Misdirection is the Main Product of the Consciousness Part of the Brain
The following recordings are from Jan’s final years, when his voice was diminished and he spoke in a low whisper. Some listeners may find these tapes hard to listen to, or difficult to understand. Thus, as another option, transcripts are being made and will be posted.
Otherwise, turn up the volume and enjoy! Those who carefully listened to Jan during this period consider that he spoke plainly and directly to the matter at hand, “pulling out all the stops,” as he understood that these were to be his last messages to his groups, and to posterity.
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Summary
6/11/04:
Notes by TK
CONSCIOUSNESS– ALWAYS HUSTLING
One should not have to rely on similes, analogies, metaphors or allegories for enlightenment if truly seeking awakening. The point-blank stating of the simple truth would suffice. The implication of such actual reliance is the fiction that the desired clarity must come from outside oneself.
That the CPU deals in such devices (including all its names for itself) shows its real purpose as being misdirection from its own workings. An illustration: finance companies masquerading themselves as used car businesses. The strategy is based on the fact that nobody wants to go in debt, but everybody wants a car (conveniently financed). This is what the CPU does to us constantly. E.g.: “I’m OK, you’re not”-type thinking which is feel-good but completely unfounded, yet nevertheless the puppet-doing of Life’s daily business in required energy transfers. (33:21) #3159
Notes by DR
Jan Cox Talk 3159 The unanalyzed assumption is that it is something to be acquired from without. Someone who had been through this for 40 years would say the mind is unreliable unless it’s looking at something physical that you could check on. That’s why we speak in allegories and metaphors. Car dealers went from advertising the car to “everyone needs a car.” “How could you do without one?” It became an American right, and the salesman tells you your credit shouldn’t hold you back. They’re not in the used car business; they’re in the loan business.
The conscious part of the brain is doing that to you constantly. Thoughts pop into your head, one triggers another and they’re talking about used cars and that’s not the purpose. They take up every square inch of the screen of consciousness including the audio band and pictures. The sales pitch is always a distraction, a distortion. Their business is not what they advertise. When the conscious part of the brain is not talking about problem solving, which always involves something physical, it’s hustling.
Transcript
06-11-04 #3159
Edited by S.A.
If humans really wanted to wake up, achieve enlightenment, accomplish whatever this is, if they wanted to do it badly enough, you wouldn’t need to talk and think in similes or allegories. You wouldn’t have to say, “Consciousness is like a blah, blah, blah,” or, “Trying to awaken from man’s dream is like la-de-dah-de-dah.” Somebody else could simply point out to you something about consciousness, about the way men are, and you would look at what they told you and say, “Oh!” and you would be awake. You wouldn’t have to go through all this—if not the full rigamarole, at least the rigama.
At any rate, everybody who ever writes about this activity for as far back in world history as you can look, writes in similes and allegories. They say that being asleep is like such-and-such. Trying to achieve enlightenment is like a man blah, blah, blah, or like a rat in a trap who bappety bap. That is based upon consciousness automatically assuming, without ever analyzing it, that the payoff to waking up or becoming enlightened is the acquisition of some knowledge or some understanding that you do not presently have. That is what is disturbing to your brain. The non-analyzed assumption is that enlightenment is something to be acquired from without.
If a person really wanted to wake up badly enough—and I’m being facetious, because you can’t control how badly you want this—but if the desire were strong enough, then all you’d have to do is understand that man’s crowning achievement may be his ability to think and talk, but that same talent is what puts him into a dream. Of course, I’m saying this after the fact. You can’t realize this in the beginning, but if you could, you wouldn’t have to spend thirty or forty years untangling it. Somebody who had already been through all that would see that you were interested, and explain, “What the mind tells you—that is, your own thoughts—can’t be relied on, unless the thoughts are about the physical world, such that you can test them. You can measure that fire is hot and ice is cold. But other than that, anything you think of can’t be verified and is not to be trusted.” You would then simply look at yourself as you are. You would look into your own mind and think, “Oh!” That is all it would take.
The humor in this is that it takes a lifetime not to discover some metaphysical secret hidden somewhere on this planet or up in the heavens, but to realize what is true in you. That is the humor, and that is why we have to talk and think in similes and allegories and metaphors.
Last talk, I mentioned that the conscious part of the brain has made up a whole list of names for itself. If you press on puzzling over that you should find it interesting that the part of me talking, and the part of you listening, is the cerebral cortex. That is the conscious part of our brains, and that part has made up a commonly-used list of six or seven names, such as “man’s spirit”. People who employ any one of the names are convinced that they understand exactly what the name means and that they feel the reality of the name. They might say, “We’re not just our bodies. There’s something else to us, and this something else is our spirit.”
They can call that part of us anything they like, but notice—the conscious part of the brain knows that there’s a better name for that part, because consciousness made up the term, “spirit”. I can’t prove that the conscious part of the brain knows better, but you surely see that it must. The conscious part of the brain is the part of you that is the source of all speech, so when speech first started, and consciousness didn’t have the word “spirit” to call itself, it had to know, “That is me talking.” Why, then, did it make up other words, including not only spirit, but soul, mind, me, and I? To varying degrees, those words rename consciousness, and there is only one obvious reason to do that—to take men’s attention away from the conscious part of the brain.
Since you insist on similes, since you are hounding, badgering—I don’t want to just pick on the animal kingdom—humaning me for similes and metaphors, that is a telling example. When I describe that, you surely find it familiar. Now consider, why did I bother to bring that up? You know it’s not to say, “Humans are idiots.” I brought that up because it appears necessary to have an example outside of us, outside of you, that I can talk about, an example that is not about the conscious part of the brain.
Here is an example that is about something else, with another name and another location. I can talk about the example, and when you realize what I’m talking about, that may intrigue you. That may make you smile—at least a brain smile. When that happens, ask yourself why you like catching on to this, and also, why does it have to be done in this roundabout way?
Here is my example: in the last few years, there has been a new feature in the used car business. There are still, obviously, large commercial operations selling used cars. Since probably the beginning of the new-car business, there have been dealers in new cars who have a used car lot in conjunction with their new car lot, to sell trade-ins to people who, for whatever reason, do not want to buy a new car. But eight or ten years ago, a different breed of used car dealers started advertising on television, radio, and in newspapers. They didn’t provide a physical address, but instead gave an internet address or a phone number, so it was obvious that they didn’t even have a physical car lot.
What first caught my attention was that the new ads don’t start out saying something like, “Crazy Ed’s used car lot. Cheap prices”, although that had been the common used car advertising theme for years. In the new breed of ads, there are no pictures of used cars and no mention of specific cars along with their prices. The new ads start by telling you how everyone in today’s world needs and deserves a car. The ads ask, how can you live a pleasurable life without a good used car? They do everything but say it’s an American’s right to have a used car. Then they say that the only thing that would hold anybody back from owning a car is bad credit. That’s not right, the ads tell you. Your credit shouldn’t hold you back from owning the car you need and deserve. The ads say, “You call us, and we won’t let bad credit stop you from having a car. You’re a human being. You’re an American. Call us, and we’ll put you in a car.”
Those dealers push two things: You need and deserve a car, and your bad credit won’t keep you from owning that car. The point is, those dealers are not in the used car business. They’re in the loan business. Some guy starts a company and calls it “A-1 Cars.” He and people like him understand that nobody wants to go into debt, so they’re not going to get anywhere with an ad that says, “This is A-1 Debts. Why don’t you go into debt to us today? You may have bad credit. You may have stiffed other lenders in the past. If you think that after what you’ve done, nobody else would let you go into debt to them, you’re wrong. You probably think I’ll check your credit rating and spit on you. Don’t make that assumption. Call me now, and give me a chance to put you in debt to me.”
I suggest that such an approach holds no great promise, and I’m sure you agree. Instead, the loan companies have a clever way to hide the fact that they are all about the lending of money. Life arranged this, because it’s serving a purpose, or it would have been a one-shot deal, but now these so-called used car dealers are everywhere.
These businesses are not run by people who were already selling used cars and decided to quit their job working for a big car lot and start their own business, not people who know used cars and who might even say, “Used cars are in my blood. I love used cars. I love selling cars. I love the bargaining.” That’s not what this is about. These businesses are run by people who are in the loan business, who probably work for finance companies. Those finance companies probably had deals with used car lots, such that the finance companies bought up the car loans from those used car lots. For years, used car lots advertised, “Come see us. We’ll sell a car to anybody. We’ll help you get financing,” but it was no secret that the used car dealers sold your loan information to finance companies that then collected your loan.
The new style of so-called “used car businesses” realized that if they offered something that most people in today’s world want—a car—they would be rewarded by the interest payments on those folks’ debt. They simply cut out the middle-man between the car buyer and the financing—that is, they cut out the used car dealers. The new style of used car salespeople don’t talk about debt. They say, “You need a car, you want a car, you deserve a car. If you don’t have a car, I’ll bet it’s because you have bad credit. Am I right? Well, don’t worry about that. Call me and don’t worry about your credit. I will put you in a car.”
I hope you’re not thinking, “Why does this matter?” The conscious part of the brain is doing this to you constantly. These thoughts pop into your head. One thought triggers another, and the thoughts appear to be talking about used cars, but that’s not the purpose. The thoughts are in the finance business, in the debt business. Every time you passively allow a thought to take over the screen of your consciousness, as I described it last time, then once the thought is there, for that moment, if you’re not making some extraordinary effort, that thought takes up every square inch of the screen of consciousness and all of the audio band as well. Whatever you hear, whatever picture you see, that thought consumes. What the sales pitch seems to be doing is always a distraction, always a distortion.
If you consider my simile of people in the finance business now presenting themselves to be in the car business, you can’t say that the business is harming anybody. In a technical sense, the business is a fraud, because they consistently call themselves a car business when it’s clear that what they are is a loan business—but it’s a harmless fraud, because the point is, you want a car and they can get you one.
They don’t own any used cars. They probably keep a list of cars from a used car lot down the street, but if you call, all they want to talk about is your credit. If you say, “I’m looking for a Toyota Camry, they’ll immediately say, “No problem. We’ve got it. But first, let’s get your financing done, so we can get you the best deal possible. Tell me about your bad credit, so we can get that out of the way.” They probably look at your paperwork and decide to float five hundred dollars on you, which means they’ll risk paying five hundred dollars for a used car, then sell it to you for seven-fifty, and let the financing fees run your debt up to a thousand. They’ll risk five hundred dollars on the chance of doubling their money.
They call you back, “We found you a Toyota but it’s not a Camry, and it’s not the year you wanted—but that year’s Toyota Camrys are selling all over town for fifteen hundred dollars. We’ll let you have this one for a thousand dollars. We’ve already arranged the financing. You’ll have to pay us a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month.”
If you agree to their terms, then you’re a satisfied customer, so it’s meaningless for me to say that the business is a fraud. You wanted a car. You couldn’t get one. These guys are going to give you one. The price sounds a little steep, but they’re going to finance you when nobody else will, so you’re happy, and thus far, they’re happy. In the finance business—in any business—doubling your money is a fine thing to accomplish.
But remember, this was a fraud in the sense that they advertised they’re in the car business. What they want is for you to sign a piece of paper and take out a loan with them. The way they accomplish that is to dangle a car. If they could get away with it, they would dangle anything. If you called up and they said, “A-1 Cars,” and you said, “I’m sorry. I was trying to call a mobile home salesman,” then if they were sharp, they’d say, “You called the right place. We sell trailers too.” They’d take your credit info, and they’d look in the phone book, or call the used car lot down the street and say, “Do you know anybody who sells trailers?” Their business is not what they advertise.
Here is tonight’s point—when it’s not solving a problem that’s related to the material world, the conscious part of the brain is hustling. Consciousness is telling you that it wants to get you a used car, but that’s not what it’s hawking. Its business is financing. Its intention is to put you in debt and keep you in debt. Its goal is not to sell you a car that you can pay off that thousand dollars at a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month, and then when that’s over, you walk away. They want that car to break down before then, so that you need another car. If your car doesn’t break down, they’ll call you before you make the last payment and say, “We finally got in a Camry, which you told us is what you really wanted. And it’s newer than the car we sold you. You can trade in your old one, and we’ll put you in this one for only five hundred dollars more.” They would like to keep doing that for the rest of your life.
Check this for yourself. Don’t listen to my allegory and nod, as if you know it must be true. Don’t let it go at that, or you’re an idiot. You miss it all. This should sound familiar, all that talk about your friends here at A-1 Cars. They’ve got to be your friends, because they’re your mind. They are you, if that’s what some of you still call it. They are me. I wouldn’t mislead myself, would I?
Jan’s Daily Fresh Real News (to accompany this talk)
INEVITABLY, EVERYTHING THOUGHT
IN CAPTIVITY IS DISTORTED
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Info That Has Not Been So Confined And Thus Contaminated
JUNE 11, 2004 © 2004: JAN COX
All the traditions practiced by man are in fact neo traditions,
with their antiquity giving an aura of meaningful permanency to counterweight
the lack of same in the minds of the practitioners.
The real-deal-man has but a sole tradition: not to mentally participate in any.
A field whose boundaries are constantly expanding
is by its nature, inimical to the very notion of reverence-for-permanency,
(more precisely in the case of ordinary men:
a forced reverence for the man-made illusion of permanency.)
Another of the characteristics of the city found nowhere else in this universe:
the false fronts representing actual, individual buildings fit perfectly into
the overall setting of a totally make-believe metropolis.
No one wants to see Pele actually try to muscle his way into
The Queen of Hearts’ Soccer Game;
the feathers of the Phoenix should (and are tacitly expected to) stay where they are;
ordinary men are not permitted to acknowledge the existence of
two distinctly different worlds, one physically substantial, the other not,
in both of which they perform their lives, but that does not keep them from silently suspecting that something stinky is going on right under their restricted noses.
The lead wolf is not a true believer in any cause, even the one he may titularly head;
he has but one dedication: the retention of power;
only amongst his powerless subjects are there passionate disciples of
the declared cause: supporters of a mental/verbally contrived illusion.
(“Are you are actually talking about the intrigues that go on in a man’s own mind?!”)
If the most interesting thing you have to talk about is what has happened to you,
you have nothing to say that will interest a real-deal-man.
A man who wrote many books and essays on the subject of waking-up
was thought by his readers to be awake, but the longer he kept writing,
the more did they eventually believe his words to be an expression of
his continuing struggle to wake-up
(except for those who came to believe that he was simply a front for the true author).
Fact: Everyone is a nom de plume for their self.
In prison everyone feels pseudo outrage,
thing is: no one realizes that it’s pseudo — but what should they really expect —
since the feeling concerns pseudo problems.
One man’s take is that nothing is relevant to anything else
(and he insists there was no force influencing him to say this).
What Passes For Humor In Prison.
He put in his false teeth; slipped in his artificial eye; screwed on his wooden leg;
put on his hair piece; attached his prophylactic nose — then off he went again
to deliver his famous motivational speech concerning: The-need-to-be-REAL.
“Huh! — I figured it would have to do with irony.”
No — he says he’s outgrown that one.
(Note: “I’m Moving On” is not a familiar ditty in the city.)
From another world comes word that they have physically located their
long imagined-to-exist deity — right in front of them —
amidst the statistics in their various attempts to define man psychologically, sociologically, economically, et. al.;
thus collaterally have they concluded: Numbers don’t lie —
only words describing lies and facts — as opposed to what’s really going on.
Conversation.
“Is there some way you can tell for certain that you are awake?”
“Yes — if you do not care at all — in your own mind —
whether anyone else on earth believes you are awake.”
“But that could also apply to a know-nothing, crazy-ass fanatic?!”
“Yes.”
Sidebar.
A man-who-knows living amidst the ordinary was the original inspiration for
the idea of: “A wolf in sheep’s clothing” —
though the more compendious picture would be:
“A wolf in the Invisible Wolf’s clothing.”
Everyone is a one trick pony — okay:
the consciousness everyone is born with is a one trick pony;
Cyclopes do not exist simply in mythology.
Proverb Update.
Those who don’t understand the nature of words are doomed to repeat them.
One kid came to the deduction that if people were any simpler —
he’d be his own kid.
(“Are we talking about goats here, or humans?”
Cute.)
Taking a prompt from the listeners to talk radio,
one man often says to his real-deal-consciousness:
“Thank you for not taking my call.”
(For whom he is pretending to speak, you can surely see for yourself.)
Conversation II.
“Is there a way to know for sure that you are not awake?”
“You envy someone.”
“That’s simple enough.”
“Ain’t it.”
“Hummm – maybe too simple.”
“Maybe.”
Moral: Keep talking.
“Hey — there must be more than that, like:
‘Keep talking and such-&-such a thing will happen to you’ – so what’s the rest of it?”
There is no more, just: Keep talking: if you’re of ordinary, irremediable consciousness, doing so will feel right to you and require no effort, but if you’re of real-deal potential, the constant noise will ultimately make you aware of its true nature.
There are no instructions to tell the real-deal-man how to accomplish TheThing,
nor can he tell anyone else specifically how to;
the most precise name possible for this uncommon activity would be:
You either can or you can’t — and no one knows which it is until they succeed.
J
A man who will try to tell you why he likes something that he does can correctly be considered a fool;
he certainly has no understanding at all of what is going on with life.