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2672_041801
Audio of Jan Cox April 18, 2001
Notes by CF
Suggested Title: Running off the Fumes of All This
Begin: Another one of my favorites is one that I will put into a story. (More and more of what I talk about – there is no way to talk about it directly.)
Imagine a mystic (one who knows) and lets assume he lives in a shack in the mountains or woods somewhere. One day the mystic is out in the yard and he sees someone walking down this path. The mystic rarely sees anyone on this path and he and this guy fall into a conversation.
The guy on the path (and in our story) has spent his life in search for “the thing.” (waking up, what’s going on, the big secret) The guy on the path sees the mystic as someone who might know so when the mystic asks him “What do you know about “this thing” you are looking for?” the guy answers.
“When I started out in search of the thing forty years ago I knew but now. I do not know what I am looking for.” I seem to be “running off the fumes, but I continue to want to know. But I have no idea what it is I want to know, what’s it related to, or what it is close to.
So the mystic says, “That in you that that doesn’t know where you are going – knows what you want to know.” After a lifetime of fooling with this, to me, those words explain everything. If you can see it; it is so good natured and pleasant. It took me years to make enough effort to finally see it.
Think about the punchline. It is not really metaphorical. I just do not know how to say it directly. If you have reached the point (I’ve tried to make it more vague, uncertain, and confusing) where “Jesus-I don’t understand it anymore” when you get right there – that is when you should hold on.
One of the turning points in my life is when I realized I did not know what being awake and asleep is. And I have been both. This story is the same thing.
05:00 You do not have to be totally confused or totally uncertain. You folks that come here have some sense of where you are going because if you realize it or not you are going where I talk about. But I still insist you folks should be more uncertain now than when you started.
10:00 If you see it, it makes it all so clear. (Not what I am talking about – but it makes it all so clear)
Another version of the same story – the guy on the path and the mystic fall into a conversation and the guy on the path tells the mystic I have spent my whole life trying to achieve the “enlightened mind.”
And the mystic asks “How is it going?” And the guy says once (forty years ago or so) I achieved the “enlightened mind” and I am still trying to get it back and next time I hope to keep it. And the mystic says: “The mind you are in right now is the only one you have.”
And the guy on the path says: “That is an interesting idea, but its not true.” And the mystic says: “But it is true.”
15:00 I think the gods let people wake up for a day “just to fuck them up. Then they tell themselves, I need to get from this ordinary state (sleep) to my non-ordinary state (being awake). But I am saying you only have one state or one mind. But when you think about it, its not true.
The other six billion people on the planet say “we only have one mind.” You miss an opportunity in constantly reminding yourself that you could have things in reverse. It always thrills me when I think of everything I have thought (humbly – some good stuff) and realized I could have it backwards.
To the ordinary mind the idea ‘I could have it all wrong’ sounds frightening, but there’s the proof. Having it all wrong could be true and there is nothing sad about it. Once you realize it could be true and there is no way to find out if its true or not – then to see it does not matter if its true or not.
Back to us. When your mind says I am not as awake as I could be – I say “there it is” That is the only mind you have. And when you say “But its not” you are playing the same game – you could have it backwards. And the mind says “I can do better.” Who are you talking to?
You have to have it backwards if I say you only have one mind and you say, “No I have a more awake mind.” I understand that and that was my view for a lifetime. Never questioned it. The days of waking up were the absolute proof. And I can’t imagine myself stopping with or without the experiences.
20:00 But if I am correct ( I am ) you could have it backwards. (awake-asleep mind) Its a relief to realize it – but then it becomes like balancing the universe on the tip of your finger after that.
If you only have one mind “Who are you talking to when you do something stupid, bump into something, whatever you do when you consider yourself asleep, and you don’t like it and you tell yourself I can do better?” There is the illusion.
25:00 I say there is only one mind at the moment. And you say no its not true. Listen to yourself. The part of you saying for the moment that I am in my sleeping self , the part that does not know what it is doing, is the part to tell you how to awaken. Because it is the same thing.
That is the basis of my story. When you see it it is refreshing and challenging. If there is a difference what’s the problem? The very thing in you – that agrees you are asleep – there is no where else to look.
It is the final authority on “how not to be “ in that ordinary condition. Its not long and drawn out. The very thing in me that does not like being “asleep” knows what’s going on. Listen in a broader sense and turn and keep looking at the thing that said “Damn, I’m asleep again.”
30:00 How else can it say “Here I am”? But then you look around for someone (ex. Swami or guru) to help you. Most of the world thinks they know everything. But we have this thing in us that says “I’m stupid, I’m asleep,” The part that does not know anything is a better teacher than me or Buddha.
35:00 When you say I have to do better or work harder to stay focused or awake you have given up for the moment. There is no more awakened “process” in the universe than the part of you that says you are stupid/asleep. And it is almost impossible to keep your eye on it.
40:06 Raise your hand if you get it.
Jan’s Posted Daily Fresh Real News
April 18, 2001.
FACTS
__________
Those who talk about enlightenment,
and say are significant, such subjects as:
health, money, dying, politics, religion,
duty to humanity, and obligations to ancestors,
gods, and spiritual teachers,
are as far from the reality of enlightenment as
any bum, or murderer.
One man had one major complaint:
the wind kept blowing the cloth off of his picnic table,
and oblivious to what he was actually doing,
he kept trying to weight it down
using the only thing he found available — the table cloth.
There is a thing in which
the fuel that runs it is
also where it goes.
A son questioned his fathers repeated insistence that mens ordinary mental life is one of almost total pretend,
and him offering as an example his claim that
no one actually believes what their religion says,
by countering that he was unfairly limiting his evidence to the unsophisticated of the world,
and the elder responded by pointing out that
even the highly educated & worldly-wise
pretend to believe in economic forecasts when they
know full well from experience that they are
patently unreliable.
Some people mentally cherish the Easter Bunny,
and some, the Tooth Fairy,
and each can ridicule the others folly —
but in a man who is out-of-bed with eyes-awake,
the twain doeth meet,
and the outcome of the collusion is — a nothingness;
a mental spaciousness with room for all who
need to enter, and which is
hospitably indifferent to all its uninvited guests.
If you still look to sources outside yourself
for instructions on how to behave in your external life,
you are in no position to make use of any info
regarding your internal life.
Beavers spend all morning gnawing down trees and building dams; who expects them to interrupt an afternoon nap to do volunteer work?!
It is most common among people who insist that they want to know the truth about what they are
to say that first they must paint their house, lose weight, reseed the lawn, work out certain social problems,
just generally — get their visible life in order
before they can properly pursue the real aim.
There is no mind other than your mind,
and other than what you bump into,
there is no world out-there,
other than your mind of it.
Everybody is, (as mystics call it) — asleep,
but only those who hear about it —
and then think about it — CARE.
To ever get-to-the-bottom-of-things
you must recognize when you get to the end of things.
The ordinary stop too soon;
the hungry tend never to.
If you must be taught compassion,
the other lessons you need to learn,
a life time is too short to permit.
Maxim Update: Those who cannot remember the past
do not miss much.
The mind can believe anything.
(and it can make things that are most unbelievable become believable.)
A persons responsibilities in life are
whatever he accepts them to be,
but for maximum efficiency he should
shoulder only those he has apparently chosen.
There is energy stored in imagination,
and when applied to things material,
can change them,
but when applied to things incorporeal,
only reinforces their illusionary power.
In spite of their noise to the contrary;
ordinary people accept who they are;
a scant few never do,
and as per myth:
these are the mortals the gods are impressed by —
or else the ones they laugh at.
Anything said about the incorporeal is a lie,
and anything said about the thing that
speaks of the incorporeal is a falsehood doubled.
If you still have a retort to anything
anyone says to you,
you still do not understand what say-ing is all about.
By necessity, all people are born actors;
then by apparent inclination, the practice of their craft is distinguished by their scenery chewing.
Men tend to overdo whatever they do in their mental reality; in fact, a large part of its attraction is that,
(contrasted to physical reality),
you can do so and suffer no harm.
You may instantly & profitably stop listening to anything that begins with the words:
Ever since 19___(fill in the date).
Anyone who says that they want to understand
what is really going on that makes them so
persistently dissatisfied — and who looks outside of themselves for any sort of an answer —
— is fooling themselves —
and that’s what is really going on THERE.
Things not discovered on your own
are not truly known.
Men will give up all manner of pleasant,
destructive habits before they will give up their heroes.
Loving the Lone Ranger carries with it the belief that
Silver will one day relieve you of walking.
Men can experience an emotional joy singular to humans that is based on fond mental pictures of the deceased,
(and otherwise, non present),
and which begs to be turned into dreams of
mortals-becoming-super-mortals —
— images made more palatable by distance in time.
Note: distance-in-time generally equates to:
distance from reality,
and not even superheroes, or gods can
wake up at any time but now;
(and further note): they cannot,
apart from your thinking of them —
and if you are thinking of them as being awake —
then your thinking at that moment must be awake.
..WHAT?! — you’ve never NOTICED?!?!
Well right there is your problem.
You continue to understandably think that there is certainly a striking difference between
day light and night time,
and yet this belief keeps you from recognizing the flashes of light ever present in your life.
Waking up is the Mississippi at flood stage;
how are you going to keep it out of your house —
even if you wanted to?!
You will finally see it as never having been so much a problem of struggling to be awake,
as it was the effort involved in pretending that you werent.
Relax —
unnecessary tension & pressure is unnecessary;
ease up;
the sky’s clear; the beach is deserted;
grab your board — “Realitys up!”