Applied Medevesqo
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Summary = See Below
Excursion / Task = See Below
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Transcript = See Below
Diagram # 153 video grab
Summary
Jan Cox Talk #325 ** Mar 17, 1988 ** – 1:47
Notes by TK
“Medevesqo”: cure by inquiry. Treatment thru scrutiny. Medevesqo is a continuing opportunity for The Few; the mere looking into a problem solves it. Not ‘thinking’ about it, worrying about it, because these are not different from the problem. Must use true inquiry, investigation. Consciousness is a dichotomy of problems and thinking-about-problems.
The Real Revolutionist should find this topology interesting. Imagine consciousness as a huge smooth surface where problems appear as ‘lumps’ pushing up from underneath. These lumps can be moved around; they are processes, not nouns as everybody takes them to be. Problems are ‘errant expectations’. The ‘smooth surface’ expectation/ hope of consciousness is the dream of paradise; featureless stimulation. At the cellular level a real, bonafide problem would be ill health, but at the upper circuit level it is the thinking-of-ill-health that is the problems reflection.
The Upper circuits can’t have ill health. The internal thinking of problems/conversation is a chemical re-feeding process, a neural cud chewing, which amounts to a chemical addition for personality homeostasis. Thinking of problems is what passes for ordinary consciousness. This Thing is the being conscious without thinking of problems; it is unnatural; has no foundation. If binary consciousness could do it, it would have no choice but do it. A river can flow only in its present bed; any other course is impossible or it would be flowing there without choice.
This Thing is a kind of ‘virgin birth’ (also, in the sense of giving birth to a virgin) not destined by the genetic heritage of your parents. It is a giving birth to yourself—without-problems. Such an entity would reverse the normal shame in the “do you make keys” question, i.e., make the partnership feel ashamed it didn’t make keys!
Topographically out of the 3-d: anything that is taken seriously by everybody is absolutely ridiculous. No exceptions! Everything you take seriously at line-level is ridiculous! Anything you have a feeling about –that is interesting to you in life –should be approached in a two-prong fashion: you must simultaneously have every possible feeling about it (positive and negative) and have no particular feeling about it. You must have all feelings in order to have the option of having none. ‘Stoicism’, the not-caring-about approach is a limiting of choices.
There is an extreme simplicity to This that requires a complexity to be able to see/use. For instance the extreme simplicity of ‘all human problems are habit,’ and ‘all is one’, can’t be stated outright with effect, without a receiving audience of proper horizontal complexity/foundation. It is simplicity itself, period.
You can’t condemn anything for doing its job. Anything you can perceive is doing its job perfectly. Condemnation arises from flaws of perception. Everything is alive and performs its function for Life.
Four unfit hobbies: health, romance, money, worry.
The Real Revolutionist will never sacrifice himself for another because it’s impossible anyway! A great First Story: “if you put yourself first in a relationship, it is bound to fail”. The agreement with this ACBI ( Apparently Correct But Impossible) puts a civilizing chill on the Lower circuits but doesn’t change the fact that it’s impossible.
Reading of Code of Conduct 1:54 to 2:05.
Excursion
1:47 Epilog excursion: stop something that hurts you, write it down, turn it in, and stop it completely. Also, take two 20 minute walks to observe the re-feeding process of internal dialog. ]
Transcript
APPLIED MEDEVESqO
Copyright (c) Jan M. Cox, 1988
Document: 325, March 17, 1988
To begin, let me ask: Have any of you figured out just what in the hell this is all about?
I want to tie something I have mentioned previously with some other things which should be of very practical interest to you, if you have any practical interest in yourself. My word Medevesqo represents a certain process which is known in life but is not recognized as a singular, useable phenomenon. Although they are really the same, I’ll give you two definitions of Medevesqo. It is CURE BY INQUIRY. At the very least it is TREATMENT THROUGH SCRUTINY.
Medevesqo is this: you have a problem with your automobile or stereo, so you take it in to be repaired. They check it over and tell you they can’t find anything wrong with it. So you pick it up and bring it home…and it’s fixed.
This happens continually. It is not recognized as a singular process in the City; that’s why they do not have a name for it. But I am telling you otherwise. And it does not happen through the work of demons and little green people. There are many things in life that are subject to Medevesqo, if you know how to do it. It does not require what you ordinarily think of as actual operations or remedial action. It is simply the looking-into-it.
You do realize that I’m not going through this to simply talk about the repair of electrical equipment. It is an assumed fact in the City that if you’re going to work on yourself, you have to have a knowledge of methods, or find someone who does — a priest, a guru, a psychologist. You should know by now that such an approach is open to grave vistas of disappointment. What I’m telling you is that you are continually confronted with opportunities to use Medevesqo. There is nothing sacred in regard to it. If you have anything that to you is a problem, you cannot now ignore this singular piece of information. You can cure a problem by simply inquiring into it: but you’ve got to understand what inquiring is.
It’s not thinking about the problem — it’s inquiring into the problem. Problems will withstand worry, because they are the same thing. But problems will not withstand scrutiny. You’ve got to take the top off the stereo. You’ve got to at least look under the hood and bang on the engine, even if you know nothing about automobiles. I had a friend in the TV repair business, and he told me that the majority of faulty units brought to him would work fine after he gave them a good slap on the side. He had never heard of Medevesqo, and I didn’t talk to him about it. But I want you to understand that it works out in life, and you have been subject to it.
You have got to exercise Medevesqo. You cannot put it off.
I said I was going to tie this with something. I have spoken before about what appears to be one of humanity’s singular talents: humans can act, or they can think about acting. Along with Medevesqo I want to show you something else. There are problems, and there is thinking-about-problems. At the ordinary level of City consciousness there is no need for this distinction; it just blurs like everything else. It’s irrelevant and unnecessary for City life.
Picture consciousness as a huge smooth surface. Picture it at rest, just after a good fuck or a good meal. Or just early in the morning after you wake up. A smooth surface. Now, everyone talks about problems. Everyone takes them to be a “something”: like a cumquat or a shoe or an automobile. But how about this instead: a problem is like a lump coming up under a smooth surface.
Suppose you buy a battery at Fred’s Automotive World, and it doesn’t work. You’ve now got a problem, and the problem is obviously the brand new inoperative battery, right? Don’t be too hasty. You go back to the store and walk up to the front desk, and you begin to rant and rave because it puts you at a great inconvenience. You go into a tirade about the shoddy goods in today’s world. The clerk listening to all this thinks for a moment that she also has a problem, until she spies the manager and tells you to talk to him instead because it’s not her job. Of course, maybe it IS her job, but as you go off to rave at the manager, her smooth surface has gone back to being smooth.
You went somewhere else, and it’s like you carried the problem with you. Not the battery. The problem. The problem is not simply a faulty battery, because this problem can apparently be pushed around. You pushed it up to the clerk, and then she pushed it up to the manager. What I want you to see is that no one has ever analyzed, in a spatial sense, what a problem is. A problem is not a something. A problem is an errant expectation. It’s not the battery, it’s the disappointment of your expectation that the battery would perform. And I assume you know that I am not just talking about a god damn car battery. That’s not the problem in your life.
Errant expectations. What is your personal problem? Does it not fit in? Whatever it is — lack of success with the opposite sex, or finances — it is a lump contrary to the smooth surface. Also note, what is consciousness wired up to expect heaven to be? It’s a place where you go, and there are no lumps. It’s a place where you go, and it’s all smooth sailing. Never a discouraging word. No buffaloes on the range; not even in the house. No lumps to come up. No batteries that don’t work. No stereos that go zzzzz. No arguments, no fights. Not only no untoward stimulation: NO stimulation. All expectations realized.
That is paradise. What would that do to ordinary consciousness if it was possible here with you now? Brain dead. We are talking about what would amount to a flat EEG. Your consciousness would be outside the realm of 3-D spatial reality. You’d have no problems, and no thinking-about-problems.
To get more specific, consider the Lower and the Upper circuits. To the Lower circuits, ill health is a potential real problem. But the thinking part of Man does not get sick. It doesn’t get arthritis or throw its back out. And believe it or not, it doesn’t have headaches, because it doesn’t feel. The younger circuits are engaged in thinking of problems. The older, nonverbal circuits could have a real problem, but limited almost entirely to matters of actual health. How could you be civilized and not have both? How could you be conscious and not have both? Can you even conceive of NOT thinking about problems?
In everyone there is a continual internal conversation. It isn’t psychological; it is quite material. It is thinking of a limited number of things over and over and over, and it is no less than a constant neural, chemical feeding of one’s brain — the same meal time and time again. You are setting up what is taking place. An idee fixe is not a psychological problem, it is a chemical reality. You feed your brain the same chemical connection over and over. To a Real Revolutionist, that is the dangerous chemical addiction. It is slow murder. Under all general circumstances you are, for all intents and purposes, dead by the time you reach 21.
One of the describable purposes of this feeding of your brain (to which you are a passive bystander) is to hold you together. To keep you where you are; to keep you being “we.” To keep “we” being, apparently, “I.” What if it were not that way? You would not know who you were. By City definition you’d be insane. You would give insanity a whole new meaning, as a matter of fact. Nobody could live long enough to count your multiple personalities. Every time you fired off another thought, you would be a different person. You would be doing what I have said is one description of how to do This: never think the same thing twice.
Of course, that’s for someone who can do it on purpose. If it were accidental, it would be a sight to behold.
The thinking-of-problems is what normally passes for consciousness. It is seen as a desirable if not potentially achievable goal to just get through the day…to get one’s desk straightened out. To smooth the lumps out one more time. There is a way to be conscious that is not lumpy, but it is absolutely unnatural. That’s why much of This seems to be talking around the edge of something. You cannot address ordinary consciousness directly and tell it about being conscious in another way. If it could hear it, it would be doing it. (If you tell a river about the possibility of shooting off into a tributary, if it were possible it would do it. The river would have no choice; it would shoot off into a tributary.)
To be conscious without thinking about problems requires that one activate the nervous system itself into an area that in a sense has no solid foundation in right now. That is why This is not a cure for anything. That is why This does not, in a sense, “answer” any questions. I can answer the questions, but the verbal answers become just another lump under the surface. There is no sturdy past to This. It has no foundation in the past; I don’t mean just the linear past, I mean your past. It is like an internal virgin birth: the birth of a virgin. The birth of a creature (to be partially facetious) which springs out and nonverbally says, “Where the hell am I?”
It is not something that is genetically ordained. (If you have any potential in This, whether you recognize it or not, you came from an unusual combination of genes from your father and mother. You are out on a strange limb in the great tree of life, but it does not guarantee anything.) You have to give birth to yourself. When I say virgin birth, do you catch some of my insinuation? It is almost an alien, except it’s in you. The most alienated part of it is that the son-of-a-gun has no problems. It has no questions. But compared to the ordinary level of consciousness it has an all-seeing eye. Such an eye can look in on your ordinary consciousness and nonverbally say, “Do you make keys?” In the City it would be assumed that one who asked that question at, say, a bridal shop or a funeral parlor would subsequently be most embarrassed. But do you see that when you have no history and no problems, that all-seeing eye could ask the undertaker if he “makes keys” and the undertaker would be ashamed that he DIDN’T?
While I’m here, let me point out something else. Anything that everybody else takes seriously is actually ridiculous. That is not a criticism of some flaw in humanity. But it is correct for a Real Revolutionist. If you know how to use it, it’s a shortcut which will get you past a whole lot of stomping through muddy fields and walking against the roads. No matter if it’s old or new, if it is serious to everybody else you can bet your life on this: it’s actually ridiculous. It is. If you can begin to get a whiff of that, look at the time it will save you.
Here’s a possible example. Someone tells you about a brand new book containing some brand new spiritual or psychological idea. And it’s the hot new book going around. If everybody else is taking it seriously, save your money. Whatever it is. There is no exception to this. None, none. If you begin to even laterally get outside the absolute hold of ordinary consciousness, you will see that those things which are serious to you are actually ridiculous. I guarantee it. No conditions.
Now let me see if I can spread this out in two or three directions.
You have feelings about that which seems to happen to you in life. That is, the numerous little bumps and humps under this otherwise hoped-for smooth surface of consciousness. If you don’t, then they are actually non-happenings; it gets into the area of E possibilities. The irrelevant. You have a feeling about something, positive or negative, or to you it’s not actually a happening. To take a proper Revolutionary approach, what you need to do is to have EVERY POSSIBLE FEELING ABOUT SOMETHING and at the same time, NO PARTICULAR FEELING AT ALL. You have to have both of those, not just one. But note, in the City, and left to your ordinary devices, you could not naturally have either. Either one sounds impertinent, insane, or irrational. Does that about cover it?
In a sense you have to present to yourself an infinite menu and simultaneously have no particular taste for anything on the menu. Ordinary people have talked about the stoic attitude: the attempt to be immune to human emotion. Probably most of you have thought, “Boy, wouldn’t it be nice if I didn’t have any feelings?” Of course, the only time you ever think it is when you’re in the middle of a heartbreak. It would apparently be the reasonable approach to pick out a negative emotion and attempt to counteract or still it. But that is to limit the menu to start with, and it will not work. You have to have all possible feelings about a happening, and not in some sequence. The only way to have no feeling in particular is to have them all.
I started by asking, does anyone have any idea what the hell This is about? I can at least remind you one more time that in a sense This is simplicity itself. The problem is that you have got to be more complex, dimensionally speaking, than you are ordinarily, to ever be able to confront and to use simplistic data. As much as I apparently get caught up in — shall we say — obtuse conversation, and you’re not sure where I went, behind it all is simplicity itself. That simplicity cannot be confronted by ordinary consciousness. I have pointed out, for instance, that the way things are is the way things tend to stay. I elaborated at some length on that theme, and then told you that what I was talking about is habit. But I cannot really hold anyone’s attention with such a simple approach. Who would pay to hear that the inability to change, to know more, to do better, to try and make any real movement, is due to habit? Not demons, not the subconscious, not cosmic forces. Habit. Who would climb stairs to hear that? People would cry, “Fraud! Everybody knows about habit!” But everybody does not know. They know about things like smoking, poor posture, and slang. The real habit is you being you. The habit is being human.
This simplicity is like going into another wonderland. Consciousness smooths out on a brand new level that is almost childish. I say that the ordinary level is habit. Assume that I am telling you the truth; that I am conveying new information as much as I can. To simply see that all the world’s problems, the fighting, the shadowboxing, is habit…would you not agree that would be somewhat of a surprise? To undergo some kind of rigorous breakthrough and to simply see that the name of Life is habit…
When you reach a certain complexity wherein you can feel everything possible for you to feel about something, and you can think everything possible for you to think, then that kind of complexity reaches a point and it’s as though suddenly you realize: “How simple.” The world’s literature is replete with descriptions of that simplicity, but then the accidental recipients of such an experience go off into all kinds of other tangents. People here and there will say, “I suddenly realized that we’re all one (comma) and how this fits in with the Hindu (Jewish, Christian, Buddhist) religion.” And then the experience and the sight are gone. But it is all alive. There is no “out there.” There is no place to put a comma after such simplistic sights as “We’re all one.” To put a comma is to make it three-dimensionally complex again. The nervous system then tries to explain “what it is that I saw.”
But notice, along the way with This, I have given you very little to hang on to. That is, if you activate your nervous system you will have nothing to “explain” it with. You will not suddenly become a religious convert or a follower of me. That is the virgin birth. On a new level it would be, “We’re all one. Period.” You can’t take any baggage with you, and I don’t mean that as a moral statement. If you get there, you won’t have any. Otherwise, you get a glimpse of something and it wears off. It’s no more than drugs; you cannot keep it.
While I’m here, see if you can see the connection in this: you cannot condemn anything for doing its job. Any time you have a single feeling about what happens, it is always in some sense a condemnation of somebody or something doing its job. Within the sphere of civilized behavior in the City, the lower circuits are meshed with the upper circuits. The upper circuits put a kind of chill on the lower. There is inherent in that a continuing condemnation of things doing their job. But there is no way for anything to do its job improperly. If you do not have every possible feeling about a thing, there is always a fifty-fifty possibility that you will believe it is malfunctioning. And it’s not. If it is functioning, it cannot malfunction.
What CAN malfunction is your perception. Things are either functioning or they’re dead, and any adjective you apply to the functioning is simply a flaw in your perception of it. It is bad enough, from a Revolutionary view, to believe that nouns exist. But to believe that adjectives exist? You are draining all possibility of even a lateral expansion if you have faith in your (or anyone’s) condemnation of things doing their job. Everything is alive. And if it is alive, it is doing its job.
If you can begin to see that everything is alive, then you can begin to see that problems are not things. This paper is alive; so is this ink. Everything between you and me is alive. If it were a dead medium, you could not be reading my words. If you had some conception of that, your idea of problems would be a whole new simplistic ball game. I’ll put it this way: you wouldn’t have any problems.
This is a good place to mention something else. There are at least four specific unfit hobbies that I want to tell you about, point blank. Four unfit hobbies are health, money, romance, and worry. Those are absolutely unfit. Forget cocaine addiction or martinis. I don’t really talk about unfit hobbies all that much, so I’ll expand on this just a bit more.
Recall that I’ve pointed out that if you’ve got a broken leg, you should go to a doctor and have it set. But beyond immediate needs like that, you simply have to find the level of minimal health (for you) and after that, forget about it. That is what I mean by my little motto, “Fuck health.” I’m telling you to reach that level, and that’s about it. Then there is no hobby. There is no ambrosia which will make you more conscious, and you certainly do not need to monitor your blood pressure. TV advertising is full of it. It is not some Madison Avenue conspiracy; it is the nature of City life. Medicines, low cholesteral margarine, and the seven early warning signs of bubonic plague. But people do not die prematurely. Nobody dies before their time. Everybody dies right on the dot.
In the City it doesn’t matter. But for you, health is not a fit hobby. Or else you’ll never get anywhere with This. If you’re satisfied with worrying about being healthy, I don’t know how you can stand to listen to me.
All right, what about money? As important as it seems to be, I am telling you there is a minimal level with finances also. If you truthfully believe you have a continuing problem getting through life financially, you don’t belong in This. “It’s hand-to-mouth, hand-to-mouth, I don’t know how I’m going to make it…” All you’ve got is a god damned fucking hobby. That’s your hobby instead of worrying about being sick. Are you broke? Are you thinking about being broke? The minimal level is to feed yourself and keep a roof over your head. If that’s a problem to you, all you’ve got is a god damn hobby. And it’s a City hobby. It has nothing to do with your own welfare, no matter what you think. If you think that there is a conspiracy to keep you poor…well, I thought you knew that. There IS a conspiracy, and not by humans. But there is nothing to keep you from living and functioning at the minimal level.
With romance it is the same. Romance is a hobby for those who feel that “love is a hurting thing.” That is no fit hobby. A Real Revolutionist will not hurt for anybody. You are hurt bad enough by being alive. You are going to be killed sooner or later, plus you’re going to be sick along the way.
Since it is impossible, a Real Revolutionist will not sacrifice himself or herself for anybody. I saw a good First Story on a church marquee. They have some great ones on those thirty-five dollar, real gaudy-looking plastic signs that only the protestants seem to utilize so beautifully. It was, “If you put yourself first in a relationship, it won’t last.” In the City, that’s all right. But do you understand, that is just absolutely, mathematically bull shit? It is mathematically impossible. If you didn’t put yourself first in a relationship, what the hell would you be doing there? I’m not being funny. It is not humanly, chemically, and mathematically possible to be in a relationship without putting oneself first. That is simply the nature of man, lions, possums, trees and bees. The life force itself is such that you must put yourself first, or there is no relationship.
It is another example of how Life puts out First Stories, and it amounts to putting a civilized chill on the lower circuits. If the lower circuits could talk and hear it, they would fall over and roll in the mud laughing. “You mean I’m going to see something I want to eat, but I won’t eat it because I want to eat it?” Also notice, what relationships DO last? Death is going to catch everybody whether they are in a relationship or not.
What this civilizing chill amounts to is the feeling that you should be sacrificing yourself. Not only that you should — and here is the tricky part — but that you can. That is why I said that since it is impossible, A Real Revolutionist does not. You are done for if you believe you can sacrifice yourself for a loved one. It is a form of hobby, and it will keep you right where you are. If you believe that you must go see your mother (for example) even though all she does is berate you and you end up arguing, that is not a sacrifice. You are not helping anybody. You will not feel good about her when she dies. You haven’t done any harm, you’ve just done nothing.
But as far as attempting to do This is concerned, you have done something. By trying to sacrifice yourself you have helped bleed yourself. You helped waste your time. You pursued a hobby which had no payoff.