/tag/desire

46 quotes tagged 'desire'

Publisher: Zero Books (2014)

75-76

The reason that focus groups and capitalist feedback systems fail, even when they generate commodities that are immensely popular, is that people do not know what they want. This is not only because people's desire is already present but concealed from them (although this is often the case). Rather, the most powerful forms of desire are precisely cravings for the strange, the unexpected, the weird. These can only be supplied by artists and media professionals who are prepared to give people something different from that which already satisfies them; by those, that is to say, prepared to take a certain kind of risk. The Marxist Supernanny would not only be the one who laid down limitations, who acted in our own interests when we are incapable of recognizing them ourselves, but also the one prepared to take this kind of risk, to wager on the strange and our appetite for it. It is another irony that capitalism's 'society of risk' is much less likely to take this kind of risk than was the supposedly stodgy, centralized culture of the postwar social consensus. It was the public service-oriented BBC and Channel 4 that perplexed and delighted me with the likes of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Pinter plays and Tarkovsky seasons; it was this BBC that also funded the popular avant gardism of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which embedded sonic experimentalism into everyday life. Such innovations are unthinkable now that the public has been displaced by the consumer. The effect of permanent structural instability, the 'cancellation of the long term', is invariably stagnation and conservatism, not innovation. This is not a paradox. As Adam Curtis's remarks above make clear, the affects that predominate in late capitalism are fear and cynicism. These emotions do not inspire bold thinking or entrepreneurial leaps, they breed conformity and the cult of the minimal variation, the turning out of products which very closely resemble those that are already successful.

Enchiridion

Author: Epictetus, George Long (Translator)

Publisher: Prometheus Books (1991)

The Brothers Karamazov

Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Publisher: Penguin Classics (2003)

144-145

Beautry is a terrifying and horrible thing! It's terrifying because it can't be defined, and it can't be defined because God has set nothing but riddles. Here the two banks of the river meet, and here all contradictions exist together. Brother, I'm very far from being a man of the new progressive education, but I've thought a lot about this. There are a terrible number of mysteries! There are too many riddles that weigh man down upon earth. Try to solve them and fall on your feet as best you can. Beauty! What is more, I find it intolerable that there should be men, even those with the loftiest hearts and with lofty intellects, too, who start out with the ideal of the Madonna and end up with the ideal of Sodom. Even more terrifying are those who even though they bear the ideal of Sodom within their souls do not reject the ideal of Madonna, and whose hearts burn with it, truly, truly burn with it as they did in their young and unblemished years. No, man is broad, far too broad, even; I would narrow him. The devil only knows what's at stake here, that's the truth of it! Things that seem ignomy to the mind, to the heart are nothing but beauty. Beauty in Sodom - can that be true? You may be certain that it is precisely there that beauty resides for the vast majority of people - have you fathomed that secret? The horror of it is that beauty is not only a terrifying thing - it is also a mysterious one. In it the Devil struggles with God, and the field of battle is the hearts of men.

The world has proclaimed freedom, particularly of late, and yet what do we see in this freedom of theirs: nothing but servitude and suicide! For the world says: 'You have needs, so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the wealthiest and most hihgly placed of men. Do not be afraid to satisfy them, but even multiply them' - that is the present-day teaching of the world. In that, too, they see freedom. And what is the result of this right to the multiplication of needs? Among the rich solitariness and spiritual suicide, and among the poor - envy and murder, for while they have been given rights, they have not yet been afforded the means with which to satisfy their needs. Assurance is offered that as time goes by the world will become more united, that it will form itself into a brotherly communion by shortening distance and transmitting thoughts through the air. Alas, do not believe in such a unification of men. In construing freedom as the multiplication and speedy satisfaction of needs, they distort their own nature, for they engender within themselves many senseless and stupid desires, habits and most absurd inventions. They live solely for envy, for love of the flesh and for self-conceit. To have dinners, horses and carriages, rank, and attendants who are slaves is already such a necessity that they will even sacrifice their lives, their honour and philanthropy in order to satisfy that necessity, and will even kill themselves if they cannot do so. Among those who are not rich we see the same thing, and among the poor envy and the frustration of needs are at present dulled by drunkenness. But soon in place of alcohol it will be blood upon which they grow intoxicated - to that they are being led. I ask you: is such a man free? ...How can he desist from his habits, this slave, where can he go, if he is so accustomed to satisfying his countless needs, which he himself has invented? Solitary is he, and what concern can he have for the whole? And they have reached a point where the quantity of objects they amass is ever greater, and their joy is ever smaller.

It is better to be led by the nose on occasion than to find oneself quite without a nose at all, as a certain ailing marquis pronounced quite recently during confession to his holy Jesuit father. I was there, it was simply charming. 'Return to me my nose!' he said. 'My son,' the pater prevaricated, 'all is accomplished according to the unknowable destinies of Providence and an apparent disaster sometimes brings in its wake an exceptional, though invisible advantage. If stern fortune has deprived you of your nose, then your advantage is that all the rest of your life no one will ever dare to tell you that you have been led by the nose.' 'Holy father, that is no consolation!' the despairing marquis exclaimed, 'on the contrary, I would be only too delighted to be led by the nose every day for the rest of my life, if only it were in its proper place!' 'My son,' the pater sighed, 'it is wrong to demand all blessings at once, and this is already a complaint against Providence, which even now has not forgotten you; for if you cry, as you cried just now, that you would be ready to be led by the nose all the rest of your life, then even now your desire has been fulfilled, though obliquely: for, having lost your nose, you are by that very fact being led by it...

Ride the Tiger

Author: Julius Evola

Publisher: Inner Traditions International (2003)

60-61

Hence we recall the line already mentioned, to be understood now as the search for, or the acceptance of, those situations or alternatives in which the prevailing force, one's own 'true nature,' is compelled to manifest and make itself known. \n \n The only actions that can be valid for this purpose are those that arise from the depths. Peripheral or emotional reactions do not qualify, for those are like reflex movements provoked by a stimulus, arising 'long before the depth of one's own being has been touched or questioned,' as Nietzsche himself said, seeing in this very incapacity for deep impressions and engagement, and in this skin-deep reactivity at the mercy of every sensation, a deplorable characteristic of modern man. For many people it is as though they have to relearn how to act in the true sense, actively, as one might say, and also typically. Even for the man whom we have in mind, taken in his worldly aspect, this is an essential requirement today. We might note the corresponding discipline that is so important in traditional 'inner teachings': that of self-remembering or self- awareness. G. I Gurdjieff, who has taught similar things in our time, describes the contrary state as that of being 'breathed' or 'sucked' into ordinary existence without any awareness of the fact, without noticing the automatic or 'somnambulistic' character that this existence has from a higher point of view. 'I am sucked in by my thoughts, my memories, my desires, my sensations, by the steak I eat, the cigarette I smoke, the love I make, by the sunshine, the rain, by this tree, by that passing car, by this book.' Thus one is a shadow of oneself. Life in a state of being, the 'active act,' 'active sensation,' and so on are unknown states.

The Pauline and Faustian lament, 'two souls, alas, live in my breast,' is already an optimistic assumption; all too many have to admit, like a typical character in Hesse, that they have a multitude of souls! Nietzsche himself admitted this state of affairs when he wrote: 'One should not assume that many men are 'persons.' There are also men composed of several persons, but the majority possess none at all.' And again: 'Become yourself: an injunction addressed only to a few, and which to an even smaller number appears redundant.' One can see now how problematic is the very point that has hitherto seemed fixed: fidelity to oneself, the absolute, autonomous law based on one's own 'being,' when it is formulated in general and abstract terms. Everything is subject to debate - a situation accurately exemplified by characters in Dostoyevsky, like Rasholnikov or Stavrogin. At the moment when they are thrown back on their own naked will, trying to prove it to themselves with an absolute action, they collapse; they collapse precisely because they are divided beings, because they are deluded concerning their true nature and their true strength. Their freedom is turned against them and destroys them; they fail at the very point at which they should have reaffirmed themselves - in their depths they find nothing to sustain them and carry them forward. We recall the words of Stavrogin's testament: 'I have tested my strength everywhere, as you advised me to do in order to know myself...What I have never seen, and still do not see, is what I should apply my strength to. My desires lack the energy; they cannot drive me. One can cross a river on a log, but not on a splinter.

At all events, the error and the illusion are the same in both socioeconomic ideologies, namely the serious assumption that existential misery can be reduced to suffering in one way or another from material want, and to impoverishment due to a given socioeconomic system. They assume that misery is greater among the disinherited or the proletariat than among those living in prosperous or privileged economic conditions, and that it will consequently diminish with the 'freedom from want' and the general advance of the material conditions of existence. The truth of the matter is that the meaning of existence can be lacking as much in one group as in the other, and that there is no correlation between material and spiritual misery. Only to the lowest and dullest levels of society can one preach the formula for all human happiness and wholeness as the well-named 'animal ideal,' a well-being that is little better than bovine. Hegel rightly wrote that the epochs of material well-being are blank pages in the history book, and Toynbee has shown the challenge to mankind of environmentally and spiritually harsh and problematic conditions is often the incentive that awakens the creative energies of civilization.

The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Author: Julian Jaynes

Publisher: University of Toronto Press (1978)

The Denial of Death

Author: Ernest Becker

Publisher: Free Press (1975)

170

For Freud, “eros” covered not only specific sexual drives but also the child’s longing for omnipotence, for the oceanic feeling that comes with a merger with the parental powers. With this kind of generalization Freud could have both his broader and narrower views at the same time. This complicated mixture of specific error and correct generalization has made it a difficult and lengthy task for us to separate out what is true from what is false in psychoanalytic theory. But as we said earlier with Rank, it seems fairly conclusive that if you accent the terrors of external nature—as Freud did in his later work—then you are talking about the general human condition and no longer about specific erotic drives. We might say that the child would then seek merger with the parental omnipotence not out of desire but out of cowardice. And now we are on a wholly new terrain.

When we appreciate how natural it is for man to strive to be a hero, how deeply it goes in his evolutionary and organismic constitution, how openly he shows it as a child, then it is all the more curious how ignorant most of us are, consciously, of what we really want and need. In our culture anyway, especially in modern times, the heroic seems too big for us, or we too small for it. Tell a young man that he is entitled to be a hero and he will blush. We disguise our struggle by piling up figures in a bank book to reflect privately our sense of heroic worth. Or by having only a little better home in the neighborhood, a bigger car, brighter children. But underneath throbs the ache of cosmic specialness, no matter how we mask it in concerns of smaller scope. Occasionally someone admits that he takes his heroism seriously, which gives most of us a chill, as did U.S. Congressman Mendel Rivers, who fed appropriations to the military machine and said he was the most powerful man since Julius Caesar. We may shudder at the crassness of earthly heroism, of both Caesar and his imitators, but the fault is not theirs, it is in the way society sets up its hero system and in the people it allows to fill its roles. The urge to heroism is natural, and to admit it honest. For everyone to admit it would probably release such pent-up force as to be devastating to societies as they now are. The fact is that this is what society is and always has been: a symbolic action system, a structure of statuses and roles, customs and rules for behavior, designed to serve as a vehicle for earthly heroism. Each script is somewhat unique, each culture has a different hero system. What the anthropologists call “cultural relativity” is thus really the relativity of hero-systems the world over. But each cultural system is a dramatization of earthly heroics; each system cuts out roles for performances of various degrees of heroism: from the “high” heroism of a Churchill, a Mao, or a Buddha, to the “low” heroism of the coal miner, the peasant, the simple priest; the plain, everyday, earthy heroism wrought by gnarled working hands guiding a family through hunger and disease.

In childhood we see the struggle for self-esteem at its least disguised. The child is unashamed about what he needs and wants most. His whole organism shouts the claims of his natural narcissism. And this claim can make childhood hellish for the adults concerned, especially when there are several children competing at once for the prerogatives of limitless self-extension, what we might call “cosmic significance.” The term is not meant to be taken lightly, because this is where our discussion is leading. We like to speak casually about “sibling rivalry,” as though it were some kind of byproduct of growing up, a bit of competitiveness and selfishness of children who have been spoiled, who haven’t yet grown into a generous social nature. But it is too all-absorbing and relentless to be an aberration, it expresses the heart of the creature: the desire to stand out, to be the one in creation. When you combine natural narcissism with the basic need for self-esteem, you create a creature who has to feel himself an object of primary value: first in the universe, representing in himself all of life.

The Mind's I

Author: Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett

Publisher: Bantam Books (1982)

The Magic Mountain

Author: Thomas Mann

Publisher: Vintage (1996)

The Fourth Way

Author: P.D. Ouspensky

Publisher: Vintage (1971)

384

Think to the best of your ability and compare results—when your thinking gives results and when it does not. In that way you will come to a better understanding, at any rate better than just wondering about it. Definitions will not help you: desire for definitions is only an excuse. If you find yourself in a very difficult position, you will think to the best of your ability how to get out of it. Think in the same way

271

There is an expression in the system, 'to create moon in oneself. Let us talk about what it may mean. It is a symbolical expression, and symbols in the form of diagrams or symbolical expressions are used for very definite purposes. A symbol expresses many ideas at once. If it meant only one idea, the answer would be simple; but a symbol is used to avoid long descriptions and to put many ideas into one sentence. How to decipher a diagram or symbolical expression? In order to decipher a symbol, it is necessary to know the order of ideas included in it. \r\n\r\nNow, if we ask what it may mean to create moon in oneself, we must first ask ourselves, what is the moon's function in relation to organic life? The moon balances organic life—all external movements are balanced by the moon. What will happen if this function of the moon disappears? Will it be beneficial to an individual man or the opposite? We must realize that all this refers to being. What are the features of our being? The chief feature of our being is that we are many. If we want to work on our being, make it correspond more to our aim, we must try to become one. But this is a very far aim. \r\n\r\nWhat does it mean to become one? The first step, which is still very far, is to create a permanent centre of gravity. This is what creating moon in oneself means. The moon is a permanent centre of gravity which balances our physical life, but in ourselves we do not have such a balance, so, when we create this balance or centre of gravity in ourselves we do not need the moon. But first we must decide what the absence of permanent 'I' means. We have been told about many features of this, but they must be established definitely by observation, and in order to come nearer to the idea of creating moon in oneself we must distinguish what is important and what is unimportant. Then we must begin to struggle against the features which prevent us becoming one. We must struggle with imagination, negative emotions and self-will. Before this struggle can be successful, we must realize that the worst possible kind of imagination, from the point of view of obtaining a centre of gravity, is the belief that one can do anything by oneself. After that, we must find the negative emotions which prevent us doing what is suggested in connection with the system. For it is necessary to realize that self-will can only be broken by doing what one is told. It cannot be broken by what one decides oneself, for then it will still be self-will. \r\n\r\nLet me repeat. Work on being is always struggle—against what you like doing or dislike doing. Say you like roller-skating and you are told to remember yourself. Then you must struggle against your desire to go roller-skating. What is there more innocent than roller-skating? But you must struggle against it all the same. Every day and every hour there are things we cannot do, but there are also things we can do. So we must look at a day and see what we can do but do not do. There can be no rule 'You must remember yourself'. If you are told to do or not to do something, and you do not try, it means you do not want anything, you do not want to work. You have sufficient knowledge. Now it is necessary to push work on being. We always try to escape from doing what is suggested.

268

Self-will does not include everything you want. If you are hungry and want to eat, that is not self-will. Self-will means preferring to act by yourself and, in our case, not taking into consideration the work and the principles of the work. If my self-will is to swear, for instance, and I give it up because it is against the principles of the work, where is the desired result you speak of? Some of our desires may be well hidden. For instance, a man may want to criticize someone and he calls it sincerity. But the desire to criticize may be so strong that he would have to make a really big effort to stop it, and a man cannot make really big efforts by himself. I must repeat—in order to create will, man must co-ordinate his every action with ideas of the work; he must in every action ask himself: how will it look from the point of view of the work? Is it useful or harmful to me, or to the work? If he does not know, he can ask. If a man has been long in the work, there is practically not a single action that is not connected with the work; there are no independent actions in the sense that one can no longer act foolishly and without discrimination. One must think before one acts. This is the only method by which will can be created, and for this method school organization is necessary

265

with our will—the will of men No. 1, 2 and 3—we can only control one centre, using all the concentration possible for us. Yet centres are dependent on one another. Control of more than one centre can only be obtained if you put yourself under some other will, because your own will is insufficient, and this is why school discipline and school exercises are necessary. We have no real will; we only have self-will and wilfulness. If one understands that, one must have the courage to give up one's will. In a school special possibilities to give up one's will are made, so that if you give it up, later you may have your own will. But even without those special possibilities, if people watch themselves and are careful, they can catch moments when strong desire is present and ask themselves what they are to do in the light of the system. Everybody must find what his own situation is

262

One moment you realize that you are machines, but the next moment you want to act according to your own opinion. At that moment you must be able to stop, not to do what you want. This does not apply to moments when you have no intention of doing anything, but you must be able to stop if your desire goes against rules or principles, or against what you have been told. It often happens that people go on studying and miss these moments. They think they work when nothing happens. We cannot always work equally; at one moment passive study is sufficient, at another moment it is necessary to go against oneself, to stop

261

It is very simple. One part of us — magnetic centre or one's personality— wants to awake. But the larger part of us wants to sleep. You must decide on whose side you are, and then help that side. In order to study how to begin work on will, how to transform will, one has to give up one's will. This is a very dangerous expression if it is misunderstood. It is important to understand rightly what 'to give up one's will' means. We have no will, so how are we to give up what we do not have? First, you must realize you never agree that you have no will, you only agree in words. Secondly, you must understand that we do not always have will but only at times. Will in our state means a strong desire. If there is no strong desire, there is no will and so there is nothing to give up. At another moment we have a strong desire that is against work, and if we stop it, it means we give up will. It is not at every moment that we can give up will but only at special moments. And what does 'against work' mean? It means against rules and principles of the work or against something you are personally told to do or not to do. There are certain general rules and principles, and there may be personal conditions for different people

259

Q. You said no will was possible for us? A. Will is a relative term: there are different wills on different levels. A mechanical man who never thinks of development has only a multitude of small wills that are quite mechanical. He has a certain desire: one side of him wants to do something and another side is afraid he will be punished if he does it. A struggle ensues between the different tendencies and the result of this struggle we call 'will'. Q. Then in order to develop will one must go against desires? A. First of all you must become one. You are many and you have hundreds of 'I's and hundreds of wills. If you want to develop an independent will you must become one and conscious. Will depends on unity and consciousness.

258

every kind of work, every kind of state, needs a certain definite minimum of effort and minimum of time given to it, and the work we are trying to do needs more than many other things if we want to get even perceptible results. What does it mean to work practically? It means to work not only on intellect but also on emotions and on will. Work on intellect means thinking in a new way, creating new points of view, destroying illusions. Work on emotions means not expressing negative emotions, not identifying, not considering and, later on, also work on the emotions themselves. But what does work on will mean? It means work on one's actions. First you must ask yourselves: What is will in men No. 1, 2 and 3? It is the resultant of desires. Will is the line of combined desires, and as our desires constantly change, we have no permanent line. So ordinary will depends on desires and we can have many desires going in different directions. The line constructed out of all these angles is the resultant. This is our will. It may go in one direction one day and in another direction another day, and we think it is straight. So it is really the resultant of our blindness. We have to ask ourselves on what the will of man No. 7 could be based. It must be based on full consciousness, and this implies knowledge and understanding connected with objective consciousness and a permanent 'I'. So three things are necessary: knowledge, consciousness and a permanent 'I'. Only those people who have these three things can have real will; that means a will that is independent of desires or anything else

180

Q. What is the origin of these artificial groups of 'I's? A. They may be formed by imitation, desire to be original, to be attractive, to be admired by people and so on. Q. When you find a group of 'I's which do not want to self-remember, what do you do about it? A. Leave it alone. If it does not want to, what can you do with it? If there are groups of 'I's that want to, work on them. Those 'I's which realize the necessity to self-remember must work with other 'I's that also want to. They must not spend their time in persuading other 'I's. Q. Is it to be expected that some 'I's in a man would be frightened of the idea of separating 'I' from 'Mr. A'? A. Certainly all 'I's which constitute false personality will be frightened, because it is death to them. But you must understand that they may show their fear only for some time and, after that, they may disguise themselves in order not to die. You may seriously think that you have finished with false personality, whereas it is only concealing itself inside some feature, ready to appear. This feature is always weakness. So long as it remains it takes all energy, but it may be very well disguised, and in that form it may even become stronger, growing parallel with the growth of real 'I'. So the realization of the necessity of this division into 'I' and 'Mr. A' is not sufficient to destroy it. You must remember that false personality defends itself.

178

You must understand that you cannot even begin to work on the level you are; you have to change certain things first. You can find what to change only as a result of your observations. Sometimes it becomes very clear, and only then does the fight begin, because false personality begins to defend itself. You must know false personality first. All that we speak about now, refers to the first stage—understanding that we do not know false personality, that in order to know it we must study, that all the work we do is done at the expense of false personality, that all the work we can do on ourselves means diminishing the power of false personality, and that if we begin to try and work, leaving false personality without disturbing it, all the work will come to nothing. I repeat again—you must understand that false personality is a combination of all lies, features and 'I's that can never be useful in any sense, either in life or in the work—just like negative emotions. Yet false personality always says 'I' and always ascribes to itself many capacities, such as will, self-consciousness and so on, and if it is not checked it remains an obstacle to all the work. So one of the first and most important factors, in trying to change oneself, is this division of oneself into 'I' and whatever your name may be. If this division is not made, if one forgets it and continues to think of oneself in the usual way, or if one divides oneself in a wrong way, work stops. Work on oneself can only progress on the basis of this division, but it must be the right division. It often happens that people make a wrong division: what they like in themselves they call 'I' and what they dislike, or what in their opinion is weak or unimportant, they call false personality. This is quite a wrong division; it changes nothing and one remains as one was. This wrong division is simply lying, lying to oneself, which is worse than anything, because the moment one meets with the smallest difficulty it will show itself by inner arguing and wrong understanding. If one uses a wrong division, it will not be reliable and will fail one in a moment of need. To make a right division of oneself one must understand what is 'I' and what is 'Ouspensky', 'Brown' or 'Jones', in other words, what is lying and what is oneself. As I said, even if you admit this possibility of dividing yourself, you are bound to call what you like in yourself 'I' and what you dislike 'Not I', for the right division cannot be found at once; you must find some indications in connection with the work which will help. For instance, if you say that your aim is to be free, it is first of all necessary to understand that you are not free. If you understand to what extent you are not free and if you formulate your desire to be free, you will then see in yourself which part of you wants to be free and which part does not. This would be a beginning

136

Q. Could you, please, say again which is internal and which external considering? A. External considering is a form of self-remembering in relation to people. You take other people into consideration and do, not what is pleasant to you, but what is pleasant to them. It means you must sacrifice yourself, but it does not mean self sacrifice. It means that in relation to people you must not act without thinking. You must think first, and then act. Your thinking will show you that, more often than not, if this person would prefer you to act in one manner and not in another, it is all the same to you, so why not do what he likes? So the idea of sacrifice does not enter into it. But if it is not the same to you, it is quite a different question. What is better for you, what is better for them, who those people are, what you want from them, what you want to do for them—all this must enter into it. But the idea is that in relation to people things must not happen mechanically, without thinking. You must decide your course of action. It means you do not walk over people without seeing them. And internal considering means that you walk over them without noticing. We have too much internal and not enough external considering. External considering is very important for self-remembering. If we have not got enough of it, we cannot remember ourselves. Q. Is it the same as understanding people? A. No, you can understand people only as much as you understand yourself. It is understanding their difficulties, understanding what they want, watching the impression you produce on people and trying not to produce a wrong impression. Q. Would you say that kindness is external considering? A. What you knew in life is not external considering. It is necessary to understand the principle and create standards for oneself. With the help of external considering you control the impression you wish to produce. With internal considering you wish to produce one impression and produce a different one. Q. External considering seems to me very far away. A. It must be here to-day. If it remains far away, you remain far away yourself. Q. Does external considering involve the ability to play a conscious role? A. Yes, but there are different degrees. External considering is only the beginning; to play a conscious role means much more. Q. And what is internal considering? A. Feeling that people do not pay you enough; making accounts; always feeling cheated, underpaid. Q. I find it very difficult to stop inner considering. Is there any special technique to be employed against it? A. No, there is no special technique—only understanding and right points of view. Observe more. Perhaps you will find moments free from considering and see how to begin struggling with it and studying it. It is mechanical, a mechanical attitude, the same as identification. Q. Is self-justification always a manifestation of internal considering? A. It is connected with it, but it is another thing. Internal considering does not need any justification. One must have a reason for justifying, but if one is in internal considering, one always justifies it. Internal considering means identification; external considering means struggle with identification. Internal considering is mechanical; external considering means at least attention. So by practising non-identifying, by trying to control attention, you find many opportunities of studying external considering and, if you find examples, perhaps you will find methods of struggling with internal considering and transforming it into the practice of external considering. For instance, you are talking to somebody from whom you want to get something. Say he knows something and you want him to tell you what he knows. Then you must speak in the way he would like, not argue, not oppose him. External considering is always practical. Q. Does inner considering mean considering oneself too much? A. It always takes the form of inner bargaining, of thinking that other people do not consider you enough. It is very important to understand inner considering. There are so many subtle forms of it we do not notice, and yet our life is filled with it. Q. Is desire to be noticed considering? A. Both desire to be and not to be noticed is considering. There are many psychological states that ordinary psychology cannot explain or describe which depend on identifying and considering. Q. How is it best to think of inner considering? A. You must try in free moments to have a right mind about it. When you are considering, it is too late. You must think of typical cases of considering, of what produces it, and then have a right point of view about it, realize how useless and ridiculous it is. Then compare it with external considering, and try not to forget it. If you do this you may remember it when a moment of considering comes, and perhaps it will not come. What is really important is to think about considering when you are free from it, and not justify or hide it from yourself. Q. The more I try to work, the more I seem to consider internally. It seems the most difficult thing to deal with. A. Considering cannot grow if you work, it only becomes more visible. And that means that it diminishes, for it cannot be seen without it diminishing. The fact that you notice it proves that it has become less strong. This is a natural illusion, the same as when one feels that one does not understand whereas before one understood. This means that one begins to understand. The first doubt about one's understanding already means a certain understanding.

129

Q. I think I have not got the right idea about identification. Does it mean that things control us and not that we control things? \nA. Identification is a very difficult thing to describe, because no definitions are possible. Such as we are we are never free from identifying. If we believe that we do not identify with something, we are identified with the idea that we are not identified. You cannot describe identification in logical terms. You have to find a moment of identification, catch it, and then compare things with that moment. Identification is everywhere, at every moment of ordinary life. When you begin self-observation, some forms of identification already become impossible. But in ordinary life almost everything is identification. It is a very important psychological feature that permeates the whole of our life, and we do not notice it because we are in it. The best way to understand it is to find some examples. For instance, if you see a cat with a rabbit or a mouse — this is identification. Then find analogies to this picture in yourself. Only, you must understand that it is there every moment, not only at exceptional moments. Identification is an almost permanent state in us. You must be able to see this state apart from yourself, separate it from yourself, and that can only be done by trying to become more conscious, trying to remember yourself, to be aware of yourself. Only when you become more aware of yourself are you able to struggle with manifestations like identification. \n\nQ. I find when I am identified it is nearly always with things inside me. \nA. Perhaps you are right; perhaps you are not right. You may think you are identified with one thing when in reality you are identified with quite a different thing. This does not matter at all; what matters is the state of identification. In the state of identification you cannot feel right, see right, judge right. But the subject of identification is not important: the result is the same. \n\nQ. So what is the way to overcome identification? \nA. That is another thing. It is different in different cases. First it is necessary to see; then it is necessary to put something against it. \n\nQ. What do you mean by 'put something against it'? \nA. Just turn your attention to something more important. You must learn to distinguish the important from the less important, and if you turn your attention to more important things you become less identified with unimportant things. You must realize that identification can never help you; it only makes things more confused and more difficult. If you realize even that—that alone may help in some cases. People think that to be identified helps them, they do not see that it only makes things more difficult. It has no useful energy at all, only destructive energy. \n\nQ. Is identification mainly emotion? \nA. It always has an emotional element—a kind of emotional disturbance, but sometimes it becomes a habit, so that one does not even notice the emotion. \n\nQ. I realize that it is important to be emotional in the right way, but when I feel something emotionally in the work, I soon destroy the whole thing. \nA. Only identification is destructive. Emotion can only give new energy, new understanding. You take identification for emotion. You do not know emotion without identification, so, in the beginning, you cannot visualize an emotion free from it. People often think they speak about an emotional function when in reality they speak about identification. \n\nQ. Is it possible for us, as we are now, to have any feeling at all without identifying? \nA. Very difficult, unless we begin to watch ourselves. Then easy kinds of identification—I mean easy individually—will respond to treatment. But everyone has his own specialties in identification. For instance, it is easy for me not to identify with music, for another it may be very difficult. \n\nQ. Is love without identification possible? \nA. I would say love is impossible with identification. Identification kills all emotions, except negative emotions. With identification only the unpleasant side remains. \n\nQ. Non-identifying does not mean aloofness? \nA. On the contrary, aloofness needs identification. Non-identifying is quite a different thing. \n\nQ. If you are identified with an idea, how can you stop it? \nA. First by understanding what identification means and then by trying to remember yourself. Begin with simple cases, then later you can deal with the more difficult. \n\nQ. As you develop self-remembering do you acquire a sort of detached attitude, more free from identification? \nA. Detached attitude in the sense that you know your attitudes better; you know what is useful to you and what is not useful. If you do not remember yourself it is easy to make a mistake about it. For instance, one can undertake some kind of study that is really quite useless. Self-remembering helps understanding, and understanding always means bringing everything to a certain centre. You must have a central point in all your work, in all your attitudes, and self-remembering is a necessary condition for that. We must talk more about identifying if it is not clear. It will become more clear when you find two or three good examples. It is a certain state in which you are in the power of things. \n\nQ. If I look closely and think deeply, does it mean I have become identified? \nA. No, identifying is a special thing, it means losing oneself. As I said, it is not so much a question of what one is identified with. Identification is a state. You must understand that many things you ascribe to things outside you are really in you. Take for instance fear. Fear is independent of things. If you are in a state of fear, you can be afraid of an ash-tray. This often happens in pathological states, and a pathological state is only an intensified ordinary state. You are afraid, and then you choose what to be afraid of. This fact makes it possible to struggle with these things, because they are in you. \n\nQ. Can we have any understanding with identification? \nA. How much can you understand in deep sleep, which is what identification is? If you remember your aim, realize your position and see the danger of sleep, it will help you to sleep less. \n\nQ. What is the difference between sympathy and identification? \nA. It is quite another thing; it is a normal and legitimate emotion and can exist without identification. There may be sympathy without identification and sympathy with identification. When sympathy is mixed with identification, it often ends in anger or another negative emotion. \n\nQ. You spoke of losing oneself in identification. Which self? \nA. All, everything. Identifying is a very interesting idea. There are two stages in the process of identifying. The first stage denotes the process of becoming identified, the second a state when identification is complete. \n\nQ. The first stage is quite harmless? \nA. If it attracts too much attention and occupies too much time, it leads to the second. \n\nQ. When you desire something, can you desire it without identification? \nA. Identification is not obligatory. But if you desire to hit someone, you cannot do it without identification; if identification disappears, you do not want to any longer. It is possible not to lose oneself; losing oneself is not a necessary element at all. \n\nQ. Is it possible to identify with two things at once? \nA With ten thousand! It is necessary to observe and observe. From one point of view struggling with identification is not so difficult, because, if we can see it, it becomes so ridiculous that we cannot remain identified. Other people's identification always seems ridiculous and ours may become so too. Laughter may be useful in this respect if we can turn it on ourselves. \n\nQ. I cannot see why identification is a bad thing. \nA. Identification is a bad thing if you want to awake, but if you want to sleep, then it is a good thing. \n\nQ. Would not everything we do suffer if we kept our minds on keeping awake instead of attending to what we are doing? \nA. I have already explained that it is quite the opposite. We can do well whatever we are doing only as much as we are awake. The more we are asleep, the worse we do the thing we are doing—there are no exceptions. You take it academically, simply as a word, but between deep sleep and complete awakening there are different degrees, and you pass from one degree to another. \n\nQ. If we feel more awake, we should not overtax these moments, should we? \nA. How can we overtax them? These moments are too short even if we have glimpses. We can only try not to forget them and act in accordance with these moments. This is all we can do. \n\nQ. Can you say that identification is being in the grip of something, not being able to shake off some idea in mind? \nA. Being in the grip of things is an extreme case. There are many small identifications which are very difficult to observe, and these are the most important because they keep us mechanical. We must realize that we always pass from one identification to another. If a man looks at a wall, he is identified with the wall. \n\nQ. How does identification diner from associations? \nA. Associations are quite another thing; they can be more controlled or less controlled, but they have nothing to do with identification. Different associations are a necessary part of thinking; we define things by associations and we do everything with the help of associations. \n\nQ. I cannot see why an 'I' changes. Can the cause always be seen in some identification? \nA. It is always by associations. A certain number of 'I's try to push their way to the front, so as soon as one loses oneself in one of them it is replaced by another. We think that 'I's are just passive, indifferent things, but emotions, associations, memories, always work. That is why it is useful to stop thinking, even occasionally, as an exercise. Then you will begin to see how difficult it is to do it. Your question simply shows that you have never tried, otherwise you would know. \n\nQ. Is concentration identification? \nA. Concentration is controlled action; identification controls you. \n\nQ. Is concentration possible for us? \nA. There are degrees. Intentional concentration for half an hour is impossible. If we could concentrate without external help, we would be conscious. But everything has degrees. \n\nQ. Is the beginning of a new observation identification with the object you observe? \nA. Identification happens when you are repelled or attracted by something. Study or observation does not necessarily produce identification, but attraction and repulsion always does. Also, we use too strong a language, and this automatically produces identification. We have many automatic appliances of this sort. \n\nQ. What can I do about identification? I feel that I always lose myself in whatever I do. It does not seem possible to be different. \nA. No, it is possible. If you have to do something, you have to do it, but you may identify more or identify less. There is nothing hopeless in it so long as you remember about it. Try to observe; you do not always identify to the same extent; sometimes you identify so that you can see nothing else, at other times you can see something. If things were always the same, there would be no chance for us, but they always vary in degree of intensity, and that gives a possibility of change. Everything we do, we have to learn in advance. If you want to drive a car, you have to learn beforehand. If you work now, in time you will have more control. \n\nQ. Why is it wrong to be completely absorbed in one's work? \nA. It will be bad work. If you are identified, you can never get good results. It is one of our illusions to think that we must lose ourselves to get good results, for in this way we only get poor results. When one is identified, one does not exist; only the thing exists with which one is identified. \n\nQ. Is the aim of non-identifying to free the mind from the object? \nA. The aim is to awake. Identifying is a feature of sleep; identified mind is asleep. Freedom from identifying is one of the sides of awakening. A state where identifying does not exist is quite possible, but we do not observe it in life and we do not notice that we are constantly identified. Identifying cannot disappear by itself; struggle is necessary. \n\nQ. How can anyone awake if identification is universal? \nA. One can only awake as a result of effort, of struggle against it. But first one must understand what to identify means. As in everything else, so in identification there are degrees. In observing oneself one finds when one is more identified, less identified or not identified at all. If one wants to awake, one must and can get free from identification. As we are, every moment of our life we are lost, we are never free, because we identify. \n\nQ. Can you give an example of identification? \nA. We identify all the time, that is why it is difficult to give an example. For instance, take likes and dislikes, they all mean identification, especially dislikes. They cannot exist without identification and generally they are nothing but identification. Usually people imagine that they have many more dislikes than they actually have. If they investigate and analyse them, they will probably find that they only dislike one or two things. When I studied it, there was only one real dislike that I could find in myself. But you must find your own examples; it must be verified by personal experience. If at a moment of a strong identification you try to stop it, you will see the idea. \n\nQ. But I still do not understand what it is! \nA. Let us try from the intellectual side. You realize that you do not remember yourself? Try to see why you cannot and you will find that identification prevents you. Then you will see what it is. All these things are connected. \n\nQ. Is non-identifying the only way to know what identifying is? \nA. No, as I explained, by observing it, because it is not always the same. We do not notice the temperature of our body except when it becomes a little higher or lower than normal. In the same way we can notice identification when it is stronger or weaker than usual. By comparing these degrees we can see what it is. \n\nQ. In struggling with identification is it necessary to know why one is identified? \nA. One is identified not for any particular reason or purpose, but in all cases because one cannot help it. How can you know why you identify? But you must know why you struggle. This is the thing. If you do not forget the reason why, you will be ten times more successful. Very often we begin struggling and then forget why. There are many forms of identification, but the first step is to see it; the second step is to struggle with it in order to become free from it. As I said, it is a process, not a moment; we are in it all the time. We spend our energy in the wrong way on identification and negative emotions; they are open taps from which our energy flows out. \n\nQ. Can one suddenly change the energy of anger into something else? One has tremendous energy at these moments. \nA. One has tremendous energy, and it works by itself, without control, and makes one act in a certain way. Why? What is the connecting link? Identification is the link. Stop identification and you will have this energy at your disposal. How can you do this? Not at once; it needs practice at easier moments. When emotion is very strong you cannot do it. It is necessary to know more, to be prepared. If you know how not to identify at the right moment, you will have great energy at your disposal. What you do with it is another thing; you may lose it again on something quite useless. But it needs practice. You cannot learn to swim when you fall into the sea during a storm— you must learn in calm water. Then, if you fall in, you may perhaps be able to swim. I repeat again: it is impossible to be conscious if you are identified. This is one of the difficulties that comes later, because people have some favourite identifications which they do not want to give up, and at the same time they say they want to be conscious. The two things cannot go together. There are many incompatible things in life, and identification and consciousness are two of the most incompatible. \n\nQ. How can one avoid the reaction which comes after feeling very enthusiastic? Is it due to identification? \nA. Yes, this reaction comes as a result of identification. Struggle with identification will prevent it from happening. It is not what you call enthusiasm that produces the reaction, but the identification. Identification is always followed by this reaction. \n\nQ. Is a bored man identified with nothing? \nA. Boredom is also identification—one of the biggest. It is identification with oneself, with something in oneself. \n\nQ. It seems to me I cannot study a person without losing myself in him or her, yet I understand that this is wrong? \nA. It is a wrong idea that one cannot study a person or anything else without losing oneself. If you lose yourself in anything, you cannot study it. Identifying is always a weakening element: the more you identify the worse your study is and the smaller the results. You may remember that in the first lecture I said that identifying with people takes the form of considering. There are two kinds of considering: internal and external. Internal considering is the same as identifying. External considering needs a certain amount of self-remembering; it means taking into account other people's weaknesses, putting oneself in their place. Often in life it is described by the word 'tact'; only tact may be educated or accidental. External considering means control. If we learn to use it consciously, it will give us a possibility of control. Internal considering is when we feel that people do not give us enough, do not appreciate us enough. If one considers internally one misses moments of external considering. External considering must be cultivated, internal considering must be eliminated. But first observe and see how often you miss moments of external considering and what an enormous role internal considering plays in life. Study of internal considering, of mechanicalness, of lying, of imagination, of identification shows that they all belong to us, that we are always in these states. When you see this, you realize the difficulty of work on oneself. Such as you are you cannot begin to get something new; you will see that first you must scrub the machine clean; it is too covered with rust. We think we are what we are. Unfortunately we are not what we are but what we have become; we are not natural beings. We are too asleep, we lie too much, we live too much in imagination, we identify too much. We think we have to do with real beings, but in reality we have to do with imaginary beings. Almost all we know about ourselves is imaginary. Beneath all this agglomeration man is quite different. We have many imaginary things we must throw off before we can come to real things. So long as we live in imaginary things, we cannot see the value of the real; and only when we come to real things in ourselves can we see what is real outside us. We have too much accidental growth in us. \n\nQ. If one retired from the world, surely one would overcome identification, considering and negative emotion? \nA. This question is often asked, but one cannot be at all sure that it would be easier. Besides you can find descriptions in literature of how people attained a very high degree of development in seclusion, but when they came in contact with other people they at once lost all they had gained. In schools of the Fourth Way it was found that the best conditions for study and work on oneself are a man's ordinary conditions of life, because from one point of view these conditions are easier and from another they are the most difficult. So if a man gets something in these conditions he will keep it in all conditions, whereas if he gets it in special conditions he will lose it in other conditions.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy

Author: Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

Publisher: Fine Communications (1998)

505

It is now theoretically possible to link the human nervous system into a radio network so that, micro-miniaturized receivers being implanted in people's brains, the messages coming out of these radios would be indistinguishable to the subjects from the voice of their own thoughts. One central transmitter, located in the nation's capital, could broadcast all day long what the authorities wanted the people to believe. The average man on the receiving end of these broadcasts would not even know he was a robot; he would think it was his own voice he was listening to. The average woman could be treated similarly. It is ironic that people will find such a concept both shocking and frightening. Like Orwell's 1984, this is not a fantasy of the future but a parable of the present. Every citizen in every authoritarian society already has such a 'radio' built into his or her brain. This radio is the little voice that asks, each time a desire is formed, 'Is it safe? Will my wife (my husband/my boss/my church/my community) approve? Will people ridicule and mock me? Will the police come and arrest me?' This little voice the Freudians call 'The Superego,' with Freud himself vividly characterized as 'the ego's harsh master.' With a more functional approach, Peris, Hefferline and Goodman, in Gestalt Therapy, describe this process as 'a set of conditioned verbal habits.' This set, which is fairly uniform throughout any authoritarian society, determines the actions which will, and will not, occur there. Let us consider humanity a biogram {the basic DNA blueprint of the human organism and its potentials) united with a logogram (this set of 'conditioned verbal habits'). The biogram has not changed in several hundred thousand years; the logogram is different in each society. When the logogram reinforces the biogram, we have a libertarian society, such as still can be found among some American Indian tribes. Like Confucianism before it became authoritarian and rigidified, American Indian ethics is based on speaking from the heart and acting from the heart—'that is, from the biogram. No authoritarian society can tolerate this. All authority is based on conditioning men and women to act from the logogram, since the logogram is a set created by those in authority. Every authoritarian logogram divides society, as it divides the individual, into alienated halves. Those at the bottom suffer what I shall call the burden of nescience. The natural sensory activity of the biogram— what the person sees, hears, smells, tastes, feels, and, above all, what the organism as a whole, or as a potential whole, wants —is always irrelevant and immaterial. The authoritarian logogram, not the field of sensed experience, determines what is relevant and material. This is as true of a highly paid Illuminatus! Trilogy Seite 286 von 470 advertising copywriter as it is of an engine lathe operator. The person acts, not on personal experience and the evaluations of the nervous system, but on the orders from above. Thus, personal experience and personal judgment being nonoperational, these functions become also less 'real.' They exist, if at all, only in that fantasy land which Freud called the Unconscious. Since nobody has found a way to prove that the Freudian Unconscious really exists, it can be doubted that personal experience and personal judgment exist; it is an act of faith to assume they do. The organism has become, as Marx said, 'a tool, a machine, a robot.' Those at the top of the authoritarian pyramid, however, suffer an equal and opposite burden of omniscience. All that is forbidden to the servile class— the web of perception, evaluation and participation in the sensed universe— is demanded of the members of the master class. They must attempt to do the seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling and decision-making for the whole society. But a man with a gun is told only that which people assume will not provoke him to pull the trigger. Since all authority and government are based on force, the master class, with its burden of omniscience, faces the servile class, with its burden of nescience, precisely as a highwayman faces his victim. Communication is possible only between equals. The master class never abstracts enough information from the servile class to know what is actually going on in the world where the actual productivity of society occurs. Furthermore, the logogram of any authoritarian society remains fairly inflexible as time passes, but everything else in the universe constantly changes. The result can only be progressive disorientation among the rulers. The end is debacle. The schizophrenia of authoritarianism exists both in the individual and in the whole society. I call this the Snafu Principle.

The Symposium

Author: Plato

Publisher: Penguin Classics (2003)

Following the birth of Aphrodite, the other gods were having a feast, including Resource, the son of Invention. When they'd had dinner, Poverty came to beg, as people do at feasts, and so she was by the gate. Resource was drunk with nectar (this was before wine was discovered), went into the garden of Zeus, and fell into drunken sleep. Poverty formed the plan of relieving her lack of resources by having a child by resource; she slept with him and became pregnant with love.\n\n 'Because he is the son of Resource and Poverty, Love's situation is like this. First of all, he's always poor; far from being sensitive and beautiful, as is commonly supposed, he's tough, with hardened skin, without shoes or home. He always sleeps rough, on the ground, with no bed, lying in doorways and by roads in the open air; sharing his mother's nature, he always lives in a state of need. On the other hand, taking after his father, he schemes to get hold of beautiful and good things. He's brave, impetuous and intense; a formidable hunter, always weaving tricks; he desires knowledge and is resourceful in getting it; a lifelong lover of wisdom; clever at using magic, drugs, and sophistry.\n\n 'By nature he is neither immortal nor mortal. Sometimes on a single day he shoots into life, when he's successful, and then dies, and then (taking after his father) comes back to life again. The resources he obtains keep on draining away, so that Love is neither wholly without resources nor rich. He is also in between wisdom and ignorance. The position is this. None of the gods loves wisdom or has the desire to become wise - because they already are; nor does anyone else who is already wise love wisdom. Nor do the ignorant love wisdom or have the desire to become wise. The problem with the ignorant person is precisely that, despite not being good or intelligent, he regards himself as satisfactory. If someone doesn't thing he's in need of something, he can't desire what he doesn't think he needs.

Living Buddha, Living Christ

Author: Thich Nhat Hanh

Publisher: Riverhead Trade (2007)

The Bhagavad Gita

Author: Anonymous

Publisher: Penguin Classics (2008)

The proverbial benevolent uncle turns up in a village and finds his nephews and nieces and their friends playing in a hut with toys and make-do twig-and-rag dolls. 'Why play with these?' he asks. 'Outside is the kalpa-taru, the Wish-Fulfilling Tree. Stand under it, and wish. It will give you anything you want.'\n\n The children don't believe him. They know the world's not structured to give you whatever you want. You have to struggle very hard for the smallest reward - and, of course, others always seem to get the plums, for they have what is known as 'connections.'\n\n They smile knowingly. The uncle leaves. \n\n No sooner has he left, however, than they rush to the Tree, and start wishing. They want sweets - and they get stomachache. They want toys - and they get boredom. Bigger and better toys - bigger and better boredom. \n\n This worries them. Something must be wrong somewhere. Someone is tricking them. What is this unpleasant unsuspected unwanted extra that tags along with the sweets and the toys? \n\n What they have not realized yet is that the Wish-Fulfilling Tree is the enormously generous but totally unsentimental cosmos. It will give you exactly what you want - 'this world is your wish-fulfilling cow,' says Krishna - and with it its built-in opposite. The tragedy of the world is not that we don't get what we want, but that we always get exactly what we want, along with its built-in opposite. Wish it, think it, dream it, do it - you've got it! - and literally, you've had it. That's it - having and being had.\n\n So the children grow up and become, euphemistically, 'young adults.' They really are just a bunch of over-grown kids, all trapped under the Wishing Tree. Instead of sweets and toys - childish trifles! - they now crave Sex, Fame, Money, and Power, the four sweet fruits that hang from the tree. Bittersweet fruits. There are, truly speaking, no other fruits. There is nothing else to be had.\n\n They reach out and bite each of these four fruits and get the same bitter after-taste of disappointment and disillusionment. But they go on wishing, because there seems to be little else that one can do under the Wishing Tree. Creatures come and go; the Tree is always there.\n\n Then they grow old, and are stretched out under the tree, lying on their death cots. Pathetic old men and women, kindly referred to as 'garu-jana', 'respected elders.' They lie huddled in three security-seeking groups. The first group whispers, 'It's all a hoax. The world's a farce.' Fools, they have learnt nothing.\n\n The second huddle whispers, 'We made the wrong wishes. We'll wish again. This time we'll make the right wish.' Bigger fools; they have learnt less than nothing.\n\n The third group is the most foolish. 'What's the point living? Nothing makes sense. We want to die.'\n\n The obliging tree quickly grants their last desire. They die - and they get the built-in opposite of the death-wish - they are reborn - and under the same tree, for where else can one be born or re-born but within the cosmos!\n\n There was also a young crippled boy who hobbled to the tree, but was shoved aside by his more agile friends. So he crawled back to the hut and gazed at the marvelous tree from the window, waiting for a chance for him to go and make the wish that lame boys make. What he saw from the window awed and almost unnerved him. \n\n He saw his companions wanting sweets and getting stomachache, grabbing toys and getting bored. He saw them scrambling for Sex, Fame, Money, and Power, and getting their opposites, and agonizing - and not realizing the cause of their anguish. He saw them divided into three groups - the Cynics, the self-appointed Wise Men, and the hope-bereft Death-wishers. He saw this clearly, with the poignant brilliant sharpness of naked truth.\n\n The spectacle of this cosmic swindle so impressed him that he stood stunned in brief, lucid bafflement. A divine comedy, a divine tragicomedy, the panoramic cycle of karma, was being enacted in front of his eyes. A gush of compassion welled in his heart for the victims of karma, and in that gush of compassion the lame boy forgot to wish. He had sliced the cosmic fig-tree with non-attachment.

In killing my brothers, Krishna, I cannot see anything noble - I do not want this victory, this glory, this happiness. What is glory to us, Krishna, what are pleasures and life, if those who from us deserve glory, pleasure, and life, are ready to fight us, having given up the world's delights - our uncles, our sons and our grandfathers, our eldest kinsmen, acharyas, our fathers-in-law and our grandsons.\n\n I would not kill them, not for the three worlds, let alone the earth. I had rather they killed me, Krishna.

The joy which is first poison but in the end nectar, the joy enjoyed almost as a habit by the transparent mind is sattvika. \r\n \r\nThe joy of sense pleasures, first nectar, then poison, is rajasika.\r\n \r\nThe joy of self-delusion, bred by sloth and folly, is tamasika.

Suffering, Suicide and Immortality

Author: Arthur Schopenhauer

Publisher: Dover Publications (2006)

The Origins and History of Consciousness

Author: Erich Neumann

Publisher: Princeton University Press (1954)

Even today we can see from primitives that the law of gravity, the inertia of the psyche, the desire to remain unconscious, is a fundamental human trait. Yet even this is a false formulation, since it starts from consciousness as though that were the natural and self-evident thing. But fixation in unconsciousness, the downward drag of its specific gravity, cannot be called a desire to remain unconscious; on the contrary, that is the natural thing. There is, as a counteracting force, the desire to become conscious, a veritable instinct impelling man in this direction. One has no need to desire to remain unconscious; one is primarily unconscious and can at most conquer the original situation in which man drowses in the world, drowses in the unconscious, contained in the infinite like a fish in the environing sea. The ascent toward consciousness is the 'unnatural' thing in nature; it is specific of the species Man, who on that account has justly styled himself Homo sapiens. The struggle between the specifically human and the universally natural constitutes the history of man's conscious development.

The uroboros of the maternal world is life and psyche in one; it gives nourishment and pleasure, protects and warms, comforts and forgives. It is the refuge for all suffering, the goal of all desire. For always this mother is she who fulfills, the bestower and helper. This living image of the Great and Good Mother has at all times of distress been the refuge of humanity and ever shall be; for the state of being contained in the whole, without responsibility or effort, with no doubts and no division of the world into two, is paradisal, and can never again be realized in its pristine happy-go-luckiness in adult life.

Lost in the Cosmos

Author: Walker Percy

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (1983)

The only cure for depression is suicide.

This is not meant as a bad joke, but as the serious proposal of suicide as a valid option. Unless the option is entertained seriously, its therapeutic value is lost. No threat is credible unless the threatener means it.

This treatment of depression requires a reversal of the usual therapeutic rationale. The therapeutic rationale, which has never been questioned, is that depression is a symptom. A symptom implies an illness; there is something wrong with you. An illness should be treated.

Suppose you are depressed. You may be mildly or seriously depressed, clinically depressed, or suicidal. What do you usually do? Do nothing or something. If something, what is done is always based on the premise that something is wrong with you and therefore it should be remedied. You are treated. You apply to friend, counselor, physician, minister, group. You take a trip, take anti-depressant drugs, change jobs, change wife or husband or 'sexual partner.'

Now, call into question the unspoken assumption: something is wrong with you. Like Copernicus and Einstein, turn the universe upside down and begin with a new assumption.

Assume that you are quite right. You are depressed because you have every reason to be depressed. No member of the other two million species which inhabit the earth - and who are luckily exempt from depression - would fail to be depressed if it lived the life you lead. You live in a deranged age - more deranged than usual, because despite great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing.

Begin with the reverse hypothesis, like Copernicus and Einstein. You are depressed because you should be. You are entitled to your depression. In fact, you'd be deranged if you were not depressed. Consider the only adults who are never depressed: chuckleheads, California surfers, and fundamentalist Christians who believe they have had a personal encounter with Jesus and are saved for once and all. Would you trade your depression to become any of these?

Now consider, not the usual therapeutic approach, but a more ancient and honorable alternative, the Roman option. I do not care for life in this deranged world, it is not an honorable way to live; therefore, like Cato, I take my leave. Or, as Ivan said to God in The Brothers Karamazov: If you exist, I respectfully return my ticket. Now notice that as soon as suicide is taken as a serious alternative, a curious thing happens. To be or not to be becomes a true choice, where before you were stuck with to be. Your only choice was how to be least painfully, either by counseling, narcotizing, boozing, groupizing, womanizing, man-hopping, or changing your sexual preference.

If you are serious about the choice, certain consequences follow. Consider the alternatives. Suppose you elect suicide. Very well. You exit. Then what? What happens after you exit? Nothing much. Very little, indeed. After a ripple or two, the water closes over your head as if you had never existed. You are not indispensable, after all. You are not even a black hole in the Cosmos. All that stress and anxiety was for nothing. Your fellow townsmen will have something to talk about for a few days. Your neighbors will profess shock and enjoy it. One or two might miss you, perhaps your family, who will also resent the disgrace. Your creditors will resent the inconvenience. Your lawyers will be pleased. Your psychiatrist will be displeased. The priest or minister or rabbi will say a few words over you and down you will go on the green tapes and that's the end of you. In a surprisingly short time, everyone is back in the rut of his own self as if you had never existed.

Now, in the light of this alternative, consider the other alternative. You can elect suicide, but you decide not to. What happens? All at once, you are dispensed. Why not live, instead of dying? You are free to do so. You are like a prisoner released from the cell of his life. You notice that the door to the cell is ajar and that the sun is shining outside. Why not take a walk down the street? Where you might have been dead, you are alive. The sun is shining.

Suddenly you feel like a castaway on an island. You can't believe your good fortune. You feel for broken bones. You are in one piece, sole survivor of a foundered ship who captain and crew had worried themselves into a fatal funk. And here you are, cast up on a beach and taken in by islanders who, it turns out, are themselves worried sick - over what? Over status, saving face, self-esteem, national rivalries, boredom, anxiety, depression from which they seek relief mainly in wars and the natural catastrophes which regularly overtake their neighbors.

And you, an ex-suicide, lying on the beach? In what way have you been freed by the serious entertainment of your hypothetical suicide? Are you not free for the first time in your life to consider the folly of man, the most absurd of all the species, and to contemplate the comic mystery of your own existence? And even to consider which is the more absurd state of affairs, the manifest absurdity of your predicament: lost in the Cosmos and no news of how you got into such a fix or how to get out - or the even more preposterous eventuality that news did come from the God of the Cosmos, who took pity on your ridiculous plight and entered the space and time of your insignificant planet to tell you something.

The difference between a non-suicide and an ex-suicide leaving the house for work, at eight o'clock on an ordinary morning: The non-suicide is a little traveling suck of care, sucking care with him from the past and being sucked toward care in the future. His breath is high in his chest. The ex-suicide opens his front door, sits down on the steps and laughs. Since he has the option of being dead, he has nothing to lose by being alive. It is good to be alive. He goes to work because he doesn't have to.

This Is It

Author: Alan Watts

Publisher: Vintage (1973)

What Do You Say After You Say Hello?

Author: Eric Berne

Publisher: Grove Press (1972)

There are two requirements for the transmission of the script. Jeder must be able, ready, and willing or even eager to accept it, and his parents must want to pass it on. \r\n \r\nOn Jeder's side, he is able because his nervous system is constructed for the purpose of being programmed, to receive sensory and social stimuli and organize them into patterns which will regulate his behavior. As his body and his mind mature, he becomes readier and readier for more and more complex types of programming. And he is willing to accept it because he needs ways to structure his time and organize his activities. In fact he is not only willing, he is eager, because he is more than a passive computer. Like most animals, he has a craving for 'closure,' the need to finish what he begins; and beyond that, he has the great human aspiration for purpose. \r\n \r\nStarting off with random movements, he ends up knowing what to say after he says Hello. At first he is content with instrumental responses, and they become goals in themselves: incorporation, elimination, intrusion, and locomotion, to use Erikson's terms. Here we find the beginnings of Adult craftsmanship, his pleasure in the act and its successful completion: getting the food safely off the spoon and into his mouth, walking on his own across the floor. Initially his goal is to walk, then it is to walk to something. Once he walks to people, he has to know what to do after he gets there. At first they smile and hug him, and all he has to do is be, or at most, cuddle. They expect nothing from him beyond getting there. Later they do expect something, so he learns to say Hello. After a while, that is not enough either, and they expect more. So he learns to offer them various stimuli in order to get their responses in return. Thus he is eternally grateful (believe it or not) to his parents for giving him a pattern: how to approach people in such a way as to get the desired responses. This is structure hunger, pattern hunger, and in the long run, script hunger. So the script is accepted because Jeder is script hungry. \r\n \r\nOn the parents' side, they are able, ready, and willing because of what has been built into them through eons of evolution: a desire to nurture, protect, and teach their offspring, a desire which can only be suppressed by the most powerful inner and outer forces. But beyond that, if they themselves have been properly 'scripted,' they are not only willing, but eager, and derive great enjoyment from child-rearing.

How is it that the members of the human race, with all their accumulated wisdom, self-awareness, and desire for truth and self, can permit themselves to remain in such a mechanical situation, with its pathos and self-deception? We are more aware of ourselves than apes are, but not really very much. Scripts are only possible because people don't know what they are doing to themselves and to others. In fact, to know what one is doing is the opposite of being scripted. There are certain aspects of bodily, mental, and social functioning which happen to man in spite of himself, which slip out, as it were, because they are programmed to do so. These heavily influence his destiny through the people around him, while he still retains the illusion of autonomy. But there are remedies which can be applied.

A woman came home from a group meeting one day where she had heard [the concept of psychological trading stamps] for the first time, and explained it to her twelve-year-old son. He said, 'Okay, mom, I'll be back soon.' When he returned, he had made a small roll of perforated paper stamps and a little dispenser to hold them, together with a paper book with the pages ruled off into squares. On the first page he had written: 'This page, when full of stamps, entitles you to one free suffer.' He understood perfectly.

People like to show their collections of feelings to others, and to talk about who has more or better angers, hurts, guilts, fears, etc. In fact, many saloons become showrooms where people can go to boast about their trading stamps: 'You think your wife is unreasonable - well, listen to this!' or 'I know what you mean. It takes even less than that to hurt (scare) me. Yesterday...' or 'Embarrassed (guilty, inadequate)? I coulda sunk through the floor!