The Purpose of Anything: It’s Essential or It’s Entertaining…
AKS/News Items = Not yet ( Kneeded )
AKS/News Gallery = Not yet ( Gneeded )
Summary = See below
Diagrams =
Transcript = See Below (ck edit)
Summary
#656 * Jun 4, 1990 * – 1:10+
Notes by TK
Kyroot to :06. What is the purpose of This Thing? To need to ask means you will never understand it. What is the purpose of anything? It would be covered in one of two categories:
the essential (sex, sustenance, security) and
the entertaining (i.e., the SL/secondary level).
It is only of this second category that the question of purpose can be asked; the purpose of the essential is moot. Note that the feeling, impressed in everyone by Life re: “lost way” and changing for the better is taken very seriously, while all purporting directives of guidance (i.e., religious, humanistic etc) demand the impossible and are therefore futile.
If Life has something like a sense of humor, wouldn’t this be a good example of it? This “serious” seeking is in the realm of entertainment, not the essential. This Thing too is in the realm of entertainment, although it is neo-essential for the Few.
1:03 Epilogue: Bits and pieces of Kyroots: “then there was this guy…” 1:13 end.
Transcript
656 T 6-4-90 (c)Copyright 1990 J.M. Cox
OK, alright, lets start off this way: assuming that maybe at some
time somebody will be seeing this on tape perhaps. The way we
are doing these right now at these tapings I am exercising no
control over where the tapes are going or what is going on, but
obviously they are being shown on some cable networks at least or
cable stations in some cities, because I just got a letter from a
viewer. It is not the actual letter but I am going to tell you
about the letter. The basis of the letter was this, that the
person said that they had seen several tapes such as we are doing
now and he or she — hell, you can figure it was a he —
expressed an attitude that, “I believe I might be interested”.
That was at least the tacit meaning between the lines, or else
why would they bother to spend postage and write me, but they
said that before they went any further with watching these
meetings, he wanted to know from me personally, he tracked me
down some way and got the address, he wanted to know what was the
purpose of this.
Now would everyone like to think about that again, after all this
time, “What is the purpose of This?” And as always, if I must
remind you people who may be seeing this at another time and
another place, this has nothing to do, no matter how the words
may sound, with sarcasm of any sort. But many of you by now, if
not all of you, should understand in some strange way, that if
somebody has to ask what is the purpose of This, there is no way
they would ever know.
I don’t mean that somebody could not have thought that or might
have asked that in the past, but by now some of you should have
your own view of the fact that if somebody is actually, in that
high end of the nervous system as far as it gets under ordinary
conditions, would see some of this and not just flip it through
and think it was some sort of insanity or I was about to try and
sell some kind of new car wash or wax, or I had a vegimatic in my
pocket.
If somebody actually saw this sort of thing several times and
lets just say found it interesting, just for a second, but then
their own mind, as driven my you know who says, “Well, I want to
go directly to this, to the source at least, and I want to find
out least I be misled, least I be fooled)” and he didn’t say
this, but I know how it goes, it was something in that area, “I
just want to find out, see if the man will admit it, what is the
purpose of This?”
It does not seem like an unreasonable question, at least to
ordinary people, but then I could ask you people to ask
yourselves, what is the purpose of anything? And along the kinds
of maps that we have been using and discussing of recent, I would
point out to you, using that kind of arbitrary, though useful
sketch of Life being divided into primary and secondary affairs
in the primary and secondary world, I have to point out to you,
when I say what is the purpose of anything, rhetorically, then I
will go ahead and rhetorically respond.
Everything can be divided into this, before we get into the
question of what might be this, or my rhetorical response to my
own rhetorical question of what might be the purpose of anything,
is to first off consider that you can quite usefully divide up
everything verbally into the essential and the entertaining, the
essential being the primary, the three great “S’s”: Sex,
Sustenance, and Security. That is essential if you are going to
live just at the minimal level, if you are going to survive as an
identifiable separate organism known as Hubert or whatever your
damn name is. And if your name is Hubert don’t write me. You
cannot copy-write the name Hubert.
It is either primary and essential or it is secondary and it is
not untoward to refer to it as entertaining. So to ask the
question what is the purpose of anything, what is the purpose of
a political party, what is the purpose in studying economics,
what is the purpose in having national boundaries, what is the
purpose in having hobbies, what is the purpose in fashion, what
is the purpose in reading fiction, what is the purpose in shining
your shoes, what is the purpose in having no shoes? If you ask
the purpose in anything, is first consider, I suggest, whether
what you are apparently questioning is essential, and if it is,
what else are you going to say? What is the purpose in eating
food? Not dining, not at the hobby level, but what is the
purpose in eating food? Anyone who would have to ask that, and I
am not inferring now to the gentle person who wrote me. Was that
dense?
But you do understand if someone had to ask what is the purpose
of eating, how long would you like to have to be a seatmate of
that person and have to engage in some kind of conversation — if
the person seriously asked, “What is the purpose in eating?” You
are doomed to start with if that was the way you were thinking
yourself. May I suggest I am sure glad you are the one who has
got to sit with you for the rest of this ride instead of me
because you are not going anywhere.
Then if you move to the area of what could be entertainment; I
chose the words as carefully as I chose any of essential and
entertainment, but if you are going to call it entertaining,
which I do not hesitate to call this sort of stuff. I guess at
least I can do this for the people writing letters and wanting
to know, not just the purpose, but, “What is This”, and even some
of the cities showing this, I guess we should go ahead again,
T.K.S., “this kind of stuff”. Of course looked at from a third
person, an outside party, I guess we should actually also note
that it would be in that case known as T.K.S., “That kind of
stuff”.
Well this person’s inquiry, I was going to see if you could not
tie into some of the things we have already been trying to talk
about of late. That good old idea that Life has implanted in Man
to varying degrees that they have lost the way, all the way from
an apparent religious basis of that, of being kicked out of
paradise, etc., to Man just seeing as though, “I am
psychologically ill at home, I have yet to find the right spot
psychologically where I should be standing in relationship to
other people, to my family, to my friends, and etc.
The most blatant external example to use, as always, at least up
until now we may not outlive this being an example, but it has
been your forefathers, the genetic secondary institution known as
religion. And you don’t have to be religious at all, but to just
have general knowledge that that has been the secondary
reflection of Man trying to find their way and it even still is
now with those that would assume that they were seeking some sort
of enlightenment or some sort of extraordinary, at least unusual
insight into Life outside the institutionalized structures of
religion. It would still be, I am not trying to prove a point,
but you should know even if the person claimed to be a humanist
or an atheist, whatever they are pursuing, if they were pursuing
some guru coming out of Pakistan wearing a Brooks Brothers suit,
the guy still, the continuity of Life’s genes in man is such that
he in some way would have to refer to the past and it would
eventually, if not one generation back, fall into the hands of
something resembling institutionalized religion. So you can’t
escape that in the city at the secondary level.
But I was going to try to get you to see on the basis of asking
what is the purpose of such and such, that Life makes men
consider this idea of finding their way, of just trying to be
better, self-improvement, jogging (it may be a crude form but it
is tied right to ideas that, ‘I have got to find my way, I have
to get on a better path, I have got to improve myself, that is
why we are here.”) the idea of either finding a path or
relocating the path that you think you have strayed from.
Consider how serious, without any analyzation, it is taken to be.
Absolutely serious. It is no form of humor. We have been
meeting here so long I guess you and perhaps even Not-you maybe,
some of you forget that it seems to be laughter laughter laughter
and since I am not really keeping up, I guess they are showing
these on cable somewhere, I don’t know if they have a block
listed as comedy for tonight, or that we don’t know what it is.
Back to what I wanted you to see, not that we are right and
everybody else is wrong, but finding the way, finding the way all
the way from, or course religious if you want to take it in the
true institutionalized sense, all the way from that to people
sitting in libraries reading books, studying philosophy, or even
just people sitting around taking drugs that believe they are
going to expand their consciousness and tune into Jupiter or
somewhere; this is serious stuff. People do not stand around and
laugh about that. They do not laugh about the gods, they do not
laugh about cosmic forces, they do not laugh about some increased
state of awareness. This is not funny.
Life makes it serious business, comma, but but but, I had to say
it, But if you look at all the directions that are available
ordinarily, the directions are always on the basis of apparently
offering instructions as to how to do the impossible. That is,
how to pursue some fool’s errand such as, (I will just take them
at random) any religion you want, or just from whatever the
latest cult was, if I knew, but how about, “Love your enemies”,
that this is the thing to do. And Life has a purpose for putting
that kind of energy in words and spreading it all over this
planet so that many people, religious and otherwise go, “Well,
how true, how true, how true”. But it is a fool’s errand’s
directive; that is, no one has ever done it, it is not common
currency.
People of any form of city sanity do not say;, ‘Yes, I can do
that”. It is more no the basis that, “That is an aim. That
strikes me even outside of religious context as being a quite
admirable dream and attempt we should make, but it is not
something that is a fait accomply any means.” So the combo
that I was trying to offer you as opposed to whatever Dave
Thomas’ newest menu treat at Wendy’s is, the combo is that Life,
(it is a BLT of some kind, don’t make me have to figure out on
the spot what that anacronym stands for in addition to that non-
kosher repast). But you have got Life making everyone believe
that, “I have lost my way.” Then, of course you have got to go
look for it, and then looking for it is serious business. Then,
all the directions left, all the religions, everywhere, the
directions are futile. They are directions to a fool’s errand.
Then it would seem that somebody here and there — I was playing
the part of being the somebody, would have to go, “Wait, just
how serious could Life be about this ‘finding the way’? That is,
if it is going to make me serious”, if I were speaking for
ordinary intelligence, that Life was going to make this to be a
serious undertaking, a serious matter of some consequence, no
matter how much time you apparently gave to it personally, but
that it is an all-encompassing serious aspect of life that we
should be finding our way and doing better. But then, not only
serious, but then to look and see that all the ordinarily
available directions are useless. Now I am not saying that Life
has a sense of humor as good as some of you people, because I
have a much harder time making Life laugh than I do some of you,
so we don’t really have to go in and try to make Life having a
sense of humor, into some crude anthropomorphic picture, but
assuming it had in its own way some form of a sense of humor,
could I suggest to you that this might be one of the places?
Now we have been through, or I have tried to get some of you to
consider, again, for you people on tape at some other time, is no
attack on any religion, I can just pick them out at random. But
you are so, and those of you getting good, it is not some sort of
cultural desensitization, it is the way Life is wired up is what
makes it real funny when I am about to point it out real quick
before some of you jump ahead, but think about the largest
institutionalized apparent structure, cache, of secret
information, direct connections to cosmic forces, the Christian
church, and the head of the Christian church, the thing that is
seriously supporting and helping direct people, and the leader of
it, picture the way he looks. Now you don’t normally laugh, and
we are not here to laugh at the pope, and I could pick out any
religion, but here comes the guy that apparently represents, if
not personally, that there are secrets somewhere, they are hidden
inside the walls of the Vatican, and each pope just before he
dies, gives a secret to the next one like, “Starboard is right,
port is left”, just that kind of thing, just, they pass along the
secret information all the way down from Jesus to Peter and on
down; whatever it might be.
But then look around just for a second, which you have already
done, just look around all the way, and I am not just picking out
that one thing, because where I was really going, or started
pointing with you was the intellectual side, that all the
information it has, all the rituals, the institutionalized wisdom
of the Catholic church, , the Jewish religion, Yogi Bear, Guru so
and so, all the information in the city, in-so-far as putting you
on the way that there is being actual information, of, “What I
want is something that will cure my feeling of slight irritation,
discomfort, give me some information, ease my mind, whatever it
is — all the information available amounts to very little more
than vague instructions to send people off on fool’s errands.
Now I would assume that most people that ever get involved with
T.K.S., this kind of stuff, or for those out there, ‘that kind of
stuff’, I want to keep that clear. I would assume that almost
everyone has gone through some little something that you tried to
talk to your priest, your rabbi, somebody that you thought
somewhere along the way was hoarding some sort of secret, knew
more than your father did, assuming your father was maybe the
archetype for Homer Simpson. But you figure there is somebody
somewhere that you could go up to and ask questions like, “What
is time”, or, “How do you know that right is starboard?” And you
go ask the people and you find out they do not know, they do not
know.
That was where I wanted you to start looking, but I was just
drawing it all out, that an easy way, if you needed an easier way
to then not only do they not know, which the whole structure is
based upon millions of all the religions, the followers assume
that it is known. The Christian church will assume that if you
were a good Catholic at least, and that part, that the pope is at
least in some way spiritually, obviously they don’t think in some
way genetically, it is not the bloodline going thru Peter and all
these popes, but in some way there is some kind of spiritual
connection going on and there is some kind of information there
that at least the pope, he knows what the hell is going on. And
of course he doesn’t, and that is irrelevant at the ordinary
level, but he does not in the whole sphere, the spectrum of going
from no institution knowing, all the way from that which got the
first laugh if you want it the easy way, that it is serious
business but they don’t know, but it real serious that you have
got to respect what is going on, the search to be a good
religious person is serious business if you take it serious and
most people do, even those not pursuing it.
Civilized people, at least do not publicly speak ill of other
religions now days, or at least if they do they regret it, “I
shouldn’t have done that.’ So it is all the way from taking it
serious, and what they represent, when they do not really
represent any real knowledge, any more than you have, all the way
from that to, if you look at it, just an attempt to be
coldblooded, that you turn around and here is this serious
business and every religion has their own version, but I pick on
the pope because he is most obvious, that this serious thing,
that, “All my life I have wondered because surely someone knows”,
and they say, “Get thee to a Nunnery, get thee to Rome and there
is somebody there with a direct line to a piece of the gods.”
And you get there if you didn’t know any better, and there is a
big crowd and everybody, you can feel it that there is some sort
of something in the crowd, of course there is a soccer match, but
there you stand outside Peter’s square and the door opens and
here comes this gentleman walking out dressed like the pope
dresses and you think, “This is it? This is the serious
business?”
I suggest to you, although you would not normally perhaps want to
refer to it as Life’s sense of humor, but that Life makes the
feeling that there is a search involved, that that should be the
proper, at least underlying purpose of a civilized man or woman’s
life, that this is serious and everything in life tells you it
is. There is no laughter going on in churches, synagogues,
temples, mosques. There are no laughs going on in any sort of
cult, metaphysical, new age, any sort of thing. There are damn
few laughs going in the bird watching society!
Groups get together. Now, they may later have a little social get
together, but whatever the purpose, it may be a library society.
It can be a charitable organization. They do not normally get
together and there is much laughter going on. They may want to
have a few laughs later, maybe open a little vino or something.
But lets do the business of whatever this is, the library
society, the red cross and whatever the business is, its serious
business! That’s a Kyroot for you. In the city, all business is
serious business! That’s why they separate, “lets do the
business” and bang the gavel and now “hey, lets relax awhile and
have a few laughs”. But all business is serious business!
How serious does Life actually intend that to be, that it makes
you feel that all this is serious and its almost a joke! I’m
just saying that sort of frivolously, to walk out and see these
people, these institutions made out of marble worth millions of
dollars. People there and then these other gentlemen, sometimes
ladies, but its mostly gentlemen come out dressed with curly
shoes and all kinds of things coming out of their head, making
signs and assuming you don’t break out and laugh and they beat
the crap out of you, and you later go back to them and say, “Now,
that was very interesting. I’ve never been to anything like this
and I have been searching, treading this planet, searching for
what I feel is some sort of mystical piece in me”. And the
priest or rabbi or somebody says “Good, my son, you came to the
right place. Good, good, good.”
And you still manage to suppress your laugh while he takes off his
little uniform and you say, “Well, what I want to know is, whats
the secret?” And you find out that he don’t know!
“Ah, don’t get into that, kid. Its good you’re here. Why don’t
you join up and come around to the meetings, but you can’t get
into that thing”.
“Would you know or not?”
“Ah, I don’t want to talk about it”.
And of course, they could if they went through some theological
colleges that at least they’re as literate the average person,
they might say something such as, “The mysteries of the gods will
never be known to man”, or “The mysteries of Life are not within
the bailiwick of the ordinary intelligence” and if you were still
eleven or twelve years old, you might go, “Well, that sounds
pretty impressive”. That, along with the fancy gold shoes and
filigreed underwear you’ve gone on.
Within that context, and I am only using religion as the time-
honored and Life still uses as the greatest attempted vehicle and
institution that seems to support, seems to want to direct, seems
to encourage man, as its supposed to, its tied to it, in the
belief that I am not actually on the right path and I should be.
I should at least searching for the proper path, a better path,
if not THE path!
But even those most deeply involved never give such a question as
this, as to whether what they’re searching for, even what they’re
attempting to do, which amounts to fools errands, that is, its
futile. The pope doesn’t know any more than the lowliest
supplicant showing off at a mass. He doesn’t know any more about
it than he does. But they do not even ask, even if they didn’t
use my terms. They do not even ask, “Is what I’m attempting to
do, is it on the basis of pursuing or searching for something
that would be essential, or is it secondary? Is it in the realm
of entertainment?”
Ordinary people take religion very seriously and several
definitions and connotations of the word, not just what I said.
They take it seriously.
But, now, back to the arbitrary division that we were mapping for
a second of things, everything, and human life being usefully
divisible into the essential and the entertaining. And if you
ask ordinary people, “All right, if that was a valid, or even a
theoretical division, where would religion fall?”
We’ll assume that 99 percent of all civilized people will say,
“Obviously essential. I’m not religious, but its obviously
essential to civilization and many people”, and blah, blah, blah.
But is it? Now, perhaps we should know one more time, that even
after dividing things into the essential, the primary and the
secondary, the secondary now is like neo-primary. Its like a new
version, its a new level of the essential. So, in one sense, it
is not running parallel, you’re going to have to get into trying
to push your intellect into the area of infinitely adjacent
because you could say that religion, among other things. I
could use fashion, the dining experience, romantic love as
opposed to sex. But lets say that religion is second, that you
could say that religion is secondary, that a man could live,
people have lived with no discernible religion. Then you could
say from another equally valid view, that civilized people, in
one way or the other, can’t seem to live without some notion of
it, and they’re both true.
It is as though that which is not essential, that is now required
for ordinary existence, is a kind of neo essential. But even
that not withstanding, you could not get an ordinary persons
intellect, if they followed that much just theoretically, and I
said, “But still, would you call religion, this search, this
feeling”, whether you want to call it religious personally or
not, if I was addressing an individual. “If you wanted to take
it in the religious context, or just more in a philosophical, an
intellectual, a sociological, a psychological context that we
could all be better and should be”.
The person said, “All right, I got that”.
“Would you consider that to be, if we used my little theoretical
division for a minute, would you consider that to essential or
entertaining?”
The ordinary intellect could not even deal with that! It could
make an answer, but it would not even understand that there was
any validity to the question. But if this seems to be getting
too oblique again, let me go back and give you, our, I’m making
it the regal prerogative including all of you, not just me and
him or her, that would be this and everything in life, from
religion to folk dancing. Its either essential or its
entertaining. One more time, parenthetically, the entertaining
could not be a form of neo-essential. But for the purpose of
looking at it in a particular way, you can always ask, “Is it
required for ones sustenance? Is it sex or is it involved with
security?”
Is it something other than the bare minimum to keep me alive? If
it is, I was suggesting it is useful to look at it as being
entertaining. I don’t care what it is! It could be religion.
It could be your feeling of romantic love, for those who write me
serious letters, that see these tapes. I don’t know why you
consider this essential and if you thought it was entertaining
and thought, “Well, wait a minute, this is weird entertainment
because I keep taking it seriously and then I laugh about it!”
Sue me. No, you don’t have to do that, write me. That’s even
worse. Nah, its not. I enjoy getting mail.
People, may we suggest to ourselves, that people that seem to be
attracted to this kind of stuff when it actually seems to be
existing, which is hard to say, but if it is, then I think it
might be not without some benefit to assume, to even operate on
the basis that those who might be attracted to this kind of stuff
might at some time, particularly in the beginning, be better
served if they are not tied to what might seem to be some
dogmatic set of methods or rituals and etc because then it
becomes institutionalized. Then worse than that, it begins to
make some kind of sense. It becomes episodic. It becomes
sequential and it can, of course, then become serious!
But I thought some of you might consider that even beyond not
being locked into some sort of directives or seeming to have a
serious specific operational intent that can be verbalized or
structured, is that if you just tried on your own to see that
there is a co-existence primary and secondary, an essential and
entertaining world going on within man and within the realm of
the infinitely adjacent. Its not one or the other. Remember,
its both. Neither, one or the other, and then some. It is co-
existing, but its not a matter of some kind of parallel universe.
Its not a matter of either/or and its not even a matter of dove
tails, much less duck tails. It does not even fit like that.
Its just neither, both, either one and then some.
But everything that ordinary intelligence would tell you without
any doubt, without any analyzation and with no support for this.
Contraire, everything else in Life is wired up to take all of
life, more or less, as being serious! That’s why we divide, whats
why men are driven to divide, they’ve got no choice, into work
and play. Nine to five and then later. Or, “Lets do our
business here and decide are we going to continue to call
ourselves the North American Stamp Collectors Association, or are
we going to call ourselves that name that nobody can pronounce?
Lets go ahead and take a vote so we can get through. We’ve got
some refreshments here. I know that Hubert brought in some
refreshments, so we’ll have some fun, but we’ve got to get
through with this! So whats the vote?
By and large the human nervous system takes Life very seriously.
Its always on the verge of dying at things. It has, as most
people, as we’ve covered before, think without any doubt, that
health is a reasonable hobby. At least its cheap to produce
media-wise, so it fills up a lot of space, but that health is a
reasonable hobby and that by and large, Life is serious. That’s
why avocations, a little fun here and there. It seems to be so
poignant to man, so important, a few hours a week or just a
couple martinis after work, just a little bit of fun, my god,
Life is such a drag anyway! And you don’t have to be
psychologically impaired, as they say in the city. You don’t
have to be particularly neurotic. It just seems like by-and-
large, Life is sort of an abrasive thing in which to be involved.
Life does not seem to be as easy and lubricated as, I started to
say, Trojans, but I won’t say that, but as people would like for.
At least you think you have lost your place or at least some of
you out there think I lost my place, now may we return to the
opening of tonight’s tape and point out that if Life had a sense
of humor, or anything resembling it, it makes you take Life, in
general, seriously, to such a degree that there is a clear
connotation, there is a clear, all right, definition, I shouldn’t
say connotation. Definition, in everybody, that you can tell the
difference between work and play. You know the difference
between something serious, even if its just serious to you, or
maybe its just serious to your wife. She drags you over to the
Petunia Growers Association every now and then and you may
personally, you may not sit there and laugh at them out loud, but
you may not consider it very seriously.
But you do understand this, that there is a clear definition in
everyone’s life, in the life of humanity between the serious and
the non serious, except they do not look at it, as I was
suggesting that most of you could see by now, a particularly more
profitable division verbally into the essential and entertaining
and to take the essential again as being just that which would
just minimally keep you the organism alive and then anything
else, I don’t care whether its petunias or Protestantism, its
entertainment.
But there is no support for this. There is no way that people,
and we’re not talking about some ordinary person back at the city
level that might be wired up in such a way that it makes
sarcastic vitriolic attacks on religion. We’re not talking about
that, we’re talking about the bell curve, the bouisee of Life via
man that would find Life in general to be serious, and
particularly anything that seems to do with, as they call it, his
spiritual life, trying to do better. So Life has got you doing
that and Life apparently has directions. It has always furnished
religion, it has furnished all the vedi mecums, the bibles, the
testaments, the words of the gods you could want, you could read
them. You’ve got sixty or seventy years, though you hadn’t
tried and you can read it and it will send you off, I know they
don’t say this in the churches, but they send you off on busy
work, fools errands!
How serious, if Life was operating at the crude level that the
ordinary intellect is, how serious can Life be about this?
And the man writes, and wants to know, before he goes any
further, “Whats the purpose of this?”
Well, I could have answered beyond rhetorically and wrote the man
or said it to the tape, if he ever saw it and say, “Well, do you
find this entertaining?”
And if he went “Yea”, then I could go, I hate to be a showoff
intellectually, but what else do you want? What the hell do you
want out of life? “Yea, but I keep suspecting that you’re up to
something else and I want to know what it is!” “Well, what are
YOU up to?”
So I’m glad we’re not smart alecks here. That would probably get
me a letter bomb back instead of another semi-sarcastic letter.
There’s four or five other things that some of you might be able
to tie up to this, believe it or not. That’s one good thing about
believe it or not, is it costs the same price! Except, of
course, the institutionalized version, you end up down there in
St. Augustine at Ripleys institutionalized version, they charge
you to go in there, just to look around at all these displays and
things on the walls saying “Believe-it-or-not!” and you pay ten
dollars to go in there and be asked to believe it or not! Look
at the big money you save watching these cable channels! Because
I’m pointing believe-it-or-not is everywhere and it costs the
same! Don’t go pay that money unless its a hobby! I don’t wish
them any ill.
But I was going to say that there are some further connections
that some of you may be able to make right quick.
To be able to see a kind of secondary, that is, entertaining, or
neo-essential world, existing not just co-existing, but co-
existing in the realm of infinitely adjacent. But there is no
way to directionally, to spatially say, “Well, this is it”, or
“That’s why you’re just saying that’s just the other side of that
or that’s around the corner”. Yea, but if you stop there, its too
bad.
But within the realm of seeing that its all a matter of being
infinitely adjacent, you might also grasp as an example of what
happens in a describable manner of things moving from the
erstwhile essential primary world into the neo primary. That is,
that which from one view can still be seen as secondary can can
be dispensed with, that if all the churches did cease to exist
just like that right now, we’ll assume that we could all still
live for awhile, that it would not literally kill you. Its not
going to happen and it would literally do something to life, that
the same would happen if we went and did away with all cocaine,
all anger, all jealousy.
But this kind of graduation. You can begin to see that if X is
called, is identified now as being Y, it not only becomes so, its
moving from a primary base to a secondary, to a neo-primary. If
X, whatever its called and identified, Life needs it for whatever
reason and moves it, at least here, not necessarily spatially out
there, but it moves from being X to being called Y. It not only
becomes so, but in the city, no one can remember that it was
every otherwise! Hence, I suggest to you, if you want another
way to look, is why such as ideas as not only religion, but the
ordinary city attempts to describe the structure of the human
psyche, the human psychological paradigm of an unconscious mind,
a conscious mind, an id, and an Iliad and a Homer and we’re back
to the Simpsons.
Once Life has had to, for its own reasons, make men call X Y and
it becomes Y. Then there are darn few who can remember, and its
not a matter of ordinary memory, there are few people who can
recall when it was otherwise and so now, when such things, its
not just the institution psychology or the science of psychiatry,
it is the human nervous system in general, sophisticated,
ordinary people, would look and take the psychological paradigm
example, would look upon romantic love as being, may we
understate it and say fraught with ambiguities, uncertainties,
self-defeating activities therein and no one can seem to explain
why. Why is it that two people should love one another and be
grasping one another and hugging and kissing, going off on their
honeymoon and three hours later, he strangled her?
And it happens over and over and over and they say, “Well, what
in the world is going on? It just shows that humanity has lost
their way!”
What if, lets say romantic love, take fashion, take dining, take
religion, if its actually something else. If X has been called Y
for very good reasons, not human reasons, but for Life’s reasons,
but X has been called Y, identified as Y, then there is no
choice, this is not theoretical, correct, X becomes frigin Y and
that’s it. The case is closed!
There is left over, as always, the episodic nature of the human
maps that the ordinary intelligence makes so that no explanation
is a satisfying explanation, that all periods. It reminds you of
the odors that used to arrive during _____ time from the Baltic
areas, I think Denmark in particular, and they think, “Well, it
is a period there at the end, but boy, that’s not all that
satisfying!”
And yet they break in, they begin to roll the credits and you
realize the shows over. They’re going to the station break,
another shows coming up and you think, “Well some of these TV
movies aren’t bad”, or “some of these situation comedies, they’re
really not that funny, but what the hell, its over, I’ll see
whats next”.
So, you didn’t particularly like it, but there’s always after each
episode, ANOTHER episode! After each human though there is
another thought. It may be the same one and let us say that
you’re so busy that you don’t seem to notice. You’re so busy
with serious affairs that you fail, in general, to notice that
you’re watching the same episode over and over and over and
sitting there over and over and over bitching about it! Taking
them seriously, criticizing them .
It is beyond the realm of ordinary memory and there are no
tricks, you can’t strengthen this because you’re not supposed to,
but once something, once X has been named, identified and as Y,
it becomes Y and there’s no one left to remember when it was
otherwise, much less simultaneously, because it is not simply now
Y and its not simply that it was once otherwise. Its still both!
Insofar as what is the purpose of This, I can’t resist in a few
more minutes: One more time, let’s jump back to religion. And
other than the people that might be seeing this at some other
time and some other place, I know I don’t have to apologize and
explain to everybody, this is not an attack on religion.
Religion is as important as everything else in Life for ordinary
life. But it has been the institutionalized shell, directive,
impetus, apparent energy, apparent storehouse of knowledge having
to do with The Way — the way to get humanity back on the track.
And of course everyone is already at the city level been made to
believe that, “I am slightly off the track”, you and everyone
else, Bunky.
But back to religion. I am not trying to compare religions and
I’m not trying to draw up any kind of secondary parallels. But if
you think back, for you people I am more talking to those on
tape, still assuming that this gets outside of us just talking
here tonight, since I started off responding to a letter from a
viewer. This kind of stuff, you could take any religion in the
world, you could take the basic ideas, because the religion is
not the point, it is the energy behind it, but you could take
what is the fashionable verbal shell out of the religions, all
the ideas that seem to be that the religions are up to something,
that they seem to be pointing to something, and they don’t
necessarily call it ‘The Way’, or to get back on the track, they
got their own versions, but they refer to the big payoff, of what
should be the purpose of a man’s life if he is going to pursue
the right paths, which at the institutionalized city level is
always their particular path, it has to be.
But here you have got all the ideas, and I was just going to try
and get some of you, if you never thought about it, to see that
for instance all the ideas, right quick, all the way from Islam
to Buddhism as a religion, Judaism, Christianity, all the ideas
of the kingdom of heaven , the promised land, paradise, Nirvana,
what are we talking about? You might as well be saying, ‘This
kind of stuff’ — not that that is what this is, but you might
as well say that, because any idea that there is some other place
that you could live — somewhere along the line, it is not
important, but I am going to point out to you, somewhere along
the line somebody somewhere (and if any of you still think is it
important, you have got a new hobby).
Somebody said, if they did, “The kingdom of the gods, the kingdom
of heaven, somebody somewhere was talking about a new place to
think. But notice what happens when something runs from, and I
have got to up the stakes for you, runs from a non-essential
level into a secondary level. We are not talking about the
ordinary. There was an idea that at one time had some validity
to a few people (does that get confusing enough for you?) Let’s
change, we are going into an adjacent area right quick. Let’s
call the idea that somebody somewhere said, “Listen, there is a
promised land, we are living in the wrong place.’ Now we are not
talking about the essentials, the three “S’s” to stay alive, we
are talking into an infinite adjacent area that for a few people
somewhere that was essential, that is what they were looking for,
you got me? Alright, then what did it turn into, what is it now?
Or that somebody somewhere was talking to these people and said,
“There is another kingdom, not just where you live”, and of
course we say things here around trying to go to a new neural
spot, a new place. But now see what it has turned into, as it
was supposed to, it was not any kind of mistake, that religions
were up to some kind of conspiratorial efforts, it is now taken
as being an actual physical, spacial ability at some other
horizontal time.
It is now part of the secondary world, it is not essential at
even the level that it was essential to a few people originally.
Because now, as they are supposed to, it now has, not just a
different definition, different doesn’t even cover it. It is now
in the hands of the secondary world. It is a part of all the
institutionalized dreams, the serious dreams which, how about the
terms: “The kingdom of heaven, paradise, the promised land.” Is
that serious or not. Now that is not something to smirk about.
We are talking about it that all of us are strangers in a strange
land. All of us are being rained on, mistreated, abused,
unappreciated. But if we stay the course, pursue the right path,
at least search for it, there will be a spacial payoff.
All the religions also, a few of the things we were talking about
recently: How about all the ideas, the basic ones, the heart of
every religion you know, of the directives, the institutionalized
ritualistic directives, laws rules of how to reach this other
spacial promised land. Not here anymore, of course it was never
meant to be here to any wide audience. The idea of charity: Now
that would seem at the heart of, as you know, Islam, etc, that
charity — but may I suggest to you that taken outside the
spacial area, there is not simply the giving of alms, which it is
in the religions, but hows about what charity would be inside
the nonverbal operations of the human nervous systems between one
another?
You could look at charity as giving others the absolutely
uncritical right to do what they got to do. That is charity,
nonverbally, that is charity beyond the special realm that you
got no agenda for anyone else. It is like compassion, they all
do that in some form, the heart of every religion could almost be
said to be, “Try and love your enemies, love your fellow man as
yourself, you neighbor as yourself.” But compassion, that just
about wraps it up. But you could look upon compassion as simply
being noncritical of other people’s ideas. At a different
adjacent area that would be the essential behind these ideas
originally, that would have been the energetic essential; that
compassion for somebody is simply not kicking at them. It is
not trying to be compassionate to their behavior, it is trying to
be compassionate to any area that the ordinary intellect could
identify verbally. It is simply to be noncritical. What could
be more compassionate than that?
But at the ordinary level, that would be fool’s errands
directions, to tell people that. Because they could say, “Well
that sounds good, if I can do that it fits in, and doesn’t
conflict with my religion. I’ll take that, I’ll accept that.”
And I could say, ‘Well, you say you accept it, now what is the
chance of you doing it?’ Hah! Who am I to ask them a question
like that? What is the chance of anybody’s doing it? The
nervous system is not that way. The energy transfer within Life,
within Man would be defeated. It would be, the other examples we
were discussing a night or so ago, of trying to make, assuming
you could, a true, objective sans franc observation about
something and even people that heard the setup of the sentence
would go, “well, alright, yeah, but what is your point?” ‘I
didn’t have a point, I simply wanted to point this out.’
People would not hear it, it is useless, it does not serve Life’s
needs, and so what it normally referred to as compassion; people
say, “Well I can’t do it.” No one can do it — only a superman,
only the gods can, only we can do it once we die and go to
paradise or wherever it is.
There is nothing wrong. But do you understand that the
directions, even if it were put in those kind of terms, still
amounts to directions for a fool’s errand. That they could sound
sober, somber, serious, that is, be uncritical of other people,
have no particular agenda but be specific, in this case non-
critical of their ideas — not their behavior, not their
religion, not what kind of foods they eat, not what sex they are,
what color they are. NO, no, no. It would be to be noncritical
of their ideas, that is where it came from.’ And the person
says, “alright, I got that.” And I say, ‘Ok, what do you think?
Do you think you can do it?’ “Well no, I can’t do it, but I like
the idea, I’ll try it. I like that, I am going to try it.”
They cannot do it, not because they are individually weak. The
human nervous system is specifically arranged in such a way that
it comes out verbally as the main energy transfer, or one of them
now, the more and more so with civilized people, those living in
the secondary world — as opposed to being directly confronted
day by day with the three S’s of staying alive at the primary
level; the energy transfer is now primarily verbal. They even
refer to now as the information age, and most of you are now
working with words as opposed to being out there smelting iron.
Of course I guess some of you can smelt even while working in an
office, but that is why proctor and Gamble makes those sprays.
Words are now one of the primary, increasingly so, means by which
energy is transformed and moved through life’s body in man. Any
idea of objective statements. Any idea of finding the way, any
ideas of actually being able to fulfill any of the ideas,
tenants, directives of a religion, of anything, the serious
things about love thy neighbor, or don’t be critical. Take our
version for the night, don’t be critical. All right, let me
write that down. That that would be real compassion, is to have
no criticism of anyone else’s ideas. By god, that’s it. But nobody
can do it. They’re not supposed to do it.
How serious can life be about wanting people to find their way?
Well, I don’t know how this happens. I’m going to write
somebody. We’re out of time. Not really. We’re sort of out of
time and I don’t have the time now to go into, since we’re out of
time to tell you the tape is running out.
End