So, you see, all I'm trying to say is that the basic common sense about the nature of
 the world that is influencing most people in the United States today, the fully automatic
 model, is simply a myth. If you want to say that the idea of God the Father with his white
 beard on the golden throne is a myth, in the bad sense of the word "myth," so is this other
 one. It's just as phony and has just as little to support it as being the true state of affairs.
 Why? And let's get this clear. If there is any such thing at all as intelligence and
 love and beauty, well, you found it in other people. In other words, it exists in us as
 human beings. And as I said, if it is there in us, it is symptomatic of the scheme of
 things. We are as symptomatic of the scheme of things as the apples are symptomatic of
 the apple tree or the rose of the rosebush.
 The earth is not a big rock infested with living organisms any more than your skeleton
 is bones infested with cells. The earth is geological, yes, but this geological entity
 grows people. And our existence on the earth is a symptom of the solar system and its balances,
 as much as the solar system in turn is a symptom of our galaxy, and our galaxy in its turn
 is a symptom of the whole company of galaxies. Goodness only knows what that's in. But you
 see, when as a scientist you describe the behavior of a living organism, you try to
 say what a person does, it's the only way in which you can describe what a person is,
 describe what they do. Then you find out that in making this description you cannot confine
 yourself to what happens inside the skin. In other words, you can't talk about a person
 walking unless you start describing the floor. Because when I walk I don't just dangle my
 legs in empty space. I move in relationship to a room. And so in order to describe what
 I'm doing when I'm walking, I have to describe the room. I have to describe the territory.
 So in describing my talking at the moment, I can't describe this just as a thing in itself,
 because I'm talking to you. And so what I'm doing at the moment is not completely described
 unless your being here is described also. So if that is necessary, if in other words
 in order to describe my behavior, I have to describe your behavior, and the behavior of
 the environment, it means that we've really got one system of behavior. That what I am
 involves what you are. I don't know who I am unless I know who you are. And you don't
 know who you are unless you know who I am. There was a wise rabbi once said, "If I am
 I because you are you, and you are you because I am I, then I am not I and you are not you."
 In other words we are not separate. We define each other. We're all backs and fronts to
 each other. You know, you can't for example have two sticks, you lean two sticks against
 each other and they stand up because they support each other. Take one away and the
 other falls. They interdepend. And so in exactly that way we and our environment, and all of
 us and each other are interdependent systems. We know who we are in terms of other people.
 We all lock together. And this is again and again the serious scientific description of
 how things happen. And any good scientist knows, therefore, that what you call the external
 world is as much you as your own body. Your skin doesn't separate you from the world,
 it's a bridge through which the external world flows into you. And you flow into it. Just
 for example as a whirlpool in water. You could say because you have a skin you have a definite
 shape, you have a definite form. All right? Here is a flow of water and it suddenly it
 does a whirlpool. And then it goes on. The whirlpool is a definite form, but no water
 stays put in it. The whirlpool is something the stream is doing. And exactly the same
 way, the whole universe is doing each one of us. And I see you today and I recognize
 you tomorrow, just as I would recognize a whirlpool in a stream. I'd say, "Oh yes,
 I've seen that whirlpool before. It's just near so-and-so's house on the edge of the
 river. And it's always there. So in the same way when I meet you tomorrow, I recognize
 you, you're the same whirlpool you were yesterday. But you're moving. The whole world is moving
 through you. All the cosmic rays, all the food you're eating, the stream of steaks
 and milk and eggs and everything is just flowing right through you. When you're wiggling the
 same way, the world is wiggling, the stream is wiggling you. But the problem is, you see,
 we haven't been taught to feel that way. The myths underlying our culture and underlying
 our common sense have not taught us to feel identical with the universe. But only parts
 of it, only in it, only confronting it. Aliens. And we are, I think, quite urgently in need
 of coming to feel that we are the eternal universe, each one of us. Otherwise we're
 going to go out of our heads. We're going to commit suicide, collectively, with courtesy
 of H-bombs. And all right, supposing we do, well that will be that, and there will be
 life making experiments on other galaxies. Maybe they'll find a better game.
 Out of Your Mind now continues with the next lecture from the Nature of Consciousness lecture
 series.
 [Music]
 (upbeat music)
 Thank you.


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