What we know, believe, and desire-everything we each feel and think we are and would like to become-acts as a subtle or blatant barrier of separation and as an invitation for conflict between us. Show me, if not, the home, the neighborhood, organization or social movement where discontent, conflict, fear, and sorrow do not mar relationship and life itself? What could possibly be the ground of our union and joyous living then? Could this common ground be a common experience, or must it be something totally unrelated to experience?

In our unhappiness-in our personal experience of frustration, loss, fear, and sorrow-we seek new sensation, new experience, often in association with something thought of as greater than ourselves. That is, we imagine, desire, and then work hard to achieve whatever we think will remedy our pain and sense of irrelevancy, vulnerability and isolation. With this projection of idealized and exclusive experience we intend to overcome the pain emanating from our psychological (or cultural) isolation, but mere modifications of the same essential isolation inexorably lead to new experiences of conflict and sorrow, themselves leading to new bouts of self assertion and self projection in an endless cycle fraught with fear, hatred and suffering.

The mental walls separating each one of us from others (and from the world as a whole) are made of memories, images and ideas of what we have been; of who we currently think we are; and of what we would like to become if our irrational desires were to be realized. Evidently, the ground for peace and harmony amongst all of us could hardly be new forms of exclusive experience attained by independent beings bent on further personal development and tribal "progress". If at all possible, this ground of total human unity, of real relationship, must then lie at the end of mental time. That is, at that immediate point of time in which awareness of the inadequacy of the thought-full process of being in becoming (psychologically and tribally speaking) brings this very process to an end.

It is the very perception of the impossibility of getting anywhere through further self-assertion and psycho/cultural becoming that asks if there might be a common ground of existence. But this question does not have any inkling of, or momentum towards, an answer. This, for the rather obvious reason that if it did, then this answer would be nothing but more of the same old story: the egotistical continuity of conditioned and self-centered thought. Nothing can be predicated of this ground except that it admits no separation and that, as such, it is unrelated to the billions of separate individuals like you and I supposedly getting ahead, "making headway", but only in our own deluded, ambitious minds.

The progressive self is the false answer that a conditioned brain mechanically gives to the question of what to do about conflict and suffering. So, it is also foolish to ask what would happen if psychological memory and its habitual self-projection through desire and will were to collapse. We know what is suffocating us, but we cannot know where prying open the claustrophobic hold of the self on the brain would lead. For most, progressive death by suffocation seems like the better deal; actually, like the only possibility. But, is it so? (54)

The person that mentally wants to stop eating in excess is the same person that actually eats in excess. The conflict between the real and the ideal creates time, time for procrastination, time for continued delusion and prolonged effort, time for continuing to eat in excess. Change does not generally occur in the very instant that a problem or fault is detected-that is, perception is not one with action-but rather a fictitious time is created for the presumably desired remedial action to occur. This is the time of conflict because of the contradiction inherent in being or doing one thing that is factual while simultaneously desiring to be or to do something else, which is but an idea projected onto an imagined, unreal future.

If I have discovered that I am a liar because someone has denounced me or because I have had a rare moment of honesty, that very discovery should presumably lead to the immediate elimination of such inadequate and dangerous behavior. In other words, remedial action, to be real and effective, must be one with the perception of its advisability; that is, it must be instantaneous and complete. In fact it seldom is. More often than not the inherent quarrel between wanting and not wanting the same thing postpones action. As in: "One of these days I've got to stop lying." Clearly, the root of the problem resides in that the "I" who declares to be interested in taking care of the problem is himself the liar. He is in conflict with himself because he is himself the lie he tells. He wants simultaneously to lie and to stop lying, and to avoid a radical solution to that impasse he sees nothing better than to disassociate from the lying and to invent an imaginary future in which he will be a truthful man-which is a lie.

Clearly, the same occurs with larger, social problems. Nations that start to loudly exalt the idea of peace and justice are, more often than not, actually preparing for war and scheming to more ruthlessly oppress others, usually the poorest and the weakest. The rather obvious historical fact that just about every nation has suffered from-and has inflicted on others-the evils of war, exploitation, and poverty does not seem to mean anything. Peace and justice are never actualities, full realities, but mere ideals invoked as the goal of future actions; actions that being hypocritically prescribed by particular interests and ideologies for their own advantage, will necessarily bring about further violence and greater injustice. (55)

What I yearn for is always informed by previous experience. Knowledge is the transcription into images and ideas of my experience, and of what I may have learnt in different ways about the experience of others. And it is this psychological knowledge of the past and its projection into the future as positive or negative desire (craving and avoidance), that constitutes the realm of self-centered thought and its movement in mental time. Self-reflective thought is clearly limited because both experience and knowledge-as well as their projection into the future- are inherently biased, limited, never complete.

The question is then: is there anything beyond this limited and petty realm of knowledge and thought? Is there a way of ridding the mind of this insane, contradictory, and therefore futile struggle to gradually improve ourselves without actually ever doing so? Can human existence have an infinitely larger and deeper ground, one totally unrelated to the inherent divisiveness and triviality of thought as psychological desire, fear and hostility? And, if there is such a ground, are there alternative actions leading to it, or there is only one action that is valid because it irreversibly ends all accumulation and projection of the self? Positive action is multiple and gradual and, therefore, continuous, contradictory, insufficient and inevitably leading to violence. On the other hand, negative action is a single and instantaneous wiping out of all positive action. Put differently: the conditioned psyche can never eliminate suffering by gradually perfecting itself or by modifying its circumstances according to the dictates of different ideologies and methodologies. The only relevant change lies in a complete and instantaneous act of deprogramming; an act that implies the death of the separate, memory and desire-based, self. (56)

Has time not come for a human being whose concern for the Earth and for humanity is so complete, that he walks free of the false security and the hypocrisy of religious, political, racial and class ideology? Is there anyone not hiding behind a flag, a principle, or an ideal?

What would happen if we were all to come out of our personal and cultural caves and into the nothingness of light, independently, one by one? What is there to fear when there is no one there to be afraid? (57)

We only know the field of thought which is mental time, personal (selectively known), and collectively pre-personal (largely unconscious, selectively unknown). Particular versions of past experience, present experience, and future experience are all product of a general, commonly human thinking process which, in itself, never changes in any fundamental way. If this is so, if there is no such a thing as psychological development and we are presently lost in an unending vicious cycle of illusion and disillusion, is there a radical way out of our problems both personal and collective? If there is, then it must be outside the realm of mental time and experience both remembered and projected.

What does it mean that "I", the thinker (thought) cannot possibly touch this possibility of a life free of problems and sorrow? Self-centeredness and ethnocentrism have their only possible future in reiterations of themselves; is there life beyond self-centeredness and ethnocentrism? Is life itself beyond mental time? (58)

It comes as a shock to realize-not just intellectually-but directly, as an actual and inescapable fact, that the world is the mess it is because one is who one is and relates with others the way one does. There is, however, great relief in this realization as well, for it entails no longer having to pretend to oneself and others about being other or better than what one actually is. This manner of seeing and assuming personal responsibility also offers final respite from the internal conflict implicit in trying to gradually change oneself morally, spiritually, or in any other way. The fact is that one is a conditioned human being, condemned to repeat along with the rest of the herd variations of the same inadequate and painful behaviors that have afflicted humanity for thousands and thousands of years. All that has changed is that one is no longer blind to things as they are, nor in any way separate from them.

There is nowhere to turn then; there is nothing one can do to deliberately end or significantly alleviate the sorrow of the human condition or one's own-which are the same. But precisely because energy is no longer being dissipated in pretense, escape attempts, and hyper-active commitment to pseudo-solutions, there is freedom to observe; freedom to see oneself, see others, and the atomized and vicious world created by our manner of thinking and behaving. There is also freedom to observe Nature and its endlessly creative movement as the immense mystery of what has not been created by the human mind and of which we are such an inextricable, but all the same, alienated part. This freedom to perceive quietly, without choice, drastically negates our habitual mental operation. Poverty, war, and the enslavement and exploitation of millions of people are now clearly seen as originating in our common psychological configuration and in the manner in which we use relationship to serve, enhance, and expand a separate and all-important self.

Only this direct, non-moralistic and, therefore, non-reactive realization of one's integral and inescapable participation in the ignorance, confusion, and pain of the world at large, can bring about the integration of the psyche. This, simply because the cancellation of all possibility of escape or avoidance, also destroys the division of the psyche between the bossy "me" and the presumably passive rest of its past, present and future contents. In other words, a psyche integrated in this double manner (socially and psychologically), is no longer constituted by a personal past flowing towards a personal future in which an ideal self will-in pre or post mortem circumstances-flourish in perfect company. In the absence of mental time there is only an impersonal and passive observation left. It is not grounded in memory and has no motive or time to become anything tomorrow or the day after tomorrow for it is nothing in itself.

Without any importance given to the long journal of memories stored in the brain, nor vitality wasted on a personal agenda chock full of ambitions and dreams, what is the self? Free of the false opposition between oneself and the collective self, and free of the conflict between the actual and the ideal, what is the self?

There is clarity now, and because there is clarity there is no mental movement in any direction. The observation is passive, silent, but filled with a deep sense of loving sympathy and responsibility for the harrowing situation of humanity and its possibly tragic fate. With memory or desire-based action no longer a viable alternative, a question quietly formulates itself: Is there an entirely different mode of human existence? Is there a manner of human existence not based on the self, not based on the flimsy images and ideas of our collective cultural/personal experience projecting themselves through egotistical dreams and ambitions? (59)

If I am what I am by a fact of life, would it not be sensible to stop pretending to be in the process of becoming something else? And what would a human being free of hypocrisy and misguided effort be? In other words, who would an integrated, coherent, and lucid human being be and what would she do? What is the state of a mind that is intensely aware of the tragedy of humankind, but no longer falsely attempting to change itself or others and, therefore, no longer at war with itself and them?

At first glance-and as perceived theoretically, from the outside, as it were-it seems as though such a possibility merely leaves the whole problem of human suffering untouched. But the actual condition of an undivided, non-conflicted, and utterly passive human mind, (passive in the sense of no longer being informed by psychological memory), is not something that one, with a divided, conflicted, and greedily or fearfully hyperactive mind can know or speculate about. Either one's mind is integrated and lucid or it is not. It is useless to speculate about what may lay on the other side of the fence. However, this very awareness of the futility of vain conjecture is already a heightened sensitivity of the nature of the isolated and self-centered fence, and only this intense alertness may ultimately knock down the fence. (60)

All human effort seems absurdly inept when confronted with the imperative need for a radical mutation in the human mind/brain without which significant social change is but an illusion. Most of our energy is wasted in denial, useless work, social climbing, entertainment, conflict, sorrow, and religious escapes. And whatever might be left is generally invested in localized relief activities not even remotely related to the elimination of separation, conflict and suffering in the world. Vast resources and enormous effort are poured into activities expressly designed to create exclusive advantage for the relatively few, thus necessarily creating pain and sorrow for the many. Peacemakers do not draw salaries and special bonuses from their activities, warmongers and weapons dealers do. (Which does not mean to say that peacemakers are, by virtue of their desire for peace and their activism, free of conflict and violence themselves.) Thus, the efforts of the whole social and industrial military machinery that supports war tends to increase in efficiency and power, while social movements, charities, and personal efforts undertaken with the intention of alleviating suffering in the world remain frightfully inadequate, carrying themselves the ubiquitous virus of dissension and violence.

Religious faiths, cults and "spiritualities" of every ilk, (always multiple and antagonistic) are equally inept when it comes to bridging the psychological and cultural barriers separating human beings. Being themselves sources of exclusive identity and therefore division, they are clearly incapable of ending the economic and cultural hostilities that different countries and groups unleash on one another, and that inexorably lead to war. Politics, technology, science, and the arts are no better than the religions at solving the intractable psychological and social problems hounding humanity since the beginning of our time in the planet. But even more astounding than this general incapacity of the diverse fields of human endeavor to change the human mind, is the stubborn insistence with which we create and implement new versions of their failed methods, all leading to reiterations of the same barren end. We are like fish, incapable of learning how not to swim into the nets extended to catch them; only that fish are not responsible for making and carefully positioning the means of their own agony and extermination.

We are generally as incapable of acknowledging the extent, depth and persistent virulence of our illnesses, as we are of recognizing the inadequacy of our reiterative remedial actions. Thought is so conditioned to solve problems, especially practical problems, that it seems incapable of even gaining basic awareness of its incapacity to remedy the fundamental psychological and social problems it has itself created. And no wonder, for such awareness entails questioning all our traditions, all our assumptions, all our beliefs and methodologies, and then acknowledging a level of incompetence presently capable of ending our very presence in the universe. Even though it is the stark truth, it seems especially abhorrent to have to say: "I really do not know what to do about this whole immense problem of human existence", for such affirmation leaves one without options, inactive and, therefore, without status, without cover, unmasked, vulnerable, reduced to nothing, utterly humbled. And yet, it is precisely this clear and passive perception of our incompetence that is required for a radical mental change.

A person who realizes that neither knowledge nor faith are capable of eliminating conflict and suffering, has no use for leaders and authorities, and no desire for the false psychological protection extended by any of the many given traditional and exclusive consensus. One who faces impotence and ignorance in oneself and as oneself, is also free from the desire to impose himself on others as an authority on personal "development" or, worse yet, eternal salvation.

Such a person is then essentially alone, seemingly the most terrifying of possibilities. But we are talking here of being alone, not in the sense of isolation, but rather in the sense of not belonging to any particular group or tradition, and of not subscribing to any worldly or otherworldly forecast of the future. This aloneness in the social field implies a psychic field free of the mental disorder and strife implicit in the mechanical urge to realize an idealized and exclusive future. When ideals are thrown out, only facts remain, and the facts are clearly visible in the actual present of psychological and relational events which is all there ever is that is actual, real.

To remain grafted in the falsely protective cocoon of an exclusive cultural group is, indubitably, the basic source of a consensual identity. It is also the most common path of becoming and, hence, also the source of psychological division and tension between the past/present "me" and the future, idealized, me. Conversely, being alone there is no source of identification and therefore nothing that one can fix in one's self (as though "one" were different from "self"). In this situation of undivided aloneness there is, then, no mental time. No psychological past, present, and future, for all these exist only as a result of a continuous process of mental identification with things that one is actually not in oneself. For example, if I knew myself as being, let us say, Catholic, this faith clearly does not constitute an intrinsic, constitutive, aspect of my innermost being. It is rather a set of images and ideas created by others which I acquired unwittingly as a child or, more irresponsibly, as an adult-and which I might continue using today to distinguish myself from others doing the same with their own ascribed or acquired faiths. The self is a nothing that becomes something recognizable to itself and others either through an overt association with something else, in this case "Catholic-ness" as it were, or through disassociation with whatever others might use to garner their own identities. The self could have been something else, had the person been born not in a Catholic but in a Protestant, Buddhist, Jewish, or Muslim country or tradition.

The imperative to "progress" psychologically is implicit in being anything. Being "X" or "Y" carries with it the possibility, often the necessity, of becoming a better or more powerful "X" or "Y". One can presumably go from being a mediocre Muslim or Christian to being a better one; this, perhaps, only once already dead and, according to belief, in a paradise earned by special merit or convenient grace. And, evidently, the allure of personal improvement in time may also be expressed through the transit from one source of identification to another. One can go, for example, from calling oneself a Muslim, to calling oneself Jewish, Buddhist or Zoroastrian so as to feel better about oneself and, perhaps, have greater influence over others.

To be alone does not imply, in this instance, alienation from others and painful feelings of loneliness. It is simply to stay from moment to moment with the nothingness that is the deeper reality of the human presence. To be alone is to live without identifying with anything in particular and, therefore, without moving away from feeling insufficient or "bad" and towards becoming presumably better and better. In a nutshell: one is alone because one is insignificant and as such not involved in pretending to be in the process of becoming increasingly more significant.

A person is alone in this sense of the word because he or she has seen the false well and completely enough to turn away from it without hesitation, instantly. And this not because such act represents the "right" choice in the sense of yielding an outcome deemed positive beforehand, but because it is absurd to stay with the false and to intend to change it gradually. The perception of the false as the false is the manifestation of the truth, and it is that truth-and not the self-than then acts in moving away from the false.

For example, if one catches a glimpse of the fact that identification with anything greater than oneself, (nation, religion, race, gender, profession or sports team) creates a false image of who one is and inevitably leads to separation and conflict, that perception itself is the end of the attachment. There is no effort, sacrifice or morality involved and none of the graduality implied in these different aspects of the same mental conditioning. There is no time and, therefore, no thinking: "One of these days I ought to stop identifying with this, that or the other." In more general terms, false is whatever provides the psyche an exclusive identity endlessly demanding gradual improvement of itself and of its worldly lot. False is the conflictive division between the actual and the ideal self; as is false the separation and the conflict between "us" and "them", "me" and "you", "me" and the social and natural world. (61)

Aloneness is the lucid, non-reactive contemplation of the totality of the psychosocial and ecological condition, not as an abstraction, but rather in the moment-to-moment reality of one's own life and of the world about one. Because all subterfuge and illusions have been radically negated, there is no longer anything clouding perception of things as they are. Consequent with this, all forms of political, cultural and religious authority have been rejected along with the temptation of becoming an authority oneself. Myth and tradition have been left aside-and so thought is no longer reaching out to the past or the future yearning for certainty and security in a stable, ideological refuge guaranteed by authority, method, effort and sentimentality.

There is aloneness because there is no psychological dependency from anything or anybody anywhere either in the past, the present, or the future. It is clearly idiotic to keep looking forward to a tomorrow that is nothing but the nostalgic craving for an idealized past. No more craving for religious redemption, then, not only because there is no such a thing but also, and mainly, because there is no one there to ask for or to experience the redemptive act of an external agent created out of fear and ambition.

Once attachments and illusions projected in mental time have been put to rest, the complex outline of the self dissolves into its most primitive, impersonal, components and inclinations. The quintessential characteristics of the human being emerge and are clearly seen, but not from a presumably separate and dominant center--the "I". Now that they are no longer hidden under the disguise of a particular cultural and psychological facade, the constellation of human traits present in everyone is no longer sustained in time by the fantasy of self-improvement that is the backbone of thinking.

Because pretense has been cut open and the desire for personal transformation has fallen out through the incision made, the division of the mind between the commanding "I" and the rest of the psyche as willing or unwilling object of change, no longer exists. There is nothing left to do, then, not only because it is utterly futile to try to do anything based on memory but, more fundamentally, because there is no one there to do it. (62)

No one can show me that I am blind; especially if I am convinced of the accuracy of my vision. Every ideological persuasion trains and motivates "eye specialists" who would love nothing better than to examine your eyes and mine and help us both regain our vision by aligning it with their own. But these specialists are as blind as we are. The contradictions in the multiple diagnoses and remedies they propose, prove it so. In the task of seeing blindness, everyone is pretty much on his own. (63)

We might be nothing more than all the images, ideas, and things to which we cling, and it is clear that there is nothing in them-in themselves, they are nothing but the sterile and insubstantial dregs of memory desperate for modified continuity. There is neither security nor transcendence in images, ideas and possessions, only vanity, delusion and eventual loss, frustration and disillusion. On those grounds alone, they can be instantly abandoned. Is the self anything but vanity and delusion? Is one anything but images, ideas, and the material things one is attached to? (64)

Awareness of one's conditioning or even mere interest in the possibility of this awareness implies-does it not? -the ending of any urge to resist or favor anyone else's conditioning. The question is then: What is the nature of relationship when mental programming is still the case, but there is a burning interest in the possible advent of a mind free of it.

Cooperation may be the key word in the relationship of two people still trapped in their particular mental programming but totally invested in exploring it by accurately mirroring each other's thoughts, emotions, actions, and reactions. If you are not there for me and me not there for you as accurate mirrors of each other, how could either one of us ever find out who we really are? Intelligent, cooperative, endlessly dialogic and non-dependent relationship is essential. Without this total relationship we inevitably bulk up with self-deceit and socially sanctioned respectability, within it we are blissfully nothing. (65)

Our deepest desires are informed by the reptilian brain, ancient, even pre-personal human experience and personal, biographical experience including book and other media knowledge. No one yearns for the unimaginable, for what is totally unrelated to what has been experienced or learned about. And much of what has been experienced and recorded as memory, is instances of physical and psychological pain and pleasure. Thus, memories of pain and humiliation project themselves through the desire for security and honor, while memories of power and pleasure crave higher status and greater pleasure. The issue becomes more complex with the contradictory nature of many of these fundamental desires. Thus, while wanting as much sensory pleasure as one can get, one may also want to "correct" such blind imperative with a parallel desire for simplicity or goodness to others. While coveting power one may also desire love and humility.

Can human beings, can you and I, live totally free of psychological desire, that is, free of the tendentious and contradictory projection of previous experience, knowledge and belief and, hence, free also of the demands and emotions associated with a preconceived future? In other words, can consciousness throw overboard the excessive ballast of previous experience and do so without the intervention of the "I" who pretends to be the pilot of the ship when in reality he is absolutely no different from the mental dead weight? (66)

When we want to become something psychologically, the new future self for which we yearn is conceived by means of an image held in contrast with other images representing the old and the present self. Often this image of the new self projected onto the future is either that of another person seen as already possessing that which one desires, but it can also be modeled after oneself imagined as already having realized the desired set of traits, positions and possessions. In either case, once the image of the idealized self is cast one starts fearing the possibility of not being able to bring it about, or resents the effort and internal conflict implicit in its realization.

It is instructive to see humanity as six plus billion human animals all mechanically struggling to attain greater wealth and a higher position in pre or post-mortem society. Just imagine, six plus billion of us all wanting more or better sex, greater love; greater goodness, saintliness, or whatever else our bottomless insecurity may covet. Every instant of our existence seems consumed by desire and the efforts and struggles that desire demands. On the other hand, human beings everywhere are scared of anonymity, of not being loved, of not accomplishing what others or ourselves have determined must be accomplished in any given aspect of life. And we are, of course, also generally frightened of loss, accident, ill health, aging and, most of all, frightened of death as the non-negotiable end of all self projection, of all time. True freedom must, therefore, lay not in the fantasy of perfect and continuous satisfaction of desire, but rather in the ending of this relentless urge to become and to acquire that is inseparable from the equally insistent fear of not achieving the particular goals set for one's rather unlikely fulfillment.

In reading this right now do you not feel yourself instinctively dreading what could happen if the process of personal becoming were to collapse? And, does this fear not reveal a partially hidden sense of emptiness not likely to be ever eliminated by however much you might manage to realize of the particular constellation of predetermined psychological desires that make up so much of who you are? We do not want to confront who we would be and what we could possibly do without our cravings, their promise and their attending anxieties and frustrations, and so we generally go on pretending that our anguish will come to an end whenever our particular fantasies are somehow realized. (67)

A handful of people have, throughout history, talked with great passion about a silence that is unlike any other. They declare that they speak from this silence or, rather, that this silence speaks through them. What they seem to refer to is clearly not the silence of those who have deliberately silenced themselves through some mind-numbing meditation method, because what these latter ones have is not the silence of emptiness but, rather, the dullness of pretense, patterned effort and repressed desire. Nor is the silence of which these few individuals talk about, (I hesitate to call them "mystics"), that of the pious murmuring their prayers or mantras within devout consensual spaces shaped by authorities ever watchful of compliance with the particular traditional methods of becoming on which their hold on power depends.

The silence that interests us here is not the forced stupor of those who cut themselves off from life to pray or meditate alone or in groups according to the mandates of three hundred different and contradictory methods and faiths. No, the silence that concern us must be broad and deep beyond comparison and, so, beyond learned precedent. There is no tradition sponsoring it, nor any authority figure able to lead us to it through the carefully measured steps of a predetermined practice. In fact, there is no one to follow, nor anything one can do to attain or deserve it.

We have no idea of what this mental stillness is because any representation of it would be its negation. Yet, one can correctly assume that it has nothing to do with the babbling contents of our tradition-bound minds, nor with our equally noisy "spiritual" attempts to reach moments or eternities of peace and quiet. A serious interest in the mere possibility of total mental silence must, therefore, immediately discard all traditions, all authorities, and all methods with their pre-rehearsed, premeditated, stuffy silence. For how could there possibly be true silence if one is still there filled to the brim with previously recorded noise loudly struggling to achieve somebody else's idea of what mental silence might be? True mental stillness or emptiness implies the end of self-centered thought, and so an unthinkable interior space; a space free of the time and the strife involved in the active forecast of what is merely the idea of a particularly happy and, perhaps, quiet tomorrow.

Perhaps you would ask, not without some exasperation, why should anyone even care about such silence if it is not something that can be imagined, desired and worked for? -If we are nothing but noise, can that noise be silently heard without reacting to it in any way? Would such level of quiet attention not imply a state of mind free of resistance, desire, struggle, and blind obedience? Is not that which listens, silence? And is not that which holds everything without interjecting itself, emptiness?

Only from this ample silence may properly arise the question of whether or not the physical brain emptied of the images and projections that constitute the self can be touched by something else. Clearly, any effort that the boisterous self would make to dissolve itself in a silence product of its own imagination and will, is destined to fail, for such effort would-of necessity-do nothing but guarantee the continuity of the self and its usual chatter.

If the central issue and occupation of the mind is no longer self-defense and willful self-projection, then what is left? If the urge of the self to chose, to control and to improve, fix or transcend itself comes to a definitive end, leaving in its place only an impersonal, unmotivated, and purposeless interest in observing the facts of the psyche and the world, would that passive observation not be already outside the conditioned and self-centered brain/mind and traditional society? (68)

For most of us alienated and conditioned individuals, there seem to be two different realities: an intra-psychic one, "myself", and an external one, the realm of "not-me" constituted by the (often unbearable) others, and the natural ecological and cosmic reality generally perceived as the exterior setting of the great human enterprise and drama. The inner, psychological, world is pre-eminent amongst these two. It generally overshadows all other realities and considerations. The typical human being is intensely preoccupied with himself and his fate, and in projecting himself through desire and throughout time, this insular self-concern maintains itself along with the endless personal and relational conflict intrinsic to its isolated life. The self cannot end this circular process directly, even if he would want to, because such desire contradictorily assumes a non-existent separation between the problem of egotism and the self as the agent presumably in charge of solving it. It is because the self is no different from what he suffers from, that every attempt made to "develop" ourselves and our social environment, merely extends in time and hides further from view the same deep-rooted egotistical process.

The realization that self-centeredness cannot fix itself by itself over time ends the laborious hypocrisy of self improvement, and this creates a mental opening in which then the question of whether there might be a form of participation in being not based on the self, quietly emerges. This extraordinary question implies, not just a revolutionary change in outward behavior, but a radically different operation of the brain itself, an operation free of the interference of unnecessary psychological knowledge energized by fear, nostalgia or aspiration. There is, of course, other eminently practical knowledge that is necessary for the survival of the organism and for communication with other human beings, but that is not what we are talking about here. The unnecessary psychological knowledge that must somehow be erased from the brain itself, constitutes the "I", that center of the memory-based psyche that true to its deceptive inclination may, at this very instant, be absurdly thinking how to go about getting rid of the unnecessary psychic material that makes up the "I".

What happens if this fact of a conditioned and divided personal memory is perceived along with the fact that there is no action of the "I" capable of doing anything about it? What happens if there is an instantaneous perception of the totality of the psyche not mediated, judged or reacted to-as all others are-by the self as memory and desire? What happens if this perception simply unveils the actual facts of human existence in a passive, impersonal, immediate and complete way? Does the intense awareness of the all-pervading fact of conditioned and separate self-serving existence; yours and mine; theirs and ours, not reveal in its entirety the immense tragedy of our past, of our present day, and of the horrors that-barring the possibility of a dramatic mutation of the psyche-we seem to be so intent in preparing for our future? Clearly, such insight into the nature of the human condition would not be based on previously acquired knowledge. Nor would it constitute further information to be added to all other accumulated knowledge in consideration of its possible instrumental value in bringing about self-realization. Implying, as it does, the end of all the levels and forms of duality, such insight would have no subject as its source, nor any predetermined goal as its destination. Clearly, there can be no prior image or idea about a mental state free of the constant movement of thought lurching forward towards self-fulfillment.

Although thought and imagination are useless in this unfamiliar terrain, it can be safely assumed that in a total insight regarding personal and collective human suffering, all the petty attachments, commitments, hopes and expectations that constitute the self collapse from the absurd weight of their inherently divisive and conflictive character. For an open heart and eyes intent on seeing, it is instantly evident that the alienated, discordant, and sorrowful ways of the self-centered self, are strangely unrelated to what we may agree to (probingly) refer to as a the ground of being or life as a whole. (69)

If it is true that all the violence and suffering throughout human history has its roots in psychological alienation-in the division between "Me" and "Not-Me"-then we can focus on the self as the central problem of human existence. However, this is not as straightforward as it may first appear because no one can survive the direct unmasking of the self as the source of all our troubles.

Nothing but the central role of psychological alienation in the systematic creation of mental and social disorder can explain why, with its seemingly immense intellectual capacity and long history, the human species has been absolutely incapable of uprooting even the most egregious forms of pain and sorrow from the face of the earth. And so, any decent, caring and intelligent person who is aware of her own suffering and sensitive to the suffering of others, and who is also at least partially aware of the roots and effects of egotism, cannot help getting caught in the unyielding grip of a rather simple question: Is there a complete and instantaneous end to egotism? (70)

A moment comes when you are no longer arguing about these issues with others. Words mean very little, clear perception and instantaneous action are all that matter. To convince others is certainly not the central task; it is rather to be totally honest and to act with integrity. Others will not be persuaded with verbal explanations of the truth that, by definition, are never the living truth. This all means that in the act of negating any and all established dogmas with their prescribed methodologies and impressive authorities, you and I are assuming responsibility totally on our own-alone. The world will change only in the measure in which individuals change, not in the sense of going from being this to being that, but rather in the sense of literally dying to their remembered past and their sense of being entitled to pre-determined future. Anything but a form of psychological death is deception and self-serving procrastination.

Certain war and hostilities have been going on for decades now between different nations and ideologies. All imaginable methods and tricks to bring peace to these groups have been implemented and, naturally, they have all failed. When will the horror of war and misery be enough to convince individual human beings of the absolute necessity of ending their identification with the gods, traditions, claims and hurts of their particular tribes so as to never again participate in similarly brutal acts of violence? (71)

The basic fact that suffering is a trait common to all humanity, (common in the sense that-being who we presently are-there is no exception to strife, loss, disillusion, sorrow and death), is rendered largely invisible by the intensely personal way in which each one of us experiences pain and seeks pleasure and power. Besides, psychological pain tends to hide because it is often mixed with a profound sense of shame. But, essentially, suffering as a total human reality is not generally apparent to everyone, not only because we tend to be aware only of our personal and most immediate experience, but also because different cultural groups use different ideologies and methods in the otherwise common attempt to rationalize or escape from sorrow.

Now, if an individual is no longer caught in self-pity and shame, nor seduced and anesthetized by any of the many cultural sources of pseudo-explanation and distraction, then that individual is completely in touch-one with-the totality of human suffering. Again, that undivided perception cannot possible occur unless the brain/mind has been freed of the pettiness of personal sorrow and its particular forms of evasion and over-compensation. When self-centered egotism has ceased to be the dominant force in the psychic field of that particular brain, there is no longer the capacity to willingly inflict pain on others that is born from personal insecurity, frustration and fear. (72)

Silence, mental stillness, is not anyone's attribute, nor is it an on-going condition. Not containing, being, or projecting anyone or anything in particular, mental emptiness could not possibly have continuity in psychological time. A mind that does not either gather or project self-referential knowledge must be ever new, ever fresh and innocent. Because it is empty and, therefore, still, it has no duration and vice-versa; and because it is what it is it can contain everything: what is inside as well as "outside" the psyche. Self-centered thought is, conversely, conditioned and mechanically reactive like and dislike; pursuit and avoidance; the continuous and eminently selective (judgmental and needy) absence of space and silence. (73)

At first you may think that art is all about making objects, statements, and representations, but if you do it seriously enough and for long enough, it may dawn on you that art is really but one of many "sensing" tools, perhaps somewhat useful in the ancient search for a radically different, more intelligent and caring way of living life. Seeing the chaos of society and, in particular, the way in which your own life shares in and contributes to that chaos, you finally realize that what is essential is a life artfully, orderly, lived, and not a particular set of skills utilized to make interesting objects, earn a living and claim a certain place in society.

Thus seen, art no longer has anything much to do with technique, career, success, or audience. It has nothing to do with self-expression, for self-expression is, really, but a camouflaged amplification of selfishness; egotism broadcasting itself as being something other than that. To your surprise, and perhaps to your chagrin, you discover that art has nothing to do either, and especially, with manufacturing a representation of the sublime and then fraudulently presenting it as the result of a personal epiphany. That is not art, but pretense fostering idolatry.

Seeing that art is really unrelated to art making per se, a serious artist-that is, a serious and caring human being-has to ultimately abandon art or any other occupation as the source of much of his identity, and as a tool for competitive self-expansion. Lived in this manner, the artistic process reveals that freedom-not just license to be who you want to be and do whatever you may prefer, but real freedom-is to never again be encumbered and disfigured by the isolation and inherent bias of egotistical pursuits. Whether art continues to get made or not, is no longer the point; seeing what is true and what is false, is. (74)

To be human as we all know it is to be programmed, and this program includes the deeply internalized prohibition to radically question itself. Weak attempts to improve gradually on certain aspects of the program or trying out different applications is all that is permitted, but only because such superficial tinkering constitutes the very means by which the general program sustains itself. Thus, moving to a different culture, adopting a different faith, becoming a farmer or a stockbroker, taking up drinking, joining an old religion or starting a new one, might somewhat alter the flavor of one's mental conditioning, but will leave intact the much larger facts of separation and sorrow.

Now, if the banality of partial and superficial sequential modifications to the central "operating system" is fully understood, then the mind easily rejects their value and, in that very act it is utterly revolutionized. (75)

One cannot willfully separate oneself from the general cruelty and stupidity of humanity, but one can certainly stop participating in its hypocrisy, its willing blindness. It is indeed possible to stop pretending that the brutality that is going on is not going on, and that what one is and does or leaves undone, is not part of it. Something significant may or may not follow the end of self-deception, but hopefully it is now copiously clear that it will not be from anywhere else. (76)

Part of the conditioning of the psyche has it that we can overcome our own (or, worse yet, others') resistance to change by an effort of will armed with political, economic, spiritual, therapeutic, or pharmacological means. Can the perception of the wrong-headedness of the desire to become what we are not, terminate the entire process of self-projection? Can the mind stop pushing ideals down its own throat? Would the disappearance of the cultural and personal ground of experience/desire committed (ideologically and sentimentally) to particular alliances, enmities and actions, not give way to a totally integrated and all-encompassing act of passive attention new at every moment? And, is not that mental state the only act capable of revolutionizing everything?

Once not part of anything created by thought in the past and, therefore, no longer involved in the struggle to become more important, better, smarter, richer, or holier in the future, one is as nothing. Because we are mostly mental noise, we do not know (nor could ever know from the scant sensibility of that noise) what an empty, silent psyche might be. Yet, under the present circumstances, and given the barren available alternatives, such a possibility clearly deserves the greatest attention. After all, we only have ourselves to lose. (77)

One cannot think about thought, among other reasons because since the self is both a creation of and an integral part of thought, any reaction to aspects of itself do nothing but further obfuscate the matter while keeping the whole chain reaction going. However, there can be a perception of thought, from moment to moment, one that-untouched by prejudice and desire-does not attempt to judge or modify anything, and does not record traces of itself as additional knowledge.

If there is no condemnation or particular identification with what occurs within and "around" the mental field through the habitual mechanisms of comparison, and projection, then the phenomenon of thought and everything else is perceived fresh and new as it really is without any longer producing the images and ideas that would necessarily enable the continuity of thought with its mechanical likes and dislikes. (78)

Identification with something greater than oneself-a religion; an ethnic, age, or racial group; a social class; a gender; a particular profession; a reformist cause, (and with anything else that might round-up one's selective body of biographical information)-hides from view the fact that, psychologically, one is in oneself-just like everyone else-essentially nothing. Put the other way around: it is the escape from intrinsic psychological insignificance that creates the persona with its multiple positive and negative identifications and the overwhelming urge to become something better than what one actually is.

Thus, efforts to minimize one's psychological pain and maximize one's sense of security and pleasure, do nothing but reinforce the general insensitivity of the self to the ultimately unavoidable emptiness behind all the clatter of self-defense and self-promotion. Furthermore, incorrect and biased perception, (perception informed by fear and intending greater security and self-expansion), will inevitably continue to bring harm and pain to those who are objectified in the process and who will often react violently. Personal freedom and the elimination of interpersonal friction can only come, therefore, to individuals capable of easily relinquishing the neurotic claim to being and becoming established by self-serving comparison with others and, more often than not, attained at their expense.

Issues of status and power vanish with the realization that, there is no hierarchy in being. Any sense of personal superiority (or inferiority) comes from not knowing oneself and not having properly inquired into the realm of make belief where self-steam and other similar gases are produced. Beneath traditional and thickly layered appearances, down below where it really counts, we are all exactly the same: not much at all. In the astonishing clarity in which fear and aggression wilt, something else flowers. Dare we refer to it as love? (79)

It is not uncommon to spend one's life arguing with others about the nature of the social world we live in and about what may be the right or wrong things to do to confront seemingly intractable social problems. In a similar fashion, many of us spend incalculable time and energy arguing with ourselves about the nature of our own inner life and the quality of our personal relationships, and wondering about what may be the best action in this regard as well. Yet, despite all the arguments put forth and all the efforts made, the loud and crazy carrousel of personal and social ups and downs just keeps going around and around, faster and faster, endlessly fueled by new illusory hopes interminably engendered by predictable failures in the struggle to attain self-fulfillment. For anyone for whom this manic-depressive rut becomes apparent, the question of whether there might be a different dimension to life becomes hugely important.

But what life are we talking about? If I am only talking about my particular life, then it can be rightfully assumed that to wonder about the possibility of a different dimension of existence is a meaningless, delusional escape. The same holds true if I am talking about our collective life: the horrendous state of human affairs. But if I am talking about life as a whole and I have an ounce of honesty left in me, then I have to acknowledge that my habitual frustration, hostility, and fear might well be directly related to my nearly total alienation from it.

Helplessly cut off from the wholeness of life, we spend most of our time and energy trying to outfit our lives with particular meaning and some sense of security. If we saw the futility of these misguided efforts, would they not all come easily and willingly to an end? And would not then the unknown-life as a whole-emerge in, through, and as our eyes, minds, and hearts? (80)

Yes, it can be affirmed that human beings have always been and continue to be tribal animals. But there is a deeper fact on which this reality depends and which, if duly recognized and rationally treated, may radically alter humanity's conflictive fragmentation along dysfunctional herd lines. This prior fact is that as individuals we feel isolated and hence extremely insecure, and that it is only in our hidden but common urge to allay physical and psychological insecurity that we readily accept and maintain the yokes of a great multiplicity of different cultural groups characterized (and separated) by peculiar and contradictory traditions, dogmas, methods, and goals.

By simply looking at oneself (any)one can see that the present social and cultural atomization of humanity has deep roots in the feelings of alienation and vulnerability present in each and everyone of us. It is these feelings that compel individuals to seek psychological identity and protection through exclusive and, therefore, self-righteous affiliation to different formal and informal institutions ranging from the family to particular national, religious, age, racial, class, gender and, now and increasingly, to consumer groups.

It is obvious that everyone's fundamental physical survival has always and will always depend on collaborative interaction with a relatively reduced number of other persons, but it is also obvious that when the satisfaction of neurotically exclusive psychological and tribal claims brings about, the collapse of other people's economies, ecological devastation and murderous wars, even that fundamental security that each and every one of us must attain through rational and caring local collaboration, is seriously undermined.

The cultural atomization of humanity and the conflict and violence characterizing the historical relationship among different ethnocentric fragments are all evident facts, and yet they are seldom questioned because to do so, implies breaking ranks with the tribes providing a sense of personal identity and status and, even more importantly, facing alone the very source of psychological insecurity that affects everyone.

The chronic self-interest and unquenchable psychological thirst for security, of the individuals making up different and opposed groups (even the most powerful individuals living within the most powerful groups), is also a palpable fact. This generalized psychological and cultural uncertainty and insecurity engages in endless actions-many of them of extreme overt or subtle covert violence-seeking, not the fundamental physical security of all, but the most expedient satisfaction of the exclusive claims for material and psychological security of particular individuals and particular social groups.

Needless to say, greed, fear and insecurity beget nothing but greater insecurity and further separation which in turn generate further interpersonal violence, war, exploitation, chronic poverty, mental illness, etc. Thus, for example, the fearful and insensitive alienation characteristic of particular group of affiliation, often decides to strengthen and expand itself by attempting to "fix" other cultural groups deemed inferior by means of the violent imposition of their supposedly superior "morality". The same happens, of course, at the level of individuals.

If you can see by yourself that what you have read above is a generally accurate description of the actual mental and cultural dead end in which humanity is caught, then is it not the only caring, and intelligent action to break with the pack, to immediately abandon the hypocritical cover of separate traditions and ideologies, each with its particular authorities, barren explanations and tired and repressive methods? Only when the self-inflicted blindness of traditional consensus has been eliminated, can the depths of human insecurity and suffering be revealed. And in and through that perception, the non-actual character and the appalling inadequacy of separate existence become evident.

Not just faced with this fundamental fact, but being it, the mind is no longer part and parcel of the violent chaos and the suffering that results from billions of individuals claiming different and separate personal and cultural identities and then destroying one another in the mad rush towards restricted forms of personal fulfillment and group success. (81)

For whoever cares to look, the presence of matter and the animal in one is evident. The body is clearly immersed in energy/matter, and the basic urges and drives underlying much of our thought and behavior such as sexuality, territoriality, fear and aggression are also material processes, present in every animal and every human being regardless of time and space considerations. This common animal constituting so much of each one of us is, however, commonly hidden behind fairly superficial physical distinctions and, especially, behind the personal history and psychological self-portrait with which we identify and present ourselves to others as though we were utterly original.

What blocks perception of what is at the base of the psychic iceberg, is then the extreme degree of identification we have with its personalized tip, as well as the rapidity with which this tip changes as it is swept along the stream of life and is affected by the physical constraints of the natural environment and the psycho-cultural pressure of billions of other human organisms organized in different cultural groups and similarly seeking to protect and enhance themselves.

Fear of seeing oneself as almost totally predetermined and, therefore, as unoriginal, vulnerable, mechanical and dependent is one of the greatest impediment to clear perception and lucid reasoning. Regardless of what we each may have evolved to believe, think and strive for, we all remain commonly grounded in matter, permeated with many animal traits and yet, and against all evidence, still convinced that the "personal" upper structure of the psyche is not to a great extent merely a psychologized and "spiritualized" extension of these same rigidly predetermined material processes and animal drives.

The "me" pretends to be controlling the rather autonomous presence of the basic animal drives in the human psyche as if he were altogether different from them and as if he were not simultaneously procuring the most immediate satisfaction of their diverse objectives. We are very particular animals in that we invest such a great deal of physical and mental energy pretending to be angels or, at least, to being in the process of becoming angels. (82)

What we are, what we know, and what we want-no matter how noble we think it is and no matter how expandable we might want it to be-will never make us free, intelligent, or caring. And if we remain blind to this simple fact we shall continue indefinitely wishing for a better meal while cooking with slight modifications of the same old recipe and the same mean ingredients. An extraordinary need for an unthinkably different insertion in life and the incapacity to procure it, is the challenge confronting each alert and responsible human being. When closely observed in their application to psychological and social issues, thought and logic can make evident their irrevocable limitation, and that very revelation concludes the psychological time of personal existence in which one has labored daily to attain the realization of a particularly idealized version of oneself. Without predetermined outcomes, without made-up images and ideas fleshing out a previous, a present and a comparatively better future self, there is no exclusive personal history. And without that self-propelling history there is no division between "me" and "not-me".

Clear and discontinuous (non-cumulative) perception of the stream of thought and everything extra-psychic, fills the mind with an extraordinary question that could never find an answer in the worn-out annals of experience and knowledge: If there is no complete and free enterprise that can emerge from the conditioned field of self-centered thought-if there is nothing one can do to overcome the conditioning of experience determining our psyches and their reactive behavior-is there an entirely different mode of being human that even though inaccessible to thought might nevertheless manifest? (83)

When there is a direct perception of the fact that the brain is conditioned by pre-personal and personal experience-and, consequently, that any effort or change of direction made with the intent of fixing or escaping its manifold problems, is only a modified extension of the same mental programming-all self-reforming action is bound to cease. The psyche remains then with what the psyche is, because neither the reductive experience-based programming of the brain, nor the re-actions and social forms and reforms that emerge from and lend continuity to such programming, are subject to significant change from the inside.

More specifically, the "me" who thinks himself capable of observing and modifying at will the contents of consciousness, is in no way different or separate from these contents. Therefore, all possible additions and modifications made to memory and its movement as thought, do not alter the self-sustaining fact of conditioning itself, (past, present and future), they merely preserve the pre-determined and always limited character of the self-centered psyche.

When this futile process of self-projection ends, the waste of energy that typifies the arduous and conflictive fantasy of personal development also ends. Then the mind is no longer being constantly torn apart by the battle within and the battle with others originating in the perception of the self as different from its idealized future and as separate and different from others and from society at large. Personal becoming is no longer the incongruous and wasteful occupation of the psyche, nor its basic configuration. And the energy previously wasted in misguided efforts of the "me" to resist certain aspects of life, self, and other, now gathers as the impersonal attention of what may be properly called the religious mind. (84)

Just picture the destructive impact of more than six billion human beings organized in different and antagonistic groups and bent on achieving independent personal and tribal goals in every field of human activity. Add to this madness the fact that the groups along whose ideological lines humanity is fragmented do not remain constant overtime, but keep producing splinter groups with their own authorities, traditions, beliefs, and claims, and you start to have a real sense of the chaos and violence that reigns in the world and to understand why efforts to bring peace and order fail for the most part.

The possibility that you might not have fully seen this before, would in itself be ample proof of the false protection (induced blindness, really) provided by specific traditions to whomever finds in them a source of identity and a measure of largely false certainty and security. Seeing the conflictive fragmentation of humanity, its source in a common sense of personal insufficiency and insecurity, and the horrors unleashed through our individual and tribal attempts to escape suffering while maximizing power and pleasure, destroys whatever mix of personal and ideological conceit has given shape to the self.

To face this gale of hard facts requires a simple mind willing to stand alone, undefended and quietly sensitive to everything that goes on in the world at large, in relationships, and within itself. The outer layers of the self-centered psyche, those created by the ascribed or voluntary allegiance to particular groups and ideologies, can be seen for the opaque and useless dead weight that they are, and immediately put aside with relative ease. What remains at the core is the quintessential human being, the pre-personal human animal with all its instinctual drives and urges fairly intact. At this level the pretense of unique individuality with its sense of a past, present and future importance, has totally gone away.

Once deprived of any illusory outlet in the imagined future, the brain/psyche is no longer compelled to fight against itself. The de-programmed mind, the impersonal mind, is no more the battleground where the human beast and the angel created by the beast's fearful imagination battle each other over who will determine the actions of the self. What is true and factual is the primitive human creature so willing and able to do, or have others do, unspeakable acts of cruelty and stupidity. The angel, the idealized projection of the self is, at the very best, wishful thinking; at its worse, nothing but deceit, violence and sorrow.

Moral judgments about oneself or others stop being issued then, because the impersonal mind is obviously incapable of making psychological comparisons. Ideas of good and evil and of the innumerable shades of moral gray possible within that absurd continuum have faded out of existence. It is, of course, true that certain persons may be gentler and more generous or virtuous than others, but that is largely irrelevant when what is being considered is the totality of conditioned humanity and its endless cruelty and suffering. An irreversible break with the whole mental past of the species and all its possible future re-incarnations, both psychological and cultural, clearly eliminates any inclination towards becoming a little or a lot better than someone else according to artificial role models or pseudo-spiritual carrots chosen to that effect.

Our interest has been to see the very root of the human problem, to explore what is our deepest nature and why is it that, after so many centuries of strife and pain, we remain unable to change in any significant way. And this very perception of who we are has brought tumbling down the whole edifice of the separate, arrogant, and eternally procrastinating self. In this occasion, the old contractor that a thousand times before would invariably step out of the rubble to testily assume the task of building a new and improved version of the same old psyche, has definitely perished in the demolition. (85)

If one is undivided within and inseparable from the rest of humanity and whatever might be considered as "not-me", then there can be no desire or choice to become someone else, someone better. As it has been already repeatedly indicated, one is-psychologically-one's own limited cultural and biographical experience inlaid on top of the general experience of the species. Therefore, any deliberate effort to change or improve oneself undertaken from within the vaults of memory and thought results in nothing but the strengthened continuity of the whole phenomenon of cumulative mental conditioning.

Just as one can easily understand why rebellious slaves would not want mere improvements in their slavery, but real freedom, one comes to see that the will to become, to improve, evolve or transcend in accordance with one particular choice or another, is never adequate and, therefore, not a rational alternative at all. Furthermore and closer to the point, while real slaves can sometimes imagine freedom from forced and unpaid service to another and then willingly struggle to achieve it, we find ourselves here in a general situation in which imagining total freedom from the tyranny of all previous personal and cultural experience implies, not a fight against an external oppressor, but rather a form of suicide because in the general case of psycho-cultural slavery the central problem is that the slave is also the master.

The slavery of the mind to its self-centered conditioning is a problem unlike any other and demands, therefore, an entirely different approach. We are what we know. We perceive, think, feel, and act only according to what we know, what we have already experienced. We have always been that, and tomorrow we shall be what we have experienced today added to our accumulated knowledge of the past and the projections this reservoir of information may direct towards the future. In other words, there is no change of any significance that can be affected from within a self-centered psyche that extends itself in time by effecting extrapolations of its always-limited previous experience.

So, what is needed is radical change, a change not within the structure and limitations of mental time; that is, an unthinkable change, a change that being unrelated to memory or desire as projected memory, cannot be expressed in knowledge nor acted out through an act of will.

We are, of course, conditioned to think that psychological and social change are as feasible as change in science or technology and, therefore, we also generally feel that all one needs to do to conceive and affect personal and social change is to engage in better thinking or more creative imagination. Thus, when presented with the notion that pre-determined change in time is no change at all, every fiber of one's self seems to reject the possibility that thought, motive, and will (the self) are all irrelevant when it comes to resolving the most essential issues of personal and collective life.

We have enormous pride in our intelligence even though, judging by the mess in the world and in the lives of most of us, it is practically idiotic to feel this way. The "I" who exists because it thinks, and who is what it is because it thinks what it thinks, is absolutely unwilling to accept that thought is a dead end, (except in those limited, clearly not self-centered, areas in which it functions more or less appropriately). Coming from where it comes, our traditional action is utterly unrelated to the general problem of psychological conditioning expressed in intra-psychic division, interpersonal separation and socio/cultural fragmentation. No political, scientific, religious, or artistic action is ever going to free a single individual, let alone humanity as a whole, from confusion, fear, and suffering. Thus, incomplete and gradual action must be disregarded not only because it is insufficient but, more fundamentally, because it blinds one to the general character of the human problem.

The radical change that is needed must come, therefore, not at the end of a long process of struggle and by virtue of having pointed the best knowledge and the most precise methodology towards the correct goal, but rather emerge unsolicited from the natural and easy repudiation of self-centered knowledge, belief, and pre-informed purpose. The slogans exhorting us to "Think Differently" or to "Think Outside of the Box" aside from being manipulative commercial ploys are just plain silly. Not by thinking differently will anyone ever transcend the intrinsic limitations of thought. Thinking is the box. (86)

Some sideway glances at the phenomenon of thought

· There are the intra-psychic and the external events experienced at every moment, and then there is what I think/feel about what is experienced after it has been experienced. That is, there are actual facts and subsequent reactions to these facts determined by previous experience and previously acquired knowledge usually related to the experience of others (conversation, books, media, etc.).

· If one is thinking-let us say, thinking about something that happened yesterday or may happen tomorrow-the ability to experience anything actually occurring at this very moment, is seriously curtailed. In other words, thinking provides us with relative advantages only in regards to certain tasks and circumstances; in most others it is a liability at best, and utterly counterproductive, at worst; like using a flamethrower to help put out a fire.

· The only point of immediate insertion of the psyche into what is actually occurring is sensory related-as in, "the landscape is seen", "hunger is felt now", or "anger is rising". However, it should be evident that there are evident limitations to the capacity of our sense organs when applied to the perception of external phenomena, even when our observations are aided by special instruments and organized by pre-established theory. What we perceive at any given point in time and space is practically irrelevant when contrasted with the imperceptible and unthinkable general context of the totality of what is occurring. By this (the totality of what is occurring) we mean the infinitely complex interaction between different layers/orders of phenomena in time and space, and whatever may be the source and organizing ground of this general interconnectivity.

· Thinking has, over time, allowed humanity to realize quite extraordinary scientific discoveries and technical developments, however these advances have never been equitably shared by the majority, nor have they given those with privileged access to them, anything resembling a life of plenitude. More importantly, the development of thought has not helped humanity overcome its conflicted and conflictive fragmentation, the nearly universal problem of psychological suffering, or the considerable physical pain that results from faulty perception and erroneous, egotistical, thinking. In other words, there is something highly suspect about what we all considered to be human intelligence (with thought and knowledge respectively as its main tool and currency) if it is largely unconcerned with, and clearly incapable, of bringing about the sustained well-being of all human beings. Which could lead anyone not too drunk with the conceit so prevalent among the intelligentsia, to realize that this "intelligence" of ours is not only extremely limited and profoundly unwise, but also outright dangerous.

· These considerations added to a basic awareness of the practically insoluble problems presently besetting humankind, lead inexorably to a crucial question: Is thought the only possible operational mode of the human brain, or is there a radically different way to consider and solve our problems and, hence, an entirely different manner of being human in which thinking is wisely restricted to the areas and circumstances in which it is adequate and effective?

· Obviously, it is useless to speculate about what this possible superior mental faculty operating somehow in juxtaposition but above thought, could be. While still working exclusively with-and being-thought, (memory, emotion, desire, imagination and belief), the only possibility is to observe its structure and movement, but without particular motivations or judgments informing this observation. Why this peculiar manner of looking? -Simply because the introduction of restrictive criteria, particular goals, and positive/negative values implies reducing and biasing this observation with pre-determined images and ideas about what needs to be directly seen and done with what is seen. We are saying then that thought observed by and reacted to by memory/thought results only in bias, contradiction, conflict and further thought and, thereby, also suggesting a quality of observation that, being empty of predetermined criteria and free of objectives, but enormously keen, could perhaps apprehend the structure and operation of the psyche instantly and in its totality.

· Could a human being conditioned by the previous experience of the species as well as by his particular cultural, ethnic, gender, racial, educational background, use his or her cognitive and projective qualities (thought) only to provide for the satisfaction of his most basic needs, (now and in the rationally foreseeable future), and nowhere else? This is a serious and complex question because it implies somehow irreversibly blocking thought's habitual intromission in matters of relationship with others and with oneself. Can the process of thought bring itself to an end through the direct perception that its intermediation in these relationships is constant, unwarranted and harmful? Does the very perception that there are no rational grounds on which to continue supporting our current (and projected) sense of reality as constituted by multiple acts of personal existence given in substantial separation from each other and from everything else habitually considered as other than and "outside" the self (including the periphery of the psyche), not constitute the immediate collapse of that reality?

· Can the mind be quiet-free of thought-except when engaged in practical, functional matters? And why should the mind be quiet, it may still be asked? And again the answer is, because there has been a profound realization that thought is both responsible for the creation of our most fundamental problems and utterly incapable of solving them. Having created the cultural fragmentation and constituting in itself the psychological alienation that leads to the scourge of inter-personal exploitation and violence ultimately leading to war, thought can no longer trust itself with the project of bringing about the harmonious integration of the species and truly creative, affectionate and cooperative action. Antagonism and violence are not characteristics of the psyche that the "I"-born of existential separation and thought-can ever ameliorate or eliminate with special effort, a given method and a well-meaning goal. We have tried that for millennia and it is high time to stop. (87)

The world is what it is and one must make a living in it, yet can one's occupation be a simple function of service in exchange for the satisfaction of basic physical needs without needing any further claim or egotistical projection whatsoever? Can one be a housewife, a surgeon, or a bricklayer without using that, or anything else, to claim a sense of superiority and on that unwarranted and foolish basis demand exclusive privilege as a reward? (88)

We human beings are usually extraordinarily dependent physically and emotionally-and yet remain so distant from most others, unable to really love the world, humanity, and the totality of the life we share. We suffer from loneliness, fear, anger, and despair and, it is precisely because we do not know what to do about this suffering that we are, more often than not, quite willing to content ourselves with the ephemeral pleasures granted by material possessions, illusions and crumbs of exclusive affection. Why do we close our eyes to this awful state of affairs or, as it is so often the case, accept it so readily as the unchangeable nature of reality? Why do we refuse to at least fully acknowledge the separation amongst us with its affective poverty, its lack of intelligence and its brutal consequences? If we were to see the self-centered pettiness of our own lives and the whole suffering of humanity across space and time, as well as the relationship between one and the other, we would at the very least immediately reject further efforts intended to obfuscate things or make them superficially better.

After all, is our suffering today not the result of thousands of years of applying disparate methods and solutions attempting to control its flood? If the spread of so-called democracy is all that matters for some to bring goodness into the world and if, for the same purpose, all that matters for others is the spread of Islam, then we surely have war in our hands. Because if you want to make it better this way and I want to make it better in a different way, we are then condemned to fight over our discrepancy thus necessarily making everything worse. Does seeing all this not warrant asking what would happen if we were to stay quietly with this monumental fact of universal suffering in a act of impersonal and, therefore, accurate and immediate witnessing?

Paradoxically, it is precisely because suffering is truly universal, not granting exemptions to anyone, that it is fairly easily blocked off by personal thought's general obsession with its own sorrow and the many ways that may be devised to escape from it or stave it off. Personal is what splits off from the totality along the lines of different experiences of pain and pleasure, and different ideas and methods to try and avoid the former while increasing the latter. Thus, this constitutional separation designed to try and assuage or altogether transcend-for the exclusive benefit of the self and, perhaps, its most immediate clan and tribe-vulnerability and sorrow, makes everyone blind to the enormous fact that what we suffer from is in reality common to all human beings.

Again, if you see that what has been stated in the above paragraph is an accurate representation of fact. Stop. There is a correction that has to be made here: If you yourself see the actual facts to which this paragraph refers, will you continue to struggle against the world, against others, and against yourself attempting to prevent, cure or transcend your own personal pain? Or will you quietly see and feel suffering across space and time and yourself as indistinguishable from it? And, if you and I really see and feel this suffering, will we remain separate? Will our insensitive, small-minded self-pity, survive? (89)

The desire to incessantly become more and better, to posses and experience more and more and to have greater power and influence over the lives of others, even when successful, inevitably leads to greater insensitivity and conflict, greater fear, confusion, and violence. Self-serving desire is the thrust towards the future of the isolated and conditioned self and, as such, the guarantee of further division, fear and antagonism. Are confused minds and a violent world not the only possible outcome of the conflicting ambitions and dreams of over six billions of us and growing? (90)

We generally like to think of ourselves as rather bright and autonomous lights, when in reality we are more like strung out holiday lights running on the rapidly alternating current of pleasure and pain. At a distance, we may give a good impression and perhaps even calm some fears-like the beautiful sight of the lights of a great city seen by a weary traveler when the aircraft he is flying in is about to land in the middle of the night-but the truth is that personally and as particular groups we give very little light and serve no truly noble purpose. Whatever light we personally give or take is never enough. And the truth is that all of us burn out rather quickly and are promptly replaced by new but equally dim bulbs. (91)

It is common to believe that we own and control our thoughts; that, as thinkers, we are to a great extent executives of our actions and hence, at least potentially, masters of our fate. The truth is, however, quite different, for it is only in very restricted areas that we actually possess relatively objective knowledge and have the capacity of acting rationally and appropriately. Unfortunately, it is in those areas of life where caring intelligence would matter most-relationship with one another and with ourselves-that we are but pawns of thought. We believe we are the ones who think when in reality it is thought itself that creates the sense of there being a controlling central entity separate from what it controls: the permanent illusion we all call "me", the thinker, the one presumably in charge.

The division between the "me" and the rest of the content and movement of memory/thought/will/desire, is illusory. It does not exist. The "me" is but a layer of thought armed with the false conviction of having a separate and special existence in charge of the function of gathering knowledge and dispensing reason and, hence, capable of modifying or, if necessary, of doing completely away with certain attributes or behaviors deemed useless or harmful.

Serious, sustained observation of the movement of one's own mind makes abundantly clear that in most instances competing and contradictory images and ideas come and go at will, pushing the alleged executive of the psyche in many different and contradictory directions, many of them in conflict with other competing thoughts, beliefs, and imperative re-actions, or direct collision course with those of other people. Possessed by artificial identities not grounded in reality, playing out fixed, habitual, roles and blinded by our quest for security in increasingly higher levels of status and power, we constantly create hardship for one another while destroying the miracle of every new present moment by using it to ram a modified version of the past into the imagined future.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to see is that, because the "I" is indistinguishable from the rest of the psyche-from the knowledge (both hidden and apparent) that informs perception, intellection and, therefore, behavior as well, there is nothing one can do to deeply affect either one's internal reality or the broader relational, social, political, economic, and military consequences that flow from it. The "I" is an inmate committed for life to an insane asylum, but she is not the kind of madwoman capable of planning and executing an escape, because there is no distinction that can be made here between her and her madness, nor between her madness and the thick walls and straight-jacket keeping her bound...and mad. (92)

A great many people have been educated to work hard and without asking unsolicited questions. Many have also been trained to get their relaxation and information from the mass media when they go home exhausted after long hours of mind-numbing work. In those rare occasions in which they are with one another for any significant amount of time, media content-what they have read in books, or seen in the movies, the Internet or TV-seems to dominate their conversations. The opinions of authorities, experts and celebrities defining what is important and how to get it, so crowd their minds that there is hardly any possibility of open and creative dialogue about life with others, even those with whom it is shared most intimately.

Infotainment seems to easily destroy whatever natural propensity there may be in us to independently and directly investigate the mystery of life and death, and to the extent that it does that-to the extent that it actually replaces life-it destroys our minds as well. Political ideologies and organized and disorganized religions-distractions themselves-do pretty much the same by prohibiting or al least severely inhibiting independent questioning, while providing all the false but curiously beguiling answers for which many are then willing to sacrifice the lives of others and even their own. Despite and because all this, one cannot but wonder if sensitive human beings everywhere are not throwing away their clown costume and walking resolutely away from the awful circus we have made of life. (93)