The trickiest facet of realizing what is really going on in life, (the non-standard neurological experience variously labeled “Awakening, Enlightenment, Liberation”), is actually quite straightforward. The difficulty lies in a shoe trying to conceive of leather.
If you subtract thoughts from the life of man, he knows what is really going on as well as any other animal. When thinking is added to his repertoire, he becomes filled with questions and uncertainties. Crudely, but not invalidly limned, from the brain stem down, everyone knows exactly what life is about, and from the brain stem up everyone goes groggy.
Man feels uncertainty about life and himself for one simple reason. Via his thoughts, he can contemplate change. He alone, in his mind, can compare things, (intelligence’s bedrock and the father of all material progress). He is also able in his mind to compare people and their non-physical characteristics; his reputation compared to someone else’s; the acceptance of his ideas compared to those of another.
From the brain stem down, men are constantly measuring the world around them, and from the brain stem up, their thoughts are relentlessly measuring themselves in comparison to others. This ability in the mind to perceive of non-physical differences between people understandably produces the impression-taken-as-fact that people can be other than they are. If you see people who are assertive and you are shy, your thoughts predictably tell you that with the proper effort you could change, and be that way also.
Even plainer put, human consciousness being obviously a work always in progress; not fully imprisoned by instinctive programming and able to not only conceive of changes to the external, physical world, but also to design their implementation. It thinks likewise of itself and man’s inner world in general, not realizing the clear limitations of this second perception is what leads men’s ultra-brain stem activities into the state variously labeled: “Sleep, Delusion, Captivity.”
J.