Two Creations of Consciousness
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
7/19/04:
Notes by TK
It is important to remember: when consciousness talks about god or religion it is at its closest approach to talking about itself. But this is after it creates ‘you’ (the Adam in the Garden of Eden). Consciousness talks about itself, but cannot do so directly. It talks incessantly about itself (because all intangibles are made up of consciousness) but never by name. Among the attributes it gives to god (itself, outside itself) is stability and permanence.
Thus does it give itself the notion that there is at least one thing absolutely dependable—that cannot betray. Also attributed at the core of god/religion is love, compassion for one’s fellow man, yet nothing is more capable than religion of engendering killingly, nonpareil hatred. How can this be? Also, note that nobody notices this. Isn’t it fascinating? (34:36) #3175
Notes by DR
Jan Cox Talk 3175 When man’s consciousness talks about religion, that is the closest it ever comes to talking about itself. But I am not talking about religion-it is consciousness. After consciousness invented you, then it invented some other intangible thing inside your body other than you. First there was Adam and then Adam heard the voice of god. Consciousness made up the ‘you’, a pure invention, but you say that’s me thinking about me. It’s consciousness talking about itself. It created a stable something. It conjured up an intangible person. But it cannot speak about itself directly. Everyone made up their thoughts. Why is the primary characteristic that it instills on this god they made up unconditional dependability? You can count on god.
Religion-all say at their core is love. Nothing in the entire life of man engenders hatred like religion. That’s irrational, but no one notices. I don’t say consciousness did it or not, I don’t say anything in reaction to what I pointed out. Religion: 1. consciousness made it up, 2. idea of love, 3. unparalled hatred.
Transcript
JC 3175 07-19-04 TWO CREATIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
I’m going to talk about consciousness and religion, and I understand that not everyone who will hear this came from the same religious background. Some of you probably had no religion at all. It’s important that you understand that I will not be talking specifically about religion, but about consciousness. Discussion of religion can act as a key, like a little razor blade to cut an opening and get you inside consciousness, because when consciousness talks about religion, that is the closest consciousness ever comes to talking about itself.
You will have to keep reminding yourself that I am not actually talking about religion. You can’t listen to whatever the natural thoughts for your consciousness might be about religion. Those thoughts could be hostile or critical. They could be selectively critical—just picking on particular religions. Try to bear in mind that when I say “religion,” you should hear “consciousness.” I’ll make a point of reminding you all along the way.
There are probably endless examples such as the one I’m about to describe, but I have been trying for the last several weeks to point out the obvious—that under ordinary conditions, the conscious activity of the brain is out of your control. You don’t direct consciousness, you don’t script consciousness, and you don’t decide what thoughts are going to be in your consciousness. Consciousness is unstable and skitters about from one thing to another, like an endlessly rolling billiard ball.
The first thing consciousness invented in a man was the feeling, the notion, that there is something intangible in your body other than consciousness. You call that something “me” or “I.” After that, consciousness invented God. When consciousness speaks of God, God is consciousness. More precisely, when consciousness speaks of God, that is the closest that consciousness gets to talking about itself. That’s why Adam comes first in the Genesis story, and wanders around for a while before he hears the voice of God. Notice that the story didn’t start out, “First there was the voice of God, and God wanted someone to talk to. God wandered around until He found Adam, and then God entered Adam’s head.” No, consciousness first had to make up Adam, who represents the “you” inside you.
I’ve described this over and over for the last several weeks, and I know it’s tricky to grasp, because it took me forty years to realize that my sense of “me” is a pure invention of consciousness. That is tricky to grasp because you think, “But this is me thinking about what you just said. What does that mean, that consciousness invented the concept of me?” Right there, consciousness has sort of outfoxed itself, since consciousness invented the thought that you are thinking, the idea that “There’s this thing in here with me that can think about me.”
After inventing an illusory creature inside of man, that creature called “I” or “me,” consciousness took the next logical step and invented the fictional character outside of itself that it called “God.” However, both “me” and “God” amount to the same thing, which is consciousness talking about itself. Notice, though, that with the invention of God, consciousness created a stable something. Since God was the creation of consciousness, consciousness gave to God any and all of the characteristics it wanted to. That’s like the old joke. A kid drew a funny-looking thing. His father said, “What is that?” The kid replied, “That’s God.” His father, being a religious man, said, “That’s very interesting, but nobody knows what God looks like.” And the kid said, “Now they do.”
They call that a joke, but it’s actually an unwitting metaphysical certainty. At any rate, consciousness can give God all the characteristics it wants to, but one characteristic that all religions give to their idea of God is stability. Permanence. By so doing, consciousness has given itself the notion that there is one thing upon which it can depend. Consciousness found out early on that those people on whom you would think you can depend might not be dependable. Both men and women discovered that you can’t always trust your mate’s fidelity or your children’s love.
The first thing men and women did was choose a sexual partner, but people are jealous. Men found out that a woman can sleep with them, swear she loves them, and then go and sleep with somebody else. Women found out the same thing about men. Both men and women later discovered that despite all they did for their children—giving birth to them, raising them, feeding them—when some children got to be fifteen or twenty years old, they would stab their parents in the back. Children will betray you, steal from you, murder you. So will mates. Just ask Shakespeare or the Greek dramatists. People also learned that sometimes their best friends would betray them.
With just one simple invention, consciousness conjured up the idea of someone stable, someone who could always be trusted. That someone was an ethereal person, an intangible person, called “God”. All religions say that no one knows what their God looks like, but everybody has some sort of mental picture of their God as more-or-less human. The one attribute everybody’s God has that consciousness can’t find anywhere else is that God is always dependable. God will never betray you, never lie to you, never cheat you.
I have decided not to give this portion of tonight’s commentary a neat punchline. I’m going to leave that part to you, with my recommendation. You no doubt recognize the validity of the characteristic that I said people ascribe to God. If there’s one thing preached by all religions—Protestantism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam—it’s that you can depend on God. Now, consider trustworthiness and dependability as being the paramount attribute of God. Consider that in all the consciousnesses of every human who’s ever spoken of God in a positive, believing manner, that is probably God’s outstanding characteristic.
Remember that what I am pointing out is that religion and God are both man’s consciousness talking about itself. Consciousness can’t speak about itself directly, which is what you should be investigating. The basis of your investigation should be to question why it is that consciousness will not talk about itself directly. I can discuss this, and to some degree you may hear me, but it will not be very meaningful to you until you can see it for yourself.
Humanity in general doesn’t speak of this, and as far as I know, throughout history none of the world’s mystics have ever spoken of this so directly. Religious people will speak about God. Psychologists and psychiatrists will speak about man’s mind, his personality. Sociologists and political commentators will speak about man’s communal spirit, his political self, his economic self. All of these things are the same. They are all consciousness talking about itself, because the conscious part of the brain is all that exists intangibly inside of us, the part in which thoughts appear, in which words and pictures appear. These are not physical entities. They are not urine, not blood, not hormones. They are all consciousness, and consciousness talks about itself incessantly, but never by name. Even when consciousness talks about thought, consciousness will make you—that is, make itself—talk about “you” having thoughts. Consciousness pushes everything onto the imaginary creature that consciousness invented in your brain and named “you.” Everybody talks about “their” thoughts, but what is talking is consciousness, shunting its responsibility off to the character that consciousness made up. That way, consciousness is still talking about itself, but for whatever reason, will not admit that.
When consciousness created God, consciousness was still talking about itself, but still never saying, “This is me talking about me. This is me pondering me. This is me trying to grasp what I am.” I recommend that you specifically ponder why it is that unconditional dependability is the primary characteristic that consciousness instills in that made-up God.
You might also consider why consciousness invented first God and then religion—two separate things. There is something very interesting about religion, but before I discuss that, I remind you again that you can’t take my remarks as being critical of religion, nor should you let your own thoughts indulge in a snickering criticism of religion. If you do that, you’ll miss the point.
Here is the point: All religions say that at their core is love. All of them. Everybody knows that love is right at the heart of all religions. I’m not talking about whether all the people who embrace those religions actually practice love. If you listen to their public spokesmen, if you read their books, you know that they all say at the heart, the core, the very center of their religion’s dogma are compassion and love. That is a fact.
Here’s another fact. Nothing in the entire life and experience of man engenders hatred like religion. I know that your consciousness very likely will put out automatic thoughts, such as, “That’s why all religion should be destroyed.” That’s why I repeated my warning. You need to get past those automatic thoughts. You need to ignore them.
Just remember two facts. The first fact is that human consciousness made up religion. Religion doesn’t exist anywhere. Consciousness made up religion and God and everything with it. But besides the figure of God, the idea of religion encompasses a great, invisible, spiritual realm. At the core of religion is love, and from there it’s a short step to “God is love” and the like. All religions teach compassion for your fellow man. To love him as yourself. To love everybody. To love even people who hate you.
The second fact is that nothing—not sex, not greed, not the desire of one group for another group’s property, not disgust with the way the other group looks or acts—nothing even comes close to engendering raw, overwhelming hatred in a group that follows Religion X like somebody mentioning Religion Y. Religion engenders hatred that is unparalleled. Consciousness has all the religions saying, “At our core, our purpose is love,” yet through religion, consciousness creates incredible hatred.
You should find that fascinating. One final time, don’t start looking for reasons why some religion, or all religions, are deserving of hatred. Don’t criticize the religions, or the people who claim to be their followers. If you do that, you’re an idiot. Just examine what I said. All religions say that their holy books preach love. That’s a fact. The other fact is that as a source of hatred among men, nothing is close to religion.
How can your intellectual, metaphysical, scientific curiosity not be absolutely smitten with something that irrational? A side dish of improbability to go with that irrationality is that no one ever seems to notice this. They notice that Group X hates Group Y’s religion, but nobody has ever pointed out that although religion preaches love above all else, nothing else is even in the ballpark when it comes to a source of terrifying hatred.
Consciousness is responsible for religion, and responsible for giving religion any characteristic it wants. Consciousness decided that one characteristic of religion should be love. After that, consciousness, through religion, stirred up—and continues to stir up—this unbelievable hatred. Notice that I didn’t say, “Consciousness must be very surprised at this outcome.” Did you notice that your consciousness noticed that I didn’t say that?
Have any of you reached that wonderful point that indicates you’re really getting somewhere, when you realize that you’re inside the house of mirrors, and all you want is to be able to reach down when you need it, and find a rock? There you are, inside a house of mirrors, and it finally strikes you what’s going on, and you’re fresh out of rocks to throw at the mirrors! Of course, if you’ve reached that point, you understand that all you’ve got to do is hit the right mirror, and they will all crack.
Jan’s Daily Fresh Real News (to accompany this talk)
BOVINE BRAINS UNABLE TO CAPTURE THE CONCEPT OF CAPTIVITY
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The Outlier’s Anti Bossy Vaccine
JULY 19, 2004 © 2004: JAN COX
One day in the woods just outside the city, a lion and computer fell into conversation, with the machine becoming totally confused trying to conceive of what the beast meant by the word: doing, and the lion, after listening to the computer describe its interests, being helpless to comprehend why anyone would be interested in anything
they can’t eat.
What seems to be up — came from down,
the sky is barren without the ground,
and the link is there — to be found.
The normal conversations between a man’s thoughts and his own inner hearing
lead only to a reaffirming of his already established mental conceptions of reality.
(Known among the nervous-system-rebels as: day time dreams).
Regarding Talk & What Is Said
A recent visitor to this world said what he found most interesting about humans
was how many love to sing, but how few clearly care for music.
A chap under a tree in the rain (but not under the weather) observed:
“Is it not interesting that not one person who has ever awakened to what life is
really about, had after that, a single critical word to say about it.”
Concerning Synaptic Connections
Pointed note made by a father to his brood:
“If they come to get one of us – they will probably take all of us.”
People who don’t think — think a lot about their self.
Of Interest Possibly Only To Life (And The Super Alert Few).
Many informal conversations between normally intelligent men have led to naught.
(Same with serious confabs).
In man’s intangible reality: no one knows where any undertaking will ultimately lead.
(Actually a few do – but they’re never involved in such. Interesting, no?!)
One man (having scant success in reeling in his mind) as a stop gap measure:
broke its rod and tangled its line.
(Another unbelievable fish story.)
Jazz musicians, in their soloing, complain of other players in the band:
stepping on their note;
in ordinary men’s everyday verbal life, were doing so not the case,
the entire affair would collapse.
Only the man trying to get to the bottom of things actually listens to himself
talk and think.
(Something as uninteresting to routine minds as jazz is to accountants.)
Man came up with the notion of him having a spirit (of some vague sort)
shortly after his mind early (in the game) told him to look someplace besides it
for an explanation of himself.
(Way-y-y beyond merely interesting, huh?!)
When you have no personally developed self you can afford to be self absorbed; indeed at its price — how can you pass it up?!
One man with an extreme visual handicap confides:
“Sometimes being blind’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
Everybody’s sick of something —
the certain man’s way out is by being sick of being such a person.
When he begins, the nervous system rebel wants to awaken on behalf of everyone;
ultimately (when he wises up): just for his self (as it has to be anyway).
One man when he finally made it to the edge of his inner reality,
changed his name to Anyway.
One thing the outlier will not tolerate is the gradual smell of decay.
Regarding Confusing Hormones For Neurons.
Men are commonly lulled to sleep by a radiator humming Schubert,
while not understanding that Franz is in the basement in the furnace.
A guy says: “One of the good things about being famous is that
when other people are around — you can’t be yourself.”
If you feel lost, remember this: only you can save you:
“But how can that be – there’s only one OF you?”
If you feel lost, remember: you have more problems than just feeling lost.
A father said to a son: “While from the rebel’s view it can be said that the ordinary
tend to take life too seriously (but fair’s fair, even for a bear) so let it be noted that
also can the outlier take his non standard view of things too seriously.”
“With an unprofitable result?”
“Si: that he become no different than the ordinary in this useless seriousness.
For the certain man, there can be but one example of seriousness:
looking for an actual tourniquet for an actual gash.”
The Mythical Orient Express And The Inner Journey Revisited.
One man who deeply wanted to see Istanbul had to stop hanging around
the Paris train station once he realized it was his own congenital mind.
(Its dreams of travel and exotic locales being far too seriously specific.)
When bagels overeat at bedtime their nightmares are always of rabbis;
if the justice of conjunctions and the equity of the inevitable become any more flagrant, the apparent distance twixt things Gaelic & Turk could be measured in millimeters.
The Horrors Of Any Apparent Estrangement Between Hormones & Neurons.
There was once a man who developed a land submarine,
in which he could remain cut off from life, or peer out at things through the periscope.
(And he wants it known that he has nothing whatever to do with
radiators hissing and furnaces growling, or lions and computers conversing.)
One kid has a theory that if you constantly station yourself around
impressive looking doors, eventually someone will say: “The king will see you now.”
Even after you realize what is going on, your understanding of it will yet widen
and deepen – if you persist, and if you do not – decay creeps in;
attacking first your nose to diminish the offensive smell
now coming from your brain.
Too long loitering in the Paris terminal covers one in a private, rank funk.
“But the kid’s theory was that if you hang around the right door long enough
someone will eventually let you in to see the king of Istanbul and enlightenment.”
Maybe — but the only way this occurs is just after you have realized the voice you hear is your own consciousness and the door is your own natural born mind.
One man says it comes down to this:
after you have established agriculture,
discovered fire,
invented the wheel,
developed crotchless panties and bandages –
what are you going to do with your ability to think then?
The answer to that for the few is:
Learn the needed manner by which to cry out inside your own head: “All aboard!”
J