You Cannot Gradually Get Better at Awakening
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
7/23/04:
Notes by TK
It can be said that awakening is a gradual process, but, truth be told, you cannot gradually get better at awakening. As to the question of whether you are permanently or only temporarily awake: even when out of the automatic mode of mind, i.e., momentarily awake, if there is any intangible matter that has concerning importance to you: you’re not awake.
Education and accomplishment and life experience notwithstanding, you are of the same consciousness/temperament as when an adolescent teenager. The consciousness is the same; to realize this is liberating. The closest approach to gradual awakening is to be in a kind of quasi-, or meta-automatic mode, sporadically interrupted by non-auto mode such that automatic mode feels increasingly uncomfortable and ridiculous: laughable. (45:10) #3177
Notes by DR
Jan Cox Talk 3177 You don’t gradually get better at this. You’re either in it or out. When you’re out of automatic if you can look back on some particular idea of the intangible religious, social or artistic and you still say “but that’s still true”, then you’re not fully awake. If you’re devoted to something; republican, socialist, capitalist, then you’re a devoted idiot. You’re the same person’s consciousness as when you were 15. You do not gradually get better, you develop three positions of consciousness, automatic, the other one, and the third one, not so much a position as it is gradually a shift in the relationship between the automatic and the other one.
It shouldn’t be too difficult at least every hour to think of the goal and get out of automatic. When this third quasi-position becomes active it’s difficult to fall back into automatic consciousness. A consideration of how an important thought to you becomes pitiful and laughable will snap you into the third. You fall back asleep and become that pompous vain dickhead that has no idea he’s a dickhead and it jolts you out of automatic. Part of its symptoms reduces the fever. A keyword is automatic.
Jan’s Daily Fresh Real News (to accompany this talk)
PRISON RHYTHMS
NEVER MATCH THE TUNES
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The Few’s Guide To Freedom From The Lockstep
JULY 23, 2004 © 2004: JAN COX
A Felicitous Fable For A Friday.
Perusing his unclothed, unexceptional reflection in a full length mirror
a man extemporaneously axiomized:
“In Paradise: all will be naked (except for the beautiful — ’cause they won’t be there!)”
Lurking behind the door, a local god of uncomeliness mused:
“Good looks do not one wise make (but they can at least distract from your torpidity).”
And a passing mercury merchant muttered:
“Ever notice that all the world’s famous philosophers have been double ugly?!
When are men going to realize that nature is trying to send them a message
regarding overusing the mind.
The rich and the beautiful people have the correct idea: wear a bikini; strike a pose; look bored and keep your mouth shut.”
“Words to live by,” opined the mirror, “for those who think they need such.”
Then added a transient moose: “That does seem to be the radical distinction between humans and the rest of us creatures: we have no philosophies available to live by – which may account for man’s supremacy on this planet.”
(And as he turned away, mumbled something that sounded like: “Or maybe not.”)
Brevity & Wisdom.
One man’s motto: “The longer the proverb – the more words required.”
Even slop sounds better stated alliteratively.
Time, Location & Longevity.
The reality behind myths, fables, and metaphysical metaphors
has no time, place or age.
The neat thing about describing the kind of person you are
is that when you hear you say it – it sounds right.
Sequence & Logic.
Men invented numbers when the alphabet began to confuse them.
One man had a thing he woke up with every morning;
all men have something they wake up with every morning,
but this man had something special.
Hormones & Neurons.
Many things in the penthouse started out in the basement.
Without their glasses: men could see little;
without their thoughts: nothing.
Hormones & Neurons II.
“What d’ya mean: ‘many things’?”
One man went out on a hunt for the meanings behind mystical metaphors,
but was doomed to fail (having taken with him only the weapon of his ordinary consciousness).
Plenty On Hand.
Men always run out of advice for their self before they do advice for others.
(“Wow! – that’s a lucky break!”)
After he stopped talking about himself to others, one man was so favorably impressed with the results that he even considered doing so in his own consciousness.
Whenever he was asked if it was this thing, or that other thing
which caused him to take a certain action, one man would commonly reply:
“A little bit of both I guess” (then under his breath mutter: “Or neither!”)
Though not part of the collective understanding:
the ordinary laws of motion apply to speech.
(Newton on the verbal down stroke.)
The downside of an expanded personal understanding of the true nature of
The Great Mythical Quest is that it cuts down on your need to travel.
(Should this have had the headline: Joke Of The Day?)
(In case you have never noticed): in this part of the universe:
A little variety in thought feels like a lot of variety.
(And if you haven’t noticed – consider what that says about you.)
Upon realizing he was dead (for reasons known only to him)
one chap asked that this information not be made available – not just yet.
(Is it not sometimes enjoyable to learn of things and not know why you have.
Like getting a free trip to a place you never thought about going,
and not being forced to go.)
When he reflected on what he had accomplished in the forest-of-thoughts
into which he had been born, one man began to privately refer to himself as:
The International Beaver Patrol.
Man’s search for the One Secret Word led to the creation of the many.
Like everything else: even palaver had an honorable origin.
(And the collective mind of man [aka: Everything else] said: “Mucho thanks.”)
Even ordinary people who in any way want to improve their self,
unknowing and at a quite weak level, seek to become enlightened:
which underlines again the rebel’s need for extraordinary efforts.
In reptile land, mere crocodilian exertion won’t get it.
A patient said to the mind doctor: “I get easily dazed and confused,” and the expert (after getting a good gander at what was in there) replied: “Well sir: it’s no wonder.”
(And no email came in asking where such a physician can be found.)
Beauty & Knowledge.
Hyenas who never see their reflection — don’t give a damn.
Legend tells of a far away world of creatures who had the makings of consciousness, but no mirrors;
thus their potential lay unrealized —
like Adam would have been had he never heard the supernatural voice;
what men call god is consciousness aware of itself;
what a few call being-awake is being aware of this (among other things).
For the certain man the supreme beauty is the realization of the nature of knowledge: consciousness’ direct perception of itself with no distracting verbal embellishment.
By his saying nothing the man who knows the secret is trying to tell you what it is.
The sun never sees itself because it is entirely too beautiful.
There is no limit to how awake a man can get,
and no limit to how asleep he can be,
and the nearest thing there is to such is believing there is a limit to how awake
a man can get.
(Aka: Even those who appear in the beginning to be warriors can eventually be overcome with inner exhaustion.
“There, there” is the name of the steed of the knight you’ve never heard of:
the one who never made it past the moat:
the one forever lurking in everyone’s fun house mirror.)
Veracity Verified.
Man’s Collective Thoughts = Man’s Collective Reality.
The Certain Man’s Original Thoughts = Real Reality.
There is a rhythm to the events in life that man experiences,
and a related one to what occurs in his consciousness at their witnessing;
some have suspected the former – no one the latter.
Men’s collective mind records history:
the certain man’s makes sense of it.
Without understanding tempo – the music never jells.
J