. 

     We are not used to making this effort. I believe that it is possible for any person to put one's attention on simple physical behavior simultaneously, that is, now. You can do this if you wish, if you are not too distracted. Turn off your God damned T.V., turn off your radio, stop playing video games for a minute or two and just live like a simple person for a change. One really has to learn to say goodbye to a lifestyle of distraction. That isn't easy, not only because of our bad habits, but also because it has become our culture. Our culture is "circling the drain," and those of us who love America and the spirit of Western civilization have to fight for it, not against some fabricated enemy, but against our own sluggishness. The spirit of the West is individual freedom. You fight by waking up, by having the guts and brains, the soul and spirit, to actually become a free person. It starts with having the courage to face the truth of what you are.

     Just live simply at times. Go for a walk without headphones. Turn off your smart phone. You be the smart one, for a little while. Just wash the dishes, make the bed, pet your cat. Just have a simple conversation, a little honest interaction of human kind. Just work honestly, whatever your work is. Just go to the bathroom honestly. You cannot practice awareness of reality when you are distracted. 

     Theoretically, it is possible to understand that our consciousness is not as it should be. Emotionally, it is possible to understand that we are in relationship with that which has created us and placed us here, and that in gratitude for our existence we wish to respond appropriately to the reality of our existence. Sometimes this is felt powerfully in a person, in me. Yes I will, so help me God, because I love. Yes, I am here, I have not forgotten. I will do anything, whatever I should do. All I ask is to see how I should live. Sometimes this is called spirit, and it is maybe the most important reality of our lives. But our spirit needs to be fed and exercised, like a horse. It needs to be ready to run. This practice gives you a means of feeding and exercising your spirit, of keeping your hope and love alive. Jesus advised us to "keep your lamp trimmed and burning," that is, to be ready to respond with all we have, with our whole talent of responding. But how to be ready? By practicing. This practice is an opportunity to give all you have, for the love of God. It is not false. Reality is reality. By definition it belongs to God.

     I happened to visit the Gettysburg battlefield recently. I stood where Pickett's charge was launched. There was no cover, three-quarters of a mile uphill to the entrenched Union lines. Even to stand in the open there would have been deadly dangerous. Lee broke his army there and ordered many young people to their deaths. You look up that slope, and you think, "how stupid." But they went, and with a will. A little later I read the story of another charge, this time by Union cavalry. I saw the picture of a young general, a glorious specimen of twenty-five-year-old male humanity, handsome, obviously very intelligent, sensitive. He was ordered by General Kilpatrick, known as "Kill Cavalry," to make a stupid attack, suicidal, meaningless. He knew what the result would be, and so did all his troopers. "Do you mean it, General? These men are too good to kill." He and sixty men died in that utterly futile attack. The spirit was willing. But we need the enlightenment. Otherwise the best in us is killed, becomes a casualty of the battles of life because it is at the forefront, and we stumble on dispirited toward our deaths. We need wise generalship in our lives, generalship that will nurture our spirit, not break it.

     I think that one needs to understand our aim- awareness of God's reality, given to us. If you don't like the word "God," I certainly don't blame you, but one needs to understand spirit for oneself, and one needs to understand how to feed and develop one's spirit. God does not refer to the Easter Bunny. This term refers to reality, understood emotionally. God is that which our spirit loves, that to which we say yes with all our might because it is utterly beautiful and infinitely profound. 

     But it comes down to the practicality of making efforts. Only that will actually feed our spirit and enlighten our mind. You have to do it, correctly and definitely, and with the requisite force. It is not required to drive the ball out of the park. You have to make contact, and maintain contact, maintain now.  It takes a lot of practice to learn how, but the crucial element is to make the effort. That is the Philosophers' Stone, the healing power. "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." In the effort, the Lord is with you. It makes a break in the monotony of your waking sleep, like that drill breaking through to the miners trapped underground. Light rushes in, simultaneously.

     You need to understand this: rescue is impossible for you. Not only has the world forgotten about you, the world is in the same predicament. This is the absurdity of the mental health system, assuming that we can really help anyone. As Jesus said, we have a beam in our own eye, and we might better address that before concerning ourselves with the motes in the eyes of others. As Gurdjieff might have said, "it is enough to make the cat laugh."

     But God has not forgotten about you, and God is both omnipotent and omnipresent. And you are not really trapped in a cave. That is a metaphor, as all our thoughts are metaphors. Your predicament is the state of your consciousness. You have allowed your Garden of Eden to be overrun by weeds. Nobody ever told you that you needed to tend it. Nobody but you can set it right, obviously with God's help. It is His garden.

     The story of our alleged expulsion from the Garden of Eden is a slander on God. It isn't God's fault that we live as we do. We still live in the Garden of Eden, but we have let it go to hell. Somehow or other, we never realized that we have to work to maintain reality. God shows us by example. He is active now, active at every moment, on duty 24-7. It's a miracle. 

     You have to make this effort, and persevere in it. Then you will find out what I mean. "Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and the door will open. Ask, and it shall be given."

     I want to say something about meditation. Meditation is an established part of major Eastern cultures, but not of Western culture. If it is a cultural given that you will meditate, then the question of how to meditate is certainly relevant. But in our culture, this is not a given. For "Zen in America," meditation is a means to an end. If the aim is awareness of reality, then the aim of practicing meditation is the same as the aim of the practice that I learned from Mr. Nyland. 

     But I really question the effectiveness of meditation as a means to that end. I think that meditation is a crutch. I do think that people who practice meditation correctly and seriously experience awareness of reality. As has often been pointed out to me, it is relatively easy to experience this when one has absolutely nothing else to do. But it is never really possible on Earth to have absolutely nothing to do but experience reality; meditation is thus founded on an illusion. One becomes dependent on the crutch, and that is not what we need. We are able-minded. If you have been told that you have a mental disability, you have been told a lie. We are lacking in the skill and in the will, and we are lacking in the will because we are stupefied. We have been trapped in the cave of our unconsciousness so long that we have forgotten the light of day. We do not need to lean on a crutch. We need to be able to fight like wildcats for our freedom. 

     It comes down to making this effort now, maintaining the effort now. That is what this practice is about. Usually I don't do it. I have no end of excuses, maybe they are even acceptable, but excuses will not move me on my way. This is not the practice of thinking about awareness of reality. 

     Meditation focuses too much on the specific activity of meditation, which usually is performed according to a certain routine, often at a particular time and place, and even in a certain posture. At that time, when one meditates, one may well make good efforts. But we need to make these efforts in our lives, whenever and wherever we are. We need to make them now. Meditation, I think, can lead to the illusion that we are fine as we are, because we meditate at times. 

     We are not as we should be. The problem is not superficial. We look fine, and our behavior is often perfectly acceptable. It is our state of mind, our consciousness, that is not acceptable. But when you are aware, it is acceptable.

     The force of spirit and will is experienced in a moment. Life is real then, when I am. This is how one learns to work, this is the way of life. It is in that moment when I make this effort to wake up, in that moment when I make this effort to maintain my attention on awareness of reality. Now. It does not require a mighty, heroic and exhausting effort. How much effort does it take to direct your attention? You don't have to wear yourself out thinking about it. You do have to learn. You learn by doing. You have to maintain this effort to be awake. What is so impossible about that? You maintain your heartbeat even in your sleep. You maintain your thinking constantly. That takes effort, but it is habitual for you. We are not in the habit of being aware of reality. When one knows how to do something and really has the will to do it, one just does it. One needs to learn to work like that. This is required of us by life and by God. Why are you here? Become aware of your reality, then you will know. "Only then, when I am."

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