How to Get Out

1985

 

HOW TO GET OUT AND STAY OUT

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

Can we talk the same language? Can we get down to the things that really bug us, the things that cause us to squirm? Is it not that the real question - How to get out and stay out? Out of that place our energies are always being sucked dry!

Let's face it - we're always looking for the opportunity to get high! A drink, a smoke, a meal, some sex - always looking to get high, that is some relief from the PAIN - and that so often begins to  look normal, look inevitable.

So the real question has to be 'How to get out and stay out.'

There is something very basic in us that wants to GIVE. Even a Hitler was busy 'giving' - for the German People, for the Aryan Race and god knows what else in his mind. Give, contribute, help, promote etc. - and all these things outside ourselves - so-called non-selfish.

The significant thing we have to give is our attention. Once someone or something 'has our attention' it  becomes possible for us to interact sympathetically within the dynamics of that world. The first and essential thing it GIVE is our ATTENTION. Anything else good or useful can only follow that.

Look, there is a question as to whether what  we call giving is really giving or whether in fact it is a method of taking, or even whether the giving and the taking combine without the necessity of contradiction. But let's look at this unique quality or faculty called ATTENTION.

We can give attention at any moment to either our hungry stomach, our crying child, tomorrow's office appointment, our parents' sickness or that recurring fantasy of that sexy character we ran into last week. Depending on where we concentrate our attention we may feel happy or sad, optimistic or hungry, titillated or irritated. Depending on where we place our attention we may spend an hour agonizing in a problem, reliving or planning a sexual conquest or pondering on our most essential and serious concerns - each of these possibilities having it's own chemistry and kind of satisfaction as well as potential results and implications for the future.

Now you have read two pages of the original manuscript of this discourse, you have given this material, these words, your attention. You have given SOMEONE ELSE'S words your attention. You have dropped into someone else's world of words and have agreed to 'follow him', at least to this extent, so far.

So, I have your attention, and I would like to handle that very carefully and respectfully.

Key words and expressions used up to this point:

1 - 'How to get out and stay out'

2 - 'Give'

3 - 'Attention'

 

1 - How to get out and stay out - out of the place where our energies are being sucked dry, out of the pain.

 

2 - Give - What is giving and what is taking, what is useful or essential in the understanding of these terms and the realities that stand behind them.

 

3 - Attention - is this or is this not the essential choice, the essential and the basic tool we have at our disposal, the handle on our consciousness, the steering rudder of our life.

 

I  invite you to join me in this search, in this investigation of an intelligent man's attempt to connect words and thoughts to a level and clarity that can affect life or balance out with life in both an intelligent and holistic manner.

Let's start by exercising our humility. Not a false or assumed humility but rather the humility that comes from knowing that you don't know - that life for the most part up to the present has, at best, been a collection of experiences with, at best, the possibility of eventually serving as the basis, the raw material for the formation of a real grasp and the formation of a real understanding  as to what life is and one's ultimate possibilities in it. A real humility.

Let's look some more at this thing called attention. We know that we can direct it on different things and matters. At this very moment you may decide to continue reading or start thinking about your next move, your next appointment, your next option. On what basis will you make this decision? Will it be to give your attention to that which is ultimately most important to you, is there some order of priorities functioning in such decisions, or might it be that some automatic factors are merely moving you to a more comfortable or less anxiety prone situation? Or is it an 'obligation' that you must move on to, and if so is this obligation moving in a desired direction or merely a part of another revolving circle? Where shall the attention go next and why? Is attention, in fact, the most important thing we have to give?

'How to get out and stay out' - Can a statement like this serve as common ground for us? It's a difficult one!  'Out' suggests a number of things as it is used here. OUT - a place other than where our energy is sucked/drained, a place other than where we agonize in problems and struggle with others, a place where we feel perfectly harmonious with the current activity, or lack of activity and any and all possible consequences that might follow. A place of certainty, a place of satisfaction and creativity. How to get out and stay out!

So, our words/expressions 1, 2 and 3 are a little like keeping three balls in the air - I'd like to keep them revolving until the action sustains itself and we can discern a useful pattern - are you coming along?

1 - How to get out and stay out   2 - Give   3 - Attention

Giving and taking are as two ends of the same stick, the stick itself being hollow allowing for the passage of good-s'. In addition to the giving and taking that might occur between two people, for the transfer/trans-action to be possible the channel must be open and clear and that requires a certain skill on the part of both the giver and the taker. One must be able to take as well as be able to give. There is Ability involved, the channel must be opened. It can be assumed that what you are given is something that you cannot (at least at that moment) acquire by yourself. What you cannot acquire, you do not have, what you do not have you are not experiencing, what you are not experiencing will strike you as strange, as a shock, a shock is destabilizing and leaves one vulnerable, being vulnerable can be dangerous, danger is frightful. In order to take there must be trust. Trust is the essential opening in the channel between the give and the take.

How can we  trust the words and pictures of another person and relax our 'thought matrix', freeing it to change and adjust to someone else's pattern, when our very sense of ourselves, our picture of ourself, our sense of reality and stability is confined/contained in our own subjective 'thought matrix'? This is no joke for most people. Other people's verbalizations are most often felt as violence to our world picture!

Can we come closer to an understanding of just what Attention is? There is an aspect of focus in it - out of a number of possibilities, out of a number of concurring happenings in the outer or inner world of a man, it seems that he can focus his attention either here or there, close or at a distance, on his sex or on his mind, on the future or on the past, on his anger or on his love. Where is the 'seat' of this attention? It appears that the seat of this attention is in what we call a man's consciousness/awareness and that this consciousness/awareness is something that stands BEHIND all other realities/functions that a man is able to perceive or cognize - that is, this consciousness/awareness is behind, more basic, more essential, more REAL than any of his functions such as his thinking, feeling or sensing.

Our attention is a certain focus of our consciousness - it can WATCH our body and sense it, WATCH our emotions and feel them, it can WATCH our thoughts and know them, it can WATCH the interaction of all these functions and 'stand behind them'. Our Real Self is part and parcel of this consciousness/awareness and not in the picture of ourself, framed by our picture of the world as presented to us by our mind with it's particular / peculiar / subjective / imaginery / partial / frightened / defensive / closed pseudo-personality.

When we come to know where we really live even an attack on our imagination can be of no consequence to us. That would be no more than shuffling a pack of picture cards.

Jump, jump - have we gone too far too fast? Don't get nervous, no need - the balls are merely in the air.

How can we get out and stay out.

How can we evaluate and allow the Give and the Take.

How can we use our Attention as the clean/clear 'cutting edge' that it can be, the 'forward march'  in our movement towards sanity and health, towards growth and evolution.

The same three questions - now a little elaborated.

And, still no rush - anything better to do?

What is this impulse towards giving. The Taking seems somewhat more obvious, there are so many things that we want. But the Give, the giving, seems to have no immediately obvious rationale. Why do we want to give anything. The very fact that we do have this impulse to give, that something in us WANTS to give is, in itself, a strange fact. We want to give - can that be? Or could it be that consciously or otherwise what we really want is to GET from our giving, that our giving is essentially another way of getting. Can a man do anything that somewhere in his being he has not got the feeling or notion that he will eventually benefit from it? Need there be a total lack of self-concern in a 'pure' act of giving?

So much for giving. Love your children, you demand respect and obedience in return. Help a poor man, you expect his appreciation and/or god's credit. Love your wife, you expect her to cook for you and take care of you when you are sick. So much for giving - man gives in order to take (or get). How could it be otherwise or why should it be otherwise. WHAT to take may be the more sensible question. What to take that would REALLY prove useful.

Well, we have our three balls in the air - one called 'give', one called 'out' and one called 'attention' - 'round and around !' And our juggler starts to walk the high wire, the tight rope - same three balls in the air and, ladies and gentlemen, maybe more to come.

The tight wire, the high wire, the tight rope we are going to call god - we cannot see the beginning and we cannot see the end, our eyes are straight ahead and we move one foot at a time, slowly and carefully, always with our sense of balance and sensitivity our overriding concern. We are on it, we are in it, it is our very life. It is but a thin line, seemingly defining nothing yet at the same time our very life!

 

god god god god god god god god god god god god

god god god god god god god god god god god god

god god god god god god god god god god god god

 

Say it, again and again

has the word any meaning

hardly as much as our tight rope

no beginning and no end to be seen

but obviously our very life

all our frantic efforts are to stay on it,

or in it, or with it

Look, now that we trust each other a little, can we get more elaborated in new word input and analogies? Circuses are known for their three rings, The Three Ring Circus - something going on in all three rings as well as elements moving in and out as well as Bo-bo the clown picking up the loose bits of wandering attention - a lot of activity but nicely organized! Are we capable of less precision and virtuosity in the area of rational and viable discourse - I think not. So we too can shift our eyes from one area or happening to another and back again with a consciousness of the various motions and their progression, their progress.

And up comes a little word, a focus, a something called Happy. Happy we would be if we should be able to get out and stay out. Happy we would be if we were to be an open channel for the give and take of good-s. Happy we would be would we have knowledge and control of our attention.

Happy is a state of being where energy is being gained and not lost, and where the quality of that energy is that it is moving in a direction that is finer and more subtle rather than coarser and more dense. Happy is first of all FEELING good unconditionally and comprehensively (Holistically). The thinking mind might precede this state, rest or participate within it or draw conclusions and/or react after the fact. But the thinking mind is but an aspect in this state called Happy - that is, Happy is the Whole.

Get out and stay out/Give/Take/Attention

            H A P P Y

 

Happy, happy holiday

Happy, happy be

Happy, happy holiday

may be you and me

 

Ladies and Gentlemen

M a y we have your a t t e n t i o n

Happy is not the titillation of the sex center, the taste buds, the thrills and spills of sport and war. It is not the shaking, stimulating, hypnotizing or exaggerated use of the senses, emotions or mind - that's relatively momentary diversion, digression, escape from the poor or painful. Happy is whole, holistic, a fine energy that floods our entirety - a higher energy - an energy from 'ABOVE' !

Out comes our clown looking mad as hell. Paces up and down the sidelines pounding his chest as if saying   - 'Hey you all up there in your pretty clothes and disbelieving expressions - me me, thump thump, and all the others, thump thump, wake up, it's all really happening right in front of your eyes, men at work at play at work at play and organized and alive alive and delicate - hey you!'


CHAPTER TWO

 

What we should do right now is just take a DEEP BREATH. And I mean that quite literally.

Do you think that we  need less focus and attention to traverse this life than our friend the tight rope walker - you bet we don't!

So, we take our time and hold our seats and remember those really lovely and tasteful considerations we touched on in the last chapter. They were GOOD to ponder weren't they! What if we could be really clear in our understanding and could perform with this clear understanding as far as 'getting out and staying out', giving and taking - even if we only move in that direction - what a meaningful joy!

What, what - the mind tires so quickly.

We babble along in life most of the time in a pained stupor as to what the hell we are doing, why the hell we are doing it and how the hell to do it or something else. And the bloody words we are using all the time - so many, so many and here we try to get a handle on a few key and connected words and just the reaching gives us a whiff of joy. TRUTH/CLARITY/RELEVANCE - they really have a strong and sweet smell.

So we'll try not to get overcome and proceed calmly.

ANOTHER THREE DEEP AND SLOW BREATHS !

Good conscience requires a great deal of patience - for the most part a forgotten fact! Good conscience an emotional state/posture rooted and defined in sayings such as 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you', is an essential posture for the balance and intelligence of the entire human organism - more than a merely socially agreeable dynamic! Herein lies one of the most tragic misunderstandings in these superficially grasped notions of the major Religions and Teachings.

'Good Conscience' is a means of balance, a posture for learning the real facts and the real truth of the human condition. A truly non-greedy and compassionate posture allows for the growth of understanding leading to a conservation of energy, energy needed for the transformation of faculties and functions in a person to the level of peace, strength and truly individual volition. The absence of a 'good conscience' results in activities that are basically manipulations resulting in knots and distortions in our minds, emotions and bodies, dis-ease of one kind or another, with one or another degree of intensity at one or another time. Good conscience is an emotional and very specific vibrational intensity. It is THE 'hook' that can eventually establish the 'stay' in the 'how to get out and stay out'!

We have everything we need -  we were born with it!

Well you see, we've gone and slipped in some new words - and mind you, not just some simple words, some meaty words, words full of meaning - adult words!

  FIrst we had

  1) 'Out' - of the get  out and stay out

  2) 'Give' and

  3) 'Attention' and then      

  4) 'Happy' and then      

  5) 'Good conscience'

Five balls in the air and still pacing ourselves through life, still treading the tight rope, the high wire - patiently ! No time for the side shows now, later maybe, but for NOW we need all our energy and attention for our life and sanity.

Good conscience IS feeling good now. Without good conscience we do not, repeat not, feel good now and as a result our minds go swirling and struggling or scheming in an effort to somehow adjust the future, that which is 'coming up', so that there one might feel good - it's a no-go! Good conscience and good feeling can only be now - tomorrow never comes! When tomorrow comes it is already today and good conscience and good feeling can only come today - for good conscience and good feeling tomorrow never comes!

Now look, this is a bloody serious matter, Good Conscience, Feeling Good, Happy. Without it we are either dead or heading for a disaster.

Okay, so you know it.

Okay, so let's dig in and deal with it - now!

Let's face it, you don't feel all that good about your past. You would have hopped that at a minimum it would have made you more comfortable now. But it didn't. And here we are. So, how do we start. Everyone asks this question, you know, that is, real people touching real questions like this. But, we're going to try to answer it!

Now, now - we must start now - not with the pain or confusion of yesterday and not with the hope and illusion of tomorrow, but now.

Are you ready to sacrifice all your pet notions about 'what should be' and 'the high level of your own critical faculties'? All your pet notions are of the past, that totality of past that admits that it does not understand! And we've seen that we must start now - and in order to start now we must separate from our pasts and from our imagination of our future - and that would include all your 'pet notions' - and look here, your pet notions are very much supportive of your present sense of yourself, your picture of yourself, your imaginary picture of yourself - it's the data of your personal 'thought matrix', it's the very structure and frame of the 'thought matrix' itself - when you move into the Now 'you' cease to exist (as you thought of yourself before). But, and this is the GRAND 'secret' exposed - your sense of identity and individuality moves, drops to that place called Good Conscience, into a new and present emotional reality, happily linked with a relaxed and sensitive sense of the body.  Body and Emotions are the great NOW - all the 'thinking mind' business is random data of the past intermingled with fact and fiction of the present projecting a completely imaginary future.

You want to know what to do.

You want to know what to do NOW.

You must drop the past and the future now!

Try it, it's possible.

Just continue to sit, feel good and continue reading and concentrating on this material, this tight rope we're on!

We're so busy most of the time thinking 'oh what the hell' in connection with something of the past or 'oh, my god' in connection with some possibility in the future that were we to stop that, by dropping the past and the future, we would temporarily disappear - but don't worry, your usual sense of yourself will return soon enough.

Now, now, feel good - no past, no future - NOW feel good - this is where we have to start - this is what we have to do!

Sit comfortably - do it now, any way you want it, with a cushion, on the floor, in any other chair, however - sit comfortably!

Now let's get back to the taking of three deep and slow breaths.

Do it!

And let's just take it sweet and easy and move along.

Do you know that I love you! yes, you! Here we sit, no past, no future, but I recognize your presence, the 'inner man', the Real You - behind the clothes, behind the skin, behind the swirling thoughts and changing emotions - you, that find joy in your deep heart beat and satisfaction in a full and quiet breath. I recognize and salute your eternal being and care nothing of your conditioned image.

Hello my friend, my soul brother, my very self - greetings and love!

Now that we know WHERE we are we can begin to take a look at WHAT we are in some more detail - in this 'new' and essential place we have located ourselves.

Where are we? In that place of good feeling, behind our imaginary and painful picture of ourselves in an imaginary and painful world. We are feeling good - now!

But life goes on! All the activities of old friends, family, people around the money business and politics. How are we to relate to all of that? Tell you what - We're going to HELP them!


CHAPTER THREE

 

Now I am going to ask you to do a very strange thing. I know that this the kind of thing that would appear to drive a so-called normal person crazy - but I mean it very seriously. I would like you to forget, completely discount all that you've read in the first two chapters. It's past for us - it's past. If something stuck, it stuck; if something moved, it moved. Now let's leave it - forget it!

I'm not particularly interested in weaving an interesting story or even making an interesting argument. This book is titled 'HOW TO GET OUT AND STAY OUT' - that's what we're interested in because as long as we're 'in' it and not 'out' of it we are in a lot of heavy mud. In the 'in' there is violence, manipulation, deceit, confusion and for the most part dis-ease. We want out! We want out NOW! From the 'out' , should we wish to chart a new course through life, at least our plan and our view will have been formulated by a clear head and a calm soul. First things first - We want to get above the level of confusion and pain.

We have a real basic and for the most part unconscious habit! Whenever we think in terms of making things better we think in terms of the future. Our thinking is always geared to plans of action of a consecutive, sequential nature - we shall 'do this and then that' so that things will be better later on - in the 'future' ! That's the way our minds work habitually - that's the way we've been trained - and that must CHANGE! We must come to realize that the change that we want and need has to do with now!

Now is the moment to be acted on - the only moment that there is, constantly recurring, constantly current, always now and here. Our minds, after seeing the truth and the simple logic in the situation must make a complete change. From always and habitually functioning in the pattern of past/present/future in an attempt to fulfill its desires it must now start to function in a total dedication to the present, the now. It has seen some of the imagination inevitably resulting from the 'time mind' and understands the necessity of moving behind this picture world, separating from it, to the peace and energy flowing NOW through the good conscienced emotions and relaxed body.

The mind must now start to work for the now, through the now and from the now. You got the smell of that?

Our pictures and details of happenings from the past will still be there, there will always be the inclination to adjust oneself to the patterns of these past impressions as they indicate a certain flow into the future. But this activity must be relegated to second place and only dealt with after establishing a firm position to the now - in the 'out' of 'getting out and staying out'.

So let's say we're 'out' now - however temporarily. Out from our usual round of worries and considerations. We wish to collect ourselves, collect our energies and attention from this wonderful and good conscienced and relaxed place in order to ponder our next moves, our possible choices - not from fear, god forbid, as that would be our first indication that we have slipped back into that 'normal' place within us, that place of inevitable confusion. We shall ponder from that unfearful and good conscienced place - the place that starts with no past and no future and only afterwards deals with the 'time imagination' from an other or 'out' vantage point.

What shall we ponder, what shall we now take a closer look at?

The essence of Good Conscience has nothing to do with the past! Anyone's past can be arranged, rearranged and viewed from an infinite variety of angles. Guilt or any other misgivings in connection with the past is a subjective evaluation, a selective picturing subject to alteration or elimination by anything from additional facts to psychoanalysis or 'brain-washing'. Good conscience is a NOW phenomenon.

What gets in the way, what separates us from the now? Well, we touched a little on that already - this activity of the mind, the 'time mind' that is constantly planning a better future. And we say that this is exactly that which must change.

Do you really believe that you can change, affect the future? Now mind you, this is exactly what the time mind presupposes! That is why it is busy telling other people that they should or must do this or that or that they should not or must not do this or the next thing. The time mind that watches the politicians with their plans and attempts to forecast the personal implications - how it will affect their future. The time mind that wishes to educate the children for one or another result in the future etc., etc., etc. ad infinitum  ! The time mind says you had better 'adjust' those things and people around you in order to suit your picture of what you would like the future to be. Do you really still think you can affect and change the future?

Well, your push or pull mixed in along with everybody else's push or pull will no doubt combine to affect some aspects in the social reality - do you really expect to be the 'prime mover' of the future. This IS the illusion of the time mind, it functions only on this basis - it sucks us dry with its essential madness and illusion and violence.

Good, let's leave that for the time being - it's such a big one!

Look, for the most part ALL our EDUCATION has been on this basis. All education, that is other than maybe real close to truth. Religious Education is an attempt to train us to improve the future that is rushing towards us. That education of man has brought us all the mass consumer products that are driving us mad and sick, it has brought us the atomic weapons of mass destruction - a constant knife hanging over our necks. It has brought us all the 'stick with your own kind' violence and brutality. The 'time mind' wants a better future - how about that!

Let's go back to the question of the Give.

Let's start with the Take.

We noticed before that the inclination for the Take made much more obvious sense than the inclination for the Give. So, why does that cause us so much trouble? Why guilt or hesitation or lies around this issue of taking? First of all, taking muse be NOW, no? You can plan this or that or the next thing for a bigger take later, but the actual taking has to be now. Boy, what a simple statement, how obvious and true - let's dwell on that a bit. The obvious has a way of slipping away unnoticed! Get it? We can ONLY take NOW and that applies to EVERYTHING - love, food, fun, joy, play, companionship, all and everything good is active present - now! We can get a 'kick' from the planning, the anticipation, but the getting is now, the take is now.

Yes, we have everything we need, we are born with  it, but we do need to feed it in order that it might live and grow! We are GROWING BEINGS, physically and otherwise. The 'otherwise' is not at all a small consideration, it includes our emotions, our minds and what is loosely referred to as our Spiritual Reality - not small things. ALL these things live, can grow and must be FED, and all of this can only happen in the NOW.

God, so much talk in the media and in the streets about the NOW that we are just about sick with the word. The Now Generation is talked about, all the Be Now Books of the drug and 'Eastern' Philosophy sources overflow.

be now, be now, be now, be now

enough to make you sick!

The very words have been sucked dry - over exposure, as the politicians would say. Now, NOW has gone down the drain right along with words like Love or God or Truthfulness - overuse - mumbo-jumbo!

But let's look at it clearly, simply - the things that happen only happen now, all life and all feeding and all taking can only be NOW. The usual thinking that is done on the basis of the time mind does not acknowledge this. For the time mind it's always AFTERWARDS!

What can we do now that we do not need the 'future' for? We can TAKE now!

What can we take - now. We can take now what is available now. Available, okay - what's available?

You sit there in your body. Now get the words, you sit there IN your body, which means, first of all, that YOU are NOT your BODY, you have a body, you 'sit' IN it.

What's available? Well, to start with, your body!

You have that body not only as a mobile something to get you around, not only - it's an incredible machine/animal not only capable of a great number of tricks but also has a magnificent inner dynamic, always pulsating, throbbing, circulating a massive amount of energy. It's YOUR body, you can know it, feel it, ride comfortably in it, be buoyed up joyfully within it ! IT is there NOW for you - not only for it's good 'use' but for it's Good FEEL. Lots of misunderstanding around this very issue of 'feel'. We for one thing know about feeling other peoples' bodies and in certain cases like them to feel ours - but, man, YOU can feel YOURS all by yourself, and NOW. Not so much the outside, masturbation or otherwise, okay, really no serious harm, but INSIDE where it's 'all happening' - relax, must relax - feel the hand, the right hand, in and out, feeeeeel it.

feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllll   it !

Move the attention to the left hand

the same do !

the left foot

etc. etc.

'A hint to the wise' !

 

Learning, feeding, growing, the opening of new faculties, higher faculties are all NOW phenomena. Taking is NOW, giving is NOW, and now we shall look at the opening of that channel we talked of before, the channel, the two way channel of the Give - Take polarity.

To take the impressions, the food, the transformation of energy that your body has to offer, YOU must GIVE it your ATTENTION, you must give it full and loving attention. That's really what one does with what one loves, is it not? Give it the fullest possible attention! How do you love a young child, a new and relatively undeveloped being in the world, how do you give it love? By watching it, by looking at it in movement and in rest, by getting to sense and feel the baby's wants and needs, by giving that total 'mother-love' ATTENTION! Your body REQUIRES your attention in order to give you the feedback and 'goodies' IT has to offer you! That's the deal.

And so, likewise, with the man or woman that you are in contact with - should they have something useful and good to offer you they MUST have your attention, through which they can communicate it. The attention, to be clean and clear, must be non-judgemental, as non-judgemental as a mother to her infant. All judgement/criticism is suspended - an attention of interest and sensitivity. The baby communicates intuitively, a more developed and understanding man or woman may do that even more directly and consciously!

Ladies and Gentlemen

m a y  we have your A T T E N T I O N !

Hup-te-do, la-de-da - is he crazy, this tight rope walker of ours, this guy on the high wire is just standing there ON ONE FOOT ! Idiot, move on or you'll fall off - and that's NOT what we came here to watch.

'Love your neighbor as yourself'.

And I'm your neighbor and you're my neighbor and he's our neighbor - and it always was that WAY and it still is that WAY and will ALWAYS be that WAY!

 

                                                                                                               (the end ?)

May 1-15, 1985

Jerusalem


 

CHAPTER FOUR

 

How do others like to relate to your past? Get it? You have a past, a history, in the eyes of others, their feel, knowledge of you, their likes and dislikes of you come together from a variety of sources, personal and through 'hearsay' and all filtered through their individual minds.

How do others relate to your past? It's really their past rather than yours. Your experiences of your past, THEY have not experienced! What they experience is their experience OF you in their past.

How do people relate to your past?

Well, you said you would do something and you did it - Good, your past showed that you are reliable! You started a job and finished it - Good, your past showed that you are productive! You helped your old grandmother - Good, your past shows you're a nice guy!

HOW do others relate to your past?

WHY do others relate to your past?

BECAUSE they want to know YOUR future!

WHY do others want to know YOUR future?

Oh, god, can we really face it ?

They relate to your past because they want to predict your future and evaluate whether or not they can 'count on you', rely on you, get assistance from you, WHEN THEY NEED HELP!

That's why they're so interested in what you are doing or have done, why they relate to what is now your PAST. They are all scared shitless and are constantly trying to 'pad' the future and maybe you could be a cushion. And what are they scared shitless about - well asshole, it's because they know that they are in the process of disintegrating and are going to DIE - and that fact they will NOT FACE, and as a result spend their lives in an unconscious but bottom line HYSTERIA! They are SCARED SHITLESS!

*

May 21 - Jerusalem

 

We met a lady from the Argentine today. She's running a small stationery shop in the middle of Jerusalem on the first floor of a very new and fancy office building. Husband died suddenly of a heart attack within the past year,  at the age of sixty-two, she says - very sad, very tragic. She began to cry  - life is hard, hard - makes no sense - she wants to die!

The Xerox service man, a youngish, fortish, blondish Christian fellow from Texas read one of the pages I was getting photocopied  with a quick glance that he said was developed in a speed reading course. Yes, he says, he got the 'gist' of it and I'm right, people are functioning on the verge of explosion, in a state of near hysteria - difficult, he said, things are very, very difficult - 'what is one to do to make it better' he asks, 'or are you just a prophet of doom'?

It's crazy out there. It's seems that the people keep moving because they don't know how to die.

There's no end to the complications. How could it be different, how could society exist if people were not going to 'jobs', 'passing the buck', worrying about their childrens' education, cloths, food and sex life, lying and fending off their parents' 'logical' questions. What's there to talk about? Why everyone is trying to steal from the next guy - from the shopkeeper to our high class 'professionals' - and all with a well groomed SMILE? 'But it's got to go on' you say, 'that's life, that's society, that's our CIVILIZATION' ! And by god you're right! Take one ugly piece out of that, take one basic ATTITUDE out of that and the whole building would come down - and who needs that?

But do you have to be sick and crazy along with the rest of them?

 

May 21

You keep running with the pack because you are scared. You run, run, do, do, worry, worry, just to keep your bloody head above the water line. Is that your highest hope?

From your state of fear and anxiety you are unlikely to alter the basic momentum of things, unlikely to develop a more intelligent plan. You, man, must remove yourself from EVERYTHING, and yes, RISK STARVING !

How about that one, risk starving and anything else uncomfortable that you can think of - You must risk it all! No bullshit - not 'I owe this one something' or 'I must do this or that to insure something in my future' - NO!

Your future is not worth a damn the way you are going, and your unhealthy, compulsive relationships with your 'loved ones' is not doing them any essential good - you ADD to their CONFUSION!

You need out and you need out now, and if you can manage out now and move on with truthful and honest good will, good conscience and as clear a head as you've got at the moment then you have a chance to become the Man you have always wished to be.

 

May 21

Growing and learning are first of all psychological matters. Our problems are psychological. Don't get frightened by that word, no one wants to send you to a psychologist, necessarily, no, just to REALIZE that our pain, for the most part, comes from NOT UNDERSTANDING ! That is the painful, confusing, unsatisfying condition we find ourselves in. Understanding is a psychological question. Our problems are first of all psychological.

And mark this - ‎Unless you come from good conscience, unless you come from honesty, humility and a place of GOOD FEELING, you will never have a healthy psychology. Life will give you all the new data you require for a new and TRUTHFUL psychology if you deal with life HONESTLY, and give and take the best available NOW.

 

CHAPTER FIVE

 

How to get out and stay out.

So - just what did we touch on 'in between the lines'?

Body, we touched on for one thing - the relaxed body, the body that is ours to feel, to sense, The body's inner chemistry, pulsations, vibrations - one of the NOW realities, the truth of the NOW, the reality of the now behind the picture functioning of our presuming minds!

And we touched on the question of clean emotion, that emotional reality called Good Conscience - that 'secret', and in potential, always present NOW REALITY! That's what snuck in 'between the lines', that's the beginning of the pattern, the sustained pattern that we envisioned.

 

May 27

Yell, yell, scream, scream !

He went and said it, he did, somewhere just back there, he said 'you have to drop everything'!

And you keep reading! You out of your mind?

How much have you been reading in your past - words, words, and then words, ideas, ideas, ideas, suggestions, do's and don'ts - so what, here we have some more - DROP EVERYTHING - oh well, it's 'a free country' - let the guy say what he wants - DROP EVERYTHING - oh shit!

Well, what DOES it mean - or should you have stopped reading back there when you first hit those words?

YOU drop everything but IT still remains in place. What keeps IT and EVERYTHING ELSE in place is the totality of 'complexities' both physical and 'social'. Guess what - you may die but life will still go on!

You be a 'yea sayer', a 'yes sayer' - people do exactly as they please ANYWAY - or, to be more exact, they do the only thing they can in any given circumstance. Be a 'yes sayer', you don't change a bloody thing essential anyway - say yes!

DROP EVERYTHING - you bet - it means drop the IMPORTANCE, the assumed importance of things and happenings - they'll happen anyways, you can play your part, you can do what comes naturally and comfortably, but begin to SEE that no imagination, no projection of the future, EVER develops into a living reality - NEVER!

All our energy is poured into supporting, by act or attitude, some continuing picture - a picture that ultimately has thousands of little pieces drifting into and out of place and ultimately ends in some configuration momentarily 'in place' but bearing, in its totality, LITTLE resemblance to the originally projected finality!

You got THAT? it's worth at least three readings - just that ONE SENTENCE.

The implications of what was just said are 'other worldly'! The Truth is INCREDIBLE! You live in a DREAM! What you say, what, what, what! Okay, you've heard it before but let's look at its STRUCTURE, its boundaries, its 'tricks', its LIMITS.

The NOW can feed us in ways undreamt of - but we need the ENERGY to eat it. Now all the energy is going into scheming or worrying and 'picturing' a Future that NEVER COMES.

And here's the 'double bind' and the 'salvation' within the mystery. You have to be 'out' psychologically from the dream, but IN dynamically. Energies (Food) of the NOW are CREATED (stimulated/brought out) in the Friction caused by Human Imagination and Fear.

The illusion within the Dream World cause conflicts which trigger the flow of various energies. WE NEED THE DREAM WORLD, but can only benefit from it from a very PERFECT Understanding of its structure and limits, and its NOW EXPOSED - ULTIMATE UTILITY!

 

CHAPTER SIX

 

May 31, 1985

CONVERSATION WITH A BIOLOGICAL FATHER

 

Son: Hey, Pop, we know it's a difficult subject - but you know - we all know that we are here, here in life that is, for only a short time!

Father: Yeah, and you'll better be prepared for your old age!

S: Prepare for your old age?

F: Yeah, people get sick, are more apt to get sick when they are older, and like medicare    usually does not pay for a private room, and what if you should need 'round the clock'    nursing care, you think you can rely on your wife or children to wipe your ass when you cannot do it yourself?

S: Well, that's not really what I was thinking about, Pop - well, like, well - it's just all so quick, life, that is, and - well just what is it all about - surely more than 'who are you going to get to wipe your ass' - I mean, do you really believe in god?

F: Of course, what do you mean - of course I believe in god - what kind of a question is that - god made everything and he also made us. Do I believe in god? What a question!

S: Yeah well, then why do you think he made us?

F: Why did he make us? What? Is my son some kind of idiot - who can know why god does anything, it's all beyond our understanding. What god does he does, he doesn't have to ask anyone or explain to anyone.

S: Okay, I see what you are saying, but what do you think he wants from us - just what are we supposed to do, what in god's name do you suppose god wants from us - what does he want from say you or me - surely more than getting us prepared and assured that we will finish it all with a clean ass - no?

F: I dont like this dirty talk.

S: Pop, do you believe in an after life - A life or something after death?

F: Interesting that you should ask, I've been thinking a lot about that recently. What do you think?

S: I think that's really one of the things that we can't know anything about - when you're alive you might know more or less what that's all about but death, if there's something there you could only know about it if you were there - that is, dead - it sure would be totally different, no body, something like spirit, whatever that might be. But yeah, Pop, I believe there is something else, Something more that comes up after this life.

F: Well, I'm glad I've lived a good life, that is, I was a good man!

S: Sure, Pop, sure.

F: Do you think I've been a good man?

S: What do you mean by good, Pop?

F: What a question, and from your own son!  Didn't we give you anything you wanted, at least what we thought reasonable and what we could afford. What a question! We did everything for you, all for the children. What a question!

S: Pop, are you afraid of dying?

F: I don't want to talk about it!

S: Why not?

F: Why do you want to talk about morbid things? When you get to my age you won't want to talk about it either.

 

May 31

Life for what?

'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'

'Love thy neighbor as thyself'

'Service'

'Righteousness'

'Charitableness'

'External Considering'

All indications of 'proper' attitude towards your fellow man, all in the name of 'good' and all supposedly what 'god' wishes from us - so seems to say the major religions and teachings. But 'good' for what? Is 'good' a means or an end - or both?

Most men are running around being 'good' - good to their country, good to their religion, good to their family, good to their friends or at a minimum, just plain good to themselves!

So, what is this word 'good', what is it good for, just what is it connected with, is it temporary or lasting, who does it serve - who is it good for - or are we driving ourselves crazy with an impossible question?

Okay, so don't be 'good', be 'selfish'! But that is supposed to be good for you - no? So it seems we can't really get rid of that word so easily!

Good implies, first of all - not against anybody! The moment you are against anyone, for her or him or it you are bad, not good! If you feel ill will towards anyone, at one level or another they are aware of it and return the ill feeling. There is so much ill will around, both short and long term, that we become used to that atmosphere and are unable, for the most part, to distinguish its source.

A really selfish person, intelligent and conscious, will never risk any attitude other than sincere good will towards any man, situation or living reality.

 

June 12

Digression, digression.

Where have we come to and why.

We've touched a lot of buttons, touched some pretty essential issues, posed some biting questions. But these words are coming roughly half way through the year of 1985, a pivotal year, the year when the world's people are finally being told in open and specific terms that the robot, computer and other 'high-tec' realities are fully functional, and a total reconstruction, REVOLUTION of ALL MEANS OF PRODUCTION is upon us. Most manual and white collar workers are, in fact, REDUNDANT.

A revolution with implications as vast as the INVENTION OF THE WHEEL! A world wide shift into unknown and unlimited production capacities.

The overwhelming majority of the world's population, including, for the first time, those in the 'advanced' countries, will be left to their own devices. Education will be geared to the requirements of this new technology and PRECIOUS FEW PEOPLE will be needed to attend to these walking, talking, working, seeing, 'thinking' machines.

The old world is and has been declared DEAD!

The impact and awareness of this massive fact has been blunted by virtue of the slow but infectious buildup of FEAR - issues ranging from the spread of the deadly disease of AIDS, the FAMINES across Africa and the Indian sub-continent, to the never-ending wars in various parts of the world. To that, add a growing awareness of the genetic weakening and chemical poisoning of our food, the general rape of the land and atmosphere, the confusion in dispensing medical 'services', urban guerrilla warfare and the critical psychological strains brought about by these and other extraordinary phenomena.

For a first time in a long time people have NO IDEA of what TOMORROW might bring.

What can save us from going irrevocably MAD in this period of time?

Those few of us who have the chance of not turning into some mechanical attachment of the new technology, or just some redundant zombie, must take some very distinct and radical steps. We must grasp some ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE that has been 'pooh-hooed' as 'unscientific' in recent years, but has ALWAYS BEEN AROUND, though 'buried' in the world's Religions and Esoteric Teachings.

Now, we no longer have a choice, should we wish to remain human and sane. We MUST come to understand the relevance of our LIFE and DEATH!

Let's talk about it a little.

Some straight talk.

All the Religions and Teachings tell us that our essential individuality is not restricted/confined to our bodies. That's BOLD TALK - the implications are significant and PRACTICAL. 

It's our ONLY WAY OUT, and it truly IS a way out.

We must first of all take the 'sting' out of the word DEATH. We must fearlessly come to understand and KNOW as much as we can about it, in life, and prepare ourselves for this TRANSITION!

This is serious and REAL staff!

All the confusion and brutality of present world facts can, in their totality be a BLESSING - now, we HAVE NO CHOICE! If you don't like the way I've detailed the present realities then you go and make your own list - set out your own picture. This world CANNOT be explained in terms of itself. Religions and Teachings are not the imaginings of fools and idiots. We must find one that 'talks to us', whose language and tone we can relate to - and we must study and work within its framework. They are in existence to point the way to a possible SANE LIFE and SUCCESSFUL DEATH!

BIG ADULT STUFF we talk about, but as real as real can be !

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

 

June 23, 1985

It is neither a question of behavioral improvement nor merely a shift in attitude. Both behavior and attitude changes expand one's awareness of the range and change and possibilities of variety in angles of perception/cognition/individual subjective world picturing. Shifts in behavior and attitude, either volitionary or induced, are potentially useful in exposing the vast number of illusions within imagination and as a possible inducement to establishing one's sense of being BEHIND all of this in one's ESSENCE, the qualities of which include consciousness and conscience within DEEP AWARENESS.

Changes of behavior and attitude are possible means of study and never an end in themselves.

Man is ASLEEP in imagination and as well is HYPNOTIZED and most often TRAUMATIZED. Change of behavior and attitude with the resulting shift in perceptions and growing awareness of SUBJECTIVITY WITHIN IMAGINATION undermines the illusory sense of stability and for this awakening to be successful and not lead to a lost madness, these processes require the presence of, the awareness of, the REALITY OF ESSENCE - this is THE work of a SCHOOL.