Jan Cox

The man with the plane finally did run across some other fliers with similar feelings about the auto pilot, and they would get together in the bar at the air field and whine and bitch about it over beers.  They eventually referred to this as their, “Struggle to awaken.”

 

Every man has a companion, and getting him pacified is what awakening is all about. The way you accomplish that is by finally realizing that the companion is an illusion…well, you or him… one is.

First you see two; then three; then one – then it’s all done.
 

You only dislike being asleep at the moments when you catch yourself being so. 
 

The fact that the mind is even able to ask, “Who’s in charge here?” is proof that it isn’t and KNOWS it…now all we need is for you to.
                                
 

Once men decided to make clocks run in a clockwise direction, so as to match the term bearing their name, everything after that was easy.

J.
 

A son tugged on his father’s sleeve, and said, “Tell me what spring training was like when you were a boy, and had to walk ten miles every day in the nice weather to get to the ball field.” The old man pretended to look far away, nostalgically, then finally responded, “All children have dreams-in-the-muscles of physical adventures they want to someday pursue.  A few turn out to harbor longings of a different sort. Through their thoughts march a fragmented file of vague images that at first inspection seem unconnected to the honing of physical skills pertinent to survival. The core of their childhood dreams rests in the intangible realm of thoughts, rather than in the palpable world of flesh and bone.

Even before they have any idea of what is going on, or have words to describe the enigmatic images that present themselves, they nonetheless have a dream of someday playing in a certain big league, but one in which the game is carried out entirely in a man’s head; the game of UNDERSTANDING-WHAT’S-GOING-ON.

This sparse, far-flung band of unrecognized, unorganized, special-little-leaguers do not go to athletic coaches for instruction, but to parents, priests, rabbis and philosophers, who they quickly learn do not share their interest.  Their public speech leads the young to believe they do, but private conversations prove otherwise.

Even the adults with the verbal appearance of interest in the matter, tell the youngster that no one really understands what life is about, and that all you can do is either:  Trust in Allah/fate/ astrology/some-swami’s-teaching; or, resign yourself to the mental enjoyment of 
the futile search therefore.

Once adolescent hormones have had their way, few of the early dreamers are left with much of a metaphysical nature on their minds:  supporting oneself, parenthood, escape from ennui, and other features of routine adulthood soon occupy all available space in their minds.

J.

There was a man who had a plane that would fly on auto pilot; not only cruise once airborne, but one which could at times, even take off and land automatically.  In fact could execute, reasonably well, some complex aerobatic maneuvers.

The feature had another talent.  On its own it could often handle complicated craft-to-ground verbal communications, and when not so involved with serious responsibilities, it would pipe entertainment into the cockpit, (of the talk radio, and muzak variety).

All in all, the auto pilot was an exceptionally valuable aid in the man’s operation of his plane and yet, spasmodically, he was greatly annoyed by it.  When he mentioned this to other pilots none of them admitted to similar feelings – in fact, most had become so accustomed-to, and reliant-on the auto pilot they had forgotten that it even existed, and now treated its talents as being their own. 

The man concluded that he was alone in his intermittent irritation with the auto pilot’s presence in his life, and that any method to change the situation would have to originate with him.  He knew that he could perform all of the auto pilot’s functions, except for its constant monitoring, and fine tuning of the plane’s engine, (the one area of its operations that never bothered him).  So, (save for the latter), he decided that he would assume all other responsibility for the craft’s flight – but there arose, a teensy little problem.  He couldn’t the hell remember to take over for the damn automatic thing-a-ma-jiggy. 


He’d remember his decision to do so spasmodically with, (interestingly enough), the exact same frequency that he was annoyed by it to begin with.  So now he had doubled his irritation: he still had his original one with certain aspects of the auto pilot’s presence in his life, now combined with the new irritation he experienced every time he realized that he had not taken over for it as per his decision to do so.

J.

The answer to: “Why is life like THIS?” is the answer to everything.

 

The answer to that question reveals to the few everything they have always longed to know, but –What ho? –  Have you already forgotten? There IS no answer to the big question!

The enlightenment and liberation that comes to those who see their interest through to the end, lands on their head, not in the form of an answer to that question, but through the sudden realization of the question’s origin.

Being asleep, dumb, and in-the-dark, is not the problem of the successful genealogist.  He who gets to the roots of things is free of the vines that strangle the trees.  The irritating mental condition that fuels the interests of the few is no longer so irritating when its origins and real nature are recognized. 

“Being asleep” is not what it once was, after you suddenly realize who it is who’s been telling you that you’re asleep, all these years. 

Forget the promise of prizes for answering the questions on life’s quiz show.  Do nothing but keep your eye on the one apparently hosting the show and reading out the questions.  Finally recognizing who “he” is – IS the prize.

J.

In rational communities: plumbers don’t work on cars, nor eunuchs teach sex education; but in routine neural neighborhoods patent idiots publicly denounce idiocy amidst the cheers and jeers of other obvious idiots.  (You are keeping in mind that the real tale being told here concerns activities within the folds of your brain, and nowhere else, right?)

The few people on this planet at any given time, who want to understand what is going on strongly enough to engage in some consistent and not totally insane effort to that end, begin in the same position as anyone else desirous of knowing something they do not presently know. They seek to be told about it by someone who does know, but in this singular instance no one does know.

The one big question that eternally dogs the few has no answer – not in the context as mind pictures a relationship between questions-and-answers, and between not-knowing-something, and then learning-about it.
 
 

Routine people and princes think that there are many questions to be answered about life: about why humans are so blind in certain affairs; about why they are so stupid concerning other particular matters,  The sundry examples of mortal thought and speech that all men find inexplicable in other men, are all but reflected variations of a single question: ”Why is life like THIS?” (with “this” being a blank space that each man’s mind  continually fills and re-fills in as dictated by never-still circumstances).

”Why is life like THIS?”  That is the one, all-encompassing question proffered by philosophers, princes, priests, and plebeians alike, which in most instances is actually a criticism rather than a question.  If the person engaged in the criticism understood what is going on in life, the question, even if unstated, would be operationally answered, and their criticism erased. No man would express any complaint about life if he knew what was going on in life.

J.

A rich and powerful prince once asked a man, who many believed to be awake, to teach him how to become enlightened – which he declined to do.  His unspoken reason being that he had no interest in being around anyone dumb enough to make such a request.

As titillating as smart asses may find the story, its real eroticism comes from seeing it not as a relationship between a prince and a wise man, but between that portion of man’s collective mind that operates in your head, and that renegade slice of your brain that faults same.

Only pinheads hire themselves out to tutor pinheads. 
Only the thoroughly lost act as guides to the irredeemably misplaced,
and only boulders tell trees how to walk. 

People, (and things), too dense to realize what is going on, can never be made to realize that the practical feature of this fact is in you finally recognizing that your own thoughts can never enlighten themselves, and that totally captive thing in you that says, ”I,” will never lead you to liberation.

No doctor can ever cure himself who is not ill to begin with, and no sleeper can be awakened whose natural state is slumber.  No cave dweller can be enticed into the light who has no eyes with which to see.

J.

Beliefs:  Temporary knowledge.
Beliefs:  Permanent knowledge.
Knowledge: “Call for Cinderella!”

Life: Fear of death.
Death: Fear of life.

Noise:  Substitute for excitement.
Excitement:  Substitute for knowing.
Knowing:  There is no substitute for knowing, (but thanks for asking).

Sorrow:  Fear of idiocy.
What-the-mind-will-never-grasp:  That any complaint it has can be instantly solved if it will just lay it here on the table.
 
 
 

…And all the horribleness in the entire universe jumped out from behind a bush to frighten a guy, and when he didn’t react, the horribleness demanded, “What’s wrong with you?” 
The guy replied, “You’re right, I forgot to laugh.”

J.

Sarcasm:  A sissy’s fist.
Cynicism:  Throwing the piss out of your tent.

Love:  What kiddy mystics talk about when they dress up in adults’ clothes…instead of sex.

Advice:  A clown with his hand on his back, pushing him on stage.            
Thinking:  A form of self-hypnosis, but without a self.
Things-in-the-non-material-world:  Shadows cast by the thing looking at them.

A guru:  A hired clown.
The-end-of-the-world:  The end of your nose.
Being-in-the-dark:  A condition disliked by some, but only when they think about it, not while they’re there.

Hard times:  The search for mental Viagra.
Mistaken views:  Views.
Revealed wisdom:  Mistaken views.

J.

NOW THAT DR. JOHNSON IS OUT OF THE WAY, WE CAN GET DOWN TO BUSINESS.
 
 

Words:  Yapping dogs.
Other-people’s-words:  Running the dogs.
Ideological disputes:  The collective mind cracking its knuckles. 

History:  Rewinding a tube of toothpaste.
The past:  A speck of spinach caught in false teeth.|
The future:  Wondering what happened to your teeth.
The present:  The WHAT?!?

Wealth:  Better burial clothes for the self-conscious corpse.
Reputation:  Bulletproof glass over a forged painting.

Mind:  A closet that doesn’t exist until something is hung in it.
A self-made intellectual:  A plastic surgeon who hung himself.

J.

Don’t expect to ever solve a problem
that has no fixed location,
or permanent address.
 

There is a type of reading glasses
that are only operable 
as long as they are not seen.
 

To “wake up” to unadorned reality
is to finally open your eyes
on your own.

(In essence), suddenly create your own individual mind, one that is not tied to mankind’s collective mind. You become free from a problem that is not there – an annoyance that is only present when your own YOU is totally lost in the depths of a thing that is not there…neat, huh?

J.