From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Sat Aug 04 2001 - 09:37:21 MDT
From: "Eugene Leitl" <Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
> > Why are you replying to my messages?
>
> Because I'm trying to understand what makes you tick, and I'm not
> succeeding very well so far.
Do you really want to understand what makes me tick? Do I tick? Human beings
are still behaving with animal instincts, and the animal instincts, it seems,
may be overpowering in their intensity and speed. It may be that it is only
natural for both adults and children to respond to life with animal instincts.
Which means that after a million years, we are still instinctively behaving
like our ancestors in some ways. Probably our behavior is also complicated by
thought; the animal instinct has now become entangled with thought, and it is
getting in some ways worse, far worse. Because all these instincts of hatred
now become directed and sustained by thought, so that they are more subtle and
dangerous. During all these many centuries we haven't found a way, a method, a
system -- something that will move us away from that track. One of the
difficulties is that when people begin to be angry with each other, their
anger builds up and they can't seem to do anything about it. They may try to
control it, but that doesn't work. If someone behaves naturally in a way that
is not a response to the animal instinct, what place has this kind of insight
in human society? None at all? In society as it is, it cannot be accommodated,
because society is organized under the assumption that pain and pleasure are
going to rule. You could say that friendliness is a kind of animal instinct
too, for people become friendly for instinctive reasons. And perhaps they
become enemies for similar reasons. So I think that some people would way that
we should be rational rather than instinctive. There was a period during the
18th century, the Age of Reason, when they said man could be rational, could
choose to be rational, in order to bring about harmony everywhere. But
humanity has not done so. No, things got worse, leading to the French
Revolution, to the Terror and so on. After that, people didn't have so much
faith in reason as a way of getting anywhere, or coming out of conflict. So
where does that lead us? Can insight actually change the nature of the brain
itself? By dispelling the ignorance in the brain, insight allows the brain to
function in a new way. Thought has been operating in ignorance, crating its
own ignorance and functioning in that. And insight is like a flash which
breaks down the ignorance. Then when that insight clears the ignorance, does
humanity act, or function, rationally? Yes, humanity will then function
rationally, and with perception, rather than by rules and reason. But there is
a freely flowing reason. You see, some people identify reason with certain
rules of logic which would be mechanical. But there can be reason as a form of
perception of order. So, is insight perception? It is the flash of light that
makes perception possible. It is even more fundamental than perception. So
insight is pure perception, and from that perception there is action, which is
then sustained by rationality, and the rationality is perception of order.
That order is not mechanical because it is not based on logic. There are no
rules. This order is not based on rules. This means insight, perception,
action, order... then you come to the question, is insight continuous, or is
it by flashes? Or perhaps we can look at it differently. It is not time
binding. So now let's get a little further. Insight is the elimination of the
ignorance which is the very center of the self, the ignorance that self
creates. Insight dispels that very center. With the ignorance, perception is
not possible. It's blindness in a way. What next? I am an ordinary human, with
all my animal instincts, pleasure and pain and reward and punishment and so
on. I hear you say this, and I see what you are saying has some kind of
reason, logic and order. It makes sense as far as we can see it. Then how am I
to have reason in my life? How am I to bring it about? You understand that
these words which are difficult, are all of them time binding. But is that
possible? Yes, without time, you see. Is it possible for humanity, with its
narrow focus on practicality, to have this insight, so that the old pattern of
life is broken? We have tried all this, tried every form of self-denial, and
yet that insight doesn't come about. Once in a while there is a partial
insight, but that partial insight is not the whole insight, so there is still
partial ignorance. Which doesn't dispel the center of the self. It may dispel
some ignorance in a certain area, but the source of the ignorance, the cause,
the sustainer of it, is still there. Now what shall we do? But this is a wrong
question. This leads nowhere. We have stated the general plan. And one has to
make the moves, or make no moves at all. I haven't the energy. I haven't the
capacity to see it quickly. Because this is immediate, not just something that
I practice and eventually get. I haven't the capacity, I haven't the sense of
urgency, of immediacy. Everything is against me: family, colleagues, society.
Everything. And does this mean that I eventually have to become a monk? No.
Becoming a monk is the same as becoming anything else. Becoming a monk is like
becoming a businessman. I see all this, verbally as well as rationally,
intellectually, but I can't capture this thing. Is there a different approach
to this problem? I am always asking the same question, because I am caught in
the same pattern. So, is there a totally different way? A totally different
approach to the whole turmoil of life? Is there a different way of looking at
it? Or is the old way the only way?
As long as the center is creating ignorance, and thought is operating in that
darkness, there must be disorder, and society will be as it is now. To move
away from that, you must have insight. Insight can only come about when there
is a flash, a sudden light, which abolishes not only ignorance but the cause
of ignorance. Is there a different approach to this question altogether, even
though the old response seems absolute? Possibly. Do we want a less absolute
approach? If that is the only way, then we are doomed. You can't produce this
flash at will. It can't be produced through will, through sacrifice, through
any form of human effort. That is out, and we have finished with all that. to
some people, this insight seemed so natural we asked why is it not natural to
others. It seems natural to children to respond with animal instincts, with
great intensity which sweeps them away. Ignorance arises because it is so
overwhelming. Why is it different with others? First of all it seems natural
to most people that the animal instincts would take over. And they would say
the others are unnatural. So that is the way humankind has been thinking,
saying that if there are indeed any people who are different they must be very
unusual and unnatural. Humans have been responding to hatred with hatred, and
so on. There are those few, perhaps many, who say that is not natural or
rational. Why has this division taken place?
If we say that pleasure and pain, fear and hate, are natural, then it is felt
that we must battle to control these, otherwise they will destroy us. The best
we can hope for is to control them with reason, or through another way. But
that doesn't work. Are people of insight, who function differently, the
privileged few, by some miracle, by some strange chance event? Many people
would say that. But it goes against one's grain. I would not accept that. So,
why is there this difference? People of insight are born of the same DNA.
Fundamentally the same. So why do the insightful behave differently? This
question has been asked many times, over and over again in different parts of
the world. Now why is there this division? The division is entire and
complete. But because people say that they want to escape ignorance, does not
mean that they actually understand the state they are in, and want to
deliberately get out of it. They feel ambivalent about it. They want to go on
getting the rewards from their life style, but they have a sense that it is
wrong, and that it leads to suffering. Or else they find they can't help it.
You see, when the time comes to experience anger or pleasure, they can't get
away from it. They can't help it. Although they are helpless, they want to get
out of it. So what shall we do? Or is this division false? These two
approaches don't have anything in common. Although people are fundamentally
the same, and therefore the difference is false, a difference has developed
between them. Perhaps most people have taken a wrong turn in their lives.
But the difference is not intrinsic, it is not structural, built in like the
difference between a rock and a tree. The difference between the ignorant and
the insightful is not like that. There are two responses. They start from the
source; one has taken one direction, and the other has taken a different
direction. But the source is the same. Why haven't all of them moved in the
right direction? If one understands that, then going back to the source, one
does not have to take the wrong turn. In a sense we are continually taking
this wrong turn, so if we can understand this, then it becomes possible to
change. And we are continually starting from the same source, not going back
in time to a source. There seem to be two possible ways of taking our
statement. One is to say that the source is in time, that far back in the past
we started together and took different paths. The other is to say that the
source is timeless, and we are continually taking the wrong turn, again and
again. Why do we constantly take the wrong turn? We can't go back, so it is
apparent that we are taking the wrong turn all the time, constantly. Why? The
one who is living with insight and the other who is not -- are these constant?
The one who is living in ignorance can move away from it at any time. Nothing
holds one to ignorance except constantly, habitually taking this wrong turn.
You could say the ignorance is such that one doesn't see oneself taking the
wrong turn. Are we pursuing the correct direction, putting the right question?
Suppose you have insight, and your ignorance, the very center of ignorance,
has been dispelled completely. A fairly serious and intelligent person listens
to you, and whatever you say seems reasonable, rational, sane. So where is the
division, which is created by the center which creates ignorance? Thought has
created it.
In ignorance, thought creates the division. From ignorance a shadow is cast,
and it defines a division. If we have that insight, we say there is no
division. Humanity won't accept that, because in its ignorance there is
nothing but division. So we, living in ignorance, have created the division.
We have created it in our thoughts; we are constantly creating it, and always
wanting to live constantly in a state in which there is no division. That
movement, is still the movement of ignorance.
How are we to dispel this continuous, constant ignorance? As long as it
exists, we create this constant division, and this keeps going round in
circles. We can only dispel the ignorance through insight, and we cannot have
that insight by any effort of will, so we are left with nothing. So the
problem is to perceive the ignorance, to perceive the thought that is creating
ignorance, and see that the self is the source of this ignorance. Why can't
one see that? Logic doesn't seem to operate. So what shall we do when we
understand for the first time that the self is creating the ignorance which is
constantly breeding division? Actually, there is no division, but only the
illusion of division. In a way the thought process spontaneously produces the
illusion of division. If we try to put it aside, it is at the same time trying
to make division. So this seems a wrong way to go about it. Dualistic thinking
cannot put away division. Insight tells us there is no division, and we
recognize that, and it has an immediate effect. Having lived with dualism,
what effect does the understanding of unity have? It brings a response of
tremendous shock. It changes our whole way of seeing, and breaks the old
pattern with this fundamental truth. There is no division between nature and
humanity. Where hatred exists, this insight does not. But while hating, one
wants insight. Constant division emerges from constant denial of this
conflict. Seeing reality as a unified totality dispels the denial.
Effortlessly, insight comes to the brain.
Can one listen even while living in constant ignorance? Yes, and if one can't
one is doomed. This is no argument, it is simply the way reality is. Living in
ignorance is useless, except as it provides opportunity to listen to insight.
Listening carefully and sensitively, one awakens to the unity of reality, and
knows that one has been living in illusory dualism, and this brings that
constant division to an end. Otherwise, if this doesn't happen, we have
nothing. Formerly we lived in perpetual ignorance, but listening to this
insight has an extraordinary effect, and reaches the source of the movement,
whereas passive observation does not. We have observed, listened, played all
kinds of games all our lives, and we now see that there is only one existence,
that there is this constant ignoring of it, and acting in that ignorance; in
this chaos which is ignorance; whose center is the self. Seeing that
completely, argument disappears. It is like water quenching thirst, this
insight dispels duality. We realize that the constant movement of ignoring
reality or seeing it through the filter of ideation has been our life. With
all the experience and knowledge collected over millions of years, humanity
suddenly can see that we've been living in total ignorance, which means we've
reached the end of all hope, and that hope is also ignorant, the future is
just more illusion and we're left with enormous darkness. Understanding that
ends the process of becoming. Reaching this point is natural, and allows us to
see all religions rely on the illusion of duality. They repeat the pattern by
saying this duality can be overcome. But when there is insight, there is no
duality. It is not my insight or your insight, it is insight, and in that
there is no duality, no division. This brings us to the ground of being, which
is not divided and in which nothing emerges of will, or time, or thought.
There is something other than light and dark; a perception of movement which
is not divided. The ground of being is endless movement. Apart from time,
apart from the movement from being to becoming (psychologically), is the
ground of being, and it has no end, no beginning. The ground of being is
timeless, formless, and flows without division. Understanding the significance
and depth of that reveals existence extends beyond time and distance. The
ground of being surrounds and envelops us. The cosmos, the multiverse, the
whole, the totality, whatever we decide to call it, only that exists. Can
human awareness be of that timeless movement, the totality? It is timeless,
and therefore deathless. The ground of being is without death, and in so far
as awareness engages it, it is the same. That which dies when the individual
dies has no importance, and has very little meaning. The ending of a body is
totally trivial. Understanding the significance of the statement that there is
no duality in reality breaks the spell of ignorance, and we see there is the
movement of the ground of being, and that's all. Which means death has very
little meaning. Suddenly the fear of death drops away when awareness engages
the ground of being, then awareness is the movement of the ground of being.
Matter and energy, everything is that movement. In our darkness we have
listened to insight, and this clarity has broken our spell of the illusion of
duality between life and death. One can never say then, I am immortal. It is
so childish, because it is based on the false duality of life and death which
comes from the self. Insight has wiped away the whole sense of living in
denial of the unity of reality. What importance have the struggles of
humanity? They are like struggling in a locked room.
Can this insight with its ending of conflict affect the neurons of the brain?
It has been shown that under stress brain cells start to break down. Science
and knowledge have evolved, but in the last ten thousand years the human brain
has not. In the silence and stillness of meditation, pure awareness emerges in
the ground of being, and struggle comes to an end. This extraordinary event
affects everyday life by going beyond aggression, becoming, striving, and so
on.
©¿©¬
Stay hungry,
--J. R.
Useless hypotheses, etc.:
consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind, free will, qualia,
analog computing, cultural relativism, GAC, Cyc, Eliza, and ego.
Everything that can happen has already happened, not just once,
but an infinite number of times, and will continue to do so forever.
(Everything that can happen = more than anyone can imagine.)
We won't move into a better future until we debunk religiosity, the most
regressive force now operating in society.
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