Ø     Our common sense of existential separation creates fairly constant feelings of vulnerability and insecurity which, in turn, generate the imperious need to defend and expand our psychological and cultural presence in the world. Just check and see how much of the conflicts you experience and the stressful obligations you take on are related to the need to prove and maintain the value of your identity: who you think you were in the past, are right now, and hope to eventually become. Our sense of personal and social entitlement is so intimately tied to our sense of personal existence that when we fight for the realization of our “best” hopes (especially those referred to status), it is relatively easy to slip into anguish and conflict, perhaps even violence. Far too many of us find it reasonable and honorable to suffer, kill and be killed for the words and symbols with which empty principles and beliefs are enunciated. We commonly feel that whatever contradicts what we think, even just theoretically, threatens our very existence and, so, we react accordingly.
Our tragic capacity to allow whatever we happen to make of our little personal and tribal lives blot out life as a whole, is one of the main reasons why our minds and relationships are so riddled with small-minded collusion, anxiety, hyper activity, conflict and overt or covert violence. And, of course, the state of the world is merely a reflection of the sum total of our personal minds, lives and relationships. This psychological and collective reality of ours cannot possibly lead to well being and, much less, to the truth.

Basic awareness of the inadequacy of thought makes obvious that one's sense of responsibility is wasted when placed at the exclusive service of particular causes that are often the source of further divisive identification and contradictory if not outrightly violent action. Responsibility, well understood, must be for the state and fate of humanity as a whole, and this sense of total responsibility cannot be even glimpsed at without putting an immediate end to any and all personal identification with separative and potentially conflictive attachments and commitments. The truly responsible human being does not hand her mind and her life over to any religious, political or occupational faction, nor to any other source of identification. Her responsibility begins and ends with a single act of irreversible divestment from anything and anybody that would determine a particular identity imbued with an equally exclusive sense of destiny. The mature human being does not have to justify or defend her particular psychological and cultural existence because she does not have much of one. Thus, responsibility—love, really—is necessarily freedom from separation. And freedom from separation implies freedom from conflict and aggression; freedom from frustration and ambition; freedom from boredom, fear and anxiety; in other words, freedom is equivalent to the end of sorrow. This does not mean that the non-aligned human being does not get out of bed every morning. It means, rather, that her actions in the world have nothing to do with the procurement of psychological security through the status conferred by divisive alliances, power and unnecessary wealth. (145)

Ø     Have you noticed how many people, most tellingly political, economic, military and religious leaders, disguise their rather ruthless pursuit of power with the claim of having placed themselves at the service of others? Why could we all not simply satisfy our fundamental needs by placing whatever particular skills and talents we may have at the service of the same needs of others; and, this, without ever turning what we do for a living into a source of divisive self-assertion, excessive wealth, and status seeking?
The fact of human equality based on equal participation in the mystery of life will never be announced from top to bottom for the simple reasons that those who have (or desire) power over others, attain, maintain and expand this power within a general status quo of profound division. After all, only people who live within fragments can be told what reality is and, accordingly, who to be and do within that particular reality which is necessarily unrelated to the profound mystery of a common ground in life as a whole.
Thus, one who having seen by himself, and in himself, the falseness of separation and who for that reason would want to inquire into the wholeness of life, must begin by renouncing the guidance and protection of experts and authorities and. The simple truth is that nothing exists outside of everything else; life does not compartmentalise and much less rank and favor aspects of itself. It is only the alienated human intellect that breaks everything up in the attempt to reduce it to knowledge so that its insane and ultimately suicidal fantasy of total control may be someday realized. (146)

Ø     Regardless of its content, any opinion formulated about someone else is inadequate and disrespectful, for several reasons. First of all, because such judgments robs the other of the freedom implicit in every instant and every occasion; and, also, because they reduce the mystery of life incarnate in him or her to a necessarily shallow caricature representing, more than anything else, the small-mindedness of the one issuing the judgement. The opinionated mind is the jail cell in which the self-appointed judge will serve a life sentence of mental separation filled with disappointment and the harmful consequences of flawed perceptions, erroneous decisions and missed opportunities.

Because it does not have any fixed content of a psychological nature, the enlightened mind does not know itself and does not make the mistake of thinking it knows anyone else. Every moment is new, as is every interaction with another. An invitation to a mind beyond the self might be issued, but a rejection of this invitation will not be suffered or resisted because force or seduction are incompatible with what is being presented, not as a gift from one to another, but as the ultimate truth of mind and life. (147)

Ø     There are certain perceptions without which one remains irretrievably stuck in the shallow muck of cultural and psychological tradition (the self-identifying and self-projective narrative of tribal and personal experience). The first thing to see is the physical vulnerability of the human organism at just about any point of its vital cycle and, especially, the profound psychological insecurity of the individual. Then, it is essential to see the compensatory process of particular identification and gradual becoming through which the self acquires shape and some sense of security within a given cultural setting. This in turn makes evident that our endless pursuit of individual fulfillment, is responsible for the general conflictive fragmentation of human culture and the chronic disorder affecting every one of its levels and sectors. Humanity is so profoundly divided, and its constituent tribal and psychological parts so confused and conflictive, that there is very little possibility of intelligent and harmonious action. We have lived since the beginning of history assuming this to be our only possible mental reality, and we are facing today a critical situation in which these same conditions, now global and interconnected, are threatening the very survival of our species. It is devastating to realize the seriousness of our situation, but it is also enlightening because it takes each one of us by the hand to acknowledge the direct link that exists between the intrapsychic reality of the self and the “external” reality of the world. And we are not speaking here of a hypothetical self, but of ourselves. The world is the mess it is because you and I are what we are, and do and leave undone what we do and leave undone.

Now, to assume personal responsibility for who we are and how that contributes to the sorry state of the world, does not imply ethical guilt leading to renewed efforts of personal improvement guided by a new set of predetermined methodologies and moral imperatives. We all suffer fundamentally the same mess, and share the same responsibility and the same paradoxical incapacity to do anything conclusive about it, so there can be no moralistic finger pointing in any of this. Ours is generally the problematic reality of a psyche that even when somehow willing to see the nature and consequences of its ethnocentric and egotistical existence, is still incapable of putting an end to its own destructiveness and even its own suffering. Thus, clarity on these matters begins by putting an end to any participation in the on-going sophomoric argument that in every instance attempts to determine who is good and who is not, who is innocent and who is to blame. Quitting the blame game, naturally focuses attention on the particular psyche as the very root of all that ails humanity as a whole.
The history of our presence in the planet is primarily the history of egotistic isolation and tribal fragmentation, but it is also the history of introspection and self reformation carried out in accordance to the particular moral prescriptions of different religious and secular ideologies (including science); and love knows we do not need any more false self improvement merely representing new versions of the same disease. Only fools need to sign up for further efforts in the direction of personal rehabilitation inspired by guilt, self-pity and the false seductive images of religious redemption and success of the secular garden variety.

If free of false psychological projections, one is left with just the extraordinary fact that the brain and the personal psyche (everybody's brain and psyche) are the result of a long generic process of cumulative learning that has produced, in some places, extraordinary technological progress, but that in personal and social matters only yields slightly modified versions of the same general psychological isolation and cultural fragmentation that has forever been the source of our conflict and suffering. The fact that we all share in the same general content, structure and operation of self-centered thought, makes clear that no one is as original and deserving as we all like to think we are. And since our much vaunted intelligence is largely inoperative when it comes to eliminating the conflictive separation between individuals and their tribes of reference, the solution to the general problem of human suffering, if it exists at all, must be totally unrelated, as noted before, to renewed efforts aimed at further personal development and the social progress of particular tribes alone or in collusive “coalition” with others. More succinctly still, the problems generated and suffered by multiple and conflicted forms of personal and tribal being will never be solved through ongoing processes of personal and tribal becoming. This, for the simple reason that being and becoming are different sides of the same coin of conceited isolation and sorrow that century after century has uselessly rolled towards an imaginary future that, regardless of our best wishes, has always turned out to be just a slightly different version of what we have known in the past.

Radical change is not a matter of ignoring or rationalizing what we suffer from. Nor is it finding someone else to blame for it or planning and implementing renewed efforts to effect gradual personal and social change on the basis of different goals and methods. Radical change is, instead, the possibility of a sudden collapse in each particular brain of the general pattern of personal isolation, cultural fragmentation, and illusory becoming that has forever ruled the human mind and deadened the heart. (148)

Ø     For the concerned individual, the crucial question is whether or not it is reasonable to assume that consciousness is the ground of our existence, and what might be the implications of a negative answer to this question. If self-centered memory and the predetermined projections of memory are all there is to our personal existence, then there is really nothing to discuss or do because the division, conflict and sorrow inherent in this condition will simply continue to torment us, personally, until we personally die and, collectively, until we finally manage to extinguish the entire human presence in the world with our egotistic stupidity and inter-tribal violence. But if we allow ourselves to passively consider the possibility that consciousness might not be the true ground of our existence, then we can proceed with an inquiry that, by reason of its origin, must venture beyond what anyone knows, thinks or feels.
But, is this inquiry reasonable and possible? Can a mind apparently circumscribed to its self-projective content (memory) look beyond itself? Before we attempt to answer that question, let us just say that whenever we look at any part or aspect of the cosmos susceptible to our gaze, we are seeing glimmers of something that is independent of the contents of the human psyche. We may have developed sophisticated conceptual descriptions of what we are able to sense in the world around us, but the actual object of our observation is not the creation of our collective or personal mind. The well known dicta that the map is not the territory and that anything anyone may say something is, it is not, apply well here. The first thing to notice is our common tendency to make what we know ―the manner in which we describe what we think about what little we perceive― far more important than the ultimately unknowable cosmic reality that contains ours. Our inquiry begins, then, by awakening to the fact that we generally confuse the minuscule abstract reality created by our limited perceptions and symbolic conceptualizations, with the actual mystery of life as a whole.

It is relatively easy to see that a tree is not a product of human thinking because there it is, a given tree standing “outside” (in some sense at least) the organism that is making the observation. I can walk up to a tree, name it and touch it; I can see it grow and change, give fruit and, perhaps, I may even see it die; or I may cut it down myself and sell its wood for profit. All this without ever really having any real sense of what the deep truth of that particular tree is. Considering our appreciable capacity for selective genetic “engineering,” it would only be fair to say that certain human beings have had something to do with the “creation” of this or that particular type of tree. But this notwithstanding, it remains true that trees, forests and jungles are not a product of humanity. Their presence in the world precedes ours and is independent and probably vastly more significant than what we may ever know and like or dislike about them. Besides, and this is a huge “besides,” the presence of trees is an integral aspect of the totality of the cosmic flow; just like ours is. To claim to know a particular tree is, therefore, equivalent to claiming to know the entire universe, and that is nonsensical for many reasons not the least of which is that the knower cannot disentangle himself from the infinite totality he may presume to know.

And this iffyness of our knowledge is never more apparent than in the curious relation whereby one layer or aspect of consciousness knows the rest. We are incapable of knowing ourselves fully and with total clarity. This, again, for many reasons, principally among them that just as the particular human entity assumed to be in the position of the perceiver does not exist independently from the world thought to be the object of its perception, at a more intimate level there is no difference between the mental layer that looks and the mental layers that are observed and presumably, known.
Furthermore, since all “I” am is a particular set of symbolically represented data and subjective opinion, I am inherently limited and prejudiced in the way I look at everything else, including what is strangely called “my” self. It is not only that I look through the aberrant optics of previous experience, but also that pain and pleasure, reward and punishment (powerful determinants in the politics of psychological desire in relation with others and their own desires) are rigidly built into my way of looking. In other words, the prejudice with which one looks at oneself extends well beyond the biased opinions that might be issued about what is being looked at, and into how these opinions function in regards to predetermined (favored and feared) outcomes. If I want to become something better than what I actually am, and fear not being able to achieve this goal, then both the ideal and the fear fleshing out and energizing this basic impulse to change psychologically, severely distort my perception of who I actually am.

Can there be a complete and objective observation of the psychological self if the observer is not different from what is being observed? Does a full and accurate perception of the self, not imply its integration and, therefore, the impossibility that this perception may come from within the self? For, who would be looking, and at what? Objectivity presumes an unbiased observer, so if this objectivity were to be in place, would it have anything to look at? Would not the very innocence of such perception empty out the content of personal consciousness and annul its projection onto the future? In other words, the self as limited memory content projecting itself onto the future, could not possibly survive such examination of itself as a whole.
The emptiness or nothingness implicit in an insight ending the conflicted and conflicting division between the observing and the observed “me,” may well be the true ground of our presence within life as a whole and, therefore, also the only possible platform from which all our problems can be clearly seen and promptly solved. (149)

Ø    The psychological isolation and cultural fragmentation that typifies humankind can be seen as an immense mosaic, one that is always in process of improvement, but that is really incapable of getting better. At every point in time, this mosaic represents each and every personal and tribal incarnation of the general deception, dissension, confusion, suffering and ephemeral joys and pleasures experienced by the species throughout an interminable historical repetition of this same hapless master design. To identify with one or more sectors of the reiterative human mosaic is, of course, to blind oneself to the general scope and misery of the human condition. We render ourselves not just blind but stupid by continuing to opt for a local view of both the psyche and of humanity as a whole. And we dull ourselves further by holding steady in the belief of the ascending development of both, even when it becomes obvious that what passes for isolated psychological and social progress is no progress at all. Does our uninterrupted bellicosity, bottomless greed and permanent injustice in the provision of wealth and security not amply attest to the fact that we really have not changed that much after thousands of years of presumed development?
Now, simple awareness of the shocking fact that this all-encompassing human phenomenon of psychological alienation nested within particular fragments of a general process of cultural atomization cannot ever possibly become “better,” implies an instantaneous breaking away from particular cultural and experiential (biographical) sources of identification and any predetermined path of illusory development. Beyond the open-ended narrative of the conditioned individual and his necessarily limited and biased perspective, lies an insight into the entire human mosaic and its endangered future that because it is as wide and deep as it is impersonal has the power to reconnect the mind to what lies beyond the reach of self-centered knowledge an desire.

It is tempting to say that awareness is inversely proportional to ethnocentric self-centeredness. But such declaration would not be correct for it carries within the subtle implication of a possible gradual change from lesser to greater awareness; when in reality total awareness cannot be other than the absence of self-centered knowledge and its mechanical projection in imagined time. One has to simply stay with the fact that major efforts made to improve the self are ultimately counterproductive, because what is necessary is not its trans-formation, but its disappearance. (150)

Ø     Contrary to popular belief, thought is not a tool at the service of the self. It is, rather, a faculty of the brain strangely characterized by the dominant presence of an entity (the self) falsely convinced that it is him that creates and controls thought and, therefore, “his” life as well. Even though thought, broken-up, defined and guided by its double level isolation (psychological and tribal), is clearly a universal phenomenon, it is generally perceived or “felt” more as a personal phenomenon. And while also assumed to be the tool of reason and the preeminent flower of human intelligence, self-centered thought is really the cause of our remarkable incapacity to put an end to the division, the violence, the injustice and the suffering that ultimately sickens everyone's mind, upsets everyone's life and embitters everyone’s death.

While still young you may be full of idealism and, thus, convinced that your personal problems will be eventually solved, and that progress will also in due time take care of more general social ills. But as you grow older and closer to the final exit, you begin to see that it is highly unlikely that there will be within your lifetime any resolution to the countless mental and relational problems that keep tormenting you; let alone a definitive end to the general disorder afflicting the world at large. And if you explore this perception with intensity and deeply enough, there is a sudden realization that self-centered thinking will never solve any of our fundamental psychological, relational, geopolitical and ecological problems because they are all the consequence of a thought process biased and corrupted by its dedicated service to exclusive personal and tribal interests. Having lost much of its original capacity for objective observation and accurate understanding, thought cannot even see its own dysfunctional fragmentation as the source of all human problems.

In the realm of science, it is the factual observation of the nature of any challenge that often enough comes up with an effective solution. This, of course, unless the self interest of a particular scientist disrupts the correct application of the scientific method; or if a given solution adequate from a scientific point of view, is put at the service of an unjust, improper or destructive purpose ―which, often enough, is the case. In general terms, it is hardly a matter of contention that while thought is not just adequate but essential in meeting practical, technical and scientific challenges, it is woefully inadequate when it comes to solving psychological and relational problems. If the rigorous intellect required for scientific research and the development of the technological applications that are the fruit of much of that research, extended itself to the field of mental health and relationship, scientists and technologists would have an extraordinarily lower incidence of neurosis and relationship problems than the general population, which is certainly not the case. Nor is it the case that all scientific discovery and technological creation is at the service of the unity and wellbeing of humanity as a whole. Given all this, what is really amazing is that so many people would be shocked or annoyed by the assertion that there is indeed something terribly wrong with the human mind if it is still generally convinced that somehow “better” thinking will eventually solve the problems that self-centered thought itself has generated, and has never before been able to solve in any conclusive manner.

A few simple examples may be useful to clarify why we seem so inept and unintelligent when it comes to our most fundamental mental and behavioral challenges. Let us say that a person is violent and that, being somewhat aware of this tendency and its negative consequences, decides that it would be a good idea to become less violent or altogether non-violent. In this decision he is erroneously assuming that violence is something relatively unrelated to him and therefore ultimately under his control. The truth is that there is no distinction that can be made between this person (any person, for that matter) and the overt or covert violence that emanates from him. This rules out the theory of a particular moral failing, putting the cause instead in that sense of existential insularity that feeling inherently vulnerable and insecure is also prone to nurture in the seclusion of thought motives of both self-defense and self-expansion that result in violence. Why would anybody think that, after the withdrawal of the British, Ghandi's message of non-violence would take root in a population as culturally divided and conflictive as that of India? Beyond the brutal assassination of the well-meaning holy man and the nearly instant political and religious violence of the ensuing civil war and partition, it is sadly sobering to see in the cruel and dangerous reality of India and Pakistan today, the utter failure of the doctrine of non-violence. Violence is an integral part of self-centered thought and the desires with which thought secures, expresses and furthers itself, and this is why no one can think and will himself away from violence. It is a fact that while most people would say that they want peace in the world, practically no one is willing to relinquish the exclusive commitment to the countries and groups (with their peculiar interests, traditions and ideologies) to which they have pledged their allegiance in exchange for a modicum of identity and security. We find it extremely hard to see that there is no peace in the world fundamentally because we all insist in being whatever we think we are apart from and, often enough, at odds with just about everyone else.

The unfortunate habit of thinking of oneself as a unique individual by automatic reference to particular memories, attachments, commitments and desires, blinds each and everyone of us to the otherwise glaring fact that the fundamental physical and mental traits of the entire species are present in each and everyone of us and determinant of most of our thought and behavior. It should be clear then that it is the failure to see ourselves in depth and for who we really are, that sustains our chronic incapacity to detect in our divisive thoughts and actions, not just the common source of all our problems, but our very being and becoming. The superficiality and consequent inefficacy of all our attempts to modify our behavior so that we may attain a better life, prove then that we are what we suffer from. We deny, ignore or rationalize the existence of our fundamental psychological and relational problems for as long as we can and then we tend to naively approach them thinking we can gradually do something about them ourselves. Again, there is no “myself” apart and distinct from the problems of reference. When we are dealing with issues of hatred, envy, addiction, violence, fear, guilt, jealousy, etc., there is no independent actor capable of dealing with them from the outside as it were.

The challenge of, let us say, driving a nail into a concrete wall or cooling a large volume of very hot liquid, is radically different from having a problem with anger or dishonesty. When the nature of the problem is material, relatively stable and external to the self, thought immediately proceeds to asses the nature of the situation as accurately a possible, to then derive from that evaluation the necessary remedial action. But if “I” am brutal whenever I do not get what I want, it is unlikely that anything I may do to temper or get rid of this violence will be completely successful. If anything, the desire of an ambitious person to become less ambitious is but a different expression of the same ambition; and ambition always involves violence in one way or another. On top of this, the desire to effect psychological change from within, as it were, implies that the mind will be conflicted by two mutually opposed desires. Contradictory desire is a plague that has affected the mind of humanity at every point in history and that dulls our minds since we are children. Take, for example, the case of the nuclear super bullies that want to stop proliferation, but without divesting themselves of these monstrous devices of mass murder. They allege that they are justified in blocking the moral or immoral desire for nuclear power expressed by smaller countries, because they themselves are the only political and cultural entities rational enough to further the cause of peace and justice in the world through this form of power and intimidation over others. These nations are incapable of seeing that this manner of thinking and acting is extraordinarily hypocritical, as well as the very reason why other nations may want to defend themselves or bully their neighbors through the acquisition of the same weapons.

Where does all of this leave one? First, I observe that I am locked within myself and unable to get from under the problems and suffering created by limited and mechanical thinking. I observe as well that this self-isolation and ineptitude is true of most if not all other human beings, which in itself accounts for the general disorder and suffering in the world. Consequently, I come to see that I am not an individual at all; that I am, along with everyone else, the result of a single phenomenon of mental conditioning that has made us what we are: separate from one another; fearful, confused, ambitious and violent in particular ways; unwilling or unable to change; and, therefore, responsible for the total situation of the world. The problem of conflictive separation and suffering is so huge and so bound up with the very nature of personal identity and thought, that anything that I may do about it based on my own or someone else's experience and projections, is not only bound to fail, but will also inevitably give further strength and continuity to the same cultural fragmentation and egotistical personal isolation that is at the root of it all. If “I” am the problem, then anything I may think or do about it is merely worsening the effect and extending the life of the same problem. This very insight makes thought itself put an end to its pattern of avoidance and idealized self-projection, and in a manner that does not involve either conflict or undue effort. This is not a gradual and laborious abnegation of the self so that it may access higher moral ground; it is its sudden collapse.

A complete and passive insight into thought's aberrant psychological extension and the suffering it creates, dissolves identification with any particular biographical or ideological source providing security and self-fulfillment. And once free of self defense and self projection, thought naturally restricts its operation to areas where the action of impersonal knowledge is required and effective. There is no longer any sense of a past, present or future with exclusive psychological and cultural characteristics, because memories that were once attached to a central personal axis are no longer struggling at every moment to attain modification or cancellation of themselves in an imagined future and for an imagined “better” self. The self is no longer there frightened, greedily dependent and, therefore, overactive and prone to do and receive violence.
Is the mind free of self-centered conditioning one in which meditation is not a premeditated practice but a natural state? Who would be asking this question and why? (151)

Ø     To see the chaotic situation of the world and the futility of our reform efforts, is to admit to the necessity of an entirely new mind. Having realized that knowledge and belief, no matter how great, abundant and wee-intended, cannot ever bridge the conflicted separation between human beings, nor the gap between humanity and the larger cosmic reality (between the conditioned brain and the truth), the mind disregards exclusive consciousness in a single act. The self that is indistinguishable from the mental constructs it has inherited, accumulated and identified with throughout its life, naturally perishes in this unprecedented revelation of its very foundations as illusory and false. What makes this a true death and not just a simulacrum of one is that there is absolutely no guarantee of anything (positive or negative) following on its heels. This is definitely not one of the long-winded conversions to a higher self advertised by traditional religions and the newer “spiritualities”. We are talking here about an actual collapse of the self, not merely of trying to become a little more generous and a little less self-involved.

Now, to say that there is an end to the stream of self-centered thought is not to suggest that in this end all knowledge is indiscriminately jettisoned away. Clearly, without language, technical/logistical knowledge and the basic reasoning necessary to relate with others and adequately satisfy the basic needs of the physical organism, we would not be able to survive, let alone have this conversation. The central question is whether or not the mind/brain can free itself of the exclusive content of personal consciousness, and this question emerges fully only at that instant in which two essential and interrelated facts are finally evident: First, that the self is an insubstantial constellation of mental constructs that tops and centralizes the accumulation of the representational remains of particular experience, and that sustains itself through the modified projection of these remains through fear and desire. And, second, that conflict and suffering are the inevitable result of the isolation and contradictory process of exclusive self-realization of this conditioned frame of mind.
Let us try to see in greater detail the necessity for this abrupt break of psychological continuity. The self can only exist in alienation from life and from others, but since this alienation is unsustainable if complete, at least some of the powerful feelings of insecurity and vulnerability generated by personal isolation are generally assuaged through association with a social consensus larger than the self itself. Now, in order to grant even a small measure of security and self-esteem, each form of social consensus must of necessity be different from (if not opposed to) other forms of consensus satisfying other people's need for the same sense of existential identity and security in tribal status. In other words, what creates the illusion of psychological and cultural identity, and with this a modicum of exclusive certainty and security is, in itself, a source of separation and conflict that permanently threatens other people's particular sense of psychological well being and, perhaps, their very physical integrity as well. Thus, while one may feel relatively secure within the mental confines of a specific combination of cultural brands (patriotism, religious dogma, gender, race, economic class, age group, profession, etc.), it is precisely this separate allegiance to particular forms of self-sustaining cultural consensus and personal experience that creates the division amongst that is, in turn, responsible for all the interminable conflicts and sorrows afflicting humankind as a whole. It it this undeniable causal connection between psychological separation and human suffering that determines the imperative necessity for an end to the self.

When someone is confronted with this last sentence, but unwilling or unable to see the actual facts they merely allude to, there is an immediate protest that arises and that might sound more or less like this: I can see that to stop being who I am and who I want to become may be a sound and noble thing to do, but what is the ultimate advantage of a state of mind without personal memories, traditions and desires? What could possibly be better about an unconditioned mind no one knows anything about? In other words, what would I get in return for having left the mental programming that, even if it is a bit narrow and prone to insensitivity and erroneous behavior, is what defines my very being and helps me charter the future?
The only response to this display of clearly dilatory uncertainty is that there need not be (there cannot be) an attractive ulterior motive for the collapse of an entity that is separative, conflictive and wallows in self pity. That to move instantly away from falseness and irrationality is the only option open to a mind that cares about basic sanity. Any positive motive that would serve to justify the surrender of “this” particular separate self on behalf of a better one, has totally misunderstood the nature of the problem. In this context, irresistible ulterior motives constitute just the type of prop the biographical thought process has used forever to guarantee its largely unchanged continuity.

The extraordinarily strong desire of the mind to find motivation for an action by foreseeing the future it is supposed to usher is, perhaps, the greatest barrier to the possibility of the self coming to an end. In the terminology used by J. Krishnamurti, the radical deprogramming or depersonalization of the brain is both a revolution in consciousness and a mutation of the brain cells and, therefore, obviously not something open to the planning and the subsequent implementing will of even the most saintly person. The ending of the self must come about through a perception/action that is timeless in the sense of being without past precedence and without future projection. It is a direct and immediate insight, not in any way mediated by thought, of the full depth and nature of the conditioning of the mind and of the fact that the self is utterly incapable of doing anything about this conditioning and its tragic consequences for the simple reason that it is an integral part of it.

Therefore, any approach to the central problem of mental and behavioral predetermination containing a selective evaluation of this mental condition and the allure of a foreseen reward, or the fear of an equally foreseen punishment, conveniently avoids full insight into the otherwise evident state of confusion, conflict and sorrow of the self isolated and conditioned by transpersonal, personal and cultural experience. Thus, the only correct approximation to the problem of being human begins with an across the board rejection of all ready-made theoretical explanations of the nature of this problem demanding obedience to an equally predetermined prescription for its solution.
In a nutshell, seeing the reality of the conditioned human mind and the awful consequences of its untrammeled projection in time, thought denies itself recourse to further instances of the same maneuver of idealized projection guaranteeing self continuity. There is no way in which the alienated and egotistical self may become better, or an altogether different creature in the future; and that is why its disappearance ―right now― is an absolute necessity.

Having said all this to warn about the danger of self-deception that lies in psychological projection motivated by an ulterior end, let us move on to carefully consider something that, although out of the reach of (and largely unrelated to) personal consciousness, can be nevertheless dimly perceived by anyone interested in these matters. Let us trace back our steps a bit here. In general terms what we have been doing all along is question the veracity of the commonly held belief that the ground of our existence lies in consciousness; including in consciousness all the multiple redemptive or salvific plans that human thought has devised to give itself hope (and importance) as well as project its self-centered existence beyond both birth and death. We have asked, what could possibly lead anyone to question his own existence as the story of a “me” entity that rolls out from the past and into the future (in the mind of many, for all eternity)? And we have answered: Well, simply basic awareness that the record of experience and acquired knowledge that conditions our minds and our respective present and future lives and, is infinitesimally smaller than and curiously unrelated to life; life taken to be that totality or “everything” which is not created by the human mind. It does not matter what this “totally other” may be called. We may alternatively refer to it as the sacred, the cosmos, the totality, ultimate reality, the truth, infinity, life, God, or whatever else we may fancy. What matters is that without necessarily relapsing into the fantasies of wishful thinking, anyone can have a fairly clear sense that there is indeed something that cannot be fully perceived with our senses, nor ever reduced to an intellectual formulation possessed by some in particular and not by others.

The facticity of this something that our minds cannot grasp in its entirety, but is not just fancy theological speculation (take for instance, the mind-boggling multidimensional interrelationship of matter in the cosmic flow), puts in evidence the smallness of what we do perceive and know, and in so doing questions one's existential identification with knowledge, especially psychological knowledge. On just this basis, one can then in all honesty ask the following questions: Why is being the son of so and so or a citizen of this or that country more descriptive of who I am than the fact that I share being ―life and death― with everything else that exists? Why do I consider myself different from the air I breathe (or that breaths me) if all my intellectual acumen would not be worth a rat's ass if I were to be deprived of oxygen for just a few minutes?

Even a small shift of attention away from the familiar trappings of the self and towards the unfamiliar vastness of what lies beyond knowledge, shakes one's very foundation without providing new buttresses of illusion and false personal hope. The serious and humble silence of the earnest “I do not know” ―not to be confused with the loud braying of the ignoramus― erodes the identity and then destroys the very sense of autonomous existence of the “I” who is essentially knowledge of this or that type and of greater or smaller magnitude. One who who deeply questions what she knows is, therefore, instantly left without any one particular version of god and without social status; certainly without the comforting prospect of fame, redemption or reincarnation. Once no longer knowing “my” self and fretting about the quality of “my” performance and achievement relative to that of others, “I” am not. Terminally dis-illusioned, the self dissolves in the nothing inherent in the unthinkable everything.

The first implication and, paradoxically, the first step towards the realization that there is no such a thing as a discrete (particular) being, is an end to conflict with others and contradiction within. To be nothing culturally and psychologically implies the end of the process of personal becoming that desperately searches for whatever is thought capable of relieving feelings of insecurity and vulnerability. The process that in projecting a better self in an improved future is at the very root of everyone's hostility, anxiety and suffering. Once emptied of the psychological content and the unnecessary cultural information responsible for conflictive self assertion and self projection, the mind is no longer at odds with itself and no longer wasting its energy in attempting to resist others and the world as a whole.
Free of the absurd demands of psychological desire, the body is fully incarnate in material reality without resisting its vexing aging process nor fearing its unavoidable final annihilation. And the mind finally freed from its terribly constraining moorings in a reflective consciousness conditioned by limited knowledge and irrational desire, loses itself in the realm of cosmic liveliness (to call it something) that lies beyond separate physical and, especially, psychological form.

The collapse of self-centered consciousness is a possibility that hinges on seriously questioning any and all claims to separate existence and endless perfectibility. The self cannot withstand a direct, independent and full insight into the inconsistencies, limitations and ultimately toxic nature of the knowledge and fixed thought patterns that support its sense of separate existence. And the jump between being something and being nothing ―between the known and the unknown― means just that, an instantaneous mental somersault of such abandon and power, that nothing much is left of anything subject to knowledge and control. Thus, the presence in the mind of any pleasantly alluring or terrifying image of what “nothing and the unknown” might mean for the self, indicates that the jump has not taken place and will not take place. That is all. The step away from the familiar does occur in the instant in which thought itself sees beyond a shadow of a doubt, first, the nature, limitations and dangers of its conditioning and, second, the impossibility that any projection of itself onto a foreseeable future is anything but the extension of these same limitations and dangers cloaked under a slightly modified form. And it is not really correct to speak in terms of taking a step or making a jump between one state and the other, because putting it that way still presumes a separate actor doing something to that effect. It is better to say, even though still with some hesitation, that the truth is simply that there is no separation. Period.

Since each one of us embodies psychologically the inherent limitations of an exclusive past endlessly projecting modified versions of what it knows and wants, none of us has hardly anything to say about what may lie beyond our respective provincial point of view. That is why there is no methodological bridge between unconditioned freedom and imprisonment in the words and images of one's thoughts. Transit between our knowledgeable ignorance and the unknowable truth necessarily implies the end of the self. (152)

Ø      The views and opinions resulting from a lifetime of recorded experience inform and, therefore, distort and diminish the full range and purity of perception. Thought is and occurs in mental time, whereas perception occurs only in the present. This is why seeing anything fully and accurately implies an empty and silent mind. The absence of prejudice and fixed agendas is innocence and it is only innocence that in its transparency is able to see properly and completely. It is this unknowing perception, this unimaginable state of non-duality, that may be properly called, love. To move beyond the familiar object/subject relationship mediated by desire and pleasure, is to see and to love beyond ourselves; and that is the fundamental challenge we face as individuals and as a species.

There are, of course, those practical challenges posed by life that require the mixing of perception and previously acquired knowledge to yield predetermined and rightfully wanted outcomes. But when everything we see and everything we think and feel about what we see is mediated by previous psychological knowledge and desire, especially in our relationship with one another, our senses deteriorate, our minds become muddled and lazy, and the world these immature relationships create remains the disorderly and violent place it has always been. (153)

Ø     Words, words and more words. That is all you get here and that, it seems, is all we are left with in the end, because words is all we always were and will always be, unless there is a profound upheaval in our brains and psyches. Words and images mediate our relationships and, so, there is between us precious little accurate communication and selfless collaboration. We are filled with the inertness and confusion of contradictory déjà vu images and stale ideas. Having little empty space and silence in our minds, equanimity and broad perspective are the rarest of attributes. We look at the material universe around and within us and reduce everything to words, pictures and numbers without much real feeling for the unimaginable vastness and sheer mystery of the life we are in fact inseparable from. We look at the disorder in our societies and in the world at large, and do nothing better than either search for comfort in some new form of secular or religious entertainment, or join yet another effort to reform once again what has been previously reformed a thousand times. With our own minds in the grip of anxiety and confusion, we turn to experts more than happy to turn us on to their new pills, their new therapies, occupations and distractions, all guaranteed to help pacify and develop our minds in accordance with pre-determined models of personal fulfillment. And throughout this barren process, it is words that articulate and animate our ideas and efforts, just like they do our uncertainties, fears and despairs. Words, words and more words; the central exchange currency of our brittle relationships with others as well as with the chimera of our own selves.
We torture and motivate ourselves with words and images, and they are also the instruments with which we please, confuse and torment each other. We conceive, project and go after our physical and social pleasures with the same universe of words and images with which we invariably come to recognize that they have grown stale and turned to pain, often enough because of the greedy impertinence with which others seek their own pleasure and fulfillment. “The lifestyle of the people of this country is not negotiable,” pompously declared the national leader, blissfully unaware or unconcerned about the violent greed and the ecological destruction he was condoning and facilitating.

It does seem absurd at times to be throwing words around trying to help myself and others see that self-centered thinking, which runs on words, can only create psychological and social realities that being divisive and conflictive lead ultimately to sorrow. I am somewhat comforted, however, by the recognition that it is only through words and images that we can communicate and, more importantly, by urging the discerning reader to connect independently and directly to the actualities to which this material refers, but that only she or he can access. So, if you hear that a significant part of your identity is based on national chauvinism which is a permanent source of antagonism, injustice and war, then perception of the actual truth to which that notion refers can destroy all vestiges of destructive patriotism from your mind. And if you hear that fear and violence are the product of the isolation, dependency and ambition that characterize the self, then the self itself immediately starts to unravel. There is no other way to deal with the problems of being human; in these matters there is no such a thing as a gradual intellectual understanding of facts to be followed by just as gradual action. No one can see for somebody else and there is no mental processing that is necessary when confronted with a fact. It is the fact itself that acts, not the prejudiced and plodding perceiver always looking to protect and extend itself by avoiding facts. We must use words and images with enormous care. And we must engage one another in ever deepening dialogue aware that when actual facts are revealed through words accurately spoken and attentively heard, it is the truth of the facts that acts. Truth lights up the mind by terminally derailing the habitual obfuscation and procrastination of self-centered thought. (154)

Ø     It seems as though a great proportion of the people killed and maimed in the wars fought by the richest and more powerful nations, are poor and powerless. A disproportionate number of them are women and children. Because there is so much injustice in excessive wealth there is also extreme insensitivity, paranoia and violence. Wealth often acts as though it did not understand why those who think, believe and behave differently, do not just get out of the way and disappear. No one is supposed to seek redress through violent or peaceful means for injustices or transgressions they are suffering or have suffered at the hands of their better-off brothers and sisters. Those who fall out of line must be first intimidated and if that does not stop their resistance, they must be killed. They must be killed for their own good; they must be killed so that others like them come to acknowledge that their oppressors and murderers are representatives of a superior and more humane religious, political and economic culture; the true representatives of peace, justice and reason.

It is clear that any fixed and divisive way of thinking and behaving, is destructive of intelligence and potentially lethal to human life itself. This, regardless of wealth and power because we all derive our identity and illusory sense of security from attachment to a particular ideological consensus that is inevitably the cause of some level and form of overt or covert violence. However, it should also be clear that those of us who are better off, those of us who are physically more secure as well as better educated and stronger in every conceivable way, bear the greatest responsibility for the untrammeled continuity of a general state of conflicted cultural fragmentation that makes impossible the emergence of true humility, forbearance and intelligent generosity in the human mind as a whole. (155)

Ø     The world is literally being torn apart by human action. There is reckless exploitation of natural resources and global climate disruption both tied to overconsumption. Polarized political and religious ideologies seem openly or covertly committed to destroy one another. The systematic neglect or exploitation of the poor, the uneducated and the weak is a constant of history. Interpersonal conflict can be seen at every level and in every sector of society, from legislative bodies to the family. And, at the root of it all, isolation, ambition, fear, conflict and confusion within the individual mind.
And yet, a great majority of people, even those at the bottom of the heap in different respects, would vigorously argue against this description of human reality claiming that it is not fully true. They would say that things are really not that bad; or that while, yes, there might be some serious problems in specific regions of the planet, certain aspects of human life, or at particular times in everyone's life, there are efforts under way, human and extra-human, that will eventually or ultimately put most everything in proper order. The idealized projections of good old secular progress or those implicit in religious redemption with its multiple notions of an afterlife (salvation or reincarnation), still blind all too many people to the hard facts of our largely unchanged planetary reality and, often enough, to the absurdity and sorrow present in our own personal lives. Most people do live lives of quiet desperation. Even if we did not suffer ourselves, we would have to be dead to not suffer the pain and sorrow of so many others.
In an article appearing in, of all places, a very liberal publication a sports coach and inspirational writer argues for the virtue of optimism and effort even in the worst of circumstances, and exalts personal success above all. He offers the example of his wife who rose by the power of positive thinking and hard work from the ghetto of a major American city to the power and wealth of the corporate boardroom and, from there, to the prestige of her own private practice as a business consultant. This good fellow not for a second wonders about the social, ecological and mental price that might be paid for this type of personal success. Nor does he seem to notice that many people do not have the physical, emotional and intellectual characteristics that allowed his wife to land at the very top of the human social and economic pyramid. Hope, single-minded determination and hard work leading to success, is all that matters. Self-fulfillment is not only possible, it is obligatory. The implication seems to be that without personal success relationship is impoverished and life has no meaning. All too often, those who beg to disagree with such characterization of life, are ridiculed as negative thinkers or victims of depression, and marginalized as though they were promoting pessimism and laziness as virtue.

As members of a modestly intelligent species living in a single planetary point of an infinitely complex universe and caught in the same existential predicament, we all share the same sense of isolation and confused vulnerability. And yet, we generally respond to this extraordinary position, not with feelings of loving solidarity, but rather with different and extremely contradictory versions of hope from which we derive not only our idealistic future expectations, but much of our very sense of ourselves as separate and relatively autonomous entities. It is with the motivational energy provided by personal hope that we compete ruthlessly against others (and struggle against ourselves) in order to attain the idea of our fulfilled selves. And this drive to reach a sense of exclusive security and well being is so strong and all-consuming that it generally prevents us from seeing the source of our common insecurity and the consequences of our compensatory actions. Needless to say, an accurate and complete perception of the psychological, social and ecological reality that results from the clash of our personal and tribal claims and ambitions, would not just dampen our faith and enthusiasm, but shake the very existential foundation of our respective selves.

Let me repeat this. Our personal hopes and ambitions are more than just fuel for action in the general direction of secular self-fulfillment and/or religious redemption and immortality. They are an essential component of who we think we are; they are the goal and motive of our on-going identity; a mainstay of our absurd claim to a separate act of existence pointed towards an exceptional and equally exclusive future. And this is, of course, why it is so difficult to look beyond the boundaries of our respective psychological enclaves, beyond what we want and claim for ourselves. If we did look that far, not only would we be forfeiting our psychological aspirations, but their collapse would reveal in a flash both, the truth of our common insignificance and the horror of a divided humanity chronically at war with itself and with life itself. Paradoxically, the fate of humanity rests on just this insight.

The separate and conditioned mind ensconced within the protective mantle of clans and tribe and bent on self-fulfillment, is the source of all the disorder, conflict and suffering that afflicts humanity. It is our common unwillingness to attend to the nature and consequences of our self-centered thoughts and ambitions, that is progressively destroying the very foundation of life within the larger context of the planet. The self limited by the knowledge that defines his identity and consumed by the exclusive fantasies that the fulfillment of this identity demands, must come to an end. There is no other solution. To stay the present course propelled by multiple and conflictive hope will, sooner or later, make all our lives unbearable. (156)

Is feeling trapped within the claustrophobic confines of one's own psychological and tribal context and circumstances and, therefore, alienated from others and life as a whole, the only possible mode of human existence? ―Why is it that we have made knowledge and all the myriad transactions, constructions and projections of knowledge that articulate the movement of thought), the very ground of our existence and not just the practical means of our relationship with each other and the material world at large? These mordant questions develop even sharper teeth when posed in different though related forms: ―Given the many unresolved challenges we face as individuals and as a species as a result of the fragmentation, bias and other inherent limitations of thought, why is it that we continue to take this mechanically additive movement of ever limited knowledge as the ground of our existence, past, present and future? ―Is it (and, please, bear with me the redundancies that unavoidable start to pile up here) because knowledge is all we know and can think about, while life as a whole (which is an actual and all-encompassing reality and not one created by thought), is necessarily and forever out of the reach of the intellect due to its actuality, inclusiveness, depth, magnitude and complexity? ―Do we chose to treat what we do not know and what is unknowable as if they were not existent, only because our flimsy sense of certainty and psychological security is squarely based in what we do know, especially with regards to our personal narratives and their imagined continuity in mental time?

Summarizing, we are well aware of the short height and depth of our perceptual threshold and the limitations of the cognitive edifice gradually built on the basis of our experiential observations and subsequent theoretical elucubrations. We are also aware that regardless of how much we may over years and centuries increase, cross-reference, theorize, computerize and project the information we have gathered about ourselves and the world we inhabit, this necessarily representational, fragmentary and incomplete knowledge will forever remain unable to solve the very problems that thought has created for itself in the gathering and application of what it knows. We realize, further, that knowledge cannot ever bridge the gap that separates us, its largely disassociated and hostile storage units, from truth as the infinitely complex and ever changing totality, actual and potential, of existence. With the advent of the Internet we see, in fact, that the more we know and the wider the access we have to information, the less capable we seem to be of finding fully participatory and efficient solutions to the myriad interconnected problems that beset us; and, this, not just because some of us are more knowledgeable, while others are less so, or not at all. Despite everything we have learned in the past, our problems continue to grow and worsen because, regardless of good intentions and significant intellectual prowess, our self-serving alienation from one another and our concomitant estrangement from life as a whole have also continued to grow. This ever increasing separation has deepened even further our shared sense of insecurity and distrust which, in turn, continues to justify dedication to in old and new but always exclusive pseudo-solutions to what we each suffer from. We find ourselves in a desperately critical situation of global division, confusion and antagonism for which all the knowledge we now possess, or that may be acquired in the near or far future, is largely irrelevant.

It would be an entirely different situation if knowledge had no psychological and tribal dimension and was just a tool used only on the basis of the intelligible reason implicit in the very nature of every practical problem. But the fact is that we are the knowledge we have gathered about ourselves, others and the world. Trapped within a dysfunctional psychological and social reality of our own creation, we are the very illness and incompetence we suffer from. We are the contradiction, confusion and often violent stance of the knowledge we use to exclusively define, defend and expand ourselves personally and culturally. And this is why it is reasonable to assume that the only real solution to our general situation involves a sudden and radical disappearance from the brain of those aspects of self-centered thought conditioned by the exclusive knowledge that comes from psychological experience and the projections of that experience.

Is this break of psychological continuity possible? And, if it is, does it guarantee a subsequent connection with the order and intelligence that seems to permeate life as a whole? ―Now, who could possibly answer these questions, and how could the answers, once couched in the dead forms of knowledge, not immediately become as divisive and ineffective as all other forms of thought presently crowding and dulling our minds?

Accurate observation and logical reasoning can take anyone along the critical path presented in this book, and on to the point in which one must independently see in oneself the dangers inherent in a brain/psyche made separate and irrational by the exclusive experience and knowledge that have come to control it. If this realization is not just a bunch of useless words in search of a more pleasant experience, but an actual jolt to the brain, the conditioning may come undone. However, the result of a deep insight into the human condition is not something that may be described by anyone; nor is it something that may be turned into the goal of a well defined method because, as we have repeatedly said, positive descriptions and methods are all the stuff of thought and personal identity, and therefore unrelated to what we are talking about. All anyone can do is see in oneself and in human reality as a whole, what is limited, illusory and false, and that perception is in itself the resolute and immediate cancellation of the egotistical self. The truth cannot be reached through the false for the same reason that incompleteness can never find its way to the complete. The truth may only manifest and act in the perception and consequent and immediate eradication of what is false and illusory. The confusion inherent in multiple choices; the request for leadership and gradual method; and the procrastination typical of specialized intellectual maneuvering, are all clear indication of the continued domination of self-centered thought. (157)

Ø      If one's strong sense of separate existence occurs within a shared state of deep and sustained human somnolence, then a state of awakened non-duality ―if it exists at all― must in some sense be already present as the natural state of the well-integrated and healthy human organism. And if this is so, then there must be a way in which the opaque presence of recorded tribal and personal experience conditioning the brain and distorting and diminishing perception, may be cast off. However, and here is the rub, the agent and beneficiary of this transitional event cannot possibly be self. The chronic state of conflicted and suffering isolation that is the reality of the self and, by extension, the condition of the species as a whole, has to be entirely overthrown, and this could only come about through the very irruption into the mind of something unconditioned, undivided, utterly unthinkable and, therefore, impersonal. Nothing else would constitute radical mental change.

Just as we say that a heart is sick when it has lost its normal rhythm, we could say that a brain that is heavily conditioned by the general experience of the species and the particular experience of the self, is one that has lost its natural connection to life as a totality and is sick a result of it. Can the brain regain its heath by finding its proper place in the general torrent of life, or is the rigidity of its self-obsessed programming irreversible and terminal and, so, rigor mortis? (158)

Ø      Is it possible for a human being to be free of all identification? Can you and I live in the world as it is, with all its divisions, disorder and violence, but without resisting or being influenced by it? In other words, can anyone survive a release from all affiliation to (and antagonism with) different groups with their particular distinctions, ideologies, methods and projects, as well as from all personal mental forms related to previous psychological experience and its projections for the future? Could the brains sitting within “our” respective skulls suddenly break ranks with the conditioned mind of humanity except for what it may take to keep the general organism alive in the physical world and, perhaps, also to be of some help to others attempting the same stunt?
It is erroneous to assume that anyone in particular (you and I, for example) could ever find a way out of what determines who we are psychologically. If the possibility of radical deprogramming of the mind is real and it could actually occur in these particular brains and minds, it would be foolish to expect someone coming out at the other end, free of conditioning. In other words, the conditioning of the mind that determines its self-centered separation from life, is not something that Joe or Jill can overcome or survive as they could overcome hepatitis or survive an earthquake or a bad marriage. No one can say with certainty what an unconditioned mind might be but, clearly, it could not possibly be a personal mind defined by a particular cultural and biographical identity and a given set of predetermined but gradually evolving desires and relationships with different persons, things, ideas and plans.

There is nothing anyone can do to improve alienation. There either is or there is not a state of non-duality. There is nothing in between; that is, there is no way to move gradually from being a separate and particular human being and towards life as a whole. The mystery of life is all there is, everything else is but a product of the fragmented and cramped process of human thought and therefore only a conflicted chimera. What is illusory and false in human reality can have no contact with the truth. If there be such a thing as the truth, its manifestation must hinge then on the disappearance of the separate self. All we can do is see ourselves independently, clearly and passively for the irrelevant bundle of memories and egotistical projections that we are; and also see the world as the outcome of who we are and how we relate to one another. And that is enough. (159)

Ø     Someone takes a photograph, quite a beautiful image of great white summer clouds sprawled over valley and lake being slowly overtaken by the dark clouds of an approaching storm. One instant in time and one point in space; one of a zillion possible points of view; one resulting image forever disconnected from, and utterly incapable of, adequately representing the unthinkable depth and mystery of that instant, now forever gone, dead.
An image such as this one could be taken at every instant in time, at every point of space, from every possible point of view and for a million years, and the resulting collection would still be nothing compared to the unapproachable passing actuality that was its presumed subject: life as a whole.
All this to say that all that matters is the quiet realization of the presence of the imperceptible and unknowable, for in that sudden perception the brain is flushed clean of all the recorded images and ideas that may well describe and articulate the self, but that in so doing also clutter the mind and desensitize the brain. The hyperactive and permanent presence of self-centered thought, blocks from sight the unimaginable light of the truth. If it is the truth, then there is no one seeing it, let alone possessing and using it as a mace to beat others into respectful submission. (160)

Ø     I decided to find out who I might be in myself; that is, what is it that is intrinsically me right now and without reference to anything else. And once I had eliminated all my associations and disassociations of the past, the present and the future, there was nothing left of me.
I do not exist except in flimsy symbolic reference to other things and events; and there is no one in here who knows this for a fact. If there was someone who did know I did not exist, it would still be me identifying with new bit of knowledge and trying to do something with or about it and, therefore, just one more instance of the same old cheap circus act.

Nothing and no one exists in isolation. The cosmos, even in its most opaque material expression, is not just an evolving collection of discrete entities connected in mechanical ways. The notion of separate and largely self-sustaining and self-controlling entities is a creation of the human mind that while essential at one level, is extremely harmful at most others. In some instances and at some levels it is necessary that the mind be able to separate itself from its observations so that in isolating, conceptualizing and comparing what it perceives on behalf of what it needs, it may understand and profitably tinker with certain things and circumstances. However, at other levels and with other things, especially with other human beings and with the self as far as the self knows itself, this same capacity to separate, conceptualize and project, is responsible for tremendous mental disorder as well as unending acts of irrationality and outright cruelty. What else could result from the permanently wrongheaded attempt to defend and expand some illusory sense of personal and tribal certainty and security, while remaining fundamentally alienated from practically everyone and everything else.
Paradoxically, real security may only exist in what appears to our blinkered eyes as the total insecurity of non-being. That is, in a mental state without a separate self presumably knowing and attempting to control and direct “my” self and my life. Security lies in a state of mind directly and anonymously living the fact that all there is is the mysteriously undivided movement of life. (161)

Ø     When has the corrupting force of the profit motive not ultimately destroyed the predator as well the preyed upon? When has humanity not been at war, and when have the wealthy, the learned and the strong ever stopped exploiting, or being violently indifferent to the plight of the poor, the ignorant and the weak? And when have the poor, the ignorant and the weak stopped expecting their deliverance to come from those who so often deceive, harass and rob them? When have the religious ideologies and their secular counterparts stopped lying to gullible and suffering multitudes all too eager to believe the promise of peace and happiness issued by their phony temporal or atemporal plans? When have the genders ceased their tired hostilities; when have the old and the young? When have different races, and different ethnicities and different social, economic and educational classes ever stopped their mutual aggression? When have the nations of the world ever been truly united and, therefore, at peace? When has humanity ever stopped exploiting and destroying the natural world as it were a dead thing existing outside ourselves and only to placate our insatiable appetites? When have our many cultures, the glory and pride of human “civilization,” with all their traditions, their ever growing scientific knowledge, their great economic, political and educational institutions, their multiple art establishments and the rest of their near infinite attractions and distractions, ever managed to find reconciliation and enlightened collaboration? When have our cultures been even partially successful in their tireless effort to “civilize” and pacify the human beings who sustain them through avid consumption of their material, intellectual and “spiritual” products with which they naively hope to escape their insecurities and fears?
And, finally, when and for how long has the human being been happy and good; when at peace with other human beings and at ease with himself? Is not the present mental and social chaos the result of thousands of years of contradictory and failed attempts to straightening ourselves out so that we may feel peaceful and secure? Why is it that we keep trusting that whatever we happen to project onto the future will prove to be the way out of this ancient and self-sustaining purgatory? (162)

Ø     A Negative Solution

What positive action is there that is available to everyone, that is commensurate with the problems we face today and, therefore, able to set straight the abysmal record of their antecedents? Should we start a new political party or a new religion? Should we work on poverty relief or climb to the height of the Earth's highest peaks to meditate or pray? Should we join an environmental organization, a political party, an Internet chat room or a sports club? Should we make more science and literature, more music and art; or should we instead drink, drug or entertain ourselves into sweet oblivion? Should we trust ever-improving technology with the task of realizing our hopes for personal redemption and sustained happiness, or should we go back to plead with our old fashioned and half-forgotten, never so responsive gods?

What is one to do? ―That is the silent cry resonating, if not in every mind, at least in those even minimally aware of the dismal record of our efforts going back to the beginning of history and culminating in the permanent sense of impending disaster with which most of us live today. The so called “ascent of man and rise of human civilization” is a verifiable phenomenon along a very uneven and selective organizational and technological track, but nothing we have achieved has managed to come even close to bridging the internecine division of the species still organized, after thousands of years of “progress,” around hopelessly conflictive and lethally armed ethnocentric tribes. Nor have any of our serial reform efforts ever managed to eliminate the anxiety, the reckless over-reaching or the hatred regularly distressing our personal minds and wrecking our relationships. In fact, what keep this whole system going implacably forward regardless of appalling consequences, is our different and often opposed efforts to develop our societies and improve ourselves materially, psychologically and “spiritually.”

And is this not the crux of the matter? Despite enormous evidence to the contrary, the question of what to do still carries the implicit assumption that there is a positive solution to the root problem of conflicted and conflicting psychological separation and species-wide tribal division and animosity. Against all reason we keep insisting that, since we are not getting along well with ourselves or with others and that since this disharmony is creating immense pain and grief, what we ought to do is either continue reforming ourselves and our respective tribes, or create new cultural initiatives and enclosures that will continue to add to the division, the general confusion and violence of the world.
The correct question is, undoubtedly, not one of what to do, but rather of how to see and meet the fact that since we are not separate from our problem, we are also incapable of finding a true and final solution to it. It is only the lucid perception of our pathetic separation from one another and the common impotence that results from it, that will actually terminate our exclusive identification with the divisive, contradictory and ineffective agendas on which the chimera of our respective identities and their idealized futures is based.

We need to see directly and by ourselves that we will never be able to think ourselves out of the general problem of conflictive division created by self-centered and tribal thought. Peace as a global phenomenon of non-ideological and, therefore, rational and caring collaboration between human groups mindful of the singularity and frailty of the Earth's ecosystem and the wholeness of life, will never come about for as long as we continue clinging to the exclusive cultural forms from which we draw our particular sense of psychological identity and security. We can deceive ourselves for as long as we want, but the fact remains that no further tweaking of specific instances of psychological separation and cultural division will ever solve the mess they themselves inevitably create. Rationality and peace only come into being, and do so instantly, when particular human beings stop identifying with anything deemed to be greater than themselves (even if it is of their own creation), and live simply and anonymously, one with life. An unattached, undefined and unselfconscious human being cannot but be sensitive, not just to all other human beings and their fundamental needs (equal to his own), but to all other living beings and to the cosmos as a whole.

Peace is not a wish, a hope, a process or a method, nor is it an interval of relative duration wedged between periods of personal turmoil, interpersonal conflict and inter-tribal war. Peace, along with goodness and intelligence, is rather the immediate cessation of the insane need to psychologically be and become anything in particular. We stop being anxious and violent, cruel and stupid, in the very instant we stop splitting off from ourselves and others and, therefore, no longer demand also from ourselves and others incremental service to an artificial sense of personal status projecting itself through endless imagined versions of its future enhancement. A sane, free and caring human being, while remaining a useful member of society by placing her natural talents and learned skills at the service of others, has absolutely no need to claim, defend, change or work to expand and improve the material and symbolic visibility of a particular social position. In other words, a human being is sane, free and caring because he does not consider himself to be, nor does he want others to see him as, anything in particular. His service to society lies not in what he might do for others (which he may nevertheless do, if only to austerely feed, clothe and house himself), but in his anonymous insertion in life as a whole. This, for the simple reason that since psychological separation is an illusion affecting the species as a whole, only its destruction in one individual after another will stop humanity from continuing to waste its energy and its presumed intelligence in further dividing, fighting and hurting itself.

Again, we may easily chose to continue deceiving ourselves till the end of time, but the fact is that only submersion in the infinite and orderly inclusiveness of life as a whole, and not any positive personal or tribal action, can put an end to the conflict and sorrow in which humanity and each one of us have always lived. Let us rejoice, then, because the flowing embrace of life does not reject anyone and because it demands no special efforts or sacrifice. Life has not established self-conscious hierarchies within itself. It does not make the type of classifications and odious comparisons that typify our thinking process and that inevitably dull our senses, short-circuit our minds, and either embitter or kill so many of our relationships. The plenitude of life has only one requirement and it is a negative one: no separation and, therefore, no distinction, no rank, no exclusive alliances for the purpose of advancement over others, and no time. No time in the sense of no longer holding on to a privately recorded mental past, a privately predetermined future and, most important of all, no further use of the present as a functional bridge of self-centered continuity between those two: the past “I” remember and the future “I” want.

Life, like the undivided attention of love and like the enlivening force of death, is a happening thing. There is no one living life as there is no one who dies to it; there is no one to like or dislike life and death. There is only life. Life that comes and goes, appearing and disappearing as it pleases, and certainly doing so in total disregard for what any isolated set of dead self-projecting memories calling themselves “me,” may know, believe, think or want. (163)

Ø     Life is not what any religious or political ideology says it is. Life is not either what any particular science or art, or science as a whole and art as a whole, may say it is now or a thousand year from now. The distance that separates us from life, from the truth, simply cannot be bridged by belief, including that more sophisticated cumulative form of belief we call science. Life is what cannot ever be held within the measure of a mind constructed on the basis of experience and expanded through the cumulative storage of different levels of cognitive information and dogmatic assertions of faith. What anyone knows and believes may describe who they think they are, it may tell the narrative supporting their sense of psychological and social existence, but none of that really has much to do with the mystery of life as a whole. Undoubtedly, the most extraordinary paradox of our existence (as we know this existence) is that self-definition and self-projection (what we think we are and what we each would like to become or fear we may become) constitute the thick and barbed walls that not only separate us from one another, but from life itself. Each one of us exists, psychologically, as a particular story affirmed and strenuously prolonged in almost permanent opposition with practically everything else. I am who I am because I am this, that or the other; I am who I am because I am not you: You with your own peculiar this, that or the other.

We are like particular little boats made of images and ideas floating in cultural lakes made of the same. And both the psychological vessels and the cultural lakes are inconceivable not in isolation from others like them. Their very existence determines their separation and vice versa. Life, on the other hand, is not representational but actual, and since it is seamlessly held together ―its liveliness, all-inclusive― to break it up so that it may fit the dead symbols, formulas, metaphors and patterns convenient to our knowledgeable conceit, is patently absurd. Life is the absence of separation; and separation, regardless of how small it may seem, has a perverse power capable of overshadowing life. Just like a relatively thin cloud cover can obscure the light of the sun, “my” presence can determine the apparent absence of life. In the definition and on-going assertion of our personal lives ―in what we think about our particular past, present and future, and in what we do on that basis― we darken the sky. All human suffering results from this endlessly recurring act of betrayal of our mysterious participation in life. (164)

Ø     It does not matter what I think about anything (or for that matter what anyone else may think) because nothing is what I think it is. From this follows that I am not what I may think I am. My limited knowledge and my countless subjective opinions, beliefs and desires serve mostly to create the particular notion I have of myself and of everything else. And so, there is no such a thing as “me” and “myself”; there is only one a thought process occurring in a particular brain (much like in all other brains), and projecting itself from what “I” think is my past, through what “I” think is this present moment, and onto what “I” think (desire or fear) is my future.
When thought limits itself to the role of tackling practical, impersonal, matters, it ceases being the ground (the time and the space) of an isolated and self-reflective personal existence characterized by the disorderly and ultimately always sorrowful pursuit of power and pleasure. Only the unthinkable now remains when there is not anything personal to remember or desire. Now, is all this just another thought, or is it life itself? (165)

Ø     Globalization via a corporate takeover of the world is already proving to be even more malign than the types of globalization routinely attempted in their particular areas of influence by imperial nations and “catholic” religions. But, barring these and all other false simulacra of unity at every levels and sector of human society, what are we to make of the natural globalization that would result from the ending of the exclusive and, therefore, multiple cultural and social entities created by the self as sources of identity, status and security?

The self and just about every social form the self creates, represents division and breeds strife and sorrow. And, yet, over and over we seem to choose conflict and suffering over ending our particular identification with material and ideological sanctuaries that seem larger and infinitely more meaningful than our vulnerable organismic selves lost in the indecipherable infinity of the cosmos. Now, this nearly universal craving of ours for the protection and status enhancement that can only be granted by enclaves created by our fears and unwise ambitions (even if given super-personal or even divine significance), may well be the distortion of an infinitely deeper and natural hankering of the mind itself for its true ground in life as a whole. In other words, could it be that the human mind is so tragically stuck in a reductive infatuation with particular experience and knowledge as sources of identity and security, that it can no longer quite feel and identify the pull of its true source in the mystery of life?
Are we reaching, not just as individuals but as a species, a level of mental insecurity and physical danger serious enough to awaken us to its paradoxical source in our mad affiliation to exclusive and conflictive sources of psychological being and social becoming? And if seeing the idiocy of the endless struggle to be psychologically safe and socially respectable does rouse the mind from its selfish and dangerous delusion, would it then not easily merge with the ever unpredictable but fully animated stream of life and death? (166)

Ø     I say that I can look at my body and think about it. I also say that I can look at my mind, I can look at you, at society and the world at large, and then think about all these things. Thought is memory looking and reacting to itself and everything else it sees. To think is to remember, name, compare, evaluate and ponder the significance of every thing including thought and emotion. And since thought can only operate with representations of the past assessing the present and projecting the future, its more salient characteristic may be that it constrains the self to the reduced space of its own version of time. Particular notions of “my” past, present and future, shape personal consciousness and the defensive psychological and tribal boundaries separating each one of us from most others and from the essence of life itself which, of course, escapes representation and any other form of control and limitation.

Our intense identification with the contents of memory and the movement of though, creates the powerful sense that the “I” is something other than the body, the mind, others, society and the entire cosmos that is thought about and, in some manner and in certain circumstances, acted upon. And yet, we also suffer intensely the alienation that is the price of our sense of autonomous and unique existence. There is something terribly wrong with the nearly universal assumption of separation. Self isolation is a sure recipe for an almost permanent state of anxiety, resistance and compensatory effort that all too often leads to self-hatred and outright hostility towards others. But more fundamentally, the presumed separation of the self, limits our minds and our lives to the necessarily paltry experience and knowledge we have each recorded and are able to project onto the future. Needless to say, the general context of life must be something entirely other than this strange phenomenon of psychological and cultural alienation we take to be “our” life. Taking every conceivable precaution to prevent ourselves from sliding into yet another form of religious fantasy (and, so, further separation), we are questioning whether or not this overwhelming sense of existential separation that gives particular form to each personal identity, is humanity's only possible reality. Tentatively we saying “no.” We are cautiously proposing that we may not be what we think, feel and want; that, in fact, we may not be any “thing” at all.

The landscape contains the viewer. In fact, the viewer is unimaginable without the landscape, just as the landscape is impossible without the planet, and the planet without the totality of the Universe. The fact that we refuse to acknowledge that this infinitely complex and interpenetrating reality is not within the reach of though (regardless of the potential development of any and all aspects of it), is a fundamental impediment to the possibility of an entirely different mode of being human. But, by the same token, simple but keen awareness of this strange self-inflicted blindness and its consequences, has the power needed, not to restore “our” sight, but to let light itself replace all particular vision. The terminal barrenness of the self-centered process of thought does not come to an end, simply because the wholeness of life may only be acknowledged at the cost of one's psychological and cultural existence.

There is no room in the all-inclusive strangeness of life for an independent entity pretending to stand apart from everything and drawing silly cartoons representing particular versions of reality. Every instance of the self is just a misguided set of images and ideas, each claiming a particular life and a manifest destiny; each disregarding the vitality of timeless change and ever present death, each confusing itself with existence and in that confusion relinquishing freedom, reason, beauty and truth. (167)

Ø     Who should we blame for the plight of humanity? Some would suggest we blame all or just one of our many gods for the fear, confusion and violence we suffer from. Others would suggest life instead? Still others would want to be more specific and down to earth and concentrate our blame on a particular group or institution, perhaps, on just a given individual, the one most responsible for our personal hurt or annoyance.? Considering that suffering of one kind or another eventually strikes everyone without exception, some would think more adequate to stay with a more general complaint and assume that this is just how life is supposed to be. Also, it might be better if we left the gods out of this. After all, their multiplicity and contradictory nature give them away as mere creations of the same mind that suffers and that will create or do anything to escape from pain and sorrow... Well, anything except changing in any truly significant way.

What if we relinquish blame, supernatural assistance and any other form of traditional escape and thus face the fact of suffering without trying to do anything in particular about it? To start, let us ask, right up front, some rather uncomfortable questions. ―Why is it that we human beings, who boast superior intelligence and nearly immeasurable knowledge, still live in an almost permanent state of discontent, fear, dependence, self-delusion and hostility? Why is it that we are still so doggedly pursuing power and pleasure if they seldom, if ever, provide the enduring relief we crave? Why are we still so intent in hurting, controlling, exploiting and even destroying one another, when we claim to be the only animal capable of reason, ethics and love? Why do we think nothing of pushing entire species into extinction, even though our essence and destiny is so deeply enmeshed with theirs?
Considering the cultural atomization of the species and the chronic way in which we hinder and block each others' efforts to improve ourselves and our circumstances, should we not ask if there may not be something seriously wrong, not just with the way we relate with one another, but intrinsically with the human mind itself? Is our interior and exterior lack of harmony not the result of the way we conceive of our own existence as if it had nothing much to do with an all-inclusive cosmic context of which we are such an infinitesimal and integral part? What would be left of our sense of personal and tribal importance if the universe of what we ignore were to come streaming into our minds? What would occur to our endless plans to improve ourselves and our circumstances? Is not life's apparent indifference to our nearly desperate plight an eloquent indication of a species-wide perceptual and cognitive error with horrific consequences?

Psychologically, we are made of different, contradictory and suspiciously simplistic answers to essential questions raised by our perplexing presence within the undecipherable complexity of life. The competing secular and “spiritual” answers given to the questions posed by life and death by different sectors of society and specific individuals, have much more to do with our particular conceits and desires for security and continuity than anything else. In fact, these contradictory but equally evasive and misleading answers are one of the most significant contributors to our senseless psychological and tribal alienation from the general context of life. And to feel the pain and absurdity of this double alienation, compels those who are truly serious about these things to question without fear or ulterior motive, not just the relative moral correctness, but the very existence of a subjective personal narrative amplified through allegiance to one or more ideological chambers of resonance. This inquiry, if earnest and deep enough, leads to a sudden act of self-abnegation that freely and painlessly reduces to nothing the over-sized psychological footprint holding the mind hostage. What we foolishly call “our” lives is seamlessly contained ―and, therefore, negated― by something that is entirely and forever beyond the reach of the conditioned human mind.

New and vital (but not exclusive) friendships are forged around this shared sense that life and not consciousness is the ground of our existence. The isolation, the fear, the greed, and the animosity that torments the mind and tears human beings apart from one another, burns instantly away when the mind, drained of psychological knowledge and desire, flows timelessly and impersonally with life as a whole. (168)

Ø     Truth is revealed in the devastating perception of no-thing, in the flowering of the unknowable and unconditioned. Thought has nothing to do with it. So, why not just be quiet and listen. Why not stop pretending we can understand and control life with what we know and believe? Why not look beyond ourselves and see what is always new? (169)

Ø     It is true that, psychologically, we are what we see, think, feel, believe and want from a separate and, therefore, also restricted and generally biased point of view. It is also true that we suffer because we cannot attain and hold on for long to the material, psychological and social goals proposed and struggled for by and from this same provincial and egotistical perspective. Further effort and further wait is no longer an option. There is no choice. The conflicting exclusive futures we all project and struggle to attain, will necessarily turn out to be nothing but a slight modification of the confused, conflictive and sorrowful mental and social reality we are running away from right now. If there is any solution to this dismal condition, it must involve the collapse of the isolated perspective and the misguided objectives that constitutes the self.
This may sound to some like a death sentence, and in a very real sense it is, but this collapse of self-centered thought is only the natural consequence of independently seeing the absurdity and danger implied in the preservation of an endlessly modified duality that is in itself the source of all division and sorrow. This is an awkward formulation, but life is the absence of duality.
The simple truth is that there is no separation. So, it is not so much that we must die in order to join life, as that we have never existed as anything other than a self-perpetuating illusion. The mystery of life is all there is. (170)