T felt that for most of the month she had failed miserably, but what came up was the question, what does waking up mean? She knew the English language, but to her, she couldn't grasp what it might mean apart from going from sleep to wake.
She thought, maybe, that she must sleep all the time in terms of any other waking up. On some occasions she remembered enough to write it down in the evening the points in the day when something jogged her or jarred her out of another way of being. Now she could not really understand her notes, but read some of them out.
N had done the CHALLENGE very often. He had tried to associate, in his mind, going to his bedroom at night with spending some time reviewing the day, and had found there were certain moments in his day which he could see were more conscious, more aware, than others. He also had experiences of seeing things in a different way. He had started a new job in a new area of London, and had realised he did not fully observe. Seeing a street he was on, he might not register certain buildings. So he went through a conscious process of recognising the buildings, and looking down the street and seeing things. As a result, if he reviewed his day, he had found that if he had spent some time in active seeing and active listening, then the day had been much more meaningful.
Responding to L, GC said it was a lot easier to realise you were asleep than to prolong the awake moment, because when you tend to realise, it tends to dissipate. That was the problem. It was like watching your breath, which you might think was easy, but what you were actually doing was regulating your breathing. To actually just watch your breath as it manifests itself throughout the day, is extremely difficult to do without changing your breath, and yet people just brushed over it.
The reading continued from Chapter 24 of Beelzebub's Tales.
The notice announced that the reporter had taken as the theme of his report the ‘Instability-of-Human-Reason.’
Thereupon, this terrestrial friend of mine first expatiated on the kind of structure which, in his opinion, the human ‘head-brain’ has, ... and how only after definite what is called ‘agreement’ between all the brains are the total results impressed on this head-brain.
He spoke calmly at first, but the longer he spoke, the more agitated he became, until his voice rose to a shout, and shouting he began to criticize the Reason in man.
And at the same time, he mercilessly criticized his own Reason.
Still continuing to shout, he very logically and convincingly demonstrated the instability and fickleness of man’s Reason, and showed, in detail, how easy it is to prove and convince this Reason of anything you like.
GC asked if somebody could explain in different words the fickleness of man’s Reason. N said that, as a lawyer, you can argue any case you want, anyway you want, to prove anything. If you want to find reasons, you can go and find authorities, you can go and find whatever you want to argue. So he would say to a client, let's look at the positive side of things, what are the arguments in your favour and what's against. So we could use reason and logic whatever way you want it, it had nothing to do with truth.
... Further he said:
‘To every man, and also of course to me, it’s quite easy to prove anything; all that is necessary to know is which shocks and which associations to arouse in the other human brains while one or other “truth” is being proved. It is very easily possible even to prove to man that our whole World and of course the people in it, are nothing but an illusion, and that the authenticity and reality of the World are only a “corn” and moreover the corn growing on the big toe of our left foot. Besides this corn, absolutely nothing exists in the World; everything only seems, and even then only to “psychopaths-squared.”’
L said he very much liked the paragraph about the corn on the left foot. GC asked L what he had got from that. L said it says very powerfully, that everything is illusion. T added, except for the corn, and we considered that the corn was the lowest of the low, literally. GC asked why we considered the corn the lowest of the low. T said this was because it was at the bottom of the foot, nobody takes any notice, it grows and grows and grows until it gets really painful, and then you need an operation. GC said, and then you would take notice. T said, therefore, take notice of the lowest of the low, the only bit that is real. The reality of the world was only a corn, but if you left a corn unattended, then eventually you would be unable even to walk, and would need an operation. GC said it might get better by itself. T said, only if you attended to it. A corn was caused by pressure from an ill-fitting shoe, you would not get a corn if you were going barefoot. But the ill-fitting shoe, of fashion or convention, or protection against rocks, could cause corns. L said that T had made a very good point about the corn and reality. There was one part of our experience of the world which was real, and it was on the edge of people's perception, but the only people who noticed it were the psychopaths. T asked why a psychopath would notice a corn. L said that the mentally ill may be closer to reality, because they were living apart from the mores of society.
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At the end of each day, ask yourself if you woke up during the day, and if so, how many times, and what woke you.
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Source: Imgur |
- A flood where she worked and the image of "seven maids with seven mops" in The Walrus and The Carpenter by Lewis Carroll
- When the tube train lurched
- Somebody screaming and shouting
N had done the CHALLENGE very often. He had tried to associate, in his mind, going to his bedroom at night with spending some time reviewing the day, and had found there were certain moments in his day which he could see were more conscious, more aware, than others. He also had experiences of seeing things in a different way. He had started a new job in a new area of London, and had realised he did not fully observe. Seeing a street he was on, he might not register certain buildings. So he went through a conscious process of recognising the buildings, and looking down the street and seeing things. As a result, if he reviewed his day, he had found that if he had spent some time in active seeing and active listening, then the day had been much more meaningful.
Responding to L, GC said it was a lot easier to realise you were asleep than to prolong the awake moment, because when you tend to realise, it tends to dissipate. That was the problem. It was like watching your breath, which you might think was easy, but what you were actually doing was regulating your breathing. To actually just watch your breath as it manifests itself throughout the day, is extremely difficult to do without changing your breath, and yet people just brushed over it.
The reading continued from Chapter 24 of Beelzebub's Tales.
The notice announced that the reporter had taken as the theme of his report the ‘Instability-of-Human-Reason.’
Thereupon, this terrestrial friend of mine first expatiated on the kind of structure which, in his opinion, the human ‘head-brain’ has, ... and how only after definite what is called ‘agreement’ between all the brains are the total results impressed on this head-brain.
He spoke calmly at first, but the longer he spoke, the more agitated he became, until his voice rose to a shout, and shouting he began to criticize the Reason in man.
And at the same time, he mercilessly criticized his own Reason.
Still continuing to shout, he very logically and convincingly demonstrated the instability and fickleness of man’s Reason, and showed, in detail, how easy it is to prove and convince this Reason of anything you like.
GC asked if somebody could explain in different words the fickleness of man’s Reason. N said that, as a lawyer, you can argue any case you want, anyway you want, to prove anything. If you want to find reasons, you can go and find authorities, you can go and find whatever you want to argue. So he would say to a client, let's look at the positive side of things, what are the arguments in your favour and what's against. So we could use reason and logic whatever way you want it, it had nothing to do with truth.
... Further he said:
‘To every man, and also of course to me, it’s quite easy to prove anything; all that is necessary to know is which shocks and which associations to arouse in the other human brains while one or other “truth” is being proved. It is very easily possible even to prove to man that our whole World and of course the people in it, are nothing but an illusion, and that the authenticity and reality of the World are only a “corn” and moreover the corn growing on the big toe of our left foot. Besides this corn, absolutely nothing exists in the World; everything only seems, and even then only to “psychopaths-squared.”’
Animation by Terry Gilliam Source: Pinterest |
