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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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?