Reasonable to Sadness

rid yourSelf of both

Our lives consist of meanings, explanations, reasons, and justifications. The lowest level at which human beings can live their life... I'm now going to give you a name for that. There is a place where you can begin to recognize it. Before now, you were too much in it to be able to identify it. They say fish cannot discern water because it's everywhere for them. Pretend you're a flying fish for the moment. You jumped out of the water and looked back to see the water. And when you discern the water, you can take that back into the water: That's possible. It's an analogy for what is occurring. When you get stuck with anything, it sheds a little light on it. So when you jump out of the water and see the water humans swim in, the water is called reasonableness. In this context, reasonableness refers to the set of beliefs, justifications, and societal norms that we often accept without question, which can limit our understanding of reality and the self.

The reasons for people are more important than the results in their lives. Human beings care more about reasons than they do about results. And when you ask people about what happened, why it happened, and how come, you get drawn into a conversation for all your reasons. People trade in reasons. They pretend to care about results, but they only care about reasons. "Well I really tried to produce that result. And you know I tried this and I did that, and this happened and this happened." "Oh, I understand: Well, as long as you really tried; as long as you really meant it; you really were sincere." "I understand" often means, "Okay, I'll give you that one as long as you put up with my bullshit for not producing the result I said I would produce. You'll accept that then, too, right?" See, you're either on the plane on time or not. You're either on the airplane when it leaves or not. The aircraft does not care about the traffic jam you got into. It just leaves, and you stand there watching it go, complaining about the unfairness of life. You either keep your word or you don't know about life. Life is not fair. Children think life should be fair.

Some people—most people—never grow out of that, and they argue about the fairness or unfairness of life, their reasons for what they have done and why they did it, and why it should have been this way, and their story, and it's all stuck together. People are asleep, and what keeps them asleep is reasonableness. And by the way, it is genuine when you're discussing it. The basis for your reasonableness ultimately is your commitment to your story. But the level of living your life is called reasonableness. We invite you to participate in something, and you will deal with "why are we doing that?" and "should I be doing that?" and "how come we're doing that?" and "what's really happening?" And you'll never deal with the offer and the possibility of the offer. So one way to listen to someone's sharing who's willing to give up reasons in her relationship with her son and relate to him, like straight, like "here's what I say and I'll take what you say, and out of what we say to each other, we'll be committed to it as itself and not deal with all the story about it that's not being communicated." So, she can acknowledge being an incompetent parent, which is only a conversation anyway—which I know you know—but it opens something up. That conversation opens something up. She doesn't have to explain, justify, and make her son wrong like he's the reason for her incompetence. He doesn't have to deal with her reasons. He can just deal with herself, and they can deal with each other. See: That's a breakthrough. That's what's possible in terms of participating in life when you can step out of your story, and let the floor be there, let life be there, let your self be there, embrace it, and play with it. But you have to give something up. You have to give up your significance and your commitment to reasonableness. You need to know what it looks like, really. What you look like—your story, reasons for it, and the justifications for it—really are absurd. Time for another newspaper article. I will show you what life looks like, carried to the extreme when someone's committed to some meaning, significance, reasons, and justifications for their life.

There you go. Aren't you tired? Of keeping the secret? Is it worth giving the secret up? Is it worth giving up what you've been withholding from life? You know what you've been withholding from life? Your Self. What you've been giving to life is your secret; what you've been withholding from life is your Self. And you put the two together, and you look at life from the possibility that you're going to die: What's the point? What is the point? Why not just give it up? Congratulations. That's giving something up. I invite you to confront what it costs, the risk... Do you want to share about that?

What would you have me do?

Field of perception?

Perception is unneeded once in Knowledge.

Perception is ego-based. How can we be with Knowledge and leave the ego be?

Going from nowhere to nowhere leads to nowhere in particular. Is that an issue?

We live in nowhere to go and all day to get there.

What am I here for? To accumulate experience through time. To what end? What am I being used for?

What if nothing is wrong or broken, and there is nothing to worry about!

Thought is all dream, illusion, delusion. How much, if any, do I have a say about? No control?

Hoi polloi, the mass of humanity, are all God, acquiring experience. Ego claims responsibility? Ego wants to be God! Ego does not see anything is wrong, nothing is broken, and there is nothing to worry about.

"And it uses thinking and feeling, interpretations, what you believe to be true, in order to make you look good. It utilizes and organizes those elements and generates those elements in a form designed to make you look good. What does it mean to look good? Well, specifically, it means to make you right and others wrong, to foster your dominating and to avoid the domination of anything else. And it uses your thinking and your feelings, and your perceptions and your interpretations, conclusions, etc., to justify yourself; except yourself and it have become one. You have identified with it. You are an it; you are an anybody. What makes you an anybody is you identify with it. You identify with its thinking and its feeling, and that makes you an anybody, and the costs are love, happiness, and self-expression. It thinks and you have its thoughts, and it thinks in order to make you look good, and what it costs you to identify with it is love, happiness, vitality, and self-expression." - Werner Erhard.

Who Am I?

Great question! It comes down to who you are being. What you say versus what you notice? IF 'my mind' [an ownership point of view] isn't me, perhaps the truth is that it is not you. You have no say over what it is doing anyway, especially to you. Nobody does. The difference lies in "I am blocked" or "noticing" BEING blocked. Who or what is stopping you? While you Live from the watcher, the listener, the noticer, the observer, time ends, and presence begins. Having thoughts is not thinking. Regardless, who you are is not thought. Who are you? Be the noticer falling asleep.

Plato's Cave is a famous allegory used to explain the concept of reality and knowledge. In the allegory, prisoners are chained in a cave facing a wall and can only see shadows of objects projected on the wall. They believe these shadows are the only reality. One prisoner is freed and sees the true nature of reality outside the Cave, but upon returning to the Cave, the other prisoners do not believe him. The allegory suggests that our perceptions of reality may be limited and that actual knowledge can only be gained through philosophical inquiry and education.

Power is a coin, authority on one side and hierarchy on the other. Each one is a hoax/superstition/myth bought and sold in a world created by ego. It is time to let it go. Notice but do not respond to its call.