Man The Enantiomorph

It is not true that man is a creature divided against himself; he never has been and never will be. Man is, rather, enantiomorphic—like gloves for the right and left hand are. Technologies and institutions are created through man by and for an “agency” we’ll call Life Itself and it literally exists in more than four dimensions while man’s perception is limited to three, plus time. The part cannot comprehend the whole: what mankind curses and worships as the “spiritual” and otherwise inexplicable, is this extra-dimensionality of Life, whose harmonious aspects are conjured and conjoined in man’s being and perception as conflict and confusion…the discomforting heat and pressure that he must, perforce, abide, sustain and extend as part of Life’s own expansion and growth. It is his inescapable lot: whether sorrow, joy, or apathy. But for a few it is opportunity…and joy.

The modernly professed “unconscious mind” does not work at cross purposes with the conscious one. Just as, in a man, the left hand works in concert with the right, the non-verbal moves while the verbal must register, explain, justify and apologize for that movement. But it never leads this dance and never understands its partner, for it is too busy with its own proper purview: talk and thought. The “unconscious mind,” the fabled “spirit world,” the “soul” etc., are the intellect’s names for an incomprehensible nexus it has with the ineffable direction of Life’s all-containing Body wherein man exists. Thus to those of extra-dimensional Sight, mankind is like one of those five dollar mail-order ant-colonies whose activities are visible through the glass panel while they are unaware of their blatant exposure to the most casual eye. Like man, the ants, if they could speak, would call the direction of that glass panel bounding their world “God” and know not its limitation.

The silent part of man’s nature is closer to the unseen embrace of Life’s Body, directly fed by Its primal lifeblood-energy circulation. The talking part is less directly connected and can be pictured as arising as a kind of charged interference current or magnetic field. It is in these brain circuits called the intellect—the verbal outgrowth of the older, non-verbal brainstem circuitry—where Life now focuses Its push of expansion. Yet that pressure arises via the non-verbal stem of the nervous system, as that is the only conduit available to it. Thus does it seem to the poor mind that hidden hands keep shoving it out from the backstage wings into unprepared, self-conscious confrontation with the theater audience: pants-down! On stage! Oh, the painful brilliance of the spotlight! On Life’s Gong Show it may tap dance; it may run and sweat, but it can’t hide. And where oh where is that merciful “Hook” that fishes the incompetent performer off the stage? Well, there is no “Hook,” for there is no incompetence: the mind is simply designed with built-in energy pathways/flows (feelings) of the impropriety and weakness of its exposed position…and thus does it reel and spin wild-eyed, at Life’s smoking-gun urgings (“Hey, pardner, let’s see you do some tap-dancing, bang ,bang, bang. Yeah! Good! Keep it up, bang, bang, bang!” [and Life has an infinite bandolier, don’tcha know]).

Strange to tell, but dancing and sweating, which is to say, talking and thinking, extends and makes complex the verbal superstructure of man’s nervous system and thus, in a sense, expands Life’s own neural network. But for individual men, here is the sum and substance of their personal lives: the Thrill of Victory, the Agony of Defeat and/or the Glazed Eyes of Indifference. In an endless chase away from defeat and on toward victory, an individual nervous system cycles through these energy charges in greater or lesser degree uncontrollably…taking them as uniquely self-caused; eternally puzzled and thwarted by their source and direction, yet continually impressed, informed and unbalanced by their import and timing. However, a few may dance and beckon from the cracks between victory, defeat, disaffect. A few may prance and reckon what lacks, and be cheery, replete: self-elect.

Man is a Mobius Strip (inside and outside are one) and his own mirror image. And every man is fascinated therewith, unable to lift his eyes from the enforced habits of movement, feeling, and thought he calls his existence. Were man not centered and stabilized in this way, his use to Life would be nil; civilization would fly apart—rending the fabric of Life’s growth in a specific, measurable direction, destroying the integrity of It’s Greater Being. This will not be allowed; man is specifically designed to preclude it. Thus does he transfer energies, revolving in place like a spinning top…storing up momentum…responding to the subtle tilt and grain of the floor of Life’s predisposition. Swiftly, swiftly spinning, but slowly, slowly listing, intractably drawn, like sand through the hour glass…surely, surely sifting. Into Life’s siren call: man’s attraction and fall; a resourceless subtraction, a recourseless contraction, adrown’d and adrift toward the Maelstrom Ball. In sum, man is not what he thinks he is: he is what Life thinks!

So, man is not a creature divided against himself. Such a creature would not be viable—self-destructive, even—whereas it should be obvious to the perceptive that the evolution of man taken as a whole has been anything but self-destructive. At the level of an individual man’s life however, he feels in conflict with himself—that nothing ever goes as planned, or if it does, teeters on the brink of some potential disaster at every turn. Consider: to what end is it so arranged? The same end as always: Life’s greater purposes. Thus: man, the enantiomorph, is his own image in the mirror, and the mirror. Is it not always amusing then, from a particular view, that he continually surprises himself? That when he smiles or frowns or raises his hand to his lips, he is startled and dismayed like an aborigine gazing for the first time into the looking-glass? But every now and then, at some here and there, the rarest of rare men suddenly realizes that what he sees is not what he sees. Such a one is changed forever, becoming his own puppet and viewing, here and now, the landscape of the:

Height,

Depth,

Width,

Breadth,

and

DIRECTION

Behind His Eyes...

Does the Tail Wag the Dog?

Consider the ancient Chinese Tao symbol of yin and yang. This deceptively simple symbolization is a map representation for all manifestation, consciousness and everything (or, really, nothing) in between. The elegance and simplicity of the prototypic yin-yang symbol reveals a subtle complexity of relationship seldom considered beyond the obvious. From the rudest teepee of conceptual elements—positive and negative—a skyscraper of complexity arises, much like, for example, all computers have for their basis the binary number symbols, 1 and 0 (i.e., yes and no = on and off). And just as an understanding of the binary numbers underlies the mastery of computers, understanding the interplay of yin and yang underlies the comprehension of what’s going on in life. The yin-yang symbol can be viewed as a beautiful, stylized blueprint of the cosmos and its dynamic of dualistic manifestation—the play and tension of opposites. Yin, the black half of the pair, represents, in simple terms, the “negative” aspect of reality: darkness, receptivity, cold, void. Yin is the low or non-energy state toward which yang, representing the positive aspect of reality—light, dynamism, heat and fullness—continually flows. All manifestation arises within this continuum of tension and interplay inherent in the polarity of yin and yang.

Consider, for example, the following cycle of nature: yin, the ever-abiding sea, receives yang, the sun’s rays, whence arises yang as water vapor (clouds) to dwell within yin, the sky. The sky gives birth to yang, the rain, received by yin, the earth, which supports yang as flowing river seeking reunion with a boundless sea of yin. This constant arising of yang within yin and yin inherent in yang is shown by the contrasting “eyes” within the stylized yin-form and yang-form, which, together, in-form the circular boundary of the symbol. Black/yin has an ever expanding point of white, appearing in the position of an eye, while the converse is true of the white/yang form. Here we have the ingenious artistic rendering, possessing the quality of a figure/ground relationship which “ping-pongs” the observer’s eye to and fro within the contrast between black and white, serving to imbue the symbol with a seeming dynamism of movement. Where yang is not, there is yin; where yin is not, there is yang. The relationship is inseparably interdependent, for neither exists except as its own opposite give it form. In prototypical conceptual terms this is how the manifest universe ceaselessly becomes and passes away in a constant natural flow: the mutual transformation of opposites.

While yin and yang represent any conceivable pair of opposite at all levels, the unifying reality of the symbol is a totality which supports and transcends all opposites: the circle. Consider an ancient symbol of infinity (and the universe), the Ouroborous—the serpent which consumes its own tail to nourish its own growth. Or, consider the face and obverse of a coin which is transcended and subsumed by the wholeness of the coin itself. Yin and yang have no independent existence, for one is implicit in the other as dual aspects of a encompassing unity. They exist independently only as mental interpretations (via the inherent cognizing function of the mind), as seemingly isolated points in a continuum which are simultaneously both and neither of its extremes (for instance, a baton, having two ends, is not deemed to be exclusively one end or the other, nor both, taken additively, but their unity). This inherent contrast of opposites is represented graphically in the yin-yang symbol by the black and white pair fitting together to form the circle that circumscribes them. The subsuming circle, with its partial aspects, yin and yang, is one symbol for the Chinese TAO. Variously translated as “way” or “suchness of manifestation”, it is THE NAMELESS. The Original-Reality-Beyond-Concept; the Self-Existent Absolute; Consciousness Without An Object (or Subject): everywhere and nowhere, eternal yet instantly vanishing, immanent, eminent and everywhere imminent—in short, omnitaneous reality.

Bearing the foregoing development of yin and yang in mind, let us now proceed to another application of its elucidation. Let us assign for the logo’s black/white contrast, the ultimate of opposites for humans: consciousness (white) and all objects of consciousness (black), i.e., the manifest universe. Thus the self-in-consciousness, or conscious-center-of-awareness, the “I”, in its life-long outward quest, forever encounters its absolute opposite, the surface of an apparently infinitely extended cosmos of objects apparently outside and impenetrable to it. Can you see then, that all objects of consciousness actually in-form consciousness, i.e., give it form by delimiting its borders (like a flashlight beam is limited or obstructed by what it shines upon). Conversely, all objects of consciousness are equally in-formed by the consciousness of them. Neither consciousness nor its objects exist independently, as each defines the other—renders it manifest—just like a flashlight beam is undetectable without an intervening atmospheric obscuration of, say, fog or smoke, or other objects undetectable without the illumination of the flashlight beam. The yin-yang figure visually portrays this idea: the quintessential nature of the universe is Pure Consciousness, or Consciousness-Without-An-Object-and-Without a Subject (CWOWS). Subjective consciousness—man’s consciousness—versus all objects of consciousness are the dual relative aspects subsumed and transcended by unitary, self-existent CWOWS, just as yin and yang are subsumed and bounded by the circle in the TAO symbol. Self-awareness and its antithetical objects-of-perception literally create the universe as follows: subject perceives object and object in-forms subject. This means that object and subject are not incommensurate things, they are opposing aspects of a unifying CWOWS which is beyond yet within them. Subject consciousness is the perceiving of objects and objects literally are their perception in consciousness. “One hand washes the other”. There can be no movie without the film obstructing the projector light…and, beyond that, nothing whatsoever without the cinema screen itself “hidden” by the form, color and action of the film itself.

We see then, the so-called “inner world” of consciousness and the “outer world” of space-filled-with-things to be really a continuum like the face and obverse of a coin. An intrinsic condition of human sentience is its ongoing awareness (to greater or lesser degree) of its own awareness (“apperception”). In this it makes its own consciousness an object of perception. As we shall see, this has some significant implications. Consider that where consciousness perceives itself, there is nothing to perceive, since it has become an object of consciousness and therefore assumes its antipodal form, unconscious objects--voids (i.e., it obstructs itself by denying itself). This is an impossible, lifting oneself by one's bootstraps-type operation, presenting a paradox: consciousness, in attempting to perceive itself, perceives non-consciousness, i.e., effectively hides itself. It is like a searchlight trying to shine upon itself, and in its pivoting about, illuminating everything but itself. This is the central dynamic and enigma of the boundary between the known and unknowable: subject-consciousness, in seeking itself, ipso facto finds the universe instead. Perception of the cosmos is the creation of the cosmos. The ‘physical’ universe and consciousness are one.

Consciousness can be likened to a disembodied eye (in a land where mirrors are non-existent). Such an eye cannot see itself for it is that which does the seeing—the functioning of sight. As is true of all the senses (including the mind, as it is a vehicle and synthesis of them), all that the eye beholds, it very literally is, since all objects of sight cannot be separate from the agency that sees them. When the eye looks to see itself, it can behold only the absence of itself; and it is this absence that is the foundation of all the objects of sight—the absence that allows and structures their existence. The perfection of functioning for eyes is not being in the way of (i.e., being absent to) what it sees. It is absolutely behind everything so all things can be in-front-for-sight. To expand the metaphor somewhat: imagine spinning around trying to glimpse the back of your own head and forever seeing only that which is the perfect absence of it, i.e., what, of necessity by design, is always 180 degrees from the back of your head. But, strangely, this is the only way you can see the back of your own head, for it is connected, indeed inseparable, via its own absence, to all you do see. This is the mind-blowing way that emptiness (absence) and fullness (form) are united. It is described as follows, in the Heart Sutra:

Here, O Sariputra, Form is Emptiness and the very Emptiness is Form;

Emptiness does not differ from Form; Form does not differ from Emptiness.

Whatever is Form—that is Emptiness. Whatever is Emptiness—that is Form.

The same is true of Feelings, Perceptions, Impulses and Consciousness.

Here is the most profound and most subtle but challenging endeavor of all mentation. Paradox confounds the mind—runs it into an alley and sets it against itself. For, designed to project outwards, to objectify the cosmos by isolating itself from its partner in creation, the mind sees Fullness in its own Absence…yet knows it not.

All objects of consciousness are absences thereof, yet partaking of form as if independent, exotic “things-out-there” and vouchsafed by an incommensurate, immaterial, conscious perception. In other words, the tail wags the dog.

Hubble Vision

So, you’ve got this technologic marvel, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), orbiting the Earth, in the optimal environment and position for astronomical observation. You decide to point it at a part of the universe that appears virtually empty—black, to every device heretofore available to man. And, except for a few foreground (i.e., our own Milky Way galaxy) stars, it sees nothing. Hmmmm, what if there is something there after all, but still too faint to see? You decide to make an extended photographic exposure of that space with the HST: a MILLION-second timed exposure requiring some 400-odd orbits of the Earth. That’s a time exposure of 277.77 hours. If there’s something yet-unseen there in that space, the light that arrives from it is so faint—a few photons a minute, say—that the only way to collect enough of it to see anything requires an extremely long exposure. So you do it—the necessary programming and other technical arrangements—to pull it off. Well, in a sort of reverse Cheshire Cat dynamic, images begin to appear and when the exposure was complete and various computer clarity enhancements done, the resultant remarkable, indeed, breathtaking photograph is dubbed the “Hubble Ultra Deep Field” (HUDF) image. [This is a simplification. For nuts-and-bolts detail, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Ultra_Deep_Field]

So…what to all appearances was an uninhabited tiny corner of space, turns out to have, count them: 10,000 (!)…not stars, but GALAXIES! And each galaxy contains billions of stars in its own right. That’s a LOT of ‘un-inhabitation’! To get an idea of the amount of space this is to the naked eye from Earth, it is smaller than a 1 mm by 1 mm object placed 1 meter away (i.e., a poppy-seed held at arm’s length) and roughly equal to one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky. Ten thousand galaxies in a pinhead-sized pinch of the cosmos! If this doesn’t give you a feel for your mote-like, miniscule-to-the-maximum, relative position in the scale of things, I don’t know what could.

Obviously, few people are apprised of this information. If everybody were, however, and appropriately impressed with it, do you suppose they would act any differently? I submit that whatever impact such cosmological data engendered would, in a New-York-minute, be swallowed up by the ten thousand exigencies and mundane worries of the careworn, work-a-day world that the brain was evolved to deal with. Human consciousness is simply not designed to harbor, other than temporarily, an appreciation (which in itself is only an inkling given by our modern technologies) of human size vs. galaxy size, to say nothing of cosmic size, nor any extended contemplation of it. This is not to say there are not people who have it in their DNA to attempt such ongoing contemplation and wield its realization in their moment-to-moment doings. One of the techniques given by, let’s say, extraordinary humans of yore, to interested hangers-on, was the task of “Remembering the face (or name) of God with every breath.” Do you think there’s a connection? William Blake said it this way:

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wildflower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

This kind of insight-praxis is attempted, normally, only by those of a monastic bent and with best effect in a monastery or other retreat-type setting. Why are so few smitten with such a need, and why is it that human consciousness is apparently not built for, nor has capacity for the extraordinary insight that William Blake so eloquently describes? Elementary my dear Watson: it’s counterproductive. It is contrary to what Life needs for humans to be doing—which is the making of culture and through it the evermore sophisticated investigation and control of “nature” for their continued flowering. And, just as in a jet engine there is a lot of pressure, heat, explosion and noise to propel the jet on its course through the sky, so too must there be in human endeavor to propel the Rocket-of-Life on its course from emptiness into fullness, from void into form. Life even gave us a catchphrase for it: “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” Still, there are humans with the proclivity and drive for extraordinary attention; those with an enhanced appetite for insight and application of a non-dual understanding of what’s going on around them. What is their function in the larger scheme of Life’s program and agenda? Elementary my dear Watson: they comprise a kind of DNA background memory—like memory foam conforms to the form of whatever presses into it, then returns to its original shape when released; they are like shock absorbers on a car chassis or the yellow light in a traffic signal or the catalyst in a chemical reaction, promoting it but not changed by it; they are the mirrors in a clothing store changing room…they watch the audience watching the movie…they are the ones with Hubble Vision.

Silence is Golden

Understand first that consciousness is not an adjunct or property of the physical brain. In fact, the converse is true: the physical body and all material things owe their existence to consciousness. Consciousness is the primordial "stuff"—the pre-existent substrate of all. This counterintuitive, bassackwards, realization is increasingly—and mind-numbingly so for traditional science—surfacing in modern physics and even cognitive psychology. But we're not talking the ordinary, ego-centered, binary logic (e.g., 'things are either A or not-A, but certainly not BOTH A AND not-A') consciousness that every human knows intimately and undeniably. No. We're talking Consciousness-Without-An-Object: Pure, undivided Consciousness. Think about it: isn't it obvious that the scientific method is a system made up in and by consciousness which is useful for the creation and furtherance of human culture? N'cest pas? And culture/civilization is the tool that Life-through-human-consciousness uses for its own agenda, an agenda which split-conscious humans cannot begin to fathom. Take away consciousness and what've you got? Nothing! If you want to say that 'things' exist without conscious perception of them, then be my guest. But realize this: without consciousness any such assertion cannot even be made! This is the case that Kant spun out in the Critique of Pure Reason, to wit: consciousness is like a pair of rose-colored glasses that cannot be removed, and all talk of non-rose-colored reality is meaningless. Wittgenstein said it this way: "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent.". What you see, regardless of its eccentricity, is the doing of consciousness and talk about it is ALSO the doing of consciousness, but one layer removed from direct seeing and thus the property of the mechanics of culture, which is of little use for UNDERSTANDING. Case closed. Be silent. Be happy. Or be ordinary.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Everybody’s heard that old story about the blindfolded wise men taking a survey of something unknown (in this case, an elephant), and each focusing on a different part of it, and then coming up with a description of it that conflicted with every other’s description and precluding a consensus of mutual understanding among them. It’s a very interesting story to contemplate, but is so well known and instantly recognized as some kind of received wisdom, as to have only the most feeble impact or potential nutrition for most of its auditors. But what about…the Elephant in the Room?

If you were in a room and an elephant was in there with you, it would be pretty obvious wouldn’t it? But if we make the elephant bigger and bigger until it fills the room, and without affecting your faculty of observation and being—i.e., leaving you a living and breathing observer, somehow, inside the elephant, how would you then be able to see it? The other half of the coin would be to shrink the elephant until, at some point, it drops out of one’s field of perception. This is, perhaps, more understandable for us but the result is the same: the elephant is there, but you don’t see it. Note that I didn’t say you can’t see it. For humans, the elephant is always there and can be seen…but it’s not.

Say we’re looking at some picture or painting or object that is “abstract” or otherwise ambiguous or alien to us, and the question is asked “What is that?” or “What does it mean?” What’s the usual response? Anything from “(your answer here)” to “(your answer here)”. But then you’ve missed the Elephant in the Room. The real question is “What is asking?” and the REAL real question is: “Who is asking?” Not “Why is the question asked?” or “How is this question asked?” Definitely not those, yet all but a few humans always ask every question but the real one and give every answer but the only answer…

Once, The Buddha held up a flower. Once, Laotse pointed at the moon. Those who didn’t get it called Buddha’s action the “Flower Sermon,” and Laotse’s “The Pointing Finger”. Those who got it, smiled and said nothing, for they saw the Elephant in the Room. At rare and unpredictable times Jan Cox would punctuate his talks to a community of interested auditors with long silences; sometimes inordinately long and increasingly pregnant pauses. Sometimes they seemed accidental or incidental (when you could almost hear the meshing of gears in his head while he pondered ‘where next’ or ‘how to express [so and so]’) and at others they were overtly (or, in hindsight overtly) intentional. And these pauses were, to me, even more powerful and impacting than when he ballpeened me between the eyes with something he said (which was often enough!). Those silences were quite simply, enormous opportunities, invitations really, unlimited pointings or beckonings, to sense the Elephant in the Room.

Always here, always now. See it. Do it. And when you get it, REALLY get it, it’s like falling backward into the open elevator shaft that’s been following you around since that day you took your first breath and opened your eyes; falling backwards, upwards, outwards, inwards...absolutely relaxed, in an, as it were, inverted full-gainer…oh, and at the same time pushing the button…to summon…the elevator…always in front of you—you know—the one featuring Muzak ® and leading to what ‘you gotta do today’.

The Elephant in the Room: Always here. Always now. See it. Do it. ‘You’ can’t see it. But, WHO can. YESSSSSSSSSS…

DESIGN vs. DARWIN...or Teacup Tempest?

“My faith is even stronger now.” This, from a victim of the hurricane Katrina catastrophe! Consider what this reveals, to an alert observer, about the human mind: it tacitly admits that God is on both sides of good and evil. The man, whose “faith is even stronger”—after the devastation of a category 5 storm—would have to agree that, along with his survival of it, the storm was equally God’s creation (or else it was the Devil’s doing, but he, too, is God‘s creation!). So, what does this suggest? Isn’t it obvious? Is this what men call thinking? Do men really think? How is it possible that men stare God’s works in the face, and then unaccountably cherry-pick only the portion of that barefaced totality that supports their “faith”? Is it self-delusion? Self-aggrandizement? Ignorance? Or, design?

Speaking of design, much has been made lately of the controversy between the theory of Darwinian evolution and the argument for “Intelligent Design.” Let’s see if this isn’t just a “Tempest in a Teacup.” Darwin invokes the mechanism of random mutation coupled with natural selection as the vehicle of evolutionary change. The argument for Intelligent Design allows that Darwin’s theory applies only in rather specialized and circumscribed flora and fauna populations, but that it fails dramatically, even fatally, when applied to explain sophisticated mechanisms discovered in the last 20 years or so of micro-biochemical research, specifically: the arcane workings of the human immune system; the surprisingly complicated process of blood clotting, the detailing of cellular DNA and RNA interactions, and, even in low-order species, mind-numbingly complex survival and reproductive strategy-mechanisms…all of which, it is mathematically demonstrated via probability calculations, would require more years than there are atoms in the entire universe for them to randomly evolve ala Darwin—an impossibility. Accordingly, Design, by some unspecified agency, not purely random processes, must account for life’s evolution. Naturally, there are rebuttals to the “Design” objections and rebuttals to the rebuttals, and so on. Note that neither makes any claim about the ultimate origin of life or the universe. The radical margins in each camp condemn each other as either “atheist scientists” or, “ignorant creationists”. The Alert, like expert freestyle rock climbers, keep their balance and feel out the hand-holds necessary to surmount this sheer-faced and trenchant ediface of opposition.

Let’s look for what is the anterior substrata, or common denominator to them both. Effectively, Darwinian science says “X”, while biochemistry science says “Y”. Both are the creation of “Z” which we’ll call the human brain/mind. If we write out an equation representing this reality, it would have two forms:

Z - Y = X

and

Z - X = Y

In words it would be: Mind minus (rejecting) Design, equals Darwin, and Mind rejecting Darwin, equals Design. Now consider the equation:

X + Y = Z.

What does this show? And what about the equation:

X + Y - Z = 0

Well, in words, for the former: Design and Darwin equals (or comprises, or in-forms) the Mind. And, for the latter: Darwin and Design, without the Mind, are null, i.e., meaningless. So, both being creations of the mind are dependent on it for their existence…and, the mind is incomplete without them both. Furthermore, Design and Darwin are Siamese twins; they share the same blood and cannot survive independently. Voila!: Tempest in a Teacup. Their squabble is…just the mind! Each side is arguing with their own mind, not with each other!

Let us return to the man whose “faith is even stronger now”. It was submitted above that God is on both sides of good and evil. And what was shown to be on both sides of the Design/Darwin debate? The Mind. Consider: Mind = God. When the mind speaks of God and has, in the often cataclysmic vicissitudes of life, faith in God, it speaks of and has “faith even stronger now”…ONLY IN ITSELF. For that is its DESIGN.

So, See the design; Know its purpose…and be untroubled by the Tempest in a Teacup humans call "my mind"...

CONSCIENCE

Conscience, in the sense that one's actions or motives are either right or wrong, impelling one towards "right action", of course "exists" in the lives of all men. But it's not "mental"; conscience is part of your temperament. At one end of the spectrum you have men whose conscience is limited to mere self-preservation cum aggrandizement, i.e., right action is: securing "what's in it for me, and screw the hindmost"; at the other end are the Hindu's who brush the ground free of insects as they walk to ensure taking no life, or the Christian whose conscience is the “still, small voice” guidance to “turn the other cheek".

As far as conscience the word/concept is concerned, being part of the "secondary world" it is meaningless for one who's alert. He recognizes it as a necessary concept for the "civilized" (those attuned and identified with the secondary domain--and therefore doing life's work...in fits and starts) but profitless for awakening. For one awake, conscience is seeing and accepting his temperament and acting in accord with it, without guilt or pride. A man at the animal end of the conscience-spectrum is not interested in awakening, yet acts in total accord with his temperament and is therefore living "a life of conscience" at the "basement level" so to speak. At the other end, men’s temperaments are interested in awakening; conscience for these, the more civilized, is based on life's dictated external codes and always involves uncertainty, guilt and/or smug self-righteousness: conscience at "street level".

Gurdjieff's "help lessen the suffering of our common father" equates to Jan Cox’s saying "the neural rebel consciously assists Life's greater growth by reducing or eliminating the inefficiencies (not to say "error") of ordinary mentation". The routine must tediously pick at and squabble over the Gordian Knot of life while the Neural Rebel cleanly cleaves it through with slashing-scimitar-eyes. To complete the analogy: awakened conscience is action at the "helipad" level. To "talk" about, or invoke or espouse a "life of conscience" as opposed to clinically seeing how one acts, is purely an exercise in dreamland--no different than arguing over whether god exists.

To take words/concepts seriously is folly for seeing anything. Conscience is blood 'n guts -based: it exists in and through genetic temperament and not as a result of inculcation or teaching. If you think it does, ask yourself this: how did the inculcator receive his indoctrination? An endless chain of regression--back to...what? The Prime Brainwasher? So, sure, "conscience"--the word--has meaning...for the ordinary, but it is "unacceptable action"-based, and there are no unacceptable actions...except for one with his own code of conduct and responsible only to himself. Everything else is pure distraction. Only to the undistracted is self-conscience possible...

Conscience = Temperament;

Consciousness = Space in/for/of Seeing What-is;

Ordinary mind = "What is ‘What-is’?";

Who = Consciousness;

How = Who.

WHAT Freewill?

With Wordless Wonderment, Watching

Where, Withal, What

When, Why:

WHO

Am

I

Those that believe they have freewill DO have freewill (just try to convince them otherwise!) -- although they may cry in their beer and feel guilty when events go against them, because it's their responsibility for and failure to "do the right thing"--and fine for them. Even those who don't believe in freewill, nevertheless unconsciously act as if they do, because their cultural conditioning and physiological/cognitive structures rule by evolutionary default—i.e., the cognitive metaphors (e.g., Causation as Force, Contact (or Proximity) and Movement = Control) that are mapped from the sensory-motor experience of earliest awareness of, and interaction with the physical world, drive the deep structures of cognition and spontaneous behavior. Only the Awakened are exempt from this reality and their actions are indistinguishable (and/or uncanny) to the ordinary.

When the question of freewill--"do we or don't we?"--arises, it’s worthwhile to ask oneself this question: "When did I make the decision to become born?". If one doesn't effect one's own birth and its circumstances, one is on this earth involuntarily from the get-go, so in one sense freewill is automatically suspect. Aside from those who are convinced that they DID plan their own birth (and arguing with them is pointless), those who allow that it's true we are born involuntarily, nevertheless invoke freewill for all ensuing actions. Fine, but when one's feet are placed on a descending path (i.e., born into physical life on earth, which is a one-way street (namely, birth-->youth-->middle age-->old age-->death) and if we think of non-freewill as the incline downhill (and subject to gravity, say), the capacity to NOT proceed downhill is nil.

Here’s another question: "Can you tell me what you're going to think next?" This is a non-starter for virtually everybody, since they will automatically say "Oh, such-and-such and more such-and-such, of course!" without realizing that they're already, ipso facto, clueless because it's impossible to know what you're going to think next; the extant thought is already there and is automatically displaced by the next one and the next, without your volition.. There is only one valid, authentic reaction to such a question: shocked or at least bemused silence. And that reaction can only arise from the realization that, 1) what you presently think is already in the way of your saying/thinking what you'll think next; ditto for the next thought, and the next, etc.; 2) actually, the questioner "caused" that instant thinking in your brain by asking you the question in the first place; 3) you're always one step behind your thinking and you DON'T KNOW whence it arose or whither it’s bound.

Jan Cox used to say: "The mind is always the last to know." If you ponder this deeply it gets under your skin, it changes you by, as it were, holding a mirror up to your thinking process, which interrupts and interferes with its automatic course. If, in light of this immediate, eerie, in-your-face evidence to the contrary, you still think you exercise freewill, well, you're in good company—because, even for the rare bird that catches a glimpse of it, it's all but impossible to remember (bear in mind) as an ongoing enterprise. If you think that you DO know what you’re going to think next, well, you’re in good company and I wouldn’t dream of debating the point with you.

It’s so interesting: everywhere you hear great authors, artists, inventors, et al. in interviews freely admit that they don’t know where their inspiration comes from or foresee the finished form of their art, and, indeed, are often surprised and nonplussed by it!...while everybody nods their head, saying, “Isn’t it true, oh yes, isn’t it so true.” Yet no one sees that it is categorically no different in their own work-a-day world; absolutely the same in the purview of their quotidian thinking, speaking and doing, instant by instant, breath by breath, year after year. Yes, very interesting. Hidden in plain sight; but accessible only to the thoughtfully attuned, objective, restless voyager, hungry for clarity, and unable to look away or pull the wool over his own eyes when he comes face to face with it. One big problem, however: if you should see it, HOW TO REMEMBER IT when your very design and conditioning, like the red cape to the bull, continually agitates and misdirects…while the sword, aimed and poised, is the invisible agent of the only certainty in your life.