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.