Talk Is a Substitute for Being Conscious
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.
Summary = See below
Condensed News = See below
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Summary
8/6/04:
Notes by TK
We are conscious, but not individually, independently so. No one knows what s/he is going to think/say next. Talk is a substitute for being conscious. This explains more things about what men do than anything. The awakened must virtually force themselves to talk, to be sociable w/ others—to put them at ease. As long as you talk, you can’t be aware you’re not really conscious, that you don’t know what’s going on, that you are not really thinking about the matter under investigation. (29:58) #3183
Notes by DR
Jan Cox Talk 3183 Man has no individual consciousness but it’s the collective feeding into him. Therefore he doesn’t know what he’s going to think next. Is talking a substitute for thinking? For men not being individually conscious? If consciousness worked the way men say it does then no one would ever say anything that surprised them or made them laugh. As long as you keep talking you don’t notice what the hell you’re talking about.
Jan’s Daily Fresh Real News (to accompany this talk)
CALLING PRISONERS “GUARDS,”
CHANGES NOTHING
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Accounts Concerning Those With No Name
AUGUST 6, 2004 © 2004: JAN COX
What stirs stronger in man than the desire to be recognized? –
and his suffering no hesitation to point out why he deserves to be so?
This is not only true for the alpha wolves clawing for dominance,
but also with the whimpering pack who want their state of imposition appreciated.
Once food has quieted the belly, the most persistent sound heard from man
is his mind crying: “Look at me! – look at me.”
(P.S. The certain man requires no one’s eyes but his.)
P.P.S. A lion doesn’t have to say anything to impress a gazelle or lesser lions,
and neither do a man’s muscles — but his talking consciousness – Ah! –
now that is a different matter indeed. (We’re speaking now of men’s
natural born consciousness, not the one later developed by the few.)
You might also note that in one of man’s more popular metaphorical tales
(Adam & the Garden) the first words any human heard from the Divine
were about him. (Funny – huh?!)
One city sorehead (who ‘tis rumored has had his intellectual tubes tied)
in a cocktail party moment let slip this sentiment:
“After it’s all weighed and wrapped: life is not unlike a rather amiable disease – Hic!”
In that regard, consider a face with a rash: is it possible that the rash
pictures the situation to be one of a rash with face on which to be?
Everything must be someplace – so (mister minister of martinis):
who is the disease and who the host?
He who no longer distinguishes, has had his eyes opened.
A rebel, once firmly established on new neural ground outside the city,
can look back and now realize that the matters that matter the least – matter the most.
The warden’s most pressing need is to keep control of the prisoners,
while theirs is to get free thereof.
What’s it all mean when the city limits of Paris have become its prime attraction,
and the thoughts you take as your most original and meaningful
are those that defend your mental status quo?
To the certain man, the name of every city and area where the collective gather is: Viscid Rose
Words can be fun —
believing that those not about finding food are other than just that
can make them definitely feel to be not fun.
(Funny, huh?!)
Waking up and original thoughts go hand in hand,
and only to an awakened man are original thoughts significant,
and to be capable of original thoughts a man must be beyond the stage of merely wanting to wake up.
In the center of the city stands a sign that announces the essential street information:
“Some head north – some go south – others turn east and west,
but have no concern: they all are right on course.”
Let’s Have A Hand – For The Will Of Man.
The salvation of the many rests in the fact that the Palace Of Sin did not have on its menu that which they that night desired. (Plus their prices were too high.)
Fact: No one but a dunce can be converted.
(Which should be apparent since only they are ever initially verted.
[“Hey watch it! – I used to be a parent.”])
Until the appearance of an awakened man: the only wolves who talked –
talked only about themselves.
One demi fine day, the kid asked the ole man:
“Why do you never sing the praises of parenthood, and offer thanks for
having the likes of me?” and the elder instantly leaped into a squatting, squinting position as he suspiciously responded: “This is a trick question – right? –
you know something I don’t?!”
Moral: It is very embarrassing to be outwitted by yourself –
UNLESS YOU’RE THE CERTAIN MAN.
At one unconventional city school, on the opening day of class in their first year,
just after they take all of the children’s names – they shoot them! –
before they can repeat them.
(This story is far too unconventional and insightful to have actually happened.)
Acting As Lawyers.
‘Tis not just fools who defend themselves – so do nervous-system-rebels;
they just do it silently – invisibly and in private –
and in another time zone than where any attack occurs.
The man securely on his way to the far edge of inner reality
does not pluck chickens in the same judicial circuit in which they flew into his life.
“You mean: into his consciousness?!”
Very good.
Real rashes really are on your skin – spiritual and psychological ones
infest only inner areas your consciousness imagines to exist.
“Which, for an ordinary man is the same as existing, right?!”
Good again.
In the city part of consciousness, the problem when speaking of the intangible matters that comprise man’s second reality is not in being specific,
but in never being specific enough.
Later the kid said to the ole man:
“If you had known then what you do now:
when you were young would you have done everything you wanted to
regardless of its consequences to the length of your life, or would you have
refrained from some things you wanted to do so as to live longer?”
and the elder buoyantly replied: “So! — you don’t know any more than me after all!”
Track News.
Definition of the: Rebel Dilettante: One who runs some – but never passes himself.
One man reminded all of his family:
“Whenever I say anything serious, remember – I’m joking.
(If you can’t have a little fun in the privacy of your own consciousness –
what’s the world coming to!)”
J
Transcript
Tape #3183
recorded August 6, 2004 by Jan Cox,
© Jan Cox Legacy Group,
Transcribed by TomK
Feb 29, 2008 from MP3 file.
Run time: 29:58.
Begin:
00:00 My description, that by a quite reasonable definition, ordinarily men are not individually conscious because what goes on in your consciousness naturally, is not intended by you personally. But amongst the general public that statement I’m sure would be classified, charitably, as insane.
00:45 Yet all you have to do is look; all you have to do is answer me a simple question: what are you going to think next? So by that simple, direct, irrefutable definition, men are not by nature individually conscious. Where obviously, by our own definition, by our own view, we are in some way conscious, but the consciousness is not individual. You just are conscious.
01:35 As you know, I’ve offered you a description such as: there is a collective consciousness and it is that that is feeding into everyone’s brain. You open you mouth, you don’t know what you’re going to say next much less what you’re going to think next. But this unseen, this strictly non-personal consciousness works through you, so men are in some way conscious but not individually.
02:25 So, here’s tonight’s proposition: man is not individually conscious, therefore he does not know what he’s going to think next, thus talking substitutes for being conscious and knowing and being able to actually think.
03:20 I’ll repeat it: since man is not individually conscious, therefore does not know what he’s going to think next, thus does talking substitute for being conscious and actually thinking.
03:53: This is so delightful, when you see it for yourself, and explains more things then men do, that I’m going to sit here and enumerate, but if you start investigating this and if you see finally for yourself, that talk, as strange as this sounds, in the beginning, operates as a substitution, it makes up for men not being individually conscious, and not actually thinking…that thoughts just appear, in the same way that consciousness is just there. You don’t plan what it’s going to do, speaking from the view of an ordinary person.
05:00: Once you see that, there’s just an almost endless stream of things that you’ve done throughout your life…said…things that other people do, that if you look at them, inquisitively, they’re inexplicable. But when you can see that talk is operating as a substitute, these things become ‘splicable’.
06:05: If consciousness actually worked like men say that it does, no one would ever say anything that either surprised them or made them laugh. Two fairly common occurrences…and I’ve been waiting now, jeez, I don’t know, 20 years, to hear somebody, in life, say “Whoa!” and notice that something stinks like a 3-ton, 5-day-old dead tuna. That men, and probably you have, will be talking and say something witty, and reflexively they will laugh, and nobody ever goes, “Wait a minute! How can this be?” that the person who said it or somebody else listening to them laughs. You don’t laugh at a joke that you’ve already heard the punchline to. So, how can you be surprised and amused by something you knew you were going to say?
08:55 An even simpler one: people say things, and I’m sure you’ve done this, and just as you get through saying it, you say to yourself—or even out loud—”Good God! Why’d I say that?” How can you say something that shocks you, disappoints or surprises you?
10:00 Nobody ever says “So, you were surprised by what you said?” and grabs you by the lapels and says “Wait a minute! You’re telling me that you’re a conscious, sane, normal person, and while talking you made that statement and once you made it you were surprised that you made it?”
11:20 The normal, mechanical chatter that comes out of people’s mouths, I propose to you, is a substitute for actually, individually, thinking. Which as a corollary, I could propose to you, is why, if there were people who were awake, who know what’s going on, have very little to say; very, very little to say.
12:40 I’ll propose it this way: when you wake up, you’ll almost stop talking. You’ll have to willfully make yourself talk…to be sociable around ordinary people. Now of course, it’s all completely insincere, by ordinary people’s definitions. You’re not driven to say it; you don’t automatically, anymore, ask people about themselves, [i.e.,] primarily to get them to tell you what they’re thinking about you. You just do it so as to keep other people from feeling uncomfortable. Because when two ordinary people are sitting around, if you’re one of them, and you don’t talk, you make the other person very quickly uncomfortable.
13:45 Ordinary people understand that in the same way they understand everything. That is, they don’t understand it, it’s just part of their mechanical consciousness to talk. But, more specifically, when you’re talking, an ordinary person under ordinary circumstances, as long as you’re talking you never notice that you’re not individually conscious—that you don’t know what you’re going to say next.
14:30 Isn’t that neat? As long as you keep talking you don’t notice that you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. But if you stopped long enough, which for most ordinary people means if they stay off by themselves too long, it could set up the possibility that their consciousness might be faced with the realization that “Hey, I’m not really conscious, not individually conscious! Because I don’t know what thought is going to appear in my consciousness next, or what I’m going to say next.”
16:10 A more refined version: if you’re sitting around by yourself and your consciousness is in its ordinary automatic running mode, daydreaming, as long as you sit there you’ll never realize it is automatic. Isn’t that beautiful? You have to do something to willfully interfere with it, such as trying to self-remember, to observe yourself. Or, for years and years, trying to figure out what the hell that means. Watch my hands? Watch my legs? And something tells you, naw, that ain’t it; it’s to watch the inner you, your personality, your I.
17:45 Some people have described it as: to count your breaths; some schools use that—to count your breaths and when you lose count, to start all over. If you do it with the purpose of waking up, it interferes with the automatic running of consciousness; so it sets up the distinct possibility of consciousness realizing it runs completely automatically and in no wise has anything to do with you personally.
19:40 And be aware of that too long—I’d say about three seconds—and dammit, you’ll wake up. And life is not arranged for that. Thus the high probability that people aren’t ever going to stop talking with other people, or talking in their consciousness when they’re by themselves—that is not how consciousness is arranged in us.
21:15 As good a method as counting breaths, is to undertake to be a private investigator inside your own head. To investigate my proposal that talk substitutes for actual thinking. Now, that is a strong assertion, as I’ve said in the ordinary world—it would just be dismissed. But you know it can’t be simply crazy or I wouldn’t waste our time by bringing it up.
22:00 I’m not talking about practical, useful thought, such as you’re trying to explain to someone something you physical you have knowledge of, [i.e.,] how to change the board in a computer, how to set the idling on a carburetor. We’re talking about every other form of talk, all talk about intangible matters: spiritual, psychological, social, moral, artistic, political…cultural.
23:50 And when you’ve actually had experiences, those times when, on your own, you understand something—let’s call it at least a “mini waking up”—when that happens, what’s going on in your mind is a completely different kind of mental activity.
24:40 That is what I mean by actual thinking. It is personal. It is personal to you, it is not impersonal, mechanical activity that flows through your mind day and night incessantly—where your mind is just a passive medium, and might as well be a stereo speaker whose output something else is responsible for—it is a distinct, unmistakable break, an interruption to that flow and you are in an entirely different state of consciousness, and it’s yours.
26:29 It’s the kind of thing that you cannot go out to ordinary people and tell them that thought. It’s perfectly clear, beautifully sane, indisputably true to you and yet you know you cannot put it in words to ordinary people. It’s everything that ordinary consciousness is not, everything that everyday ordinary thinking is not, ordinary talk is not. You see it, you have the thought to match it and you’re satisfied to live with it in silence. In fact, some of you, or maybe all of you may be up to the point now that you feel no need whatsoever to try and tell anybody.
27: 40 It’s enough that you see it, enough that you had the thought. Your consciousness saw this. You can use that as a background to investigate tonight’s proposition. I say that there is no such thing as useful talk that is not about material matters. You can use everything I’ve said tonight as a backdrop to your investigation of the proposition that all non-technical talk is a substitute for not actually thinking. Isn’t that weird? Spooky? Delightful! Talk, the representation, the manifestation of thought turns out to be a substitute for actually thinking…think about that!!