Author: israelx7

Having introduced some notion of good and bad/evil in regards to our possession, or witness to consciousness in the last section, can we consider it further? If, as stated, a man holds no care for being either right nor wrong in his doings and/or so called knowing, is this tenable? But, lest I appear as one attempting to deal only in theory and completely apart from any practicality or utility, we might first have to consider how such notions of good and bad/evil so easily attach themselves to all considerations in matters of our consciousness.

Perhaps you do not accept this, nor think it so. But if the word “ignorance” (as the estate of not knowing) is presented, what is your reaction to it? Do you not already assign it some measure on what might be called a moral scale? Do you consider it entirely neutral? Or, as I am convinced (wrongly?) it holds some place of repugnance, of distaste, of a preferred not status that is assigned to some judgment of being “bad”?

Ignorance…”bad”. Knowledge…”good”?

Perhaps you see it as childish and simplistic. And I cannot argue it is not. In fact it could be argued that such introduction of notion of good and bad/evil has been introduced into us (even attaching itself to such considerations of ignorance and knowledge) so very subtly and at such early stages in the forming of our consciousness (or awareness of it) as we had no control. It came in as mother’s milk to us. Our “gods” fed us so. (Even as they were so fed)

Or, are you feral? (and tell me…is that “good” or “bad” to be identified so?)

Our broad assigning of metrics of good and bad/evil touches and taints most every (all?) consideration. All things fall under some judgment in eye so that even judgment itself is often described as being good or bad in its exercise. As in: “He showed bad judgment there…” or the like.

We may even, in the extreme, prefer to think of ourselves as “non-judgmental” or appreciate what we believe we see of it in others…and surely when we feel or sense as though we are “under it” our first instinct is escape. It speaks of a superiority, it speaks of a having of some position…over.

We might all be “very bad” in our judgments were we to not see how very comfortable we are in exercising it in every thing toward us, while making no account of how much it is despised in any exercise over ourselves. This is but another thing in which we may discover plain division(s) in our own self. A divided-ness; even about judging, and judgments. Another place testifying of our stuck-ness in some predicament.

Is happiness…a “good” thing…misery, suffering, and sadness bad? Happy might be the man who finds of himself he can neither find nor make escape from any bit of their experience. And find something there disclosed. But each would have to admit by some sort of knowing that for themselves and to themselves they only want to know the “happy”. That their balance is so terribly skewed to themselves; sense of right and wrong, good and evil, justice and injustice, true and false, light and dark, knowledge and ignorance, and yes, even life and death are all corrupted by this skewing. And that he holds to, or is witness of a consciousness in all corruption; constantly and incessantly deceiving, turning everything to fit his own advantage as it only fits to his vantage; that is, his perspective as from himself, to himself, and of himself. And that he is as surely locked into this to all impossibility for any man’s ability to escape. For to escape would mean to lose his own being as himself to himself, and who could do this?

An escape would have to be provided from somewhere else. Something else. Someone else. And of such nature that could convince a man as even against himself in some very real way…that he might trust another to “keep” his being. By their being. Even in their being.

But who has believed our report?

If this is not seen it is because the enigma is not seen in ignorance, caused by a deep defect not yet revealed.

The thing we look to to keep us intact to ourselves, as ourselves, for only ourselves…is also the very matter that keeps us locked in a prison of isolation.

Our ignorance is not being held against us (Forgive them Father, they know not what they do), but lying about it holds consequence.

If you were blind you would have no sin, but now that you say you see, your guilt remains.

If it seems an argument is being made, and has been; that life (and our own consciousness in it as we call it) on this material plane is actively prevented from any true knowledge, immanent, immediate, and pure by the very nature of being of consigned to materiality; that is because it is. The argument is substantial and unrelenting. Holding at best only to concepts we believe true, even such notion as truth, our frustrations are such that we only approach their reality in metaphor, or has been said in another place, in types and shadows.

This is our precious predicament. One might even consider how that such concepts, like a carrot held out of reach to a donkey affixed to it by a stick, ever provokes but never comes within reach. They torment us to activity. We have, know, or sense some compelling to apprehend or understand what is real but as an integral part of this reality (as our minds convince us of our reality) we are bound up in it and to it, and can never “get outside” to view it in any objectivity. We are always subject to what our own minds and consciousness make of it. We are the gods of our own reality. We may not prefer to think thus, for to us it is plainly an entrance into crazy land: “Things are only as how I choose to view them” is rarely admitted.

But once we find out we are already there another predicament presents…where is the exit? Is there an exit? How would I even know it…if such a thing is, or could even be seen? If all is so skewed by my self to my self, what hope of any escape? Look now at what I have done (even to myself) in acknowledging such a thing as crazy is, vs. sane, truth vs. lie, understanding vs. ignorance. I am locked in to a fall. For to admit to, or hold to one as being a “real thing” I automatically assign the other a justifiable reality also. To come to see that living in and by such comparison is ubiquitous and inescapable to the mind of man is a dread predicament. It even touches our most fundamental notions; those things we say “we know”. And are our springboard of all consequent motions. On the most fundamental level it could even come to one that he (or she) is only relatively…alive. Comparatively…alive. Even and only…relatively conscious.

I am no guide here. Hold no certificate that testifies of any successful navigating. If I do see a fatal flaw, an Achilles heel, it is no less part and parcel of my own material makeup than any other I might ascribe it to, or seek to hang it upon. It is the simple (perhaps all our simplest) presumption that to know about a thing is to know that thing. Am I as convinced of myself my consciousness is in no way less than yours? Or that in yours there’s a whisper of “but my knowing is better” just as in mine? A whisper easily escalating to a shout if, and when, it seems needful?

And if, or perhaps better…when…I am shown wrong in all these considerations, these thousands of words, is some deficiency exhibited? Is it compounded by my saying “I have no care for it”? Would you think or say within yourself “that is a wrong attitude, that is bad to hold to”?

Be careful at least. For in that place of your acknowledging wrong and bad (or evil) you justify the existence (even to your own self) of a thing called right…and a matter called good.

What “good” is.

How right is?

Or, do you only know “about it”?

The case for light, barely made in the last entry (48), is rather encompassing. And no doubt their myriad considerations have implications for us that we rarely attend to. From thinking we actually “see” in real time (which we do not), to those frequencies and wavelengths of electromagnetic energy whose narrow range of sensibility to us as light we call “light” but which include radio waves, the infrared (“below” red) spectra and those above the violet range (of ultra violet) that includes gamma radiations. The longer wavelengths (of less frequency) are also of lower energy, whereas as we ascend (even in ROYGBIV) to beyond the violet the higher frequencies of shorter wavelengths are of higher energy. And it is not without implications for our material structure that these higher frequencies carry enough energy to disrupt molecular/chemical bonds; even, and especially in our bodies.

Though we call the narrow spectrum we see “light” they are all of the same nature of electromagnetic energy, and all moving through a vacuum of space at a fixed speed. It may sound frivolous, it may be too clever an observation…but no matter where we look to see, or in seeing, we are always “seeing” the past. The light though speedy (to us) and time of its traversing whatever distance from object to eye so infinitesimal as to be beyond worth considering…however…in yet another way our presumptions about certain things is upset. Our perceptions, as made subject to time in this place of materiality are not really as we usually think of them. And, no less, there is also a time lapse between eye and brain. But for us, these matters are short enough (of which we can do nothing, anyway) or close enough for government work…in our consciousness. It is not that we account for them, we don’t even consider them. But when we do begin, or allow for their consideration, not only does time present itself as component of disruption, but even our concepts of time (as intertwined with and to them) become vaguely (but truly) affected. Instantaneous in reality becomes less than instantaneous in concept. Or as held as concept.

It seems (at least to me) we are always encountering spaces… in time and distances…and we are always and truly at some remove from this thing we call reality. As though we are forever locked in to being and fully immersed (even in any concept or definition of what we might call reality) as in all of metaphor. “It’s like this…see…?”

But as strange as this might sound, or even somewhat hostile in, and by, presentation…really…what else could it be? How else could it be? If we consider we might know reality as some thing to be known we have either of two positions; for if we are bound up in it and to it we can not appreciate or know it as “some thing other” as for definition. If we think we are somehow exempt from it, or separate as to have a position from which to study and observe it as other, than we must accept we are not part of reality. Neither position is really tenable, is it? Our consciousness will not let us accept ourselves as not real, but reality cannot be known as other thing apart from the reality our consciousness forces upon us.

If only there were a mind of all reality that both fully knows itself as real…but is under no obligation to, or for, its consciousness. A mind not under…dictation. A fully real…and free…mind.

What sort of light would that mind have in effect upon our own?

Any?

All?

Either all acceptance or all rejection…according only to the light of its choosing. And a choosing of which it is under no compulsion to make.

If, or when we come to discover that “knowing” for us is no more than our perceptions of what we believe it means to know a thing, and like all perception(s) is/are sensibility dependent, we find foundations shaken. And this can be both revelatory (though disturbing) and healthy.

I can think of nothing other as some salient example that might serve than what is called the pigment theory of color vs the light theory of color. They are quite in opposition, though serving the whom of who is using according to their need of understanding and/or expression.

The artist, of the pigment theory comes to recognize black (as it is perceived) as the “presence” of all color(s). White is contrarily or conversely considered the absence of all color.

But to the scientist/physicist who deals in wavelengths susceptible to measurements, it is the opposite. In the light theory of color, black is the absence of all color(s), while white light is its/their presence in totality. When “white” light passes through a prism it yields on exiting all the colors contained within itself. They are made plain by separating of all the wavelengths of what we call color through the work of the prism to cause “white light” to traverse varied distances in its travel through the prism. All these frequencies of light that we call color, contained all within “white light”, are revealed. In total darkness (or what we would call “blackness”) obviously there is no light to be separated or discerned thus. So for the scientist, and according to his understanding of light, frequencies, and wavelengths, he holds a very different understanding of color than, let’s say, the artist. But as to their use, both the scientist and the artist are served equally in their understandings.

To get frivolous, but for the purposes of how we express ourselves according to understandings and perceptions, there could be two renderings/paintings hung side by side in a gallery, one done by an artist, one by a physicist. One all black, one all white…both entitled “A Colorful Day By the Seaside”.

And we would be less in some awareness were we to discount this interplay of perceptions and understanding and how each affects the other as intertwined…particularly to our understanding of even ourselves and thence our own expression to the “world”. To each…”other”. Yes, we favor our own view. We are intertwined to it. Bound in it, to it, and by it. We serve ourselves…according to our perceptions and understandings.

To go even farther into such frivolity, no doubt there are scientists who dabble in painting, and artists who dabble in science and are most likely untroubled in their pursuits. Depending upon which stage they ascend to address (express) themselves to the world, i.e., to “others”; they will adopt or put on their appropriate hats.

And, if I may get very personal in anecdote about perceptions and understandings, I venture to share this. To me the leaf is green. To me that is the irreducible substance of it in perception. It…is green. But the scientists tells me it appears green to me because it absorbs every color/wavelength of light except green which it reflects now to me, and my eye, and mind. My understanding of substance is set askew. My mind wants to think in terms of “no, it is substantially green…’giving off’ green and its substance of the greenness of itself to me” It is not that the scientist would refute this, he would say “Yes, that is why you perceive it as green, that is how color and wavelengths of light work to us…it reflects green because its substance is such as to absorb every other color/wavelength of light and reflect the green wavelength.”

But now my mind rebels, or is at least provoked to questions about true substance. The leaf now becomes very different to me in my understanding regarding what I previously believed its substance…it is not “pulsing out” green as from the substance of itself, or “making green” for me to see. Both it and I are entirely subject to the light falling upon it. So now, if I were to seek to understand and express that leaf as to a truer notion of understanding of its own substance…I am somewhat forced to say “Leaf (at least to me in substance) is absorb-er of red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo, and violet.” Its substance as absorber…is that…for all except green.

It doesn’t “give off green” (though it actually is doing that…giving it off, not receiving/absorbing it into itself) as producer of it. In this, again, an entire notion of passivity as only a thing in all subjection overcomes me, upsets me, even disturbs me (this thing I call myself as active man, a doer of things):

Both it and I are entirely subject to the light falling upon it.

Entirely subject.

Something wants to rebel at this.

Something tends to want to make its own light. And claim it as its own.

The light has made this plain.

Though there has been some care in writing to not always conflate mind and consciousness nor employ or imply their strict interchangeability, this has not been scrupulous. Often mind and consciousness have been mentioned as though in speaking of the one it could be assumed both are the same. But the seeming and subtle difference between them should not be abandoned to being of no matter. That we often do conflate them to all congruence I would agree, but I would rather suggest we are better served if considering mind as that always active engine whereas consciousness holds more that quality of a passivity, an observer of sorts at slight remove in awareness of such activity. But this is my own understanding. And may just be a man begging indulgence.

The interplay, or their interplay, should not be lost on us. The mind holds and exercises in its doings many things of which the consciousness may only be made aware in part. For instance…we are not always in total recall (or consciousness) of all of what we call memories, yet they are (to us) actively being maintained somewhere in mind. When we “try” to remember a name, recall a quote, retrace a route or in any instance summon up to consciousness a thing we trust is in inventory (how to “do” long division) we hold a confidence our diligence in seeking will meet our librarian directing us to the information. Even, and again, this matter speaks of some internal division(s) we encounter in ourselves, for what is the “I” there? Or in all of this?

I may think or say “I am trying to remember something not presently in reach of my ‘I’ “…but is the I the thing seeking or the thing holding (even if temporarily out of view)? Now “I” (ha ha) cannot argue against one saying “Well the whole of what is going on there is the “I”, that’s all and only how the I works and constitutes (for our communication) what an “I” is.” And I surely cannot argue against such definition if it is presented, but inwardly…inwardly do we not all know something of this matter? Not all that is in my mind is ever all that fills my consciousness. Yet, because of such interplay against which I cannot be unpersuaded, what in other instances would be sought for clear lines of what is cause, what is effect; here I am lost as a goose as any. “I” am just far more aware of a seeming game of hide and seek that is often, if not always, taking place. Stuff so often bubbles up to my consciousness as though unbidden, while at other times with intent a deep dive for retrieval ends up fruitless. What is belching up ideas, (or faces, or names, or past experiences…not to mention dreams) while at other times appears to be hiding info…even info I know (or am persuaded confidently) is there?

“Let me Google for the name of that group that sang that song”

“Oh, yes, of course that was them…now I remember…” ha ha ha…

O! what folly to “think” we know our own minds!

Yet we do, don’t we? If only because all our so called knowing…takes place there.

But isn’t the reality that if we really don’t know our own minds…what do we really…know?
And perhaps knowing as we use it, assume to its meaning (as we use it) is as unreal to us as would be our repetition of some word or notion completely foreign to us as to lack any true utility.

Again, and in some belaboring of this point of how circular reasoning is decried as useless (due to our being wed, or sold to linear reasoning and logic) in most every circumstance, knowing for us and to us, is never any more than that.

“I know because I say/think I do (whether stated outwardly or inwardly), and I know…what to know…means”

And from there…we build.

To come to see or understand in any way the “bind we are in” that is irresolvable to us and made real to us in and through consciousness is no small matter. To ourselves, if we speak of what we would call our own consciousness, it appears our sole touchstone and foundation upon which all is built that we would even call our self, or identify as ourselves. That “This is me of which I am sure“.

But once it is apprehended, or even barely seen, that there is that very attendant necessity of feedback to establish establishment, we see the bind. Like Rutherford, we see the space(s). Our surety is touched. For despite all our prior conviction of our own “oneness”, our perceived integrity of all the boundaries surveyed that hold our consciousness of our self, as to our self; we cannot bear of ourself such terror as comes in any notion (perception, sensing, even vague ideation) of total isolation. The “space” around us that allows us to define ourselves as ourselves and to ourselves…also speaks of isolation.

Make no mistake. Beware flippancy. Yes, here we can discuss such matters. We can be in exchange…about it or them. Just as we might talk about hunger or starvation thinking we know and touch certain truths about it…but we are talking about it at some remove. Yes, some space from it. Even our talking about it proves the remove…for the starving man has little interest in talk. His consciousness is narrowed to a singular pursuit, getting out from under that total pressing and exquisitely painful awareness of exquisitely narrowed focus.

Pain (or such as is described as such) has this effect. Its varying degrees may be acknowledged, its intensity to whatever measure may be considered…but pain in totality, not merely conceptualized, requires of us escape. There is no choice in or about this. And though to one the suffering of a scraped knee may generate wails to heaven while another plays through the pain with a broken hand, that point is moot. Our own responses may differ as observed outwardly by another, but both the scraped knee and broken hand produce a favoring, a focus upon the source now in, and made subject to pain. Relief is sought. Pain teaches things in a manner nothing else does, or can.

For some, if not any or many that might read even this, there is great pain. Not merely the pain of enduring another’s thoughts (which can be great enough) but an uncommon uncovering of a common and truly gaping wound found in any consciousness described as our own. It throbs there, pulsing, thrumming and humming out all motive, all motions as a dynamo flings out power…but in this, from the terror of isolation. Such painful terror has a product. Is it any wonder then…why we favor our own consciousness?

The abyss of already knowing it is in, yet churning out denial. It is caught. Needing to have space “around it” to know itself as itself, yet needing to bleed into another for such feedback that confirms it truly is. Needing itself, but of such desire to lose itself and loose itself from the terrors of isolation that all and any manner of lie suffices to it. It wants to be known as real but cannot without such feedback, yet denies to itself that that is the all that constitutes every motive. It is always and ever caught in reaching out and drawing back in all simultaneity. Too much given out, and it is gone to itself. Nothing given out (expressed) and it can never know of its own reality by any feedback of confirmation.

Yes, this is a real bind. The realest of all for man. He gives away agreement to the very end of having agreement. But knowing if he gives all away in agreement in order to have full confirmation of himself, he loses the very thing motivating himself to such confirmation, himself.

Yep, it’s the bind that makes all men liars.

The taker, the needer doing all and everything he can to fabricate the appearance as giver. So he can take. Such fabrication requires lots and lots of energy. And the pain of the terror of isolation…is sufficient to it.

Total isolation…and it cannot know itself as itself. Total “giving away” of itself, and it loses itself and is again, unable to know itself. And the consciousness of man would eat whole of universes before surrendering any notion of its persistent reality.

The “I am” that is in accompaniment of “therefore I must be”.

I tell you there is a consciousness unbound by any of “why”. There is nothing preceding it that such consciousness asks. Or would form any question to.

This consciousness questions and receives every question, but to itself and of itself, it not only does not hold one question of itself, it is an absurdity to consider such consciousness would. And that consciousness is not absurd; not merely because it never has nor does ever lie to itself (and therefore all others) but precisely because it is not of any need.

It can bleed into another without any loss of itself, it can withhold from another without any loss of confirming necessary to itself. “It” needs no agreement from man to be established to itself. It need not give. It need not…take.

Unlike you and I.

Which are all of need.

Created things.

Suspended in such sustaining.

By a “what” that has no need to.

Having touched very briefly on the matter of agreement(s) and the power they exert in a man’s consciousness, or over it, let us consider it a bit further. It is, after all, one of the faculties or functions of consciousness in which we all engage often most unconsciously; but by which we proceed. This matter of trust and its placement originates in the confidence of ourselves, and indeed that we are in the singular sense, we ourselves.

We trust ourselves to be our self and there, for purpose of such power we believe is for gaining are made willing to extend this trust toward others (consciousness) in, and for, agreement. Again, as being so convinced this working is so fundamental, rudimentary, ubiquitous, and irrefutable it is simply another thing too plain as to be rarely noted or considered. That it touches such matters as power and apparent gaining that may seem tangential at first glance; we may find these are so, and no less, bound up in it, and to it, that such also will bare consideration at their proper time. Our quest for power (such as it appears in the mind of consciousness) should not be so foreign nor strange to any. Nor should the “why” of it; the hungry seek food, the thirsty drink, the weak, powerless and vulnerable…seek power. And man’s consciousness is all bound to its own preservation (even in food and drink) and even expansion that is is not difficult at all to understand. There is a compelling in it and to it, a strict binding to matters of preservation and expansion that simply, until seen, are not seen. But, once seen (as with most every matter) cannot be unseen.

The baby cries in all subjection. It is (at least as to us) first response made plain to us in our exchanges on the physical plain and is no less considered a sign of health, a signal of healthy normality. Indeed the more vigorous and active engagement in it is believed and received to a relief of other possible concerns as might accompany in contrast; that is to a listless and barely active newborn. Clenched hands shaking and legs kicking while filling the room with wailing speak a rightness to us as other behavior and circumstance might not. Does not.

Here, crying and wailing as signal are most welcome and, if absent, sought. We may speculate as to what level of consciousness the baby is in experience of, does it “know” of its relatively sudden transition in a from to a to (a warm and fully climate controlled womb not unlike a sensory deprivation tank to a place of sudden and overwhelming sensation) where even a need to do a something previously all unnecessary presents…to actively support itself in breathing. The now of demand upon it is probably greater in experience than all other things we remember. (For thence we have no less come)

Memory, consciousness, these intangible matters that are only made real from one to another (if in fact they are) only come by what? Communication. I hope to not belabor by every step I might describe of entrance into this first tutelage and training, but, and also because, I am convinced it is so easily recognized when considered. And, no less, how agreement is actively and progressively being pressed to an individual in such discipline. The imposition of language is so very great a matter of molding, forming, and structuring a mind in consciousness that in some ways it easily lends itself to being described as severe. But it does not take much consideration nor imagination to understand how a one individual gains power in submitting to it. And agreeing to its constraints. It can learn to express itself of needs.

How this progresses is also not beyond our apprehension or appreciation. What seems one of the most fundamental needs, that is of an individual expressing one’s self, is so facilitated by language and words that it is easily understood as matter of advantage to itself. In fact there is some measure of frustration or discomfort when one finds them self unable to “put into words” some matter of mind. The mind has adopted by agreement to a certain matter, but also finds in it some hobbling.

The discipline of it, and its far reaching consequence(s) in mind may be rarely considered, but they are there. How often do you “think in words”? I have little doubt you hold images, vague and gauzy concepts, ideas that sometimes flash through like meteors in a night sky whose origins and destinations you seek to trace, but…how often do you think in words? Something from “out there” has been so very firmly internalized. And so much so there is often an internal labor to fit one’s thoughts…into them. And we, by agreement to them (though introduced long before concept of agreement could at all be understood well enough to “put into words”) were enlisted to them. We were fed words and language as surely as milk at mother’s breast. And they become to us and in us what they are, no less as tracks laid down by rule to follow. And we grow in what could be called linear reasoning…a thing with beginning, middle, and end. Not unlike the sentences we form for other communication. And we agree to this.

Much has been built…one might even say the whole of a world of edifice that appears to reach upward (as such we assign as progress) but whose foundations are shakiest of all for any with sight. For what has been built upon the agreement of man and men holds in it that worm forever eating away at it; that none are ever in the fullness of agreement no matter what bonds are sworn to. And the worm always has a way of showing its work, the self and selves of men made to be different in their sameness assigned (as each no less holds many division(s) in himself) that will and must be demonstrated as selves express…themselves. We may look for some sameness…for likeness and the attendant like of affection, but each self holds an inherent hostility to every and any other self.

Do you ever wonder about vows and oaths? Their “why”? Agreements and contracts? Their why? Man is forever looking to establish himself by the something “outside” of himself, not knowing of the bind he is already in.

His own and total vulnerability and flux to circumstance.

He knows it, but somewhere deep, somewhere he’d prefer to not explore and cannot because it is all of dark to him. The very possibility of his not being (of which he takes so for granted) is off limits and set off limits by a self manifest in consciousness that forbids his going there. The unspoken codicil or addendum of “I am” is “therefore I must be”.

But who could bear their own mustn’t?

Is there a being, (or form thereof) and/or a consciousness that is not “because” dependent?

Just…is…with no because?

Someone said a man could come to the place, not where he would wish, hope, or find some comfort or solace in this matter…but that it would be better for him had he not been born.

Who could believe that?

Doesn’t a man have to be born…to even believe…in “better”?

Who could say such a thing? Knowing of what is better, apart from any necessity of any man’s agreement? Even knowing no man would, or even could, agree?

What manner of self is in expression there?

Having droned on about these matters for tens of thousands of words, anyone (no less than I) might easily consider “What’s the point?” And it is a more than fair question.

But also consider this, if you can. Is there anything more in the realm of what might be called the “intangibles” upon which more is placed in reliance than this thing we call consciousness? Is it not, in all, most fundamental to all that would be considered the workings of man? This must, at very least, disturb (and where is such disturbance noted?) the most purely materialistic amongst us.

For the premise and proposition are clear, and perhaps too clear as to be so easily ignored. All function of material (or product of material function) cannot be more than, nor less subject to, the matters that govern material. If matter is assigned whatever laws of restriction (gold is not lead nor fluoride) and even subject mechanistically to all other considerations, then surely consciousness as the product of such (materiality) is just as surely restricted. It, no less, must ride the tracks laid down to it. Even what might be called deviation or excursion from what is considered the “normal”…is already assigned to its bearing of restriction. In other words, if speaking to some psychological aspects of consciousness (of which we are not forbidden) such deviations as we perceive them cannot really be outside the realm of such restrictions to possibility. In short a man’s mind is a mind of man…whether he be cannibal or philanthropist.

It is our precious vanity to think an individual mind, or individual’s mind of man is anything other than a mind of man.

Therefore it becomes moot (even absurd) to think we can assign to consciousness (as is most commonly and consciously accepted) a form of deviation that is “out of bounds”. But we do. And we do often. The truth of the matter (can we bear it?) is that the truth of the matter is only less absurd by stating no man is less absurd than any other, no man “more crazy” than any other…for both the absurd and the crazy/demented are equally laid out (as tracks immovable) to man in consciousness. Since all possibility for (what we call) crazy is already and inherently in occupation of consciousness, we come to see it is only by the clever adoption of agreement that we believe we nullify this truth and therefore establish what we call true criteria in judging a man’s consciousness.
And if you doubt, or do not yet know such power as agreement holds in your consciousness (or that consciousness to which you witness) there is time to learn…perhaps.

But if the so called “sane” are no more nor less sane (sanity itself being a rather clever artifice of great utility in most circumstances) than any other to which they might ascribe such notation, of what use is it? “But O!” you think, “it is established…’we’ have determined what are ‘normal’ excursions in mind and behavior.” Do we see how silly this is…and sounds? No, we at best only know or see what we believe “works” best (or has by past testimony)…and to what? Nothing more than the consciousness that serves its own interests.

We may believe there is a numerical superiority established by, or in, agreement (safety in numbers) but once agreement is reached it is firstly barely maintained, but more significantly, agreement in consciousness does not make “many” consciousness’ together, but rather a blend now into simply a “one” consciousness no more nor less significant than any other.

Do you not see this? Know this? Yes, agreement is very powerful…even to a powerful deception of strength when its underpinnings are not seen or known. What are the underpinnings of man’s agreement that lend itself to this deception of power?

It should be plain, but if need be let it be exposed. The convincing that individual (as perceived) consciousness is insufficient to a justifiable end, therefore by the “adding together” of many other insufficiencies it is now made…sufficient. It is like the adding together of many “wrong sums” in math…even to such end that such adding will leave one even farther from some correct solution. Rather than face squarely “if I admit to some insufficiency that I erroneously hold, is made better by the addition of many other insufficiencies, that notion held is even worse in error than first admission of my own insufficiency.”

Do you yet see? The lie of safety in numbers? There is only safety…in safety.

But who can believe only “one” is necessary? Or that there is a full and fully sufficient consciousness?

Not merely so, but that only one…exclusively…is safe?

To what consciousness are you a witness?

Being told that essentially one has no choice in matters previously assumed open to him for all choosing, all exercise of what is often called free will is often not an easily acceptable thing. This is particularly true in matters of what would be considered the moral sphere. Even our apparent choosing to separate such matters into such spheres (particularly of moral ascription) is often too easily made apparent to us.

Listen if you can.

If one is purely materialistic, whether he assigns some or all origins to a “big bang” description/conception or the like, all that is (surely including each man and all men) is a totally dependent consequence to every operation of “law(s)” that govern such matter. The sun, for instance, has and has had no choice (so to speak) but to emanate what we call light and heat. And one can easily (and no less) assume this also pertains to man if, and as, a purely materialistic being. One might even conclude one of the many laws that govern consciousness (if in all consequence to materiality) is that each exercise in and of such consciousness is given to (under the law of) thinking of itself as free. In that sense man has no choice…but to think of himself (in his consciousness) as free. In fact (or truth) it may well be one of the signal governance’s of the consciousness of man of being completely locked up in, and to, thinking himself free.

If you do the experiment and push against this you may see something. But you would also be caught yourself in that “if”…for you could not, and would not “do the experiment” unless you too are likewise caught in a complete constraining. The “if” causes you to think in terms of choice and freedom to choose…(I have options!) but all it describes is possibility and can neither impart nor conclude to any freedom.

Besides which (you might as well admit it) you are loathe to consider that my introduction of “if” is what grants and/or establishes any freedom to yourself.

And let’s face it (as another law of man’s consciousness in all consequence) you are not prepared to hear from “just another consciousness” of a man about the freedom you already presume you have. You are entirely and only beholden to your own consciousness (or the very one you are witness to) for this…and to yourself believe you need no other to either inform, confirm, instruct, contradict, or bring into question, such a matter.

You simply cannot bear it.

Neither can I.

Is there a legitimate question here? Could there be?

What consciousness could bear all contradiction against itself?

And if, and by doing so…would it not then be shown…the stronger?

The greater?

By being able to bear (withstand) what the consciousness of man cannot.

And listen again of you can.

If you say it is slight of hand to introduce that another consciousness “can be” (might be, could be) plainly see what you are saying. That in a world of some 7 billion possibilities of consciousness, yours is the only true one.

Admit then you are truly unable to accept another as being “as real as you”.

Unless you are able to admit…you are simply, and in all, absolutely no different than any other man, at all.

Are you…able?

But don’t despair at finding you think yourself god, even if you say “there is none”.

There’s a help for that manifest opposition of yourself…against yourself.

All of a man’s ways are right in his own eyes.

And that is of itself, all that is wrong with, and about man.

And he cannot help himself with it.

He is not free to.

How would it appear to a man, or rather, how would a man appear to himself (and perhaps others) if he were to embrace some notion of his consciousness (even to him) as being more or less theoretical in nature as previously described? Rather than a bedrock thing as once previously assumed to himself, so certain of it, so sure of its reality in truth and being; he were to discover just how much flux is taking place in it and through it… and being directed to himself? Sometimes a comfort to him, sometimes a terror, sometimes seemingly reasonable, sometimes presenting him with either the most bizarre and absurd of notions whose ends, if seen, would never be pursued; and not infrequently propelling him by desires that lead to catastrophic results…or at the very least, calamity.

Who doesn’t know this?

And it should appear obvious…this sort of knowing is not the sort the self boasts of.

What if the man…previously presuming himself to be actor and possessor, discovers he is more of a witness to matters, even consciousness that he once called his own…this thing that “speaks” to him of his being, his reality, his wondering(s), and self confident affirmations and assurances? What if the thing that is actually the man is only seeing thoughts, seeing ideas, experiencing desires and with provoking of will in all, merely comes to understand the he that is the he (or she) is has been formed and made subject to all these mentioned by being locked in as witness restricted to their entertaining and solely to them; and is being convinced they are the he (or she) of which he is, and can never be otherwise.

I am. Me.

Perhaps such delusion would be fully expressed as one, by one, even as through one; who would make claim “I know my own mind”.

Really?

But also really…what keeps me…from being you? And perhaps more quizzically, what makes me know I am not? You. What is this bounding and bonding of self to self?

Now the easy answer that reveals nothing other than a belief in its being of itself a thing, is what is called sense of self. As in “The sense of self tells one he/she is him/herself.” How often we think by naming a thing it either explains or resolves it to some understanding! But for those who, in almost every other circumstance would decry circular reasoning as being inutile, generally it suffices most to consider this adequate…”sense of self is, well…having a sense of self”.

“It’s (what is that “it”?) what tells a person they are them/their self.”

And there it is again if one can receive or see…again a something is being “told”/instructed/informed of a thing by another thing in their seeming residence. Is an “I” still an I…or you a you…if lacking a sense of self? If so, what is necessity of sense of self…or is it…this thing we call sense of self the very thing that solely constitutes a self? In other words, if it can be lacking…is there an “I” self? A you…self? And, if assuming that such a thing is (and it might be difficult to argue otherwise)…what is stronger, more bedrock to each and every, that they are to them/their self…themselves?

What is ever more never not carried by each? But this sense of self? Not even the most strident empath could deliver their self from it.

Could something be stronger to break such bonding? Is it only death that accomplishes this? That place of terror where it appears a self is lost…to itself. Anything (or anyone) other? What might that, or who might that then, be? What could have power (or authority) to free any from being locked in to, or by, their own sense of self? And what sort of course of thinking and consciousness could, or would, then be held? Could it even be “safe” to be lost to one’s self?

It (or a person) would be, in that sense, could be like the rock mentioned earlier that vexes Descartes’ “I think therefore I am”. For if one is convinced the rock doesn’t think (neither of, nor for itself) does that deny its being? It almost seems that for a very bright man like Descartes (and who of us isn’t?) establishing “being”, that is being sure of it, is the conundrum left solely to the conscious. For we all learn something about mind…as reliable as it sometimes seems (and is relied upon) for verification, assessments, establishment…it is just as prone to making things up. “What if I don’t exist?” “How do I know I exist?” “What if all of the all I believe I think I know, perceive, contact, have some communing in…is just a product of my mind…under some influence?” (Have you ever watched the movie “The Matrix”?)

What if all of the “I” that I am and believe myself to be, is all and only “watching” a parade of images, thoughts, conceptions assumed to be right perceptions of the “out there”, but is really only taking place in the “in here”? Too much? Why? Almost any educated man (and probably every neuro-scientist) would tell you it all takes place…in the brain. Pain is not pain to a nerve, it only carries raw data. Sight is not sight to the eye, smell is not smell to the nose, hearing is not in the ear…etc. All the signals are sent (if conduits are intact) to a place where all is processed for interpretation. It appears all is feedback (so to speak) reliant…but to what can the mind/consciousness look for feedback itself, to itself, to verify?

How do I know a rose today smells just like the rose did yesterday? Or, as most any child has engaged in some sort of this thought experiment, “How do I know, and could I ever know…that the thing I call blue (and looks “blue” to me)…if I were able to step into your mind and see…I would call red? My red is his blue. His blue is my red. Yet, it would still work.

“Oh”, you say, “wavelengths… wavelengths establish color” Yes, but they do not establish perception. All the raw data (that we have only decided/agreed upon as is raw data…that is in purest/simplest/truest(?) form) is all and always under interpretation. And not merely for identification (though we most often think in those terms), but so many other things are also engaged. What is your favorite…color?

It would no less seem almost all is played to us for favor…a far less tangible thing (if we can even agree that perceptions to the end of identification are more substantial) than most others. Favorite foods, favorite colors, favorite memories, favorite vacation spots, shoes, fishing rods, experiences, movies, sensations, child, etc…and on and on and on. Even to a favorite…self. Or more specifically totally engaged and consequent to (all these favorites) a self from, and in which, we are locked in that sense and sensing, and in, and to which, we have no choice.

“Be yourself” is touted. What choice would one (does one) have, anyway? Even if that self is striving always to be a different self, or different kind of self? No, that’s hardly what seems meant to be taken. “Don’t try to be like anyone else, in fact don’t try to be anything…just…be…yourself” seems more the take away. But what of these? Dahmer? Hitler? Pol Pot, Stalin, Manson, Jim Jones…OK…let’s throw in Mother Theresa and Jonas Salk.

Yet I think you would find, at least in the last two mentioned, some impetus to try…to either try to “do good” or be good. And of the others I am more than persuaded that, not unlike the blue and red thought experiment…were one able to enter their mind/consciousness…what you might call evil in your own mind, might not even be there in their perception of their own self. To each self…what is good, or what good is, is dictated to and by, that self. I think it would be both naive and somewhat childish to think Adolf awoke every morning fiendishly rolling his hands over one another and wondering what evil and mayhem he might bring upon the world today.

To himself he was, after all, not unlike any other…just being himself.

And thought Hitler has become our sort of useful tool for almost general agreement of how bad/evil “a” man can be…(a handy go to avatar of extreme malevolence) rare is the man who might come to think otherwise; and that he, if given that allowance of indulging “If I were you…” might easily say “You know, I think I might have been an even worse Hitler than Hitler.”

But who could/would think that?

For in almost any consideration of Herr Hitler as the avatar of pure evil, this is found more the case. “Oh Hitler! Now look what you’ve done! You don’t scare us anymore, you’ve become to us and for us a wonderful thing…we all get to feel better about ourselves by comparison. Everyone gets to believe themselves a more decent human being and we owe it so much…to your malevolence!”

And I am no less persuaded that for a very long while he liked “being himself”. And maybe his sudden and final (if believed) conversion from vegetarian to a 7.65mm bullet/cyanide diet was not even him trying to not be himself any longer…but was the most perfect expression by his self and of his self, to most fully express who and what his self is/was. A self fully submitted to its self.

But O! That would be hard to swallow! Hitler not as avatar of evil anymore, but more an everyman. Just a man as everyman, being himself.

And how very often do we find we do not like certain selves in their being of them/their self? Maybe an update or codicil is needed to “Be yourself”.

It might then go like this: “OK…OK…now listen up we have a small revision…everyone who is not a Hitler, a Pol Pot, a Charles Manson, Stalin, Caligula…(or someone’s mother in law) ‘Be yourself’…it’s OK…to be your self.”

One may take issue with this, one may not know it (yet), or agree with it; and many, I am fairly sure would simply not like it for being taken from a book (for it is not found among their favorites) and for which they lack any esteem. Nevertheless it is there:

All of a man’s ways are right in his own eyes.

He may not have any care for “trying” to be either good or evil, but to himself he is right. He is the right person…to be “him” (or her).

He may even hate being himself…but regardless then, he is (to himself) right in hating it.

After all, one has no choice.

Could any be chosen to know this?