Time = Memory = The Apparent Negative Human Condition
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Summary
Jan Cox Talk #337 *Apr 28, 1988 * – 1:29
Notes by TK
The new data purpose/use of the “unjust accusation” (by guru to disciple) method: at Partnership (PS) level, one partner is always engaged in unjust accusation of the other. The Real Revolutionist can make use of this, can learn from it. He should suspect an extraordinary purpose when it is used on him by one-who-knows.
Time = memory = TANHC (the Apparent Negative Human Condition). Without memory (time) there are no uniquely human problems. No memory = no feeling of ambivalence. The Real Revolutionist chops off memory at the event in order to eliminate ambivalence. Not to think about a problem = no problem. Those who regret the past should not even (pop-up message) BOTHER WITH TODAY.
Man as defined by his behavior has progressed now to man defined as his motivation for his behavior.
Re: story of Masada. It is a near-suicidal Upper Circuit willfulness over Lower Circuit; this is the proper attitude of the Real Revolutionist]Goods/services topology. There is a new branch of endeavor: advertising; it is the talking/thinking about goods and services. This is especially true of the advertising that is very little related to the service/goods such as ‘concern’ for humanity by insurance companies. Daydreaming as advertising of the Partnership: the attempt to sell your stuff you don’t need. The Real Revolutionist doesn’t need advertising –he has no ambivalence; knows what he needs.
More on dumb king = more laws. The Real Revolutionist should resist this process in 3 ways: (1) discover what is really needed/wanted; (2) pursue it without talk; (3) don’t do what you don’t want to do.
First Stories. There is no supreme First Story (FS), i.e., genetic reality as FS, since man has no consciousness of his original genetic cause. The closest approach to the supreme FS for him is ‘gods’. There is no last story either (reincarnation). The Real Revolutionist understands the Real FS of genetic cause.
end 1:29
Transcript
TIME = MEMORY = THE APPARENT NEGATIVE HUMAN CONDITION
Copyright (c) Jan M. Cox, 1988
Document: 337, April 28, 1988
I am going to talk about something which I’ll describe first as a “method,” though like all good methods, this one has corollary data. The method is, “the unjust accusation.”
I have used this method on some of you individually, and other people in the past have attempted to use it in various ways. There have been would-be Zen schools and monasteries where the head honcho would unjustly accuse people, and they were, supposedly, in a position to learn something from that. Of course, when this is done to someone, they can’t be told it was done on purpose. So, none of you know if I’ve ever done it to you.
The purpose of describing this to you now has to do with new, corollary data available regarding this method. Consider all the possible ramifications of its use. You’re in a group, trying to learn something out of the ordinary, and the teacher — somebody you respected — suddenly turns on you and says, “Why didn’t you do that, I told you to do that last week? Why can’t I depend on you?” But you never had been told to do that. What do you do?
Consider all the possible possibilities of this situation. Can you see how this method could be related to the kind of accusations that go on continually within the Partnership? You are constantly, unjustly accused; not from some external source, but from within. What do you ever learn from that?
Jump back and forth from “in here” to “out there.” If somebody you respected accused you unjustly, you might think several different things. One is, “They’re not as smart as I thought they were.” Or, “They had a bad day.” Of course, both of those possibilities fall into the category of, “That person, at least temporarily, did not know what he was doing.” Another possibility: “This could be some kind of trick and the purpose is not obvious at the first story level.”
Let’s stop going over possibilities for a minute. Notice that within the human breast beats this little drummer playing rhythmic songs about the matter of “justice.” Whenever you are “unjustly accused,” you feel an immediate reaction within. You want to cry out for justice, “I didn’t do that! What you’re saying isn’t fair!” This immediate reaction occurs, even if later you may decide the accusation was a trick.
One thing a Real Revolutionist might notice when accused is, “Well, this feeling is not all that unusual. Every day I feel this way.” Every day you wake up feeling that somehow, from some unknown source, you’ve been singled out for blame, and you should find that interesting. The Partnership is engaged in a continual unjust accusation of the other partner. Consider what the Partnership does and what its primary dialogue consists of. Is it a non-ending source of helpful, encouraging information? All you have to do is be aware of what your own nervous system’s been telling you since the age of four to give the answer.
Assuming you catch a glimpse of what’s going on here, go back to this question: Why have you lived 20 or 30 or 40 years and never learned anything from these continual unjust accusations, other than to yell louder about “justice”?
If The Great Pooh-Bah of the Universe showed up tomorrow in Cleveland and agreed to answer all the complaints humanity has, you can be sure all the really important questions would be about the fact that life is not just. Some people might start off asking about the inequitable distribution of food and wealth on the planet, but all the complaints would eventually boil down to, “the unjust way I’ve been treated.”
Going back to “out there,” as far as you’re concerned, you are unjustly accused from apparently external sources continually. Many of you still suffer over apparent conflicts with your parents. “My father’s always bugging me, asking when I’m going to get a decent job.” “My mother says I don’t call her enough.” Can you see how all of that fits into the category of “unjust accusations”? The Yellow Circuit may have other terms: “My parents don’t understand me,” “My boss is always on my case,” “People are giving me a hard time.” But what this amounts to is somebody has a complaint about the way you are behaving. And all such complaints are — what? — say it altogether — “UNJUST!” You may have been thinking about how much trouble you have keeping a job, or that you should quit drinking soon, but as soon as somebody else points that out, it’s still unjust because… “You don’t understand the circumstances,” “You don’t know my life story,” (fill in the blank).
People in the city say they learn from all this. They say, “Your mother will drive you crazy,” “If you go to work for a high-powered company, they’ll stick their nose in your business all the time, that’s just the price you pay for a good job.” City people learn that kind of thing, but they learn nothing at all about unjust accusations.
There is a great deal to be learned, or I wouldn’t have brought up the subject. You can study “unjust accusations” everywhere. Someone can ask you an apparently harmless question — standing in line at the supermarket, somebody says, “Was this your place?” — and it’s an accusation, or they wouldn’t even ask. When the ordinary, run of the mill kind of accusations are not sufficient, people become religious. Religion is like the ultimate unjust accusation, because the so-called gods of every religion are superior beings who demand the impossible of man; that is ultimate injustice. The voice of the gods rains down on man and always says, “Tsk, tsk, tsk.” That’s the mild version; the strong version is plagues and floods, because, “You people are still not doing right.”
Everyone is continually subject to accusations that are blatantly unjust, but only a Real Revolutionist has the Understanding to point out, “Hey, how can you be surprised?” If you don’t learn from unjust accusations — if you continue to dance backward with them — you’re not engaged in revolutionary activity. Once you begin to get a taste for This, all the things you looked upon as the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in life are very useful. When you really get good, something ferocious and delightful can happen, like you’re undeniably, unjustifiably accused and you think, “What a treat!” You want to thank the person who accused you, because they shook you up for the day, and you noticed what was happening. What could be better than that?
One good thing about Life is that, just like Dominos Pizza, Life delivers. You don’t have to go looking; all you have to do is be alive and Life delivers. City people are complaining, “I’m always getting kicked around, stepped on and abused,” but for you it becomes, “Great! I don’t even have to leave the privacy of my own home — my own head — because Life delivers!”
Here is a new equation:
TIME = MEMORY = TANHC
(Time equals memory equals the apparent negative human condition.) Time seems to be the fourth dimension for man. Time is the continual backdrop against which everything happens and you are conscious of everything happening at the ordinary level.
There is another very simple and useful way to look at time. Time equals human memory, which equals the human condition. (I mean the ordinary human way of thinking about mankind’s condition, which is normally regarded as negative: being “unjustly accused,” “sick a lot,” “going to die,” “real depressed most of the time,” “kicked around,” ad infinitum.) Here is the simple part: Do you realize that, without memory — without a sense of time — there would be no perceivable human problems? At the lower circuit level, you have the “problems” of keeping yourself fed, keeping the planet populated, finding shelter, getting enough sleep. But those are needs, not problems, and they’re not really part of the so-called problematic human condition. These days, people do not worry, “When is the next time I’ll get hungry (or horny, or cold)?”
The kinds of problems that exist in memory and in time — what seem to be the uniquely human problems — are upper circuit concerns. All of those things people believe they need to be treated for, to solve, fall within the realm of the operations of ordinary memory, or there is no problem. If man had no memory, there would only be lower circuit needs. If you live in the city and you’re hungry, you don’t sit around and ponder — you to get something to eat.
Man — individually, collectively — would have no consciousness of his so-called problems if not for memory. This is simple and obvious, once you Hear it, yet no ordinary person ever realizes, “If not for my routine reliance on ordinary memory, I would have no personal problems.”
When I describe “memories of problems,” I don’t mean memories of the past; ordinary people have memories of the future. Consider that if you did not routinely rely on the workings of ordinary memory, you could have no feeling of ambivalence. In using that word, I’m using the language many of you use when thinking about problems. Of course you might remember, as was once pointed out, that all words basically mean the same thing. Being “unjustly accused” is synonymous with ambivalence, and everything that could be classified as a unique, upper-story human problem could also be seen as a form of ambivalence. When you have a problem, you think, “Well, I’m not sure, do I absolutely feel this way or not? What should I do?” Because if you absolutely feel one way or another about something, it’s no longer a what? Problem.
If you absolutely know what you’re going to do or not do, you don’t think about it at all. Assuming you’re sane and in the middle of the bell curve of humanity, you don’t sit around wondering if you’re going to stick your hand in the fire. You don’t worry, “Will I do that again like I did in the past?” Or think, “I’ve heard of people doing that, I wonder if I’ll ever stick my hand in fire?” You have no ambivalence about such things; they’re not a problem. What seem to be the problems in life, especially what seems to be your retro-memory of what’s happened to you — the way you’ve been treated or mistreated — those things that you remember — are subjects of ambivalence.
Nothing is a problem unless you have a feeling of ambivalence, a feeling of, “I don’t know what to do.” Someone in the city might say, “Well, that’s silly because you have to ponder your alternatives, you have to plan out what you’re going to do about important things in life.” But if you knew what you were doing, you’d know what you were doing. That is my kind of non-ambivalence.
A Real Revolutionist would use this situation of Time = Memory = The Apparent Negative Human Condition in such a way that his life — every minute, every day — would be almost a brand new life. This sounds insane to ordinary consciousness, but a revolutionist would almost completely chop off memory — it would be like sectioning off whatever had happened — and he would not care what doing that involved. Ordinary memory might involve your mother, your father, even your own children; but may I suggest cutting it off? When you do that, there is no ambivalence; if you don’t think about it, there’s nothing to feel ambivalent about. When you actually Hear this, your nervous system feels like it’s been hit with a 200 pound hammer, but it seems impossible to do.
How could you cut yourself off from memory — from thinking about time — from thinking about whatever you feel ambivalent toward. In the city, if you have a problem with your kids, you’re supposed to think about what to do. City people are supposed to worry about their children; humans interviewed from all walks of life will say their children are the most important thing in the world. That is one of the masterstrokes of Life, and part of Life’s own genetic makeup. Yet, you cannot have a problem, even with your own child, if you refuse to think about it.
A Real Revolutionist would not live with the feeling of ambivalence, even if that feeling way, “What should I do about my child?” I suggest to you, very strongly, that a revolutionist would be reasonable enough to give the kid one or two chances: “He keeps stealing, I’ve bailed him out of jail three times.” I also suggest that, after one more time, it would be cutoff time. If the kid gets arrested again, you just don’t ever think about him again. A Real Revolutionist does not dream the impossible dream or fight the unbeatable foe. He realizes that anything he feels ambivalent about, he cannot change, because the actual feeling of ambivalence is, “I do not know what to do.” He could not feel that way, if not for memory. So, when necessary, he cuts memory off.
Such notions as, “Don’t think about a problem,” are insane in the city. Everybody knows that just not thinking about a problem won’t make the problem go away. That’s true and not true. For city people, it’s true; but the only reason it’s true is that ordinary people cannot not think about the problem. Remember, whatever “problem” you have is a Yellow Circuit concern; just don’t think about the problem, and it will go away. That is, if you can not think of the problem, the problem just absolutely goes away. There is no problem.
This can sound complicated and touchy at first. “My son’s in jail in Sacramento right now, and he wrote me, and I can’t decide whether to bail him out again. In fact, I don’t really have the money, I’m going into debt; I can’t decide what to do.” The absolute cure, if you can do it, is to forget about him. Your son doesn’t have a problem; he’s simply alive. Life has no problem, but you have the problem of ambivalence. Your problem is not your son, but thinking about your son; your problem is having ordinary memory. You can cut off your problem. You can cut off all of the memory Life has placed in you, such as, “He’s my only son,” and “You don’t just abandon your children.” Most people cannot cut that off. A few people can.
I’ll admit this sounds, at the very least, questionable according to city sensibilities. But there are only two effective ways you can handle a so-called problem. One is that you know what to do: “All right, I’ll send the money and bail him out.” Not, “I’ll send the money and then I’ll give him a good talking to,” or, “I’m going to tell him I’ll only send the money if he promises not to do this again and to get a haircut,” or, “I’ll send the money, but how many times have I done this for him?” Routine consciousness cannot do anything without dragging out the “problem.” But if you’re not ambivalent, you just do whatever you’re going to do. Either send the money or don’t send the money — and that’s the end of it. Therefore, you don’t have a problem. Routine consciousness is dragging around a stinking sack of bones and scraps; you just drop the sack.
If you walk away from Western Union thinking, “I’ve sent the money, I wonder if he appreciates this,” you seem to be thinking about the future, but you’re still listening to memory. And, if you’re relying on ordinary memory, you’re still tied to the sack. You continue to run in what amounts to a circle of ambivalence: “I’m not sure what I feel about, what I think about, what I did.”
Come to think of it, those who are planning to regret the past and worry about whatever they did, probably shouldn’t even Bother With Today. I suggest to you that even those figures in history — past spiritual and religious heroes — who seem to have embodied human ideals of compassion were not bleeding hearts. They did not feel sorry because humanity is being unjustly accused; feeling that way is back to being ordinary.
What I am describing is not heartless and hard; I’m simply describing Understanding. You should not be concerned over the fact that rain falls. Life is going to rain on your mother and your father and your children; Life will rain on your whole race and, I hate to point this out, but Life will rain on you individually, personally, as well. Boy, is that unjust! There’s nothing you can do about the rain.
From one view you could look at history as being a progression of the way man looks at himself. (Trust me, history is not in books — history’s in your own nervous system.) Man has progressed from viewing himself solely as his behavior, to the contemporary idea of man as being the motivations behind his behavior. Until a certain point in his development, man did not really look upon himself consciously. He did not write about himself, sing about himself, or think about himself on the basis of “motivations.” Such concepts as romantic love are a fairly recent development in the history of humanity. In the past, the definition of a man was simply how he behaved. No one, at the time, wondered why Jason was so hard on the Argonauts. Nobody asked whether Alexander the Great was so overbearing because his father never gave him quality time as a child. The concept of and interest in underlying “motivations” did not exist. History could be viewed as the progression of man’s development of such concepts and the ability to look at himself as more than his behavior.
There is an old Mideast story about the city of Masada, built high up on a cliff, which was attacked by the Romans from below. The citizens of Masada were fanatical, almost suicidal, in their resistance of the attack from below. I could give you a revolutionary version of this story from so-called history. Consider why the upper circuits would be so determined, so willful as to be almost suicidal, when confronted with the motivations and attempted behavior of the lower circuits. I don’t mean externally, “out there.” Consider a person who makes the decision, “I will not be driven around by my sex organs,” or, “I will not be driven by my apparent greed for money.” This amounts to, “I will not be driven by anything that is not part of the upper circuitry — my own willful decision.” In the story of Masada, the Romans were down below the city shouting, “Give up! Come down! We’ll starve you out! We’ll build a ladder and once we get up there you’re going to pay!” The citizens held out against all threats, and when the time came for them to “pay,” they simply jumped off the cliff. That would be the kind of attitude a revolutionist would have, if he knew what he was doing.
As long as you are still giving in to the dead end demands of the lower circuitry, you are still part of ancient history, still living at the time when man was judged and identified himself on the basis of behavior. People in the city admit weakness by trying to pass it off as self knowledge: “I’m getting better because now I can admit that I should have done so and so, even though I gave in like always and did so and so.” Is this proof that you’re making progress? Ask yourself, “Is this the first time I’ve ever done that?” If so, I’ll buy it.
You can see the progression from men being their behavior to men being something other than their behavior as a description of moving from lower circuitry predominance to upper circuitry rule. Man now has a new, upper circuit prince; there is at least a burgeoning form of royalty in the system, and the royalty claims, “Here we are up at the top, in charge, great and glorious!” Then suddenly, a man gets horny, or he gets greedy. And we all know what happens.
This is not an attack on humanity. But for a revolutionist to give in to the dead end lower circuits is a form of suicide. The lower circuits have gone as far as they can go; they do their job and make their demands. But when the Romans yell, “Come down!” if you think, “Yes maybe I should,” you are surrendering; you’re thinking about what to do, relying on ordinary memory, feeling unjustly accused and ambivalent.
The only way the newly formed royalty in you can operate is if you have no feeling of ambivalence. A Real Revolutionist’s attitude toward the Romans could be summed up in two words — or even in one word: “Pfffftt!”
Remember when I asked you to Neuralize — as a springboard for additional, topological curiosity — why, no matter how much money or time or interest you have, in whatever endeavor you attempt you can only do two things: offer goods or services. In a sense man always deals in services, since Life provides the goods, but from the 3-D view man appears to deal in goods and services.
Let’s take this further. Consider that apparently man is now operational in another area which is neither goods nor services: advertising. This is almost a third type of endeavor, and advertising is a primary activity of the Partnership, which relentlessly talks to itself about what you may or may not do. Also Consider that there is a particular form of advertising that many people find particularly offensive: the type where there seems to be no doubt that the advertisement is absolutely, totally removed from whatever goods or services are being advertised. For example, I recently heard of an insurance company which hired a Madison Avenue agency to design a campaign based on a pitch about how much the company cared for mankind. The ads had nothing to do with insurance; they said something to the effect, “We care about our fellow man.” Yet for a moment, you can listen to the ad and almost think, “Thank goodness for insurance, I’d feel bad if I didn’t have any.” The ad may be successful, but the content of the ad has nothing whatsoever to do with the product or service being offered. And there are parts of Life’s body which find this type of promotion distasteful and annoying.
Remember, I’m not talking about advertising “out there.” In the newer, upper circuit functions — inside the Partnership — advertising is removed from the lower circuits’ real interests, needs and wants for goods and services. The Partnership is talking about services, without really being involved in them; the upper circuitry is describing goods, trying to sell you stuff you may or may not need.
On this basis, what makes people get up in the morning? It’s the internal advertising, which may or may not have any direct connection to the proffered goods and services, that is, the lower circuits’ absolute needs. The lower circuits get up because you have to eat, or go to the bathroom, or put on some clothes to stay warm. But what makes you get up beyond that? Why don’t you just get out of bed, go to the bathroom, get a piece of toast and a blanket, and go back to bed? Advertising.
Advertising is not goods or services, but something else. The Partnership relies on incessant advertising, though you call this “talking to myself,” “planning the day,” “thinking about what to do.” I submit to you that a Real Revolutionist, if he took over a city, would tear down Madison Avenue and execute all advertising representatives. Anybody who knows what they are doing doesn’t need advertising. When you know what you need, you don’t even look at advertisements. Remember, I’m not talking about advertisements for insurance and toilet paper.
Let me connect this to something else, at least verbally. I recently pointed out that dumb kings incessantly propose new laws; the dumber the king, the more new legislation. Do you Understand that you should not be doing that to yourself? Continually proposing new laws is a form of unjust accusation, a form of advertising, a form of continual, unnecessary flagellation. People are supposed to do this, and most of you can’t immediately stop; but you can resist in three ways. Rather than allowing the dumb king (which is you as you ordinarily are) to continually propose new laws, you should (1) discover what you really want and enjoy; (2) pursue what you want without unnecessary thought or talk and don’t discuss the matter even with yourself; and (3) simply do not do anything you don’t want to do. Don’t let the Partnership continue to propose what should be done and how it should be done.
The people — “in here” or “out there” — are continually submitting to somebody and dancing backwards. The people cannot do what I’ve enumerated as the three alternatives; they can’t discover what they really want, or even see a division between a want and a need. The people can’t pursue anything without thought and talk, and they certainly cannot refrain from doing things they don’t want to do, since they don’t really know what they want to do. The closest anyone in the city comes to knowing what they want is, “Well, I don’t really want to die.”
I’m going to wrap this up with something. Remember how I pointed out that Life has a first story for everything? A simple example of how a first story operates is, you ask your son why he didn’t clean up his room and he says, “A monster came in and messed it up,” and you say, “I don’t believe that!” So the kid says, “Well, my brother did it.” Similarly, Life has a first story to explain everything. Often, the reason appears to be “other people.” Sometimes the reason seems to be you, or your memory. But Life has a first story for every accusation, every inquiry.
Life’s supreme first story is this: That there is no supreme first story. What the story amounts to is, “There is no original, genetic cause.” Life’s supreme first story says that all humans came in at chapter two; that man entered during the second reel of the movie. The first story from Life is, “There is no first story.”
In a sense, Life is saying, “There is no first story that you can comprehend.” You can use the Yellow Circuit to be aware of the fact that there is no consciousness in humanity of genetic determinism as it relates to man. In Chapter Two man started talking about “the environment” and believing there is an “out there”: “You’re unjust to accuse me; the reason I’m like I am is because of what happened to me out there!” This is another way of saying, “Whatever happened to me happened in Chapter Two and there’s no first chapter.”
There is no consciousness built into man of a first story. The closest Life has let man move to this is the idea of gods. “All right, there was a first story, but it’s beyond our comprehension.” Even the “big bang” seems to be so far removed from humanity as to be incomprehensible. So, in general, there just is no first story.
Do you see what a stroke of genius is involved in there being no first story. For one thing, using the old 3-D mind, if there is no first story, then that means there is no real last story, and, “When I die I won’t actually be dead.”
You are not wired up to see the first story, but there is one: the big bang is in your nervous system. The gods — whatever gods might be — are right there now, along with the terror of dying and the mystery of being born. This story is not Understandable through any means by ordinary consciousness. Yet, the story is there.
The fact that, out in the city, there is no first story really takes a load off man. City people are always dealing with the dichotomy of “me” and “out there,” “me” and “unjust accusations,” “my behavior” and “the motivations behind the way I behave.” With any degree of Understanding, that dichotomy dissolves. This is a flawed description, but given any understanding, the first story could be ad hoc-ly described as being the 3-D original genetic cause.
Even an ordinary man will admit, “Yes, everything in life runs by instinct.” Then he’ll add, “Except man.”