Long before it had a public face, and had contracted religious and metaphysical connotations, the activity that existed was: Zoroastrianism, Yoga, Taoism, The Mysteries, Buddhism, Zen, Cabalism, Sufism, (and their many offshoots). These were known to the few actual practitioners by its real name: You Either Are, Or You Aren’t, You Either Understand, Or You Don’t; which, even though that said it all, still said more than was necessary, in that a smile, a wink, a finger in the air covers the subject quite nicely.
Even though every culture and every period in history has its version of a teaching dedicated to achieving a state of consciousness and understanding, which its proponents find preferable to the one that comes natural to man, in truth, no such teaching exists, nor is possible. There is no teaching, no method by which to make a person directly aware of the one simple fact that is the actual basis for all the activity mentioned. The fact is the anti-matter TO the matter of all ideas devoted to its discovery; like looking for a light source, and employing the blindfold approach.
You cannot be told that which reveals the impotency of words, and there is nothing you can learn concerning the illusion of knowing. Not due to stupidity, nor nefarious schemes, but due to the inability to directly confront this mental situation, have men unwittingly conjured up the concept of: “Teachings.” For once you have a teaching, there is something to confront – The Teaching.
As is clear to everyone, to study physical objects outside of yourself, what you do is look at them; look directly at them. But when men attempt to study that which is inside of them, which is not physical, clarity is replaced with distortion, and of such quality as to go undetected.
The eyes and mind of a man can look at an object he finds, and thereby learn something of its structure and nature. But when he looks inward, he sees only by the mind, and since, (regardless of what else he may call it), it will be the mind that he will be attempting to look at, he has a problem, one of such singularity as to pass unnoticed.
J.