You Cannot Suffer
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Transcript
YOU CANNOT SUFFER
Document: 16, April 1, 1982
Copyright(c) Jan M. Cox, 1982
This symbol represents a man’s sense of “I”, where the Horizontal Line and Vertical Line intersect. The Horizontal Line is analogous to the passage of time: the left-hand side of the symbol as you see it is the past, and the right-hand side is the future. A man finds himself at the intersection, seemingly carried along the Line of time, but he is tied to the past always. This gives each person a sense of continuity, and helps explain why people are attracted to what seems to be old. But now, in a sense, to begin to See above the Line of ordinary “I” sight, you must view the symbol from another direction. The past of man is not only to the left of the Horizontal Line. That Line does exist, but it represents something else: In this new orientation, the Horizontal Line represents the Line of ordinary human consciousness, and the area below the intersection is the history of man.
Remember my term, “Neuralize”: the attempt to remember something without thinking about it. Using this new symbol, Neuralize why no one can find the source of the knowledge supposedly held by ancient religious leaders. Where did they learn what they learned? No one can find the source of this understanding out in Life, on the Horizontal Line, because that is not where it exists; that is not where the knowledge came from. There was no one to teach these people, because they already understood everything on the Horizontal level. And so, whatever astounding information these men had was considered supernatural, “a gift from the gods.”
Ordinary people cannot comprehend that such men could have stayed at home; that they did not need to travel anywhere to learn what they learned. They had no equal, no one to teach them. But for ordinary man, the most efficient answer to this dilemma is that “it came from the gods,” because the literal truth of the matter, as I just stated it, is incomprehensible.
The history of man is written on the Vertical Line, below the Line representing human consciousness. If you could get above that Line and look down, you would see that the history of man is a continuing, never-ending development of the nervous system. It has not been a linear process: it is an expansion. It does not happen in a linear fashion, but in all directions simultaneously. I have used descriptions of man being divided into a physical, emotional, and intellectual creature, in an attempt to get you to See something, but you must understand that there is no such absolute description; it is, simultaneously, both true and irrelevant. One possible way to understand this is to picture a large glass ball, which would contain another, smaller ball, and that in turn would contain a smaller ball, but inside the smallest ball would be the two others. It’s not that man has progressed in a straight line, but in multiple directions and dimensions simultaneously. So the description of man being a physical creature who develops emotions and finally an intellect in a linear progression is both true and untrue.
Throughout history, people have always held the belief that the history of man was kept somewhere, such as by a secret brotherhood of mystics, or by the gods. Like all beliefs, this has a basis in reality. The history of man is written in my symbol, and so is the history of you contained in the symbol also. But remember — the symbol is a diagram, a map. It represents something real, but the ink or the paper is not the reality. Things are progressing, but not in this one direction or that one direction: they are progressing in all directions at once. They are expanding. But to bring things down to a two- or three-dimensional level, it is a continual progression of the nervous system to higher and higher areas of what we usually call “the mind.” This is right before you. It’s reflected in people’s comments about political, economic, even religious situations in the world, although ordinary man cannot see it. The development goes on; it is a continuing process.
Besides my description of man as a tripartite creature, that is, as composed of the physical, emotional, and intellectual, I have also described him as being a physical and psychological creature. For descriptive purposes, I could say that there is a Line below which would be the physiological aspect of man, and above it the psychological aspect. Below this Line, there has to be a kind of controlled chaos, a chaotic order, for anyone involved with This Thing to get anywhere. Everyone must have what I call a sane relationship with the body.
Now, throughout the world the belief exists that somehow certain kinds of mistreatment of the body are necessary or helpful in the attempt to develop higher circuits. Everyone has heard stories of yogis and old hermits eating nothing but tree bark, or holding one arm in a certain position for ten years. But for one involved with This Thing, there has to be a certain sane connection with the body. You cannot mistreat the body, or deny it what it needs for its maintenance and stability, and expect to get anywhere in your attempt to ignite the higher areas of the nervous system.
The psychological level of humanity exists because man is the only creature whose nervous system is not totally finished. The process of change is always occurring. So the Line dividing the physical and psychological aspects of man exists, if only for the sake of this discussion. Now, I want you to Neuralize this: the initial purpose of what seems to be a man’s “personality” was to function as a bridge between the lower function, where nothing can change, and the higher function, where change is always occurring. In the physiological part, aside from cosmetics or surgery, there is simply nothing to be done. For one pursuing This Thing, it is a matter of getting the body to the point where it is not a problem, because that circuit cannot be further developed. It is as developed as it will ever be. For a man with a certain kind of body-sanity, there is no new diet, no new exercise fad, no new health book of any importance. People dream of such things, but they are on the wrong end; change does not occur there; it’s going in another direction.
I want you to Neuralize that a man’s sense of “I” serves to bridge the gap between the already-closed physiological side of man and that which is not closed. It is this unfinished side which leads to frustration, to the continual seeking of something new, which does not and cannot happen in the body. You should be aware that it is not the body that reads exercise books or menus. Remember the bridge; its original purpose is still in effect.
Remember my description of the original Xross, when I said that a person is tied to the past and that it imparts a sense of continuity. Above the Horizontal Line of consciousness, a man has no home. He is not tied to the past; there is no continuity, as ordinary consciousness perceives it. It is important to an ordinary man (and remember, that includes everyone below the Line of consciousness) who his parents were and his grandparents; what country he is from; his cultural heritage. It serves to sustain the continuity, to give stability to his life. One’s allegiance to home, family, country is necessary for Life. It’s a reflection of something in the Red Circuit, or body, rising through the nervous system. And remember, part of the purpose of the Yellow Circuit, or intellect, is to take those kinds of messages and bring them to awareness. You can hear this in such examples as a person saying, “I know I didn’t live my life as well as I could have, but at least I’ve taught my children about patriotism, and to do right by their fellow man,” and, “I have tried to leave a better world for my children.”
Above the Line of consciousness, such statements are simply irrelevant. They are neither good nor bad; they simply do not exist. It is not that a more vertically extended person would not love his children, but he would see that such a statement, such a story about an ordinary man living a conscious, willful life, continually thinking about leaving something better for his children, is a lie. It is an illusion. Of course, below the Line of consciousness, it is not an illusion, so it is reality. But, above the Line, it is illusion. It does not exist in the nervous system above the Line.
The sense of patriotism, of allegiance to family, job, clubs, whatever, arises from the Red Circuit, and is interpreted and put into words by the Yellow Circuit. It may come out all the way from a feeling of “I’m going to defend my country,” to “You can’t talk about my football team like that in front of me.” The reality of such statements exists in the quiet region of the Red Circuit, the physiological area of man, and it is the same kind of reality as a man saying “At least I have left a better life for my children.” Remember, this is in no way an attempt to ridicule the foibles of humanity. There is no such thing. I am telling you to look in the direction of the Red Circuit so that you can see that what I describe exists in you; it exists in everyone below the Line of consciousness. You will see that the first job of the Yellow Circuit was to take that kind of information dealing with tribal connectedness, the herding together of people for safety, and bring it into awareness. It is the social aspect of humanity, and it is in you. Once the nervous system began to grow, part of the necessary relaying of energy was that the ordinary mind had to start talking about it. But it was no longer the feeling of the pristine physiological life of the body, so it came out as “I will die for my country.”
If I could somehow cut loose the upper end of the nervous system from the lower, and ask it about patriotism, it would not know what I was talking about. There is no such thing in the upper end of the system. Much of what seems to be holy and irrefutable will cause little trembles in everyone if I say I am dismissing it: for example, patriotism. Patriotic ideals are true in the lower circuits, but to the Yellow Circuit — the ordinary mind — they are not a reality. They are not ideals. In the lower circuitry, all ideals are the same.
Consider this example: everyone has a piece of the ordinary mind that can watch a television show, or read a magazine article about an apparent conflict going on between the East and the West. And you can say, “We ought to go bomb those people off the face of the earth and be done with it. We’d all be a lot better off.” This conclusion seems to be on the basis of some theory operating at the higher end of the nervous system. It seems to be some kind of logical outgrowth of a weighing of the facts, of your way of life against theirs. It seems to be a quiet internal discussion of ideologies and political systems. But that is not what is happening. There is a tension, but it is not in the Yellow Circuit; and if it comes to a war, then it is not over some theoretical idea. If there is a war, it means that there is a new kind of energy being transferred. Life keeps growing, and energy has to be transferred. If you picture Life as a big body, then it would be like blood flowing to a cut, and people would be like the blood cells being carried along in the flow. They would be carrying flags and singing patriotic songs and singing “Hip hip hooray, we’re going off for a great cause!” And some of them would be left there to grow new scar tissue on the big body.
As I have told you, there is nothing amiss, nothing wrong. People are not deluded. I want you to Neuralize that many of the currents passing through the Greater Reality of ordinary people will strike a note in you in the lower circuits; they will give you a tingle. Such ideas as: “There is a god,” “A man should live for his children,” “A man should be loyal to his town, his state, his religion.” But the tingle is below the psychological level; it is in the physiological level. That is where it is fed from. Part of the Yellow Circuit’s job is to translate this into words, to bring it to the awareness of man’s nervous system as it keeps growing.
There is something else I want you to Neuralize. There is another Line that absolutely exists, and though I could couch it in other terminology having to do with more ignited nervous systems and lesser ones, I am going to put it quite simply: there are those who know, and those who do not. It will strike you, if you can get close to the Line, that there are all kinds of people in the world who claim to know: gurus, religious leaders and so on. But they do not Know. Now here is what I am pointing out: to use everyday terms, there is an air of urgency about those people who claim to know. You can see it, you can feel it; there is a kind of intensity. You could apply the term “charisma” to such people. But it is simply a man being engaged below the Line. It can be present in anyone from an attorney to a politician or entertainer: anyone who gets up in front of a crowd of people and says, “I am somebody. I know something you need to know.” It is a very real intensity, and they are engaged with it because they don’t know what they are doing. Someone who truly knew would not be captured by that kind of Line-Level engagement. For such a person, it would have to be an act. He would have to fake the show biz side of such a presentation.
For a person to be involved with This Thing, there can be no satisfaction in living below the Line of ordinary consciousness. Down there the name of the game is suffering and frustration. That is the human condition. Remember, that is how it must be; there is nothing broken. But a man involved with This Thing cannot deal in those currencies. You cannot suffer; you cannot be satisfied to live there. To become ignited above the Line is not to in some way “fix” your mind — there is nothing wrong with it. And it’s not a matter of somehow “shutting it off.” Your mind is the background noise, the radio that is always on, the running static. There is no way to go back and straighten out your old self, or humanity. It simply becomes irrelevant.
Remember, the nature of existence below the Line is suffering and frustration, because that part is never finished. But one involved with This Thing cannot be engaged with this; you cannot suffer. You have no right to do so. You must have the irrefutable, objective suspicion that This Thing does exist, that it is not a matter of playing with words and pictures. You cannot become engaged with those words and energies about your health, growing old, or dying that will flow through you as mechanically as your breath. Never talk to anyone about such matters, including yourself. It is none of your ordinary mind’s business; all talk will do is make things worse. To become a participant in such as that is to be in the mechanical flow of suffering. It is absolutely unprofitable to deal in such verbal currency.