Zencast

I wonder what you mean when you use the word I.

I've been very interested in this problem for a long, long time,

and I've come to the conclusion that what most civilized people mean by that word

is a hallucination, that is to say a false sense of personal identity

that is at complete variance with the facts of nature.

And as a result of having a false sense of identity,

we act in a way that is inappropriate to our natural environment.

And when that inappropriate way of action is magnified by a very powerful technology,

we swiftly begin to see the results of a profound discord between man and nature.

As is well known, we are now in the process of destroying our environment

as a result of an attempt to conquer it and master it.

And we have not realized, therefore, that our environment

is not something other than ourselves.

In assuming that it is, we have made a great mistake

and are now paying the price for it.

But most people would agree with the lines of the poet who said,

I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never made.

Because we have the strong sensation

that our own being inside our skin

is extremely different from the world outside our skin.

That while there may be intelligence inside human skins,

and while there may be values and loving feelings,

outside the skin is a world of mechanical process

which does not give a damn about any individual

and which is basically unintelligent,

being gyrations of blind force

and so far as the merely biological world is concerned,

gyrations of libido

which is Freud's word for blind lust.

It should be obvious

that the human being

goes with

the rest of the universe.

Even though we say in popular speech

I came into this world.

Now it is not true

that you came into this world.

You came out of it

in the same way as a flower

comes out of a plant

or a fruit

comes out of a tree.

And as an apple tree apples

the solar system in which we live

and therefore the galaxy in which we live

and therefore the system of galaxies

in which we live

that system peoples.

and therefore people are an expression

of its energy

and of its nature.

If people are intelligent

and I suppose we have to grant that if

then the energy

which people express

must also be intelligent

because one does not gather

figs from thistles

and grapes from thorns.

But it does not occur

you see

to the ordinary civilized person

to regard himself

or herself

as an expression

of the whole universe.

It should be obvious

that we cannot exist

except in an environment

of earth

air

water

and

solar temperature

that all these things

go with us

and are as important to us

albeit outside our skins

as our internal organs

heart

stomach

brain

and so forth.

Now if then we cannot describe

the behavior of organisms

without at the same time

describing the behavior

of their environments

we should realize

that we have a new

entity of description

not the individual organism alone

but what would now be called

a field of behavior

which we must call

rather clumsily

the organism environment.

You go with your environment

in the same way

as your head

goes with the rest of your body.

You do not find in nature

faces arriving in the world

sui generis.

They go with

a body

but also bodies

do not arrive

in a world

which would be

for example

a plain

ball

of scrubbed rock

floating without an atmosphere

far away

from a star.

That will not grow bodies.

There is no soil for bodies.

There is no complexity

of environment

which is

body producing.

So bodies

go with

a very complicated

natural environment.

And if

the head

goes with the body

and the body

goes with the environment

the body

is as much

an integral part

of the environment

as the head

is part of the body.

It is deceptive

of course

because the human being

is not rooted

to the ground

like a tree.

A human being

moves about

and therefore

can shift

from one environment

to another.

But these shifts

are superficial.

The basic environment

of the planet

remains a constant.

And if the human being

leaves the planet

he has to take

with him

a canned version

of the planetary

environment.

Now we are not

really aware of this.

Upon taking thought

and due consideration

it does occur to us

yes indeed

we do need that environment.

But in the ordinary way

we don't feel it.

That is to say

we don't have a vivid

sensation

of belonging to

our environment

in the same way

that we have

a vivid sensation

of being an ego

inside a bag of skin

located mostly

in the skull

about half way

between the ears

and a little way

behind the eyes.

And it issues

in these disastrous

results

of the ego

which according

to 19th century

common sense

feels

that it is a fluke

in nature

and that

if it does not

fight nature

it will not

be able

to maintain

its status

as intelligent fluke.

So the geneticists

are now saying

and many others

are now saying

that man must

take the course

of his evolution

into his own hands.

He can no longer

trust

the wiggly

random

and unintelligible

processes of nature

to develop him

any further

but he must

interfere with

his own intelligence

and through

genetic alterations

breed

the kind of people

who will be viable

for human society

and that sort of thing.

Now this I submit

is a ghastly error

because human

intelligence

has a very

serious limitation.

That limitation

is

that it is

a scanning system

of conscious attention

which

is linear

that is to say

it

examines

the world

in lines

rather

as you would

pass the beam

of a flashlight

across

a room

or a spotlight.

That's why

our education

takes so long.

It takes so long

because we have

to scan

miles

of lines

of print

and we regard

that you see

as basic information.

Now the universe

does not come

at us

in lines.

It comes at us

in a multidimensional

continuum

in which everything

is happening

all together

everywhere at once

and it comes

at us

much too quickly

to be

translated

into lines

of print

or of other

information

however fast

they may be scanned

and that

is

our limitation

so far

as the intellectual

life

and the scientific

life is concerned.

The computer

will greatly

speed up

linear scanning

but it's still

linear scanning

and so long

as we are

stuck with that

form of wisdom

we cannot deal

with more

than a few

variables

at once.

Now what do I

mean by that?

What is a variable?

A variable

is any

one

linear

process.

Let's take music.

When you play

a Bach fugue

and there are

four parts

to it

you have

four variables

you have

four moving

lines

and you can

take care

of that

with two

hands.

An organist

using two

feet

can put in

two more

variables

and have

six going

and you may

realize

if you've

ever tried

to play

the organ

that it's

quite

difficult

to make

six

independent

motions

go

at once.

The average

person cannot

do that

without training.

The average

person cannot

deal with

more than

three variables

at once

without using

a pencil.

Now when

we study

physics

we are

dealing

with

processes

in which

there are

millions

of variables.

This however

we handle

by statistics

in the same

way as

insurance

companies

use

actuarial

tables

to predict

when most

people will

die.

If the

average

age of

death

is 65

however

this

prediction

does

not

apply

to

any

given

individual

any

given

individual

will

live

to

plus

or

minus

years

and

the

range

of

difference

may

be

very

wide

indeed

of

course

but

this

is

all

right

the

guess

is

all

right

when

you're

doing

large

scale

gambling

and

that's

the way

the

physicist

works

in

predicting

the

behavior

of

nuclear

wavicles

but

the

very

poor

and

thinking

it

out

by

linear

consideration

is

impossible

with

that

equipment

then

we

are

proposing

to

interfere

with

our

genes

and

with

that

equipment

also

be it

said

we

are

trying

to

solve

our

political

economic

and

social

problems

and

naturally

everybody

has

the

sense

of

total

frustration

and

the

individual

feels

what

on

earth

can

I

do

we

do

not

seem

to

know

a

way

of

calling

upon

our

brains

because

our

brains

can

handle

an

enormous

number

of

variables

that

are

not

accessible

to

the

process

of

conscious

attention

your

brain

is

your

blood

chemistry

the

secretions

from

your

glands

the

behavior

of

millions

of

cells

it

is

doing

all

that

without

thinking

about

it

that

is

to

say

without

translating

the

processes

it

is

handling

into

consciously

reviewed

words

symbols

or

numbers

now

when

I

use

the

word

thinking

I

translating

what

is

going

on

in

nature

into

words

symbols

or

numbers

because

both

words

and

numbers

are

kinds

of

symbols

bear

the

same

relation

to

the

real

world

that

money

bears

to

wealth

you

cannot

quench

anybody's

thirst

with

the

word

water

just

as

you

cannot

eat

a

dollar

nutrition

from

it

but

using

symbols

and

using

conscious

intelligence

scanning

has proved

very useful

to us

it has

given us

such

technology

as we

have

but

at the

same

time

it

has

proved

too

much

of

a

good

thing

at

the

same

time

we've

become

so

fascinated

with

it

that

we

confuse

the

world

as

it

is

with

the

world

as

it

is

thought

about

talked

about

and

figured

about

that

is

to

say

with

the

world

as

it

is

described

and

the

difference

between

these

two

is

vast

and

when

we

are

not

aware

of

ourselves

except

in

a

symbolic

way

we

are

not

related

to

ourselves

at

so

then

we

get

back

to

the

question

of

what

do

we

mean

by

I

well

first

of

all

obviously

we

mean

our

symbol

of

ourselves

now

ourselves

in

this

case

is

the

whole

psychophysical

organism

conscious

and

unconscious

plus

its

environment

that's

your

real

self

your

real

self

in

has

centered

on

your

organism

that's

you

say

let me

just

clarify

that

a

little

for

one

reason

what

you

do

is

also

a

doing

of

your

environment

your

behavior

is

its

behavior

as

much

as

its

behavior

is

your

behavior

it's

mutual

we

could

say

it

is

transactional

you

they

go

together

they

act

together

in

the

same

way

for

example

if

i

have

a

wheel

one

side

of

it

going

down

is

the

same

as

the

other

side

of

it

organism

and

environment

we

are

only

rarely

aware

of

this

as

when

in

curious

alterations

of

consciousness

which

we

call

mystical

experience

cosmic

consciousness

an

individual

gets

the

feeling

that

everything

that is

happening

is

his

own

doing

or

the

opposite

of

that

feeling

that

he

isn't

doing

anything

but

that

you

can

feel

it

either

way

you

can

describe

it

in

these

two

completely

opposite

ways

but

you're

talking

about

the

same

experience

you're

talking

about

experiencing

your

own

activity

and

the

activity

of

nature

as

one

single

process

and

you

can

describe

it

as

if

you

were

omnipotent

like

God

or

as

don't

feel

that

do

we

ordinarily

what

we

feel

instead

is

an

identification

of

ourselves

with

our

idea

of

ourselves

or

I

would

rather

say

with

our

image

of

ourselves

and

that's

the

person

or

the

ego

you

play

a

role

you

identify

with

that

role

I

play

a

role

it's

called

Alan

Watts

and

I

know

very

well

that

that's

a

big

act

I

can

play

some

other

roles

besides

Alan

Watts

if

necessary

but

I

find

this

one

is

better

for

making

a

living

but

I

assure

you

it's

a

mask

and

I

don't

take

it

seriously

the

idea

of

my

being

a

kind

so

I

know

I

know

I

not

that

but

most

of

us

are

taught

to

think

that

we

are

whom

we

are

called

and

when

you're

a

little

child

and

you

begin

to

learn

a role

and

your

parents

and

your

peers

approve

of

your

being

that

they

know

who

you

are

you're

predictable

so

you

can

be

controlled

but

when

you

act

out

of

role

and

you

imitate

some

other

child's

behavior

everybody

points

the

finger

and

says

you're

not

being

true

to

yourself

Johnny

that's

not

you

that's

Peter

and

so

you

learn

to

stay

Peter

or

to

stay

Johnny

but

of

course

you're

not

either

because

this

is

just

the

image

of

you

it's

as

much

of

you

as

you

can

get

into

contains

no

information

about

how

you

structure

your

nervous

system

it

contains

no

information

about

your

blood

chemistry

it

contains

almost

no

information

about

the

subtle

influences

of

society

upon

your

behavior

it

does

not

include

the

basic

assumptions

of

your

culture

which

are

all

taken

for

granted

and

unconscious

and

you

can't

find

them

out

unless

you

study

illusions

that

you

are

completely

unaware

of

as

for

example

that

time

is

real

and

that

there

is

such

a

thing

as

a

past

which

is

pure

hokum

but

nevertheless

all

these

things

are

unconscious

in

us

and

they

are

not

included

in

our

image

of

this

is

a

very

impoverished

image

when

you

ask

a

person

what

did

you

do

yesterday

they'll

give

you

a

historical

account

of a

certain

number

of

events

in

which

they

participated

and a

certain

number

of

things

which

they

saw

used

or

were

clobbered

by

but

realize

at

once

that

this

history

leaves

out

most

of

what

happened

I

in

trying

this

evening

will

never

be

able

to

describe

it

because

there

are

so

many

people

here

that

if

I

were

to

talk

about

everyone

whom

I've

seen

what

they

were

wearing

what

color

their

hair

was

what

sort

of

expressions

they

had

on

their

faces

I

would

have

to

talk

till

doomsday

so

instead of

this rich

physical

experience

which is

very rich

indeed

I

have

to

attenuate

it

in

and

there

were

men

and

women

and

lots

of

them

were

young

and

some

of

them

were

old

you

know

most

utterly

impoverished

account

of

it's

not

a

skeleton

so

we

are

as

it

were

conceiving

ourselves

as

a

bunch

of

skeletons

and

they

got

no

flesh

on

them

just

a

bunch

of

bones

and

no

wonder

we

all

feel

inadequate

we're

all

looking

for

something

to

the

future

to

bring

us

a

goody

we

know

we

ought

to

have

there's

a

golden

goody

at

the

end

of

the

line

somewhere

there's

a

good

time

coming

be

it

ever

so

way

far

away

that

one

far

off

divine

event

to

which

all

creation

moves

we

hope

and

therefore

we

say

of

something

that's

no

good

it

has

no

future

I

would

say

it

has

no

present

but

everybody

says

it

has

no

future

now

here

we

are

as

it

were

psychically

starved

and

nobody

knows

what

they

want

we

say

yes

we

think

of

what

we

want

in

vague

terms

pleasure

money

wealth

love

fulfillment

personal

development

but we

don't know

what we

mean

by all

that

the

person

really

sits

down

to

figure

out

write

a

long

essay

pages

on

your

idea

of

heaven

it'll

be

whether

it

depictions

of

heaven

and

hell

is

always

much

better

than

heaven

although

it's

uncomfortable

it's a

sadomasochistic

orgy

wowee

you know

hell

is really

rip

roaring

whereas

all the

saints

in heaven

are sitting

you know

very very

smug

and demure

like they

were in

church

and

you see

also

the

multitudes

of the

saved

instead

of this

writhing

thing

you can

see

all

their

heads

which

the

artist

has

drawn

to

abbreviate

them

just

the

tops

of

their

heads

in

masses

they

look

like

cobblestone

street

flattened

out

so

what

has

happened

then

is

this

that

our

eye

is

an

illusion

it's

an

image

and

it

is

no

more

our

self

than

an

idol

is

the

godhead

but

we

i

feel

i

really

exist

it

isn't

just

an

idea

in

my

head

it's

a

feeling

i

feel

me

well

what

is

it

that

you

feel

when

you

feel

i

tell

you

what

do

you

do

when

somebody

says

pay

attention

what

is

the

difference

between

looking

at

something

and

taking

a

hard

look

at

it

or

between

hearing

something

and

listening

intently

what's

the

difference

what's

the

difference

between

waiting

while

something

goes

on

and

enduring

it

why

the

difference

is

this

that

when

you

pay

attention

instead

of

just

looking

you

screw

up

your

face

you

frown

and

stare

that

is

a

muscular

activity

around

here

when

you

will

you

grit

your

teeth

or

clench

your

fists

when

you

endure

or

control

yourself

you

pull

yourself

together

physically

and

therefore

you

get

up

tight

you

hold

your

breath

you

do

all

kinds

of

muscular

things

to

control

the

functioning

of

your

nervous

system

and

none

of

them

have

the

slightest

effect

on

the

proper

operation

of

the

nervous

system

if

you

stare

at

things

you

will

rather

fuzz

the

image

than

see

them

clearly

if

you

listen

intently

by

concentrating

on

muscles

around

the

ears

you

will

be

so

much

attending

to

muscles

here

that

you

won't

hear

things

properly

and

you

may

get

singing

in

the

ears

if

you

tighten

up

with

your

body

to

pull

yourself

together

all

you

do

is

constrict

yourself

I

remember

in

school

I

sat

next

to

a

boy

who

had

great

difficulty

in

learning

to

read

and

what

they

always

say

to

children

is

try

if

you

can't

do

something

it

was

and

the

teacher

is

impressed

the

boy

is

really

trying

gives

him

B

for

effort

all

he's

doing

has

nothing

to

do

with

it

now

we

all

make

this

muscular

straining

with

the

thought

that

it's

achieving

psychological

results

the

sort

of

psychological

results

it's

intended

to

achieve

and

all

this

amounts

to

is

it's

like

you're

taking

off

in

a

jet

you

got

a

mile

down

the

runway

and

the

thing

isn't

up

in

the

air

yet

and

you

get

nervous

so

you

start

pulling

at

your

seatbelt

that's

what it

is

now

that

is

a

chronic

feeling

we

have

it

in

us

all

the

time

and

it

corresponds

to

the

word

I

that's

what

you

feel

when

you

say

I

you

feel

that

chronic

tension

because

when

an

organ

is

working

properly

you

don't

feel

it

if

you

see

your

eye

you've

got

cataract

if

you

hear

your

ears

you

got

singing

in

your

ears

you

know

getting

in

the

way

of

hearing

when

you

are

fully

functioning

you

are

unaware

of

the

that's

where

you

are

aware

of

all

this

but

you

are

not

aware

of

the

eye

as

the

eye

I'm

talking

about

the

optical

eye

so

when

we

are

We are aware of the ego I, we are aware of this chronic tension inside ourselves, and that's not us. It's a futile tension.

So when we get the illusion, the image of ourselves, married to a futile tension, you've got an illusion married to a futility.

And then you wonder why I can't do anything, why I feel in the face of all the problems of the world impotent,

and why I somehow cannot manage to transform I.

Now here we get to the real problem.

Because we're always telling each other that we should be different.

I'm not going to tell you that tonight.

Why not? Because I know you can't be. Nor can I.

That may sound depressing, but I'll show you it isn't. It's very heartening.

But everybody, you see, who is at all sensitive and awake to their own problems and human problems, is trying to change himself.

We know we can't change the world unless we change ourselves.

If we are all individually selfish, we're going to be collectively selfish.

If we don't really love people, and only pretend to, somehow we've got to find a way to love.

After all, it's said in the Bible, thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and your neighbor as yourself.

You must love.

Yeah, we all agree. Sure. But we don't.

In fact, one psychologist very smartly asked a patient, with whom are you in love against?

And this is particularly becomes appalling when we enter into the realm of higher things.

By which I mean spiritual development.

Everybody these days is interested in spiritual development.

And wisely, because we want to change our consciousness.

Many people are well aware that this egocentric consciousness is a hallucination.

And that they presume it's the function of religion to change it.

Because that's what the Zen Buddhists and Yogis and all these people in the Orient are doing.

They are changing their state of consciousness to get something called Satori,

or mystical experience, or Nirvana, or Moksha, or what have you.

And everybody around here is really enthused about that.

Because you don't get that in church.

I mean, there have been Christian mystics,

but the church has been very quiet about them.

But the average church, all you get is talk.

There's no meditation, no spiritual discipline.

They tell God what to do, interminably, as if he didn't know.

And then they tell the people what to do, as if they could or even wanted to.

And then they sing religious nursery rhymes.

And then, to cap it all, the Roman Catholic Church,

which did at least have an unintelligible service,

which was, you know, it was real mysterious and suggested, vast magic going on.

They went and put the thing into bad English.

And they took away incense, and they took away,

and they became a bunch of Protestants.

And the thing was just terrible.

So now all these Catholics are at loose ends,

as Claire Booth Luce put it, not to be a pun,

but she said, you know,

it's no longer possible to practice contemplative prayer at mass.

Because you're being advised, exhorted, edified, all the time.

And that becomes a bore.

Think of God, listening to all those prayers.

I mean, do have, I mean, talking about grieving the Holy Spirit.

It's just awful.

People have no consideration for God at all.

So, but in pursuing these spiritual disciplines, yoga and Zen and so forth,

and also psychotherapy,

there comes up a big difficulty.

And the big difficulty is this.

I want to find a method whereby I can change my consciousness.

But the, therefore, to improve myself.

But the self that needs to be improved

is the one that is doing the improving.

And so I'm rather stuck.

I find out the reason that I think I believe, say, in God,

is that I sure hope that somehow God will rescue me.

In other words, I want to hang on to my own existence.

And I feel rather shaky about doing that for myself,

but I just hope there's a God who will take care of it.

Or, if I could be loving,

I would have a better opinion of myself.

I'd feel better about it.

I could face myself, as people say,

if I were more loving.

So, the unloving me, somehow, by some gimmickry,

has to turn itself into a loving me.

And this is just like trying to lift yourself off the ground

with your own bootstraps.

It can't be done.

And that's why religion, in practice, mainly produces hypocrisy.

And guilt.

Because of the constant failure of these enterprises.

Oh, people go and study Zen.

And they come back and say,

wow, getting rid of your ego is a superhuman task.

I assure you, it's going to be very, very difficult to get rid of your ego.

You're going to have to sit for a long time,

and you're going to get the sorest legs.

It's hard work.

And all you wretched kids who think you're getting rid of your ego

on part or something or other,

and easy yoga,

you don't know what you're in for when it really comes down to the nitty gritty.

Well, you know, the biggest ego trip going is getting rid of your ego.

And the joke of it all is your ego doesn't exist.

There's nothing to get rid of.

It's an illusion, as I tried to explain.

But you still want to ask how to stop the illusion.

Now, who's asking?

I mean, do you think in the ordinary sense in which you use the word I,

how can I stop identifying myself with the wrong me?

Well, the answer is simply you can't.

Now, the Christians put this in their way

when they say that mystical experience is a gift of divine grace.

Man, as such, cannot achieve this experience.

It is a gift of God.

And if God doesn't give it to you, there's no way of getting it.

Now that is solidly true.

You can't do anything about it because you don't exist.

Well, you say, that's pretty depressing news.

But the whole point is it isn't depressing news.

It is the joyous news.

There's a Zen poem which puts it like this, talking about it.

It means the mystical experience, Satori, the realization that you are the eternal energy of the universe, like Jesus did.

It says like this, you cannot catch hold of it, nor can you get rid of it.

In not being able to get it, you get it.

When you speak, it's silent.

When you are silent, it speaks.

Now, in not being able to get it, you get it.

Because this whole feeling, what Krishnamurti is trying to explain to people, for example,

when he says, why do you ask for a method?

There is no method.

All methods are simply gimmicks for strengthening your ego.

So how do we not do that?

He says, you're still asking for a method.

There is no method.

If you really understand what your eye is, you will see there is no method.

This is so sad.

But it's not.

This is the gospel, the good news.

Because if you cannot achieve it, if you cannot transform yourself,

that means that the main obstacle to mystical vision has collapsed.

That was you.

What happens?

You can't do anything about it.

You're at your wit's end.

What are you going to do, commit suicide?

But supposing you just put that off for a little while.

Wait and see what happens.

You can't control your thoughts.

You can't control your feelings.

Because there is no controller.

You are your thoughts and your feelings.

And they are running along, running along, running along.

Just sit and watch them.

Here they go.

You are still breathing, aren't you?

Still growing your hair?

Still seeing and hearing?

Are you doing that?

I mean, is breathing something that you do?

Do you see?

I mean, do you organize the operations of your eyes?

Know exactly how to work those rods and cones in the retina?

Do you do that?

It's a happening.

It happens.

So you can feel all this happening.

Your breathing is happening.

Your thinking is happening.

Your feeling is happening.

Your hearing.

Your seeing.

The clouds are happening across the sky.

The sky is happening blue.

The sun is happening shining.

There it is.

All this happening.

And may I introduce you?

This is yourself.

This begins to be a vision of who you really are.

And that's the way you function.

You function by happening.

That is to say, by spontaneous occurrence.

And this is not a state of affairs that you should realize.

I cannot possibly preach it to you.

Because the minute you start thinking,

I should understand that,

this is the stupid notion again that I should bring it about.

When there is no you to bring it about.

See that's why I'm not preaching.

You can only preach to egos.

All I can do,

is to talk about what is.

It amuses me to talk about what is,

because it's wonderful.

I love it.

And therefore I like to talk.

If I get paid for it,

then I make my living.

And sensible people get paid for doing what they enjoy doing.

So this is not on a,

you see this is the whole approach here,

is not to convert you.

Not to make you over.

Not to improve you.

But for you to discover.

That if you really knew the way you are.

Things would be,

would be sane.

But you see you can't do that.

You can't make that discovery.

Because you're in your own way.

So long as you think, I'm I.

So long as that hallucination blocks it.

And the hallucination disappears,

only in the realization of its own futility.

When at last you see,

you can't do it.

You cannot make yourself over.

You cannot really control your own mind.

See when we try to control the mind.

A lot of yoga teachers,

try to get you to control your own mind,

mainly to prove to you that you can't do it.

There's nothing you know.

A fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

So they,

what they do is they speed up the folly.

And so you get concentrating.

And you can have a certain amount of superficial and initial success

by a process commonly called self-hypnosis.

And you can think you're making progress.

And a good teacher will let you go along that way for a while

until he really throws you with one.

Why are you concentrating?

See, Buddhism works this way.

Buddha said,

if you suffer,

you suffer because you desire.

And your desires are either unattainable

or always being disappointed or something.

So cut out desire.

So those disciples went away

and they stamped on desire,

jumped on desire,

cut the throat of desire,

and threw out desire.

But then they came back and Buddha said,

but you are still desiring not to desire.

They wanted how to get rid of that.

So when you see that that's nonsense,

there naturally comes over you a quietness.

In seeing that you cannot control your mind,

you realize there is no controller.

What you took to be the thinker of thoughts is just one of the thoughts.

What you took to be the feeler of the feelings,

which was that chronic muscular strain,

is just one of the feelings.

What you took to be the experiencer of experience

is just part of the experience.

So there isn't any thinker of thoughts, feeler of feelings.

We get into that bind because we have a grammatical rule that verbs have to have subjects.

And the funny thing about that is that verbs are processes and subjects are nouns

which are supposed to be things.

How does a noun start a verb?

How does a thing put a process into action?

Obviously it can't.

But we always insist that there is this subject called the knower.

And without a knower there can't be knowing.

Well that's just a grammatical rule.

It isn't a rule of nature.

In nature there's just knowing.

Like you're feeling it.

And I have to say you are feeling it as if you were somehow different from the feeling.

When I say I am feeling, what I mean is there is feeling here.

When I say you are feeling, I mean there is feeling there.

I have to say even there is feeling.

What a cumbersome language we have.

Chinese is easier.

You don't have to put all that in.

You can say things twice as fast in Chinese as you can in any other language.

Well anyway.

When you come to see that you can do nothing.

That the play of thought, of feeling, etc. just goes on by itself as a happening.

Then you are in a state which we will call meditation.

And slowly, without being pushed, your thoughts will come to silence.

That is to say, all the verbal symbolic chatter going on in the skull.

Don't try and get rid of it.

Because that will again produce the illusion that there is a controller.

Just, it goes on, it goes on, it goes on.

And finally it gets tired of itself and bored and stops.

And so then there is a silence.

And this is a deeper level of meditation.

And in that silence, you suddenly begin to see the world as it is.

And you don't see any past.

And you don't see any future.

You don't see any difference between yourself and the rest of it.

That's just an idea.

You can't put your hand on the difference between myself and you.

You know, you can't blow it.

You can't bounce it.

You can't pull it.

It's just an idea.

You can't find any material body.

Because material body is an idea.

So is spiritual body.

This is somebody's philosophical notions.

See, reality isn't material.

That's an idea.

Reality isn't spiritual.

That's an idea.

Reality is.

So, we find, if I've got to put it back into words,

that we live in an eternal now.

You've got all the time in the world.

Because you've got all the time there is, which is now.

And you are this universe.

And you feel a strange feeling when ideas don't define the differences.

You feel that other people's doings are your doings.

And that makes it very difficult to blame other people.

If you're not sophisticated theologically,

you may, of course, run screaming in the streets and say that you're God.

In a way, that's what happened to Jesus.

Because he wasn't sophisticated theologically.

He only had Old Testament biblical theology behind him.

If he'd had Hindu theology, he could have put it more subtly.

But it was only that rather primitive theology of the Old Testament.

And that was the conception of God as a monarchical boss.

Thanks.

And you can't go around and say, I'm the boss's son.

If you're going to say, I'm God, you must allow it for everyone else too.

But this was a heretical idea from the point of view of Hebrew theology.

And so what they did with Jesus was they pedestalized him.

That means kicked him upstairs so that he wouldn't be able to influence anyone else.

And only you may be God.

And that stopped the gospel cold right at the beginning.

It couldn't spread.

Well anyway, this is therefore to say that

the transformation of human consciousness through meditation is frustrated.

So long as we think of it in terms of something that I myself can bring about.

By some kind of wangle, by some sort of gimmick.

Because you see that leads to endless games of spiritual one-upmanship.

And of guru competitions.

Of my guru is more effective than your guru.

My yoga's faster than your yoga.

I'm more aware of myself than you are.

I'm humbler than you are.

I'm sorrier for my sins than you are.

I love you more than you love me.

It is interminable goings on about which people fight and wonder

whether they are a little bit more evolved than somebody else and so on.

All that can just fall away.

And then we get this strange feeling that we have never had, you see, in our lives.

Except occasionally by accident.

Some people get a glimpse.

That we are no longer this poor little stranger and afraid in a world it never made.

But that you are this universe.

And you are creating it at every moment.

Because, you see, it starts now.

It didn't begin in the past.

There was no past.

See, if the universe began in the past, when that happened, it was now.

See?

Well, it's still now.

And the universe is still beginning now.

And it's trailing off like the wake of a ship from now.

And the wake of the ship fades out, so does the past.

You can look back there to explain things, but the explanation disappears.

You'll never find it there.

Things are not explained by the past.

They're explained by what happens now.

That creates the past.

And it begins here.

That's the birth of responsibility.

Because otherwise, you can always look over your shoulder and say,

Well, I'm the way I am because my mother dropped me.

And she dropped me because she was neurotic because her mother dropped her.

And away we go back to Adam and Eve or to a disappearing monkey or something.

And we never get at it.

But in this way, you're faced with it.

You're doing all this.

And that's an extraordinary shock.

So, cheer up.

You can't blame anyone else for the kind of world you're in.

And if you know, you see, that I, in the sense of the person, the front, the ego,

it really doesn't exist, then it won't go to your head too badly

if you wake up and discover that you're God.

You've been listening to Alan Watts

from the Spoken Word Library of the Electronic University.

For copies of this and other Alan Watts programs,

please go to alanwatts.com on the World Wide Web

or call us toll-free at 1-800-W-O-WATTS.

That's A-L-A-N-W-A-T-T-S dot com

or 1-800-W-O-W-A-T-T-S.

The Watts website features free audio downloads, program lists,

and information on Watts life and works.

Once again, that's alanwatts.com or 1-800-W-O-W-A-T-S.