Out Of The Trap

It's curious, very, very odd, and yet nobody realizes it, that human beings are brought

up to feel as if they were strangers in the world.

We are given a sense of our own existence that is in flat contradiction to the facts

of nature, although in its own way there is something natural about that, because nothing

can happen at all that is not in some way connected with an elaborate scheme, not a scheme that

as it were had a plan in mind, but nevertheless a scheme that is musical in its nature, and

even our delusions are part of that.

But nevertheless, they are sometimes extraordinarily odd, and we are given by our society, by

our tradition and upbringing, by our culture, a very weird sensation of our own existence.

And that is the sensation of strangeness, of being somebody who, as we say, comes into this

world, whereas when you are born, you should say that you came out of this world.

You don't come into it.

Where else is there to come from?

In the philosophy that we've inherited, however, and that underlies our common sense, there are

some ideas which account for this sensation of strangeness.

And I'm going to spend the first session examining the history of that.

But what I want to say to make things clear from the outset, especially to those of you

who are strangers to these seminars, is that, strictly speaking, you, that which you feel

most inwardly and intimately to be yourself, is obviously part and parcel of the works, you

might say the plays, but what there is, we could say in a slangy way, the witch than which there is no

witcher.

The Hindus say, Tattva Masi, which is in Sanskrit saying, that thou art.

You're it.

Only you're playing, you aren't.

And that's what it was always doing.

But basically, never fear.

What is absolutely central and fundamental to you is what the Christians might call God,

or the Godhead, and you're pretending you aren't.

And you're pretending very cleverly, so that the illusion is extraordinarily convincing.

Or if we put it in terms that do not require these, what we today call mythological concepts

of God or Brahman or whatever, we can simply say that every individual is what the total cosmos

is doing at a place called here and now, or a place called I.

I is a pronoun of position, like this, here, so on.

And so that's the way things actually work.

And anyone can see it, and it can be proved to the satisfaction of anybody, by purely physical

evidence.

Only we are trained to feel the exact opposite, you see, that we are little creatures sort

of looking over our shoulders and wondering where the hell we are and what's going to

happen next, and that this isn't our arrangement at all, and that we're caught in a great cosmic

trap.

Oh, thou who didst with pitfall and with gin, beset the road I was to wander in.

You know, that kind of idea.

Now, what accounts for this?

How could we possibly have come to feel this way?

Well, there are a lot of reasons, but the two that I want to concentrate on this morning

are two mythologies that have influenced everybody's thinking in the Western world.

The first we'll call the Jewish Christian mythology, and the second, the Newtonian mythology,

or mechanistic mythology, and the latter, of course, has a far more dominant influence

on educated people today than the other one.

But let's look and see what they really involved in our feelings about the world and about our

place in it.

First of all, in the Jewish Christian mythology, we are here in a relationship to the ultimate

reality, which is comparable to the relationship between a great king and his subjects.

This king is modeled on the ideal type of a great Near Eastern king who might have lived,

say, around 4 or 3,000 B.C.

You remember, don't you, in reading about the fact that when those kings died, all their

families and servants and many of their subjects were buried with them.

They were killed outright by being, well, buried alive in the royal tomb.

And Thomas Mann made the observation that in those days it seemed as if human heads had

no backs to them, as if one were simply a mask, and that what was behind you was something

altogether beyond you, so that you were completely identified with your tribe, with your human

family.

And so the king was like a queen being.

The abs, well, we would say the king pin upon which everything depends.

And when that's blown out, everybody collapses with it.

Only later did we grow backs to our skulls, and then begin to feel enclosed.

That was a very important step, but a troublesome one.

We don't feel in the lines of G.K.

Chesterton, but now a great thing in the street seems any human nod.

We're moved in strange democracy, the million masks of God.

We don't feel that, we see.

We feel all by ourselves.

But we can get it back, this sensation of being absolutely one with the whole and at the same

time retain everything that we have won by the development of Western-style personality,

the ego.

So then, this model of the world, based on the idea that we are all subjects of the divine

king, was, you might say, a political model, based on the organization of the great city-states

of the ancient Near East.

And that image, you see, has absolutely haunted Western man throughout his whole development.

Because he has felt that he is in this universe on probation, on sufferance.

He doesn't quite belong here, because there's this great, big, giant spirit who's saying

to him, you're just a miserable little worm, and I evoked you here out of nothing.

Of course, I love you, because I'm love.

I'm a very good father.

And everything that I do, however much it hurts, is for your good.

But you watch out, and don't you dare look me in the eye.

So everybody does this.

See?

All those customs where the ruler is faced this way, with head down, and so no looking at him

directly, is based on this mythology.

And of course, it's based, too, on some political facts, because when a big man does attain to

eminence, everybody is against him secretly.

They hate him for it.

So he has to be surrounded with guards and secret police.

And people all lie with their faces on the floor, so that they're in a position where

they can't attack.

That's the whole idea.

And that's why, in the royal court, the throne has its back to the wall.

There is nothing behind the throne.

There are just guards on either side who can be watched a little.

You see?

So in a church, when the altar, or the episcopal throne, is right with its back to the wall,

this really indicates a situation of fear.

But if I'm not afraid of you, I shouldn't really have my back to the wall at all here

in this situation.

Only rooms are designed.

Our whole architecture, following the design of original courthouses, is made that way.

After all, one should walk out into the middle of people and have people behind you, if

you can trust them.

So, this model, I call it a model of the universe, based on the kingly court, did certain very

important things for us.

It gave us the idea, for example, of universal law.

It lies at the roots of many of our best ideas of justice.

But, it bugged us.

It really bugged us.

Because, you felt that you were never, never free from the penetrating glance of an all-seeing

eye that watched everything you do.

I have a friend who is a humorous Catholic.

And in her toilet, she has an old-fashioned kind with a tank and a pipe going down to the

seat.

And right on that pipe, there is a little pile with an eye on it.

And written underneath in Gothic letters, it says, Thou God seest me.

So, everywhere, there is no escape.

At the most intimate moments or in the most intimate thoughts, you are under judgment.

You are being what?

Big Father is watching you.

You see?

Now, that made the Western world more and more and more uncomfortable.

They couldn't stand it.

They felt that this was the paradox involved.

To believe in that kind of a God, a personal God, has this good thing about it, that it's

saying that the ultimate reality, that which underlies everything that happens, is intelligent.

And not only intelligent, but beneficent, even if in a rather stern and authoritarian way.

But at least it's alive.

The universe, in other words, has a heart.

But we switched to the opposite mythology, because we couldn't stand it.

And in the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, evolved the idea that the universe doesn't have

a heart at all, that it is essentially stupid, and that we, sensitive, intelligent beings

capable of love and all sorts of feelings, are an accident, a really deplorable accident.

But what a monstrous system in which the tender, sensitive nervous systems that we are

could appear in a world that consists principally of rock and fire.

That is an impersonal, vast, gyrating nonsense, which has no consideration for us men whatsoever.

Why did such an idea possess the Western world?

Why could it be that in the 19th century, Freud could talk about the basic energies of the

psyche, as libido, and compare them to the blind forces of brute emotions, you know?

Think of that language.

At the same time, Ernst Haeckel and T.H. Huxley and so on were thinking about the world as

the manifestation of energy, say Henri Bergson with the idea of the élan vital, what was

the nature of this energy which manifested everything?

Essentially, it was something like electricity.

Now, electricity does wonderful things for us, but essentially electricity is rather dumb.

You switch it on and switch it off.

Supposing I could just switch you on and switch you off, you see?

But just like that, say, please don't bother me anymore, and you'd vanish.

But that's the name, you see, they thought of the world as having, as being just a surge

of, like this, you see?

But completely stupid.

Only after the, how on earth they ever got intelligence out of this is a miracle, but they

did, by explaining that if you gave it enough time, it would eventually become intelligent.

But that's the most nonsensical idea anybody ever thought of.

But if just time, you see, would make things more complicated.

Now, I want you to, this is the thing that is difficult today, because that idea of the

mechanical universe, that is essentially dead, is a very persuasive one.

And most intelligent people today, who are products of the college and that particular system

of propaganda and indoctrination, really it feels that this is the case.

That they are strangers in an alien world.

And that when you die, it will just be like you were a caterpillar that was squashed.

And that will be that.

That you are, in other words, an interlude of consciousness between eternal darknesses.

And that's all there is.

It doesn't mean anything.

It is just, just that.

And not much of that, anyway.

Not much of a bad.

Now, what is important is to understand that this is a myth.

There aren't, just as the other thing about the great cosmic king is also a myth.

There is no foundation for it, in fact, whatsoever.

But it's a way, you see, of putting the world down when it had been put up too much.

It's a reaction.

The world had been put up too much by being made embarrassingly intelligent.

You see, there was that all-seeing eye who would say to you,

da, da, da, da, da, da, da, every minute, you see.

Better a dead world than one watching me like that.

Now, let's look at certain elements in the 19th century myth,

the Newtonian myth, that are very interesting.

First of all, let's consider what it says about the nature of human consciousness,

of the mind, of being aware.

There really is no such thing as a mind.

What we call mind and life is a kind of scum

that grows after a long time on the top of rocks.

You see, it looks upon the human being as a cell-infested skeleton,

just as it looks upon the earth as a life-infested rock.

It sees no real connection between the rock, which is the earth,

or the fiery metallic ball,

and the life that's creeping on its surface.

That's an excrescence.

Now, excrescence means something that grows out of.

But look how we use the word.

An excrescence is something.

It sounds almost like excrement.

We use it in a deprecatory way.

And you've got to watch very much how people use words

and the tone of voice they put into them,

because that shows you what game they're playing.

So when they say life is an excrescence,

or they've got another word they had at those times,

an epiphenomenon,

a mere epiphenomenon.

Note the word mere.

That word does more damage in philosophy than any other one I know.

It's merely energy, you know?

You are...

All the matter with you is that you're merely nervous.

So, in this system of things,

they explained that the whole world is merely mechanical,

but that we are here is a sort of accident,

and we are an excrescence.

We are a fungus.

We are a sort of growth, like lichen on rocks.

And that's all we are.

Now, this was to say, on the one hand,

that man is a product of nature.

He's not the special creation of a supernatural god.

But they didn't, as a result of feeling that man is a product of nature,

become friendly with nature,

as you would have supposed they might.

They hated nature all the more,

and all the more furiously,

for bringing us forth.

And therefore, waged and initiated

the war against nature

that began with the 19th century

and has been pressed into the 20th.

The idea, in other words,

that the only hope there is

for the human spirit

is to beat the environment into submission

because it's an alien environment.

It's a hateful, mechanical, stupid bunch of nonsense.

And if we don't get in there

with our cleverness and power

and smash it into submission,

we have no future.

We're just going to be wiped out one day

when the sun gets too hot and blows up.

And that'll be that.

But before that happens,

which will maybe a million years from now,

we expect to inhabit other galaxies,

to have the sun under control,

you know, all sorts of wires fixed into it and things,

and so it'll behave itself.

And then we'll rule the roost.

Having examined them,

these two mythological forms,

which underlie the Western man's intense feeling of alienation and separateness,

we have to go into another dimension of the question.

And that is the influence upon who we think we are

of our social institutions.

We know that there are things like

the family,

marriage,

the police,

the courts,

the church,

and we know that these are social institutions.

But social institutions are far more subtle than those things.

Time, for example,

is a social institution,

because it is a matter of convention.

That is to say,

of coming together to agree

to measure

time in a certain way.

And we have international agreement about that.

Likewise, obviously,

money is a social institution.

So are weights and measures.

So are

ideas of value.

What is the good life?

Who is contributing to society?

And who is working against it?

So you see,

we were discussing this morning,

among other things,

excuse me,

the idea of survival.

And that survival is a good thing.

And to survive as long as possible

is a very good thing.

But that is a form of social institution.

It is something we have come to agree about.

It isn't necessarily true

in the sense that,

shall I say,

the French language

is not a truer language

than the English.

But so long as people agree

to speak a certain language,

they can communicate.

And they've decided

that communication

is a good thing.

So any language

that makes communication possible

is a good language.

And, in a way,

the more people

who agree about it,

the better.

But it is a matter of agreement.

You see,

same way,

the lines of latitude

and longitude

are conventions.

They are,

they don't exist.

You can't tie up packages

with the equator.

But it's a very useful idea.

And so,

in the same way,

the ways in which

we have shaped the constellations,

that we all agree

that the stars

called the Big Dipper

look something like a dipper.

And,

though,

you know,

there aren't any strings

tying them together.

The constellation

is not there

as a constellation.

So,

in a sense,

we project

our institutions

onto the world

in rather the same way

that psychiatric patients

project images

onto a Rorschach blot.

and what interests

the psychiatrist

is what sort of images

this person produces

that tells him

something about the person.

In the same way,

our social institutions

tell us something

about people.

When we see

some very exquisite pattern,

we look at it

and say,

my,

isn't that wonderful?

Isn't that intelligent looking?

I wonder who did it?

Because we associate

all intelligence

with a who.

And when you look

at a plant,

it's obviously intelligent.

It's shape.

It's rhythm.

All its wonderful tubes inside.

Its complex relationship

to bees and birds.

And to the surrounding atmosphere.

And light.

This is a very intelligent affair.

Now,

in just the same way,

we are related

to the external world

as plants are

in amazingly complicated ways.

and by and large,

we don't notice them.

Because the aspect

of our consciousness

with which we notice things

is very limited.

It notices

what it calls facts,

things,

and events.

Pinpoints them.

It pulls them out

as significant.

You see,

when you remember

coming here

and what you saw

and who was here,

you only remember

very tiny bits

of the whole scene.

You will not remember

what very many people wore

unless you happen

to be interested in clothes.

You won't really remember

how they did their hair,

what their styles were,

unless you are peculiarly

interested in hairstyles.

You probably won't notice

their shoes at all.

And goodness knows

what else

that nobody

has ever thought

to notice.

But when under

certain circumstances

our consciousness

becomes expanded

as in mystical vision,

you begin

to become aware

of things

that you don't notice.

One of the most

important things

that we don't notice

is space.

Most people regard

space as nothing.

It's just a void

in which we move around.

But actually,

space is terribly important.

It has properties.

We are all

something happening

in space

in rather the same way

that a whirlpool

occurs in water.

Space has

turns in it.

It has ripples in it.

It has places

where it's denser

than at other places.

And this is all

becoming clear

in physics.

But it's certainly

not impinged

upon the consciousness

of the average

intelligent person.

There is no

manifestation of energy

without space.

in time.

But I don't want

to make it complicated.

I want to make

this little image

as simple as possible

so as to understand

the importance

of space.

That is to say

of the surroundings

of things,

of the background.

And the background

is ignored

in ordinary consciousness.

But in mystical consciousness

the background

becomes important.

You become aware

vividly of the fact

that you

as a

an individual

imply

by your existence

everything else

that exists

or ever has existed

or ever will exist.

You can't exist

as the kind of person

you are

without all that.

Now that's the secret

to the connection

between you

and the cosmos.

Just as a back

doesn't exist

without a front.

In just that

sort of way

all of it

doesn't exist

without you

and you don't exist

without all of it.

Even if you die

you see

and disappear

totally.

Nevertheless

the fact that

you have existed

is still a fact.

And a universe

in which there

has been a person

like Socrates

is quite a

different universe

from a universe

in which there

hadn't been a person

like Socrates.

Socrates

having existed

is a symptom

of the way

things are.

So fundamentally

we get a picture

of the cosmos

in which

the self

the real I

is the whole thing.

Just as we say

of an individual

human body

you are John Doe

and that's all of you.

Although

if we look at you

very carefully

under an electron microscope

we will find

that molecules

in your blood

are further apart

than the earth

and the sun.

What makes you think

you're a unity?

It's quite a thought.

Well it's space.

And so in the same way

as such a relationship

exists

between our

our galaxy

and other galaxies

and so on

it's obvious.

Then

various

conventions

and social institutions

we develop

the impression

that this isn't so.

We learn

to ignore

we learn

not to notice

certain things

and do you know

not noticing

is very very important.

In the Hindu

theory of politics

all the

what are

spiritual virtues

have political

counterparts.

for example

in the spiritual domain

the word

upaya

means merciful

techniques

for awakening people

clever devices

used by a teacher

in the politics

in the political domain

the word

who

to

are

the

Upaya means cunning, deceit.

Likewise, in the spiritual domain,

upeksha means equanimity.

In the political domain, upeksha means overlooking.

When, for example, the boss of the big concern

finds that one of his employees

is taking out a little bit of the petty cash,

now he figures out,

is this man worth it?

Are his services really worth it?

And shall I merely ignore the fact that he's doing this?

That would be upeksha.

Now, in our whole society,

we do an enormous amount of upeksha.

The things we overlook,

obvious things that we don't talk about,

there's a taboo side to life that we don't mention.

We're supposed to overlook it.

You know, when silk stockings were first invented,

with the fine mesh type,

a present of several dozen of them

was sent by an important American businessman

to the Queen of Spain.

And they were returned by her chamberlain

with a letter which said,

you should recognize that Her Majesty,

the Queen of Spain,

has no legs.

In other words,

those legs don't officially exist.

Only what exists officially

is what is noticed,

unless we say noted,

noteworthy,

make a note of it in your mind,

in your date book,

noting and noticing,

notation,

you see,

they're all based on the same idea,

what we attend to.

But there are a lot of very

attention-worthy things

that we ignore.

Part of the whole game,

you see,

of a cosmos,

is played

in this way.

Imagine the cosmos

as a great harp.

You know the angels

are supposed to play harps

in heaven.

Or the actual harp

they play

is the total

possibility

of vibrations.

Now,

you know about

the spectrum of light.

That is a series

of vibrations.

So is the spectrum

of sound.

Then beyond light,

there are other vibrations

which are not picked up

by our senses.

But instruments

pick them up.

And then there must

also be many vibrations

as yet not picked up

by any instruments

that we have.

Now what is,

you see,

what we call nature

is a system

of picked up vibrations.

Some vibrations

aren't picked up

and therefore

nothing appears.

That's why it seems

that the space

around things

because the vibrations

there aren't picked up.

They're not noticed.

And this is why

there is a whole domain

of Hindu and Buddhist

philosophy

called Tantra.

Tantra

refers to

the idea of weaving.

And so when you have

a warp

and a woof,

the weaver decides

what threads

are going to be picked up

and appear on the front,

which is what everybody

is going to look at,

and what threads

will be overlooked,

repressed,

put behind the seams.

They'll be behind.

And so it will appear

that we have a birdie here

and a birdie there

and no connection

between the birdies.

Actually,

if you look on the other side,

you will see that

the red threads

which made the birdies

against the white background

continues.

Only that's not noticed.

So in this way,

we are taught

from childhood.

We are indoctrinated

in a system

of social institutions

that are simply

rules about

what is to be noticed

and what is not

to be noticed.

That's why children

ask sometimes

very odd questions

about things

that adults don't notice.

The famous story

of the little boy

who's been taken

to a concert

where a lady

is singing

and he says,

Mama,

why does she scream

when she yawns?

And in the same way,

inventive poets

put together images

that people never

thought of before.

It's like

Yeats' famous phrase

the be-loud glade.

You know,

it was a beautiful idea

for a nice glade

to be be-loud.

And everybody says,

Wow,

think of that.

We never thought

of that before.

We never thought

of it in just that way.

We didn't notice that.

And the question,

the fundamental koans

that would be called

in Zen

is what is it

you haven't noticed?

What are you ignoring?

What have you forgotten?

You know,

you've forgotten something.

Very important.

In fact,

you came in here,

you know,

without clothes on,

in a sort of

fit of absent-mindedness.

I look at you and say,

Haven't you forgotten something?

You say,

What?

Well,

I,

oh,

good heavens.

So,

in the same way,

the fundamental who we are,

the basic identity,

the Brahman,

the Tat,

which Tram Asi,

that's what we've all forgotten.

But by ignoring it,

we make this game.

So then,

let's see what we do

precisely in steps

about social institutions

in training the young.

First of all,

it's important

to identify a child.

The child has got to

be someone.

And we often say,

of a child we think

is dumb and incompetent,

you're never going to

amount to anything.

You're just going to be

unimportant.

You're going to be

something unnoticed.

So a child has to find out

the approved way

of drawing attention

to itself.

If a child succeeds

in not drawing attention

to itself,

it won't get fed

for one thing.

So the very first yell

of a baby

is in a way

a way of getting attention.

And that's what we

want people to do.

We want a certain kind

of way

of asking for attention.

We don't like it

when babies howl

and get attention that way.

But it gets attention

because it's annoying

and we want to stop it.

So,

we fundamentally

want people to love us.

And we don't believe

that they will.

Unless somehow

we put them

in a situation

where they must.

So we have all kinds

of processes

for charming people

and eliciting their love.

They range,

you see,

first of all,

on one end of the spectrum

from being

physically attractive

elicits attention.

Another way

is to be funny.

And people laugh

and they like you

having something around

that's funny.

Another way

is to be helpful.

To wash the dishes

and things like that.

And that's good.

Another way

is to be weird.

Only that's a little

disconcerting.

You have to be careful

how you play that one.

Or they may put you

in a place where

you're not seen.

All the time

you're playing

this game,

of course,

everybody else

is reacting to it.

And they're talking

to you

and they're giving

you messages

about the kind

of attention-making

scene

you're playing.

And they

don't want you

to do anything

in this game

that will

discombobrate them.

They want you

to play it

according to

certain rules

so that they'll

know what you'll

do next.

That's terribly

important.

people mustn't

be too surprising.

We,

you know,

we like things

to stay put.

We like them

to be regular.

And if you had

a kettle

which suddenly

developed legs

and walked off

the stove,

you would say

it was uncanny

and put it

in a zoo

or something

where it would

be safe,

where it wouldn't

do anything

further unpredictable.

So,

for the same

reason,

we have

a fairly

large number

of acceptable

character roles

that people

are allowed

to play.

And you

should watch

these things

very carefully

because it's

tremendously

instructive

to figure out

what kind

of roles

your friends

are playing.

They have

through long,

long

accustomedness

come to

believe that

that's who

they really

are.

And that

when they

are playing

their role

they are being

themselves

and being

straight and

honest.

That's a

deception

that's very

easily arranged

by choosing

between a number

of roles in

early life

that you

might play.

You've got to

decide whether

you're going to

be a serious

person or a

clown or

whatever,

you know.

and then

you behave as

if the roles

you've discarded

were the

superficial ones.

The one

you've decided

to play is

the deep

one and

that's really

you.

That is

soon done

in this

way.

A child

notices very

early in

life that

he's a

different person

in different

environments.

He is one

person in the

company of

his parents.

Sometimes one

person with

his father and

another with

his mother.

he's another

person with

a nursemaid.

He's another

person at

school.

He's still

quite another

person alone

with other

children and

still someone

else when he's

by himself.

He makes a

visit to

relatives.

I know very

well that I

was a different

personality in

my aunt and

uncle's home

than I was in

my own home.

Because you

respond to the

environment you

get very

very subtly

delivered cues that

certain attitudes

are expected of

you.

And you

don't just

play these

attitudes outwardly

in how you

speak and

gesture.

You play

them inwardly.

You think

the thoughts

that the other

people are

suggesting you

think.

If you

listen to

what you

call your

own mind

very carefully

you will

discover that

it's full of

the echoes

of other

people's

voices.

What do I

think about

this?

And you

think that

actually it's

your mother

talking to you

or the sort

of things she

would say or

whoever else

it may be

someone you

admire very

much.

So the

interchange of

our own

behavior and

the messages

that come from

the environment

and especially

from other

people give

us the

message that

identifies us.

It tells us

who we are.

in this culture

you see the

messages that

we get from

the social

environment

do not tell

us very many

things about

ourselves.

They do not

tell us above

all about

the big secret

how we are

connected with

the cosmos

because that

in this

weaving game

has been left

out in the

background.

now I

have spoken

obviously of

many of

these social

institutions in

a somewhat

a way that

will sound

critical to

you as if

they weren't

too as if

some of them

weren't really

a very good

idea and we

have to figure

out ways of

deciding about

social institutions

whether there

are good games

or not and

that's quite

difficult.

When we

contrast a

Victorian family

with a modern

family there

are very

different game

rules are being

played and we

have more or

less decided

today that

they weren't

playing very

good game

rules.

If you

contrast a

book for

example on

child rearing

written in

say 1860

with Dr.

Spock.

Well Dr.

Spock is

post Freud

and since

Freud ideas

of child

rearing have

altered quite

radically and

also one

must not

forget that

Montessori

and Frobel

and all

sorts of

other people

and not

to mention

what's his

name

Summerhill

come in

between.

Now on

what grounds

will we

say that

the game

in which a

child is

now educated

at a

reasonably

progressive

school is

better than

the kind

of school

I went to

which was

based on

the fundamental

game rule

of this

school

is suffering

Bill's

character.

and therefore

you could

mistreat

somebody

out of

compassion

that it

is good

for you.

Now you

could say

well I've

had many

arguments with

my father

about this

my father

is a really

genuine

philosopher

man with a

very open

mind

but he

said once

he said

think of

any great

man

who ever

came out

of a

co-educational

school

you know

it's the

sort of

question

you've never

thought of

and so you

don't have

any

ready

answers

but he

was convinced

you see

that

in a

boy's

life

association

with women

is weakening

to the

character

and that's

why boys

are sent

away to

be in

the company

of men

get them

out of

those

womanish

ways

and make

them

tough

you see

now if

you are

playing

society

by that

sort of

game

rule

and you

want

men

to be

soldiers

and so

they'll be

happy with

each other

with no

women around

and you

want to

be

explorers

and all

that sort

of thing

then you

will say

that kind

of education

produces

good results

but you see

we're living

in a world

where soldiers

are becoming

obsolete

they're just

becoming a

menace

and a danger

and we've

got to be

very careful

that we only

breed a few

of them

just like

bees have

these problems

of how many

of this type

of worker

and so on

to breed

and we have

this as a

very serious

problem

and it's

changing rapidly

it's changing

so rapidly

that we're

in considerable

doubt as to

what kind

of human

characters

are advantageous

to have

you see

there are

circumstances

in which

people who

simply conform

and cooperate

are a damn

nuisance

because they

don't get

any new

ideas

and what

we needed

was new

ideas

and we

needed people

with the

courage of

their convictions

in other

circumstances

where we've

got enough

ideas

and people

with new

ideas

just make

things

complicated

I have

a psychiatrist

I met

recently

on my

travels

said

I don't

know if

I'm going

to come

to your

seminar

we'd had

a conversation

and got

on

rather amusingly

he said

it would

be a

terrible

problem

to me

to get

any new

ideas

he said

I would

have to

reorganize

my entire

operation

it's going

along pretty

smoothly

now

and I

you know

said I

have a

hospital

and I

have

many

men

under me

working

and we've

got a

system

going

if you

give me

new

ideas

it's going

to be

awful

so

the

basic

thing

then is

we're

given

a choice

of roles

and we

are encouraged

to be

consistent

in our

roles

through

the novel

and through

drama

and through

all kinds

of other

means

so that

people will

be controllable

so that

they won't

be too

jumpy

is it

that worries

you about

somebody

who is

insane

a friend

of mine

had a

patient

who when

he came

into the

outpatient

department

in the

veterans

hospital

every day

would have

to sign

himself

in

and on

the roster

where you

signed

yourself in

there was

a place

for your

occupation

but he

changed his

occupation

every day

and

one day

when my

friend received

the card

you know

that he

signed

as he

comes in

he said

oh I

see you're

the mailman

today

and he

said

yep

and I

married

to a

mailbag

well think

of the

meanings

in that

you know

the trouble

with certain

schizophrenics

is that

they've got

an association

pattern

going

they make

the most

devastating

puns

and

the people

don't appreciate

these puns

because they're

too deep

they don't

follow them

the skid

secret

person

gets worried

because people

don't appreciate

it

and he sees

how everything

goes together

and plays

this language

and if people

don't appreciate

it it leads

to trouble

well it so

happens that my

friend is very

sharp

and loves that

kind of message

and they go

all very well

together

he finally

explained to

him

how to use

languages

how to say

the right

things on the

right occasion

because these

nuts called

sane people

won't understand

you if you

make that

pun

but

therefore

remember at

the same

time though

that the

role you

have over

the years

gradually

acquired and

are playing

is a social

institution

it isn't

the real

you

in many

cases

therapy

in which a

person as a

result of which

a person feels

that they've

found themselves

means that

they have

exchanged an

impossible game

for a possible

one

they haven't

really found

themselves

they haven't

gone or very

rarely gone

behind the

game

so you see

we like a

game that

teases us

that is

comprehensible

but not too

comprehensible

and this suggests

then that the

world itself

the nature of

the cosmos

is comprehensible

but not too

comprehensible

even God

if you will

imagine yourself

in the situation

of God

would be

bored

in knowing

everything

so why

what does

God do

God therefore

plays hide

and seek

now you see

it now you

don't

and that game

is of the

essence of

being

it is the

up and down

motion of a

wave

the crest of

the wave

is now you

see it

the trough

of the wave

is now you

don't

and the whole

of existence

is waves

is undulations

is vibrations

so

there it is

but you

can't say

as if to

toss the

thing off

well it's

just vibration

it's only

vibration

it's mere

vibration

because wow

when that

happens it

isn't mere

because what

this vibration

thing is doing

is saying

come on

now

how far

can we go

this way

whee

it goes

way out

that way

it's all

right now

how far

can we go

the other

way

then it

goes way

out like

that

then suddenly

it falls

apart

because it's

found out

that by

falling apart

in this

dimension

you can

come into

being in

another

and there are

endless ways

of going

you can do

it this way

that way

and you can

think out

dimensions

that we've

never thought

of at all

for our

ordinary

practical

purposes

but always

you see

to be

in this

way

implies

not to

be

in

another

way

and not

to be

in that

way

implies

to be

in that

way

so don't

worry

the whole

point of

the thing

is

however

now watch

this

this is

terribly

important

the whole

point of

the thing

is worked

out

so that

nobody

even God

is going

to be too

sure

because if

the moment

there is

total certainty

there is no

life

being

has ceased

at the

moment

when

it's all

white and

no black

it's all

clear

and nothing

obscure

at that

moment

you see

it stops

but what

we call

existence

life

all those

things

is a

pulsation

which

involves

a constant

uncertainty

it always

involves

the second

philosophical

question

are we

going to

make it

and

there are

people

you see

like

philosophers

and sages

and what

not

who say

yes

don't be

afraid

you're

going to

make it

but it's

always going

to feel

as if

you

want

so

but that's

the fun

you see

that's

all children

love to

take risks

they like

going

roaring

around

in hot

rods

I realize

I've made

it

through

half

a

century

and I

can't

make

out

whether

I'm

just

getting

older

or

getting

wiser

I mean

I do

think

you know

the nature

has certain

merciful

processes

in it

and that

it

for example

for a person

in extreme

pain

the pain

can be

converted

into

ecstasy

the person

who is

starving

can begin

to feel

way out

and

same way

as you

get older

maybe

you do

in a funny

way

get wiser

and feel

more at

peace

with yourself

you've accepted

yourself

with all your

limitations

and you begin

to understand

more and more

your connection

with the total

cosmos

and that as you

approach death

and you vanish

so what

you're going to

come back again

as somebody else

and maybe

as many other

people at the same

time

and that'll be

great

only you'll always

think you're one

only one

because that's the

element of the

unknown

that's the thrill

that's the joke

in the thing

so then

the way of

putting the

emphasis

on the

mechanical aspect

of things

the mechanical way

of understanding

do not confuse

that with

the truth

it is simply

a way

a fashion

in philosophy

see philosophy

has fashions

in exactly

the same way

as clothing

does

and in the

academic world

is riddled

with fashion

what a lot

of people

are doing

when they come

on in the

academic world

with a great

to do about

how rigorous

how solemn

all this is

what they're

really doing

is they're

saying

by going

through these

rituals

and writing

these learned

contributions

to journals

I'm really

saying

I'm a very

sound and

reliable person

that's the

signal

the message

I'm giving

you

I mean

he can be

writing about

something

absolutely

no practical

consequence

whatsoever

some amusing

game about

Sanskrit

calligraphy

in the

15th century

that's fine

to study

that

and you'll

come on

with such

a very

way about

it

but now

we've got

a curious

thing going

in our

culture

we're playing

this game

which we've

caught from

the original

god the

father

because he

was very

serious

he meant

you to know

when he was

around

my god

he was

around

and boy

don't you

dare laugh

or anything

like that

and now

you see

you've got

the reflection

of the type

of adult

ruler

here

who's very

insecure

on the

other hand

there's no

earthly reason

whatsoever

why

a creative

responsible

loving

human being

should have

to put on

this act

about being

grave

see

we

what

what is it

our men

in this culture

are possessed

by looking

like clergymen

and go around

wearing black

and things

like that

and it

is terrible

why not

break out

enjoy

color

delight

and so on

because people

are afraid

if they were

too many

colors

do you know

what the real

reason is

somebody will

shoot you

you can be

seen

you don't

disappear

into the

landscape

or you know

or the lord

will say

who do you

think you are

coming on

like this

what's all

this stuff

about

disappear

see

you annoy

me

you're too

colorful

you

don't

you won't

be wiped

out

for that

reason

there are

plenty of

other reasons

nowadays

but not

that one

so you

know

it is

important

to recover

you

From myths which constantly bug us, they constantly annoy inside, that you have to wash out.

Of course, some corporations are arranged so that you do.

You work across the street, IBM, they require you to look as ordinary as possible.

Because that would make them nervous if you didn't.

You know, things that aren't ordinary can't be thought of in terms of punch cards.

Everybody shall soon will go around wearing a notice on them.

Do not fold spindle on me to that.

So, what is the...

I want to summarise what I've been saying this morning, which is this.

Peculiar culture, based on a fearful attitude to reality,

makes each one of us feel that we don't belong.

It's working on the idea of being scared as the basis of a culture.

So that you could say, all our literature, our drama, our religion, our music,

is a complicated way of being scared.

And we cannot really, and not in our culture, there are cultures where they do,

that we can't let go.

And stretch out our arms, breathe deeply, and say,

Oh, for heaven's sake, I belong in it.

All the whole thing is me.

Not me, in the sense of Alan Watts.

Not quite like that.

But all of you, that it's the whole thing,

goes together as one enormous organism that is living it up.

What we call being alive, isn't it?

And doing all these things around us.

In this third session, let me start by briefly summarizing

what has happened up to this point.

We have been studying

the ways in which our sense of existence,

of personal identity,

is influenced by social factors.

And in the first session,

I described the two great myths

of the nature of man and the universe

which have dominated Western society.

The Judeo-Christian myth, first of all,

of our existence as being the creation

of a cosmic king

is the foundation of being who is reality itself,

but to whom we are related as a sovereign and judge,

who therefore keeps us in a chronic state of guilt.

This particular myth

became so highly uncomfortable

that it had to be abandoned

by most intelligent people.

And in the 18th and 19th centuries,

they substituted for it another myth,

which is the myth of a purely mechanical universe

which is unintelligent,

unfeeling, unseeing,

the total opposite of the one they had before,

and in which we can live

without being judged,

but nevertheless with a fundamental sense of futility.

This latter myth

has become extremely plausible today,

and it is, as far as I can make out,

the thing that most people really believe in.

See, you can always press what people believe in

by what they do.

I'm highly suspicious of most Christians

because I don't think they believe it at all.

They'd be screaming in the streets if they did.

They'd be terribly earnest.

They'd have the most hair-raising television programs

on the fate and destiny of man

if they took this thing seriously,

but they don't.

You see, what's happening in most of the churches

is that the theological schools are very advanced,

very liberal,

but they feel they can't give their congregations yet

what they think,

and their clergy are apt, therefore,

to be extremely frustrated people,

always wondering in the back of their minds

whether they ought to,

in good conscience,

maintain their jobs.

So, the plausible myth today

is not the Christian myth

or the Jewish myth.

The plausible myth

is this mechanistic universe

which I call the Newtonian myth.

And what I wanted to get across to you

in the first session

was that that rather plausible

and so-called realistic view

of how things are

is just as much a myth

as anything else.

It's a way

it's a formulating an attitude to life

which has nothing

really connected

with the way things are at all.

Then we went on

in the second session

to explore

the influence of social institutions

on our sense of identity.

And

I

tried to show

how social institutions

involve

the most fundamental ideas

that we have

and that our ideas

of time and space

are the nature of ourselves

and of the nature

of the good life

and of the necessity

for survival

are social institutions

of exactly the same kind

as

the lines of latitude

and longitude.

Those are abstractions.

They do not exist

concretely

but they're extraordinarily

useful ideas

because

it's only

through

as it were

spreading networks

and grids

over the world

in our imagination

by means of which

we can measure things

that you and I

can arrange to meet

at the corner

of

Wilshire Boulevard

and

whatever the street is

here

Vermont Avenue

the

it's interesting

in Buddhism

you find

that all

temples

are guarded

by very

fierce looking

authoritative

beings

they're not like

modern authorities

they don't have

the same kind

of glumness

they are much

more

ecstatic

in their fierceness

and these are

called

the

Dharma

Rajas

that means

the kings

of the

they are the

guardians of the

ten directions

of the universe

Buddhism

and Hinduism

have ten directions

that is to say

eight points

of the compass

plus above

and below

and these

very fierce

creatures

stand at all

temple entrances

and

they are

essentially

the cosmic

traffic cops

because

they have

to be fierce

because somebody

has to lay

down the law

that we do

recognize

north

south

east

and west

in a very

firm way

and up

has to be

clearly

distinguished

from down

you see

so these

people have

a very

important

function

but

at the

same time

the

Dharma

Rajas

have a

slight

twinkle in

the eye

for all

their fierceness

they know

you see

that the

ten directions

are conventional

they don't

think that

they are

absolutely

real

they are

enlightened

all of them

they are

all bodhisattvas

in the

aspect of a

bodhisattva

which is

wrathful

I suppose

I haven't

looked closely

enough

but if you

look around

these paintings

you will

find

here

for example

is a

wrathful

bodhisattva

the sort

of person

who would be

a guardian

of the

directions

up here

this bodhisattva

and this one

they are

beneficent

they appear

in white

color

and they

have

serene

faces

but this

one

appears

in black

color

and has

a wrathful

face

this is

not a

devil

or demon

in the

western

sense of

the word

at all

he is

simply

a

manifestation

of the

fierce

side

of reality

some

people

don't

feel

really

alive

unless

they are

sitting

on

Mexico

this

summer

to

explore

this

because

in

Mexico

they

enjoy

bullfighting

and they

enjoy

a kind

of

catholicism

in which

suffering

is the

big bit

the shrine

of Guadalupe

and watch

young girls

walking about

half a mile

on their knees

to get

into this

shrine

and for

the special

blessing

then you

find in

the stores

where they

sell

that is

to say

religious

goods

all

kinds

of

horrendous

paintings

of

Christ

with

the

crown

of

thorns

on

and

we

made

some

very

special

meditations

in the

cathedral

at Oaxaca

in the

inner chapel

where they

keep the

sacrament

and in

there

is a

crucifix

just about

as bloody

as it

can get

and on

either

side

pictures

of

Jesus

being

flogged

on one

side

under the

agony

in the

garden

of

Gethsemane

on the

other

and

I was

trying to

penetrate

what is

this thing

why do

people

go into

this kind

of spiritual

massacry

and it

seemed to

me very

much

that

there is

that end

of things

which is

a spite

and which

is extreme

agony

and which

is terribly

real

and that

you know

you're there

when you're

on that

point

the other

end

you see

is the

womb

is the

all

embracing

softness

and

loveliness

that's

there too

but if

you go

too far

into that

you see

you don't

know you're

there

this was a

digression

but

it is

in terms

then of

our various

social

institutions

that we

formulate

structures

and measures

in our

Rorschach

blot

universe

although

you see

let me

reemphasize

this point

that I

made in

both

former

lectures

this is

not exactly

our

projection

on the

universe

many of

you

probably

read a

book

called

The

Pathetic

Fallacy

which is

a discussion

of the

way

men

have

in past

times

attributed

human

feelings

and

emotions

to

nature

the

wind

is

sorrowful

and

is

serene

and

the

whole

theme

of

19th

century

philosophy

was that

this is

not

true

the

sun

is

not

joyous

the

wind

does

not

sigh

it's

you

who

sigh

but

that's

not

quite

true

because

a

sighing

human

being

called

the

external

world

a

part

and

parcel

of

your

whole

mental

existence

and so

we

borrow

from

the

sun

we

say

so

and so

has

a

sunny

disposition

so

and so

is a

lunatic

oddly

influenced

by the

moon

all

our

language

is

full

of

references

to

our

is

one

with

us

that's

why

in

ancient

times

and

some

people

today

feel

that

you

can

draw

the

picture

of

a

human

being

soul

by

drawing

a

diagram

of

the

arrangement

of

the

universe

as

it

was

at

the

time

when

he

was

born

see

that's

the

art

of

astrology

now

I

personally

think

that

modern

astrology

is

pretty

phony

because

it

is

an

archaic

way

of

thinking

about

these

problems

in

rather

the

same

way

that

Paracelsus'

idea

of

medicine

was

primitive

as

compared

with

modern

medicine

nobody

has

ever

seriously

thought

out

an

up-to-date

astrology

that is

because

the

whole

idea

of

astrology

has

been

out

of

fashion

among

the

aspects

for

several

hundred

years

but

the

idea

of

it

is

in

principle

correct

that

your

soul

is

not

inside

your

body

your

body

is

inside

your

soul

and

what

your

soul

is

of

course

fundamentally

the

total

universe

our

astrological

maps

don't

include

the

total

universe

they

include

only

phenomena

in

the

solar

system

and

in

the

surrounding

galaxy

some

of the

stars

which

appear

to be

overpassed

by the

sun

in its

annual

course

have been

selective

to be

significant

but if

you were

a super

astrologer

you should

put in

all the

galaxies

or as

many of

them as

you are

aware of

and

think about

them

but you

see the

idea

of

astrology

the

truth

that

underlies

it

is that

the

universe

is your

character

and the

way it

is

disposed

and

focused

at

your

birth

moment

which is

really

rather

arbitrary

point to

choose

when did

you start

did you

start when you

were at the

moment of

parturition

the moment

of conception

or when you

were an evil

gleam in your

father's eye

it's arbitrary

and one should

say of course

that every here

and now

that you have

and are

is

a focal

point

of all

that there

is

the moment

of birth

is simply

selected

as being

significant

because

when the

officials ask

you who

you are

they always

ask you

where and

when were

you born

for some

reason or

other

this establishes

your age

this establishes

your

nationality

or something

like that

and so

that's been

that's a

social institution

it's been

agreed on

as a

peculiarly

significant

moment

but all

moments

fundamentally

are just as

significant

as the

moment of

birth

you have

a birthday

every day

if you

understand it

aright

so

there is

a tacit

conspiracy

in society

to ignore

fact that

the body

is inside

the mind

or the soul

and that

you are

therefore

playing the

game

of being

a creature

separate from

everything else

all alone

locked up

inside a bag

of skin

and worrying

like

all get out

whether you're

going to make it

and being

frustrated by

the ultimate

knowledge that

you're not

that we all

because we are

time binders

we know we're

going to die

and that we'll

eventually collapse

and that we'll

get colder

and colder

and it will be

most unpleasant

and then we'll

fade out

but because we've

got our minds

turned inside out

you see

we've got our

identity

our center

of gravity

in the wrong

spot

then this

worries us

a great deal

but with that

worry we do

all kinds of

magic

if people

didn't worry

about dying

there'd be no

medicine

the whole craft

of the physician

and the surgeon

and all the

skills and

marvellous things

that it involves

is based on

worry

about death

there are

children born

occasionally

who can't

be boxed

into the scheme

and very

often the

so-called

mongolian

idiot

or a child

who is

schizophrenic

for some

reason from

birth

can't be

made to

be afraid

of death

and some

of those

children

just playing

everything

for all

it's worth

they see

a light

on a

reflecting

surface

like that

and they

dig that

light

they go

and everybody

says now

come to

yourself

behave

they don't

care

if they

come to

an end

that'll

be great

too

they'll

with that

experience

it doesn't

matter what

it is

they have

no

discrimination

they'll

eat

anything

put

anything

up their

noses

they have

absolutely

no

sense

of

what

you

should

do

and what

you

shouldn't

do

the

trouble

is

you

see

that

if

they

had

an

understanding

of the

game

that the

rest of

us

are

playing

they

could

get on

very

well

knowing

their

different

game

and put

the

two

together

and that's

what I'm

talking to

you about

the trouble

with them

is that

they

they don't

understand

our

game

but that's

the trouble

with them

from our

point of

view

do you

see

that

all

decisions

as to

who

is

crazy

are a

question

of

majority

vote

as to

what is

reality

and that

sometimes

it's

touch

and

go

you

see

look

reality

is

what

it

is

according

to

the

kind

of

senses

you

have

since

in

this

room

almost

everybody's

eyes

are

of the

same

structure

we

are

here

and

we

agree

everybody's

ears

and

auditory

nervous

systems

are

of the

same

pattern

so

we

can

all

converse

if

a

fly

comes

into

our

persons

he

has

an

eye

of

a

very

different

structure

from

ours

a

fly

apparently

because

of the

multiplicity

of

lenses

sees

the

surrounding

world

from a

considerably

different

number

of points

of view

they're

not very

different

but they're

just

subtly

different

and that

gives a

fly

certain

advantages

but

he

doesn't

see

the

world

as

you

know

if I

see

you

there

sitting

there

he

sees

you

ever

so

many

times

but

he

manages

to

unify

that

in

some

way

now

the

awkward

matter

for

decision

is

when a

human

being

has

a

different

kind

of

consciousness

from

the

average

to

make

the

decision

is

he

advanced

and

seeing

new

things

that

nobody

has

seen

before

or

is

he

retarded

and

hasn't

yet

developed

what

the

rest

of us

have

this

is

a

very

difficult

decision

to

Arabs

or

the

Hindus

we

are

not

sufficiently

respectful

of

crazy

people

more or

less

what

has

happened

is

this

in

the

development

of

games

when

human

there was a

time

when

human

beings

were

wild

and

that's

what

we

call

in

modern

anthropological

jargon

they

lived

in

hunting

cultures

they

didn't

live

in

any

fixed

place

and

they

roved

and

they

hunted

they

killed

other

creatures

now

in

a

hunting

culture

every

male

member

of

the

culture

knows

all

of

the

culture

they

don't

have

a

division

of

labor

every

man

is

a

master

of

quite

a

number

of

skills

and

naturally

every

woman

knows

all

her

side

of

the

thing

but

they

are

not

fixed

the

religion

of

a

hunting

culture

is

shamanism

a

shaman

is

a

liberated

man

who

gets

his

liberation

by

the

Indian

cultures

of

the

United

States

especially

in the

West

are to

a very

large

extent

cultures

of this

kind

and their

religion

is a

form of

shamanism

and shamanism

is a

universal

religion

spreads over

the whole

world

nature

but the

essential

thing

of the

shaman

is that

he becomes

liberated

from even

this loose

sort of

a culture

by going

off by

himself

and

naturally

the

highly

socialized

people

have a

terror

of

solitude

because

in

solitude

the

awesome

facts

are

slowly

going to

appear

first of

all

the

triviality

of your

role game

and then

deeper and

deeper in

you get

until at

last

one night

all alone

and cold

under the

stars

you find

out who

you are

that's what

every shaman

does

and then

he comes

back into

the world

in those

kind of

societies

as a

magic man

but when

human

societies

become

agrarian

and become

settled

they divide

labor

and they

put a

stockade

around

themselves

at the

crossing

of two

roads

all

cities

are

fundamentally

that

where

two

roads

cross

and the

cross

is

encircled

with a

pale

parlo

tree

spiked

on top

and you

say of

somebody

who isn't

really at

all nice

that he's

beyond the

pale

you see

so we

settled

that way

and then

what we

did

was we

divided the

functions

of labor

into the

four quarters

encircled by

the city

and we

made four

castes

the first

was priests

lords

spiritual

the second

was

officials

soldiers

and rulers

lords

temporal

the third

was

merchants

and

so the

house of

commons

in england

is really

a merchants

debating

society

and finally

in the

as it were

the lesser

of the

quarters

the laborers

the workers

these are the

four casts

of hinduism

the priests

brahmana

the officials

the merchants

vaishya

and the laborers

the holy man

of an enclosed

society of this

kind

is a priest

and he gets

his

authority

not from

going off

by himself

but from a

hierarchy

that's the

game

that we are

still playing

only we've

modified it

enormously

we're not

living any

longer in

walled cities

but we have

different kinds

of walls

we have the

view line

the radar

belts

and all that

kind of thing

it's still

essentially the

same game

but it's been

spread out

in the most

extraordinary way

and we

have become

so absorbed

in this game

that we don't

have quite the

same sense

that our

primitive ancestors

had

of there being

an outside

to the game

because you see

there are two

kinds of people

beyond the pale

there are the

people we

throw out

and there

are the

people who

go out

the outlaw

who's a

criminal

is fighting

one sort

of game

the outlaw

who is a

saint

is beyond

the pale

in the sense

that people

can't understand

him

his experience

is ineffable

that means

what can't

be effed

or spoken

from the

Greek

Phoebe

so notice

then this

curious

companionship

between

the

saint

the no

good

they've

always

been

and it's a very odd thing

Jesus as we know

sought out as his friends

the disreputable people

in the community

the whores

and people who are now called

notorious evil livers

I say not now

but they were

in the prayer book of the Episcopal Church

there is a passage about

notorious evil livers

who should not be admitted to communion

but you see

the funny odd queer thing is

that it is precisely

the notorious evil livers

that people like Jesus

cultivated

because they were interesting

because there is something in people

like that

that is

manureish

feisty

that somehow cultivates

a new thing

as the book of

the

revelation says

because thou art

neither hot

nor cold

but lukewarm

I will spew thee out of my mouth

you cannot

pretend

that you don't have

the dark side in you

everybody has a shadow

and if you won't acknowledge

your shadow

you will

push it onto someone else

for example

often

we find that

people who are sexually repressed

and as I say

sex

being the taboo

in our culture

was the problem thing

are very cruel

but

here is the game involved

but it's an unconscious game

if you

make sex

the chief taboo

of the culture

you make it

terribly important

I've said that Christianity

is the religion

about sex

I mean we think

there are sexual religions

like priapism

which is

phallic worship

or tantric yoga

which uses sexual intercourse

as a form of meditation

but compared with Christianity

these are

things only mildly

interested in sex

Christians are

utterly obsessed

with sex

and today

the function of the churches

is primarily

to be family

and sexual

regulation organizations

that's about the only thing

they do

seriously

the only thing they do

seriously

and the test of it

is what can you be

kicked out for

you can

you know

you can embezzle funds

you can be a drunk

you can be a

anything

but the moment

you make a sexual mistake

out you go

that's what scam

so in

what do you mean

by being immoral

what has come to your mind

when you say

somebody's immoral

does it mean

that he cheats

and forges checks

it sure doesn't

what do you mean

by living in sin

does that mean

that you're conducting

a butchery

no

it means sex

I remember

when we were in school

we had every year

a certain clergyman

came to visit us

and he had

beetling eyebrows

and was a very fierce

kind of personality

and he always talked

on the subject

of drink

gambling

and immorality

and he

he rolled it

round his tongue

just like that

so

immorality

you know

it meant sex

and so

but do you see

the duplicity

of this

by making sex

the naughtiest thing

imaginable

it's made it

terribly interesting

so this poses

to anybody

who becomes aware

of this

this poses

to everybody

who's gone

through psychoanalysis

or

anything like that

the question

that St. Paul

raises

in the epistle

to the Romans

St. Paul

explains

that

were it not

for the law

he would never

have known

what sin was

except the law

had said

thou shalt not

covet

I have not

known lust

and so he says

it is only

therefore

because we

came to know

of sin

that there can

be deliverance

from sin

the fact that

we discovered

that

we were

really incapable

of being virtuous

is the only

is the one

really important

thing

for being

in the process

of being

saved

in that case

then

you will

notice

that human

history

has done

a very strange

thing

until

100 years

ago

the course

of human

life

remained

at a

certain

even level

which it

had maintained

for thousands

of years

life

in

England

or France

in 1700

was not

remarkably

different

from life

in Rome

BC 50

in Alexandria

of the same

period

where they

had evolved

extremely high

cultures

and so far

as peasant

life is concerned

outside the

great cities

it had remained

substantially the

same

for thousands

and thousands

of years

but suddenly

with the industrial

revolution

the whole human

race goes

like this

the population

suddenly starts

expanding at an

unprecedented pace

and power

is blowing

out of us

in all directions

something

quite different

has happened

and the speed

of social

change

in other words

the rhythms

of everyday

life

are completely

changed

now bees

and ants

have kept

their life

rhythms

going

for probably

millions

of years

without any

change

at all

they are

very successful

societies

and they

are what

you might

call

non-historical

societies

they have

no history

because they

have a

completely

settled

life

and in

the same

way

when human

beings

have a

completely

settled

agrarian

life

they do

not

record

their

histories

there is

nothing

to record

it's the

same

day

after day

are we

as someone

has suggested

I forget

his name

called

he wrote

a book

called

post-historical

man

are we

about to

enter a

non-historical

stage

spengler

thought that

we were

going to

that we

were going

to turn

into what

he calls

a

fellaheen

culture

we're an

enormous

milling

mob

of

fundamentally

people are

just getting

by

and eventually

we

are taken

over by

various

beneficent

despotisms

which run

us like

an anthill

and that

this may

go on

for hundreds

and hundreds

of years

or what

is far

more likely

are we

going

faster

and faster

towards the

point of

blow up

in which

we turn

into a

star

well now

it is said

in the

Hindu

cosmology

myth

that as

the Kali

Yuga

progresses

it becomes

easier

and easier

for anyone

to be

liberated

right at

the beginning

of the

manifestation

liberation

was amazingly

difficult

and the

reason was

that life

was too

good

it was so

pleasurable

and delightful

that nobody

wanted to

leave it

obviously

not

because

if the

game

if the

fundamental

game

is one

of hide

and seek

and therefore

the initial

phase of the

game

is to get

lost

then

in that

case

nobody

wants to

wake up

because

the

godhead

doesn't

want to

wake up

not yet

but then

as you

see

you get

bored

with being

nearly

happy

and you

start getting

adventurous

you get

involved in

more and

more

far out

situations

in which

you goose

yourself

you thrill

yourself

with the

idea of

being out

of control

let go

so therefore

in the

again by

studying our

own energy

patterns

we begin to

understand what's

going on in

general

so in the

same way

you might say

that in the

game of

hide and

seek

the

hiding

the

abandonment

of control

gets more

and more

far out

but

it goes

along

simultaneously

with an

attempt to

control things

more and

you remember

how I

described

the two

way

nature

of a

tree

pattern

from the

roots to

the twigs

but also

from the

twigs to

the roots

well then

it is said

by very

deep

Hindu

metaphysicians

that the

pralaya

and the

manvantara

the

manifestation

and the

interval

between

manifestations

are really

simultaneous

if you're

truly enlightened

you see

that time

itself

is an

illusion

there is

in fundamental

reality

no succession

there is

only the

appearance

of succession

as when

you observe

a Rorschach

blot under

the influence

of LSD

it looks as

if the

blot is

flowing into

position

it is

moving

you can

see the

paint or

the ink

or whatever

is on

it

going

but it's

always standing

still

and it's

moving at

the same

time

so that's

the situation

we have

eternity

and time

together

it's

always there

but it

looks as

if it

were changing

but it

keeps changing

into the

same thing

hence the

French proverb

please

la change

please

c'est la même chose

the more it

changes the

more it's

the same thing

it keeps

turning into

itself

so the

counter movement

is this

that at the

end of the

cycle

things get

more and

more out

of control

and everybody

every individual

has the

sense of

powerlessness

that the

government is

out of hand

that nobody

is put up

for election

whom we

care to

vote for

that the

whole thing

is a

mess

and that you

can't do

anything about

it and the

wars which

we don't

we are

trying to

control

everything

and so

government

gets more

and more

uptight

and at the

same time

since we

are coming

to the

end of the

cycle

in which

the divinity

wakes up

from the

dream

more and

more people

are beginning

to have

mystical

experience

that is the

waking up

process

but then

in all

this

there is

the kind

of terror

you see

of waking

up

because

that is

a way

of experiencing

one's own

to oneself

that is to

say

when you

want to

play hide

and get

lost

and imagine

that you

are all

this

and that

is your

firm intention

so much

so that it

produces

the vivid

reality of

all this

going on

you are

repressing

who you

really are

what you

really are

and that

repression

when uncovered

is experienced

in the form

of terror

at finding

out

don't

look

into

the secret

box

there is

always something

there is always

a forbidden

area

there is always

something behind

the scenes

with a sign

that says

keep out

you mustn't

find out

what goes

on in there

and so

naturally

the suspicion

in which

the mystics

have always

been held

is that

they disobeyed

the keep

out sign

they looked

under the

carpet

they peeked

through the

bathroom

keyhole

they found

out what

was going

on behind

the scenes

the mystic

is a peeping

tom

yes

obviously

from the

point of view

of the

management

because the

management

keeps the

show going

the show

must go

on

you must

be responsible

the mail

must be

delivered

people must

be fed

babies must

be looked

after

of course

the show

must go

on

and therefore

any suggestion

that this is

completely

unnecessary

will be

regarded as

utterly

subversive

and of course

it is

subversive

because it

turns the

carpet

upside down

that's all

so then

you get

this

really

frightening

picture

that as

we move

ineluctably

towards

the

final

colossal

explosion

we all

begin

waking up

and we

begin to

see in

our

visionary

experience

the great

white

light

well what

do you

suppose

that is

why that's

the star

you're going

to turn

into

the light

of glory

God

in the

form of

the sun

greatest

and most

ancient

symbol

even used

by Christians

when God

is called

the sun

s-u-n

of justice

and is

born

in the

form of

Christ

at the

winter

solstice

which is

the period

of the

birth

of the

sun

because it

is when

the sun

is at the

lowest point

in the

midheaven

and

is starting

to rise

again

towards

the summer

solstice

now just

let's suppose

I mean

I've been

telling you

a fairy tale

science fiction

sort of

thing

let's say

we're getting

into a new

thing called

metaphysical

fiction

and let

us see

that if

if

that is

the possibility

what is

actually

happening

what will

be our

attitude

towards it

we can

react in

horror

and say

oh no

not that

because it

happens in

nature

all the

time

tribes

of insects

almost

various

kinds

lemmings

methodically

annihilate

themselves

they commit

group

suicide

so we can

object to

it very

strongly

but the

curious thing

is

that the

harder we

object to it

the faster

it happens

all

warmongers

are pacifists

and therefore

they call

their war

department

the department

of defense

they're always

fighting for

peace

and

for justice

or some

good cause

so it is

highly possible

then

that if we

accept that

this is the

state of

affairs

and we do

not do

anything to

try to

prevent

ourselves

from blowing

ourselves up

that this

could very

possibly have

a slowing

down effect

on the whole

process

what happens

you see

is that the

system does

blow itself

up

through

expansion

of its

control

over itself

so therefore

the more

you have

the powerful

fascistic

type

government

whether it

masquerade

under the

name of

communism

or capitalism

or whatever

it's all

the same

thing

the government

is invariably

the most

successful

group of

gangsters

so when

it gets

very very

tough

and strong

you can

see then

that

the world

is getting

up tight

and as

any system

whatsoever

gets up

tight

it begins

to vibrate

too fast

it's the same

principle as

the thermostat

if you get

the thermostat

up tight

that simply

means

that you

have put

your on

switch

point

and your

off switch

point

too close

to each

other

you wanted

to control

the temperature

of the room

and keep it

exactly at

70 degrees

so that

you put

the off

switch

at 71

I mean

yeah

the off

switch

at 69

and the

on switch

at 71

notice

that's

the other

way

around

it goes

off

at 71

and on

at 69

then

you see

what happens

is

it's too

close

the mechanism

confuses the

go with the

stop signals

and so

it starts

going on

and off

on

and off

on

and off

and it

shakes

itself

to pieces

that is

a mechanical

analogy

of anxiety

and to be

uptight

you see

is to be

anxious

and so

the colossal

paranoia

and anxiety

that spreads

through the

world today

on all

sides

engendering

vast

secret

services

espionage

systems

espionages

on espionages

and police

looking after

policemen

and all

that kind

of thing

is what

is going

to blow

it all

up

because it's

all being

done in the

name of

security

you know

the security

officer

there is no

security

there never

was

and everything

that is done

to insure

it

is a source

of trouble

like insurance

read

Ambrose

Pierce

the devil's

dictionary

the section

on it

so then

the only

thing

that might

be done

is really

to do

nothing

to start

relaxing

saying

well

if rape

is inevitable

enjoy it

by doing

this

we would

considerably

slow down

demise

in other

words

one says

to the people

who want

power

you want

power

take it

you bore

yourself

you tie

yourself up

in knots

trying to

arrange

everything

I think

that under

such circumstances

we would

find

there would

be a

considerable

solution

of problems

it's like

the riots

if the police

weren't there

they wouldn't

have happened

it was by

anxiety

to keep

everything under

control

that you

started a

riot

saying that

I know

the details

of how to

work this

out

but I am

saying

that if

that is

the direction

in which

things go

you cannot

oppose it

there's no

point in

opposing it

you could

by

understanding

that you

have to

go with

it

you could

tack

against it

and slow

it up

but we

do know

that life

is always

a process

which tends

towards death

it tends

to run

down

things fall

apart

they wear

out

even though

the biological

organism is

different from

the geological

simply

disintegrates

slowly

the biological

tends to

work against

entropy

but it still

always comes

apart in the

end

and therefore

we have to

see

that maybe

one lives

by accepting

death

just as one

flies

by an

understanding

of gravity

using judo

there may be

a way of

using judo

against gravity

throw ourselves

up into the

air

how do you

suppose a

salmon

jumps upstream

it isn't

just a matter

of muscle

it's

quite

certain

I think

a question

also

of the

angle of

the tail

to the

falling water

it's like

a dolphin

can set

its tail

at a certain

angle

to the wave

made by the

bow of a

ship

and can

skitter

along the

water

riding on

that wave

it's a big

surf job

so then

if

for any

reason

whatsoever

or in

any

design

whatsoever

life

is a

system

that is

always

deteriorating

sure

it may be

going up

like this

you see

but it

always drops

and

after it's

gone like

this

and this

for a certain

cycle

it's going to

go like

this

is itself

the process

of destruction

if you

can get it

into your

heads

that

well it

just doesn't

matter

survival

is not

the important

thing

because you're

not going

to survive

this will

do two

things

one

it will

eliminate

an enormous

amount of

hostility

and

as it were

trigger

happy

fingers

it

liberate an enormous amount of our energy from defensive, security, military projects

to things that are more economically useful, like the provision of food.

You cannot, you see, be even a good soldier until you have reached a certain stage of development

where it makes no difference whether you live or die.

This was always part of the training of the samurai, that before he could really learn the use

of the sword under a skillful master, he had to get to the point where he wasn't constantly

anxious to defend himself, because that put his body into a certain kind of tension which

rendered him incompetent.

He had totally to overcome the fear of death.

That was the first requisite.

And you can overcome the fear of death only by realizing that it's completely inevitable,

that everybody here is as good as dead, under sentence of death, only because you don't

know when it's going to happen.

It isn't such a grim affair as somebody in death row, although it's just as certain,

and just as they hire lawyers to put it off, carry on business and generally delay your demise.

The thing that makes the death row peculiarly awful is that it's all so deliberate and nothing

is more torturing to a human being than to be a complete social outcast, spised by everybody else.

He has a real reason to feel paranoid.

But otherwise, we are all just as much under sentences, and there simply is no point in straining to prevent this happening.

That doesn't mean that you cease to take care in driving a car, or to be sure that you don't eat poison, and so forth.

But it means get off the strain, the general uptightness about preventing one's own demise.

And you'll live long.

It doesn't seem logical, but I think I've demonstrated that it is.

For you see, it is through the death that you become suddenly charged with life.

But I say, if you give up the impossible task, you have all the energy that you've been using to strain against the inevitable,

to do something great, so that you become alive in the degree that you accept death.

This is true of the individual, and it can be equally true of society.

That as society realizes that we cannot hold the form of our nation, the form of our civilization,

the form of our culture, we cannot stop that disintegrating.

Then the culture starts to swing.

So it seems to me that the only time to begin that is now.

You're gonna lay down from the science now.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

albo?

Cool.

You'reивают in theẻ tonights.

A MEI-R Member and I sit down to the public.

That's the reason you decide to judge that I've put my own 걸 اله inclination on this is not too long.

In the light of March, I will for bulk.

I'll stand up from what you want.

So I look forward to the experts at that other people and I watch that process,

and when I watch a lot of detail and see in my heart, we can take aще in my heart спас,

so I show them the highest birth.

CO constraint on thisatori where I know I'm playing the most degradful.