Within every tribe, every clan, every family and every individual, there is a very strong sense of righteousness standing in contrast, if not opposition, to that of others. Without this measure of knowledge-infused righteousness we would not exist as presumably independent entities.

Is it possible to live free of psychological knowledge, not identified with and attached to anything or anyone and, therefore, without a trace of righteousness, ambition, frustration and hostility? (200)

Freedom is natural to one who is neither slave nor master. (201)

The impulse to act in order to solve human problems and transform who we are as cause and effect of those very same problems, presumes a clarity and a degree of liberty that are not really present. We are not different from the social world we are trying to change, nor are we different from the personal characteristics we would like to alter or transcend in ourselves. The direct perception of this impossibility of correct and sufficient action regarding personal and social change is a powerful shock, and this shock changes entirely the way one has "normally" related to others, oneself, and the world.

To remain with things as they are, that is, to not in any way try to escape from the divided and anguished self and from the disintegrating world we have created with our thoughts and actions, puts a radical end to the future projection of fantasies concocted about a "better" self living in a better family, a better country, and a better world. In turn, this ending eliminates intra-psychic and interpersonal conflict and conserves the considerable energy routinely wasted on it.

If you are asking right now about what happens next, you are still groping for a projection of the self. You have yet to see the point. Do you see it now? (202)

The hope of humanity is not singular. If it were we would all be working together harmoniously for the security and happiness of everyone. Hope-like faith, political ideology or patriotism-is by definition multiple, contradictory, and hostile to different manifestations of the same thing. Different nations, different groups, and different individuals generally hold on with great intransigence to their respective hopes. We all want to be on top (materially, intellectually, or "spiritually"), and this implies exclusivity and, all too frequently, also the need to proselytize or dominate others who, in turn, inevitably brings about further discord and more intense violence. It is really plain to see, in determining to a great extent who we are by placing us in contrast and contradiction with others, particular hopes also predispose us to relationships plagued by dependency, lack of affection and subtle or overt exploitation, if not outright violence.

Perception of the general reality of chronic overt and covert violence, instantly makes clear why it is fundamental to live without hope, that is, without desire for the realization of a pre-determined idealized self. A human being, who is free of psychological desire, is never in conflict with others or with himself. The absence of hope implies, not despair as one tends to fear but, rather, complete freedom. Freedom from the kind of tunnel vision created by wanting to have more than necessary, and freedom from the impossible strain of having to become in any way better than others. When the self-isolating and ultimately always aggressive and self-defeating pursuit of power and pleasure ends, it does so not through force or effort, but simply as the result of fully seeing it for what it is: unintelligent, uncaring and dangerous. (203)

Thought negates actuality. Conversely, what is actually happening from moment to moment is not reducible to thought, as thought is essentially a measure, an evaluative comparison utilizing non-actual criteria culled from previous experience, previously acquired knowledge. In matters of self-development and relationship, thought is the always limited and often equivocal response of memory (the past and the future) to any actual (current) event or challenge offered by life. Thought may work fine when it is a matter of applying knowledge to something like driving an automobile, building a bridge or learning a skill, but it is irremediably inadequate when it comes to solving psychological, relational, or social problems, because those challenges are always new and thought's response to them always self-servingly biased and limited. (204)

Feeling isolated and vulnerable, and suffering as a result of it, we all attempt in different ways to bring about some measure or type of harmonious unity, but we generally do so not by dissolving personal claims and yielding to the demands of the greater good, but rather by hoarding the material wealth, knowledge, or power deemed necessary to reach whatever insanely projected ideal gives shape to one's particular tribal and personal identity. (205)

When the totality of particular human loves and hatreds are seen in all their divisive destructiveness, the mind is no longer ruled by comparative preference. Ask yourself if there is a self when attachments, judgmental comparison and psychological projections are no longer present? Who are we if not particular sets of preferences and aversions for certain things, certain people, and certain aspects of the self? Who is each one of us if not the specific set of prejudices and limitations established by what "I" have, know, believe and desire?

But can a human being live in this world of ours without a trace of psychological judgment and ambition? Can a human being live without aggressively asserting what she thinks she is, without resisting others (and the world) for being what she thinks they are, and so in an entirely different mental plane? Can there be such a complete perception of the self's constitutive bias and limitations, that there is no longer "anyone" there chaining himself to these foolish psychological walls and neurotic claims in the very act of comparing himself to others who are doing exactly the same but with him? (206)

One of the most common objections elicited by simply mentioning the possibility of living free of self-assertion, procrastination and pseudo change, (free of self-centered thought), is that in order to make a living one must be very much the traditionally assertive, aggressive, competitive self. But is that objection true or merely an excuse to avoid the challenge of facing up totally and immediately to the horror of the life we have all created with our blind obedience to absurd beliefs? (207)

The separation between us lies in the fact that instead of directly seeing and listening one another when, and only when, we are with one another, we both think about each other before, during and after our encounters. The distance between us is created by the inaccurate and unreal images and ideas we have each formed of the other on the bases of previous experience and knowledge often enough entirely unrelated to the person and relationship in question. We have become the fictions we think we are by accumulating the fictions we have created of others and of life/death itself, and these ghosts keep us running scared within the narrow tunnels of our conceits and ambitions. Are we awake enough to see that the price of psychological isolation is an endless pursuit of privilege, respectability and continuity that is forever being blocked and attacked by others who, feeling equally lonely, fearful and vulnerable, are engaged in the same blind and deaf pursuit? (208)

Traditional human conceit has it that individuals are equipped to profoundly change themselves as well as the societies in which they live. But let us say that one has seen through what is false in this claim and its function of preserving the continuity of the narcissistic and sorrowful self. Sustained investigation has revealed that since experience conditions the psyche and since the "I" is an integral part of the conditioning, then there is nothing that one can do directly about one's particular mental state or the general social circumstances of the species. What then? -Untrammeled depression to be broken only by death? -Not necessarily.

Why should a flash of understanding that denies the possibility of self-originated change, change inscribed within the limited parameters of thought and desire, lead to terminal melancholy? Does the mechanical appearance of that reaction not in itself contradict the simple fact that there is nothing that can be done about the problem? If there is a full realization that what is conditioned cannot in any relevant way alter the facts of conditioning, then there is no further reaction possible, depressive or otherwise. What possible sadness or anger could be involved in noticing that water is wet and fire hot. Are you still asking, "What then"? -Are you still asking what happens when the mind is no longer at odds with itself or with the world, when there is no longer any conflict or frustration within oneself or with others? What happens when one's past has become irrelevant and there is no longer a psychologically predetermined future? (209)

It is hard to come to a full realization that psychologically it is the psyche as a whole that is rigidly conditioned and that the consequent lack of freedom is not a problem affecting some, but not others. Those who see themselves as having a full measure of material, social, intellectual and/or "spiritual" privilege, seem to have an intuitive defensive reaction to the fact that in this matter they are exactly like all the rest. Any sense of uniqueness informs perception with its built-in fear, belief and desire, obscuring the fact that psychological conditioning is common and equally damning to all.

It is interesting to note in this respect that the psyche will use good as well as bad fortune, to build a case for some sort of particular moral virtue, superior intellectual status, or "spiritual" advantage. As in, for example: "Some years back I suffered the loss of a child from a terrible accident, but that experience has led me to play today an important role counseling other parents going through the same misfortune." No matter what the circumstances, though manages to give itself continuity by providing the self with new sources of identity and respectability. Whatever is not within the provincial realm of memory and desire, remains undetected, unattended to. (210)

If for just an instant you were to abandon all personal knowledge, belief and opinion, if you could for once be free of ambition and yearning of any type, would not conflict and fear disappear from your mind, unveiling in the resulting light the very source of the entire suffering of humankind? What we think we are psychologically and culturally determines our relative isolation. Identity also determines the nature and quality of our relationships through its prescription of what we are likely to do to attain personal security, pleasure and status, and avoid having to experience their opposites. This self-isolating and self-serving separation, common to each and every one of us, is also what desensitizes us-with its pressing desires, particular methods and irresistible emotions-to the fundamental needs of others and to the mystery of life itself. Not to be anything, on the other hand, not to be overwhelmingly concerned with oneself psychologically, implies total responsibility coherent with the nature of the general problem besetting the individual, humanity and the Earth as a whole. A mind free of conflict, frustration and fear is in itself complete, intelligent and caring action. (211)

We all love to express ourselves. Creativity has become, because of this, a central fetish, an obsession for many, particularly in the wealthier, more dominant cultures. The pride involved in being creative in some way or another, or even just the desire and effort to become so, blinds us to the sobering fact that all the accumulated "creativeness" of the species has not managed to solve any of our fundamental psychological and social problems. Conversely, the simple realization that our creativity is not as relevant as it claims to be, in the sense that it has not put an end to poverty, war, or addiction, also puts in evidence the negative impact in relationship and everyday social reality of the self-serving urge to express oneself creatively.

The extent and chronic nature of human misery, the destruction of lives through lack of caring, bad or insufficient education, abuse, poverty, war and mental illness, demands that one restrain the blind imperative to act creatively or not, and instead look at everything anew and from an unprecedented vantage point. Let us tentatively call this perspective "selflessness" to make plain that it has nothing to do with the personal creativeness, even the genius, that are still part and parcel of a psyche corrupted by limited experience, ever insufficient knowledge, and the desire to attain particular meaning and value. Mozart, the composer, was indeed extraordinarily creative, genial, but Mozart, the man, clearly was not equally creative in his own personal life; a life which had, as most everyone else's, a heavy load of frivolity, conflict and suffering.

Not a trivial measure of equanimity comes into being once one leaves behind the illusion that one is, or may somehow become, the depositary of a great creative gift that will be instrumental in the development or unification of humanity. And in this quiet mental space arises a question of supreme importance: Is there a mode of existence and action not based on the limited experience, knowledge, skill and talent that make up the self-centered psyche? Granting that the experience and knowledge necessary to carry out practical or professional tasks must be retained, the presumed knowledge by the self of the self, others, and life at large (and all action based on such knowledge), is now attentively but passively perceived as largely false and, therefore, unnecessary; often terribly harmful.

The understanding that there is no distinction to be made between the self that perceives and the self that is critically perceived, (and hence subject to actions of gradual development or to the absurd conceit of eventual transcendence), is in itself freedom from the multiple impositions and commitments determined by culture and one's own personal experience and desire. There is no difference, within the psyche, between the perceiver and the perceived; no difference between he who experiences and what is experienced; no difference between the thinker and his thoughts.

And just as there is no subject and object in the psyche, there is no significant difference either between the self and others, or between the self and the fragmented and chaotic world created by this general mental trap. Creativity, well considered, is not an attribute of the conditioned and separate self, as mind is not an attribute of the human brain. Which leaves us with the unanswerable question of whether this brain, emptied of the unnecessary content of human consciousness, can be taken over, as it were, by the universal mind, the unfathomable creativity of life and death as a whole. (212)

If a human being has had her mind wiped clean of unnecessary psychological knowledge, belief, and desire by an insight about the inherent aberration of a divided and alienated consciousness trapped within a provincial cultural enclave-what then remains? To what degree and in what respects does she still remain a human being?

Language would have to remain because without it relationship would be not be possible, and without relationship life itself is not possible. However, one may presume that this psychologically and culturally unconditioned individual would not be trapped in her own words or easily fooled by those of others. That is, such a person would be fully aware that the images and ideas (the knowledge) that words convey are not facts, but only relatively adequate means to communicate or refer to facts.

It can also be assumed that the deprogrammed brain would be fully able to use thought in order to perform a practical function in society and thus earn a living. No longer involved in being or becoming anything psychologically-with all the effort and emotional upheaval that that entails-the operation of thought is now restricted to whatever function the basic survival of the organism may require. And because it is no longer obsessively self-reflective, nor engaged in any effort to change or improve itself, (though it may still have a job or some other type of occupation), the selfless person will never again suffer protracted conflict with itself or with others. (213)

The more you want, the less you have. Desire engenders, not satisfaction, but more and more unfulfilled-perhaps unrealizable-desires. It is not that a particular person has certain specific desires, but rather that a particular set of desires, along with their concomitant fears, gives shape or creates a particular person. We are not individuals then, but rather specific configurations of a common, species-wide, craving for pre-determined things and experiences: money, power, prestige, knowledge, security, beauty, and absurd images and ideas of the self and a life (and afterlife) ambitiously assumed by the naive to be the height of "spirituality". (214)

What can be seriously called a "good life" is good not because it has attained lots of exclusive pleasures and signs of status, but rather because-while quite capable of enjoyment-it is free of desire. A truly good life is good because it does not strive for the realization of predetermined physical and psychological pleasures. It is good because it is free of the inner turmoil created by contradictory impulses, and free of conflict and competition with others chasing after the same or opposing goals. A truly good life is what it is because it is free of the fear that any given ambition may not come to fruition, and equally free from the threat of possible negative consequences resulting from the realization of unwise desires. (215)

The end of psychological desire implies the end of the progressive mental time created to gradually become a better, more successful or saintlier person. Anything that can be thought of as a desirable goal for the psyche is now perceived, not only as a senseless delusion with great potential for internal and inter-personal conflict, but also as the particular manner in which the greedy and apprehensive alienation of the self strengthens and prolongs itself. This realization that the self-centered psyche is not something of enormous intrinsic value that can be interminably improved upon, is its instantaneous death-the ending of mental time as ambition, fear, violence and sorrow. (216)

In the interpersonal and inter-group conflicts of human beings there is really no question of right and wrong. There is only the immature inanity of different personal and cultural programs battling one another because they are incapable of intelligent and, hence, caring cooperation. And in the intra-psychic conflicts of a particular person, there is equally no right and wrong. There are just contradictory opinions and desires coexisting within the same mental programming and fruitlessly struggling for preeminence and some pre-established illusion of future order.

The strong emotional reactions we have to others and to our multiple mental components and often jarring intra-psychic events, only serve to keep the whole chaotic psycho/social system going. Because the self is inseparable from the limited and prejudiced mental conditioning from which all his reactions emerge, nothing he does ever leads to fundamental change. Thus, the only truly significant action implies a radical break with the past and any modified version of the future this same past might imagine. (217)

Once experience, knowledge, and faith-based sources of personal identity are put aside as limited and dangerous, melancholy may still be a powerful presence in the psyche. This is a clear sign that unconscious or half-conscious ideals and desires are still active and, therefore, that inner contradiction continues to sap the psycho-somatic energy without which passive and clear vision of things as they are, is impossible. There is still abhorrence of the fact of psychological insignificance and impotence and, consequently, a deeply set unwillingness to see that a definitive solution to our plight, personal and collective, will never come from greater control through superior knowledge or belief. The slightest sense of depression and resistance is clear indication, therefore, that one is still looking to find an illusory escape; one ratifying the presumed value and capacity of the self and, thus, also enabling its open-ended continuity.

If there is really no way out, no real time elapsing along one's way to gradual self fulfillment and, for that reason, nothing yielding a sense of personal significance now or in the future, sadness is not-as mentioned before-a possible reaction. Having to deal daily with the economic and interpersonal pressures of survival in an increasingly violent and disorderly world certainly continues to be a challenge, but since self-aggrandizement through success and approval is no longer an imperative goal, there is really nothing, psychologically or interpersonally, to be frustrated or sad about.

The state of a mind free of the stresses of particular being and becoming, is not some form of dull conformity, and much less license to give free reign to the baser appetites of the conditioned pre-personal mind. But, let us be clear, it serves no purpose to merely try to imagine what this state might be. One must actually come to the point in which it is absolutely rational and necessary to never again think about the personal and collective future in terms of modified variations of the past. Only such negative action is coherent with the fact that we have not a shred of evidence proving that thought is capable of putting an end to the sorrow stemming from chronic problems that thought itself has never stopped creating and recreating. (218)

Unless there is a radical change in the mind and heart of a critical number of individuals-sufficient to somehow sway all the rest-it is clear that the quality of life for a significant majority will continue to deteriorate until the survival of the human species becomes impossible, as it already has in the case of untold numbers of other species. This radical psychological change must, in order to yield wise action, substitute the egotistical furthering of exclusive and extravagant material and ideological interests with a total concern for the physical and mental health of everyone. Only a fundamental shift of interest from personal and tribal ambitions, to the well-being of life on this Earth, indicates real change.

At this point in historical time most of us continue tethered to our respective backgrounds and traditions and rigidly committed to the methods and goals they prescribe, ultimately in utter disregard for the fate of other people, other species, our own particular societies, institutions and families, and future generations of our own species. We seem almost constitutionally incapable of harmonizing our energies so that we may naturally and unequivocally act in a manner commensurate with the enormity of the global challenges with which we are all confronted. Most of us seem either unaware that there is a problem at all, or are paralyzed by fear and, thus, remain clinging to the bogus safety of what is familiar and of immediate interest. It terrifies us to look at the entire problem of human insanity and suffering, for once its enormity and complexity as well as its root in the individual psyche become apparent, we are left without a clue of what to do. Thus, we generally escape the problem altogether or merely participate in trying to find a gradual solution to some particular situation carved out of this immense tragedy of humanity. It is too unsettling to see the full extent and depth of the general problem of violence and sorrow perpetuating itself through oneself as a particular embodiment of the egocentric conditioning common to all humankind. And it is even more unsettling, perhaps, to realize that given the source of the problem, there is not-nor will there ever be-a predetermined and desirable, thought-out, solution to it.

Nevertheless, a huge mental revolution does take place when one no longer avoids the realization that we are this phenomenon of "wall to wall" mental programming and that it is, therefore, insane to continue expecting relevant change from actions determined by the same programming. To stop projecting oneself through pigheaded dreams and futile reactions means that the ego center of the psyche that has forever lived convinced of his separate existence and its capacity for self improvement and social reformation, has gone out of existence.

In the mind that is free enough to see completely and with total accuracy, all the projects, reforms and revolutions the "me" had historically undertaken in order to have something to be and do, have now collapsed taking down with them the possibility of any future ones. It has become obvious that given the fragmented, conflictive and enormously complex character of the problem of mental conditioning, no particular traditional approach can possibly even see it correctly, let alone formulate and implement an adequate solution. Once particular political, intellectual, artistic, scientific and religious endeavors are seen as just superficially different manifestations of the same ethnocentrism and self-centeredness conditioning and fragmenting the mind of the species, they are promptly disregarded as utterly incapable of dealing with the central challenge at hand. There is then no moving away from the problem of human sorrow, not only because there is nowhere to go but, essentially, because there is no one there who could escape from it. The self is limitation and disorder, conflict and sorrow. There is nothing anyone can do about it. (219)

Everything seems to be breaking apart. Under the centrifugal spell of discordant and ever multiplying beliefs, interests and anxieties, people drift apart or fight one another. The cultural atomization of the world is reaching its paroxysm and in that context the "I", true to character, decides it must do whatever is necessary to maintain its sense of who she is and is supposed to become, and this often while simultaneously attempting to help reach some sense of social order and unity. In this on-going reflexive reaffirmation of identity, again and again we reach back into the old bag of personal and tribal experience with the desire to repackage and spread to others something one is familiar and comfortable with. Inevitably, they resist us with the same force with which we attempt to conquer them.

Let us assume for a moment that one has fully seen the futility of resisting the general system and has, therefore, actually abandoned any and all partisan allegiance; what is the next step then? Is one to eventually succumb once again to the aggressive domination of the biggest economic, political and governmental powers as they take hold of every forum and aspect of culture and expand through the eagerly receptive minds and imitative behaviors of one's young? Is one to actively resist at least some elements of this torturing onslaught and in the process turn one's mind, and the minds of one's children, into battlefields where everyone is wounded over and over before being finally destroyed without a sign of redemption? Or would one be better off, perhaps, seeking refuge in one of many available religious and cultural sanctuaries and there-in the very womb of alienated illusion-pretend that the risk has passed because now one is finally feeling somewhat safe and "right"? Is this all that can occur? Or is there a radically different possibility-one that involves no exclusive choice-whereby the entire mental system that brings about separation and conflict in the individual psyche irreversibly dissolves?

Clearly, without psychological separation there would be no particular identity demanding protection and expansion at all cost. Would the psyche suddenly emptied of its particular content including the "I" as its bogus and self-projective integrating principle, become disorganized and ultimately crash in some horrendous form of insanity? Or would something entirely unrelated to experience and knowledge, and therefore radically new and ever flowering emerge in and through the now impersonal brain?

The problem we instantly find with this possibility of a choice-less psyche is, (funny enough, isn't it), that it does not offer a predetermined goal, a defined methodological trajectory and a given time to go from point A to point B. Nor does it provide a definite statement of what this point B might be. There is, clearly, no known and gradual path leading the conditioned "I" to a foreseeable or discernible position of unconditioned "non-I". Either one is a separate and suffering being trying to stop the pain and sorrow through any available means, or one is not. There is no in-between sequence of states and no chance of an intermittent self, as it were, a self flickering between schismatic, hostile, egotism, and beatific emptiness, wisdom and love. Either the separate "I" is or is not there. Any attempt to go from one to the other is mere pretense, a mere change in camouflage, for the wishful implementation of epidermic changes merely pushes the egotistical self along while simultaneously masking the fact that absolutely nothing has changed in any relevant manner.

So, where does all this leave us? There has been the realization that one is conditioned in a general biological, zoological and human way, as well as in a particular, personal, manner -(as most everyone else also seems to be). And even though the mere idea that there might be nothing one can do to break, modify, or alter that fact is abhorrent to thought, thought itself has now gone beyond the mere idea of impotence and is intensely aware of mental conditioning as an irreducible, inescapable fact. Any attempt to change the programming of the psyche through new experience, new learning or new action, will merely extend and add new layers to the same old programming. An impassable wall has been reached; a wall that in impeding any further positive or negative self-identification and self-projection, negates the separation between the contents of the psyche and the "I", and the notion of the latter's presumed capacity to do something about the whole situation.

All that remains, then, are these memory contents mechanically reacting at every moment to the stimuli and challenges presented by life. However, now the built-in mechanism that would attempt to defend, change, expand, or contradict this content and its endless reactions, is no longer operative. The whole mental process is timelessly and passively perceived; perceived without incurring in further pre-determined re-actions intended to change or maintain anything in oneself or in others, now or in the future.

This ending of the controlling psychological machinery of thought projecting itself in time does not include, of course, the realms of functional action in which reason and logic are absolutely necessary. Not to be obsessed about oneself does not involve dying of hunger or no longer understanding and obeying the conventions of language, vehicular traffic or the Internet. The individual continues to live in the natural and social world just as these worlds are, but through an extraordinary mutation the brain/mind is no longer fighting itself and others in the futile attempt to reach successive idealizations of itself. The psychological future no longer exists threatening or rosy as it may be imagined. Challenges are responded to as they arise, never postponed, so that there is absolutely no waste of energy and no incomplete action. (220)

The action of setting aside pseudo-solutions (past, present and future) to the problem of alienation, conflict and suffering, radically alters the function of the brain/psyche by obliterating the psychological background and projected "future-ground" that shapes the separate identity of the self and sustains its ongoing pursuit of possession and status as a means to psychological security. Because thought has of its own accord stopped trying to escape from its own reality through the acquisition of position and privilege, it is now restricted to the realm of practical function where, only when opportune, it continues performing the type of logically sequenced actions necessary to attend to the fundamental needs of the physical organism in cooperation with other human beings, and within the strictures of the physical world.

The possibility of human existence free of the conflicts, limitations and delusions inherent in the predominance of self-centered thought, might be immediately captured by anyone paying serious attention, not strictly to the arguments presented here, but to the realities to which they refer. However, most of us are quite unwilling to take even a rapid glance towards the facts of our day-to-day life. The most common objection is that, if not plain preposterous, the whole notion selflessness is far too impractical given that it does not offer any discernible personal, political, intellectual, spiritual, or material pay-off. Still others feel that the possibility of a psychologically timeless human presence is irrelevant in the context of urgently needed social change and personal improvement, or that since yielding to a veritable mutation of the brain/mind is an unlikely option for most people, it is meaningless as a solution to the problem of human suffering, even if it happens to be total and prompt. In other words, either the problem of alienation, conditioning and suffering does not exist or it does, to some extent, but is already in process of being solved by conventional, time-honored methods promising that the "good guys" will ultimately prevail over you know who. If heard from the habitual context of thought, any presentation of the fact that the only real solution to the problem of human suffering must begin with the complete eradication of the self, sounds insanely non-traditional, (which of course it is), and too difficult (which it may or may not be) and, therefore, not deserving of serious attention.

At any rate, beyond a certain point it is irrelevant to insist with this whole line of reasoning, or to try and improve its persuasiveness because, in this crucial matter, it is really only up to every individual to go beyond the words and actually verify if what is being said matches up or not with the actual facts of his or her life and the reality of our world as it is shaped day by day by the nature of our relationship with one another. It is only these psychological, social and historical realities, and not the argumentation that alludes to them, that have the power to shake the brain free of the limitations imposed on it by psychological and cultural experience and knowledge.

No one can see for you that the self is the constellation of unfounded opinions, habits and beliefs blocking, among other crucial things, any perception that would shake its foundations to the point of bringing its own thought-full continuity to an end. Only you can see that it is absurd to continue believing that even though things may be rather bad now, with enough work, money, new learning, cutting edge technology, creativity, military or divine intervention, they will certainly improve in the imagined (worldly or otherworldly) future. Only you can see that self-centeredness cannot be trusted to eventually come around to finding an enlightened solution to self-centeredness.

If the falseness of the reasons given for not simply facing the fact of one's alienated and suffering self-centeredness is properly seen, then the truth of the matter shines through bright and unavoidable. Either one continues to live in the darkness of cultural and personal ghettoes, or one breaks away without knowing what will happen next and without worrying about it. A brain/psyche conditioned to think it can solve all problems, abhors confronting one where this capacity does not apply, but keen awareness of just this fact allows for an observation of fact that is no longer being tampered by the conditioning. (221)

Many who have first hand experience on the matter, confess that the process of aging is one of gradual disappearance. This gradual loss of power and status, first in the eyes of others and then in the aging person's own eyes, is usually frustrating and painful. But, if well understood, it can also be an extraordinary opportunity for the flowering of an all-inclusive sensitivity. Attentiveness is an intense, moment-to-moment witnessing of the interpenetration of the intra-psychic, the social and the natural worlds. Because it is all-inclusive, attention is also passive; it does not issue either positive or negative judgment, nor does it project itself through the craving or avoidance implicit in all pre-determined desire, will and action. Clearly, when one is actively issuing criticism or praise and wanting or not wanting, liking or not liking this, that, or the other, frustration, anxiety and other similar reactions block the always new and immediate opportunity for direct and complete perception of whatever might be going on around/within one, that every instant grants.

One cannot, however, desire to become attentive, because that implies making a mental construct representing attentiveness and making the effort deemed necessary to attain it, all of which indicates contradiction and invites inner conflict. Attentiveness cannot be desired as a potential remedy to whatever may be causing pain, for the simple reason that every problem and every instance of psychological pain represents the almost permanent lack of this kind of attention, the chronic problem of the self-centered mind caught in its own thoughts and, therefore, habitually resisting or craving according to pre-set preference. All one can do, then, is to pay attention to what is actually happening, and that rather often is inattentiveness.

Existing only in the present, attention constitutes the end of the speculative back and forth of thought tirelessly traveling between memories of the past and fears or expectations regarding the future. If the traditional experience of growing old involves a permanent yearning for what has been lost and constant fear or hope regarding what the future may bring, it may be safe to say that the attentive mind-in its ever-fresh awareness of everything-is one that never grows old, as creation never grows old. (222)

You call me a cynic for negating the value of faith and hope? -Don't you see that your particular belief contradicts and opposes the faith and hope of many others in the same way that theirs contradict and oppose yours? Don't you see that all the violence in the world is the result of competing and opposed dreams and ambitions fighting amongst themselves? Do you call me a misanthrope because I do not subscribe to any ideal, or is it because you feel that in not endorsing your particular view of a better future I effectively block it, albeit passively? Or, is it perhaps because you have the unwarranted suspicion that I actively oppose your ideal with one of my own? (223)

Is it true that a common sense of inner poverty or outright emptiness motivates in all of us an equally common need to seek consensus and self-realization? Feeling insufficient and vulnerable inside, and trained since early childhood to compete and excel as if superior performance was needed to justify existence, many of us spend a quarter of our lives honing skills, and then the rest endlessly struggling to make others believe we are, at least in some way, better than them. What else could account for the supremacy of exclusive ambition over cooperation in human affairs, despite the innumerable problems that ambition engenders?

Unsurprisingly, to see fear, greed and violence as actual facts and to understand their source and consequences, makes one immune to the allure of particular political parties, commercial interests, religious creeds, and other institutions and movements, fomenting with their peculiar paths of "upward mobility" nothing but greater greed and fear, and more refined violence.

Many of us are relatively aware of the dangers of ambition in any realm, and yet remain convinced that unless we run the rat race with whatever ruthlessness may be required to succeed, we shall not be allowed to survive. We either rationalize our personal greed, or dissimulate it through docile subservience to that of others happy to further their extravagant interests by taking our precious life energy and scarce time in exchange for a salary and, perhaps, the bogus satisfaction of being of service to "higher" priorities. So, it takes more than simply not wanting the wealth, power and privilege of others to de-condition the mind. It takes not being afraid of the consequences of resolutely abandoning a heartless and mindless project of personal self-realization. The trap of a fragmented "civilization" will cease to exist, only when fear and ambition stop fueling its operation in the mind of individual human beings. (224)

We live in the iron grip of what we think of as our personal, relational and social problems, and the most sensitive and intelligent amongst us strive mightily-but in different and often contradictory or clumsily redundant ways-to find solutions to at least some of these problems. Not surprisingly, these solutions often generate new problems without quite solving the old ones, thus gradually drawing the noose tighter and tighter around everyone's neck. It rarely dawns on us that thought itself, the very content, structure and dynamics of the psyche, might be the source of all our problems. And, so, we generally remain firm in the absurd belief that the same mental setup responsible for creating the psychological and social diseases we suffer from, is the agent of our recovery.

Again we ask, does this perception of the incapacity of thought indicate that all is lost for the human species? This question can only be answered by very tentatively affirming the possibility of an entirely different human mode of partaking of existence; one that uses thought as a practical tool, but is not dependent on it for a (false) sense of exclusive identity and security in psychological and ethnocentric separation. Now, the only way to test whether this possibility is real and not just another pie-in-the-sky fool's errand, involves giving total priority to an independent and direct, (not theoretical) examination of the inherent flaws and limitations of thought-one's own self-centered thought, not someone else's. If freely, immediately and completely carried-out, this examination is in itself the ending of the unnecessary memories and projections on which the egotistical self depends for its existence.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the only possible future of humanity depends on finding a definitive end to the self-centered mental process; a process that maintains itself through an extraordinarily strong mechanical drive to implement exclusive (personal and cultural) and, therefore, antagonistic and ultimately always inadequate solutions to the general problem of suffering. And, yet, even though it may appear quite sensible, this proposition of the self coming to an end remains for most of us, terrifying. Given that psychological and social progress with all its attendant heartaches and labors is our identity and our very sense of existence, we resist seeing it for the illusion it is. We resist seeing who we are because to do so is to die. But, having come this far, this fear might now be tempered by a growing sense of the futility of our efforts and the inescapable pettiness of our self-serving lives.

The silencing of thought in the realm of social, intellectual or "spiritual" being and becoming, presumes then an extraordinarily resolute probe into the self and society-a probe not encased in any known or newly created ideological pattern or preferred outcome-and therefore capable of seeing everything without reacting to it in any conceivable way. In this silent observation in which the psyche is no longer attempting to move from one version of what it knows to another, or from one ambition to another, something entirely different may manifest; something entirely different in the sense of not being within the measure of the mind conditioned by experience and knowledge.

It is absurd then to try to imagine anything, or even to wait for anything to happen-not only because there is no guarantee that anything will happen-but also and more importantly, because any expectation implies fear and a consequent unreasonable desire based on a pre-determined sense of the future and an equally predetermined activity chosen and, perhaps, slightly modified to reach what is now desired while avoiding what is not. And what is being posed here is, instead, the possibility of a total end to the process of personal becoming and, consequently, the emptying of all past, present, or future mental content as it relates to the self, others and reality as a whole. Perhaps we could call it: "attentive not-knowing". (225)

Thought has created all the knowledge, technology, architecture and artifacts that make up our world. It has also created the myriad cultural forms, the norms, mores and beliefs to which different people subscribe, and thus set themselves apart from others in a never changing stance of general competitiveness and overt or covert hostility. This permanent splintering of the species along cultural and historical lines, has its roots in a psyche conditioned to cover-up a common sense of insecurity with different forms of trumped-up identity conferring a sustained but false sense of security and certainty.

Just as different nations and cultural traditions have an exclusive historical perception of what they are; different persons also distinguish themselves from others, even within the same tradition, by reference to a particular, personal, history with its own past, present and future. But the memories we each use to claim a separate and continuous existence, are necessarily embedded in a given social and cultural context with deep roots in both impersonal human experience and the massively denied matrix of the manifest and non-manifest universe. In fact, our general cultural conditioning as well as our inscription in the less structured and far less evident pre-personal and biological past of the species, is infinitely more important than the fiction we each make of our presumably unique personal identity and seemingly independent existence. Again, by contrast to the depth and importance of what is common to all of us, (the material world and within it the total experience of the species capped by the uniform reach of diverse cultural conditioning), what we each chose to call "myself" is truly insignificant.

There is, then, no significant distinction that can be made between "me" and the rest of humanity and its chaotic circumstances. Nor is there any significant difference to be made between "you" and "I", or between "us" and "them". And, perhaps still more significantly, there is nothing anyone (or any particular group or institution) can do to end the misery that results from not ever wanting to come face to face with this common reality of ours.

Now, if there is no licit claim that can be made to an independent act of psychological (or for that matter, physical) existence, then all that remains is the tragedy of a terribly atomized humanity drunk with the delusion of progress distilled out of innumerable contradictory hopes, each articulated by particular historical and ideological contents and projected onto the future by proprietary authorities and methods, and a seemingly irrepressible will to exclusive fulfillment.

What occurs to the particular psyche when it becomes apparent that the cultural and personal past and the basic drives, instincts, fears and hopes of the pre-personal/trans-personal past of the species, is common to all? Does an essential and uniquely pressing question not arise at this point? Is there nothing more to life than this inconsequential self who is either indifferent to the ancient valley of tears of human experience, or absurdly obsessed with draining it with its own resources and expertise, its own puny little spoon? (226)

In terms of personal experience and personal knowledge, we are who we are, and whatever we may become in terms of new experience and new learning is merely an addition to what is already there and not a significant improvement-let alone its complete substitution or dissolution. It is in this sense that can be said that all time is encapsulated in the present: What observes, thinks, feels, and desires now, is the past; and in so far as the future is the object of predetermined and pre-imagined desires, the future is also the past, perhaps with some slight modification through relatively minor additions or subtractions effected in a present almost entirely high-jacked for that purpose. Therefore, within the field of thought as mental time, there is never any relevant change, only old images and ideas rehashing themselves through minor modifications. Consequently, a truly revolutionary change-an unprecedented mutation that would end division and conflict and thus safeguard the ecological integrity of the planet and, within it, our survival as a species-must necessarily originate outside the field of experience, knowledge, motive, will, and desire typical of conditioned thought.

Since revisions and amendments to the historical past have not deeply changed the human psyche in the sense of terminating the fearful and violent self-centeredness and the consequent cultural fragmentation, it would be foolish to expect such change to emerge gradually and from the same corrupt source. The question is, then, can personal becoming-the illusory process of self-projecting thought- come to an end, now?

You may already be getting the hang of this line of argumentation but, just in case, let us ask again why must this ending happen in one fell swoop and not sometime in the future? -And the answer is, simply because in this context graduality is in itself the insufficient perception and constant procrastination of self-centered continuity, the illusion of personal and tribal progress in mental time that is responsible for separation and suffering in the first place. Thus, an immediate and complete insight revealing the futility of anything that may be projected psychologically onto the future is, in itself, the ending of the egotistical self. The pre-imagined psychological or cultural future-any pre-imagined future-is always the insufficient modification whereby the conditioned psyche extends itself in time, thus creating and animating the general political, economic, religious, and cultural projects that endlessly regenerate the plight of humanity under the pretense of being their solution.

If you happen to be raising the objection that there may be nothing beyond the experience/knowledge-based personal mind and the prickly cultural enclaves this mind creates and inhabits, please consider that this very reaction might be coming from the same conditioned fear that energizes the actions of the self and agglutinates the members of every cultural group in their self-righteous opposition to others who are doing the same exact thing within their own mental ghettoes. This fear of personal insignificance comes, of course, from our habitual attachment to particular ideas, things, persons, institutions and social movements, and it only dissolves without either sorrow or effort, when the tragic nature of the whole mental set-up is clearly seen. Freedom is no longer then license to think, say and to do as you like but, rather, no longer bearing the weight of unnecessary particular memory, fear, obsessive obligation and unwise desire. Freedom is freedom from the self.

If the realization of the futility of the self-centered process of thought, constitutes the end of this process what, if anything, occurs after that? This is, clearly, not a matter that thought can entertain-as it obviously would want: "Just let me know what the pay-off is and I'll give this proposition of coming to an end some serious attention." Self-centered thought does not do anything, much less come to an end, unless a pre-determined and notably improved state of being (state of mind) is promised if not guaranteed. Thus, the reflex formulation of any pre-established motive or goal justifying the ending of the self, instantly reveals that nothing has really changed. Change in this context implies no further chapters in the continuous saga of the self chasing after progressively higher goals of self-improvement, either in this world or in an imagined future one. (227)

No matter what one may own, believe, or plan to do in order to control personal and social circumstances, the future is always uncertain. We all need to have, tomorrow, some food and a roof over our head, and so everyone diminishes-at least to some extent-this general uncertainty by doing whatever might be required to take care of the basic needs of the organism. However, since the demands flowing out of psychological uncertainty and insecurity are immense, much of our thinking, time and effort is dedicated to somehow respond to them, often at the expense of the material needs of the organism. In fact, those of us fortunate enough to have our basic needs fairly well taken care of, seem to invest most of our energy in the pursuit of different forms of preferential status and pleasure. This, without realizing to what extent our material excesses and ludicrous flights of fantasy increase the physical vulnerability of many others whose misery almost never fails to come back to haunt us in largely unexpected and violent ways. Witness if not the current phenomenon of terrorism, a term coined by hypocrites who would have everyone believe that their religious fundamentalism, their aggressive cultural and economic policies and their brutal military actions are not designed to dominate, exploit and terrorize others. All forms of violence, (and there is many, many of them), stem from the same mental conditioning afflicting all of us. Violence is not an act, but a form of being. Violence is the very psychological and cultural separation of what we take to be our existence; the reflex desire with which every individual and every tribe attempts to defend and expand at any cost the illusory claims and advantages with which it identifies.

Because alienation and suffering is an intrinsic and largely unquestioned aspect of the psyche, we generally subscribe to (or personally create) different forms of hope promising some degree of deliverance. And yet, even these desires for some form of certainty and security, carry with them the seed of sorrow. Not only because they are in contradiction with the hopes of others, but also because whatever expectation we may have regarding future psychological gain, carries with it the fear that it may not come to pass or that-if realized-it might be subsequently lost. Who does not live hounded by conscious or unconscious fears of isolation, humiliation and punitive dispossession; fears closely related to the desire to be loved, respected and admired as if one were somehow special, different and better than others?

Because we not always achieve everything we want, (to put it mildly), and because we never get to keep for very long that which we may have managed to attain, we are constantly in a state of anxiety, fear, anger or outright pain. Thus, to ask if there is a way of being human in which one is not attached to anything and never intent on achieving greater status or power, is also to ask if there is a life free of fear, hurt and conflict.

When this question is formulated, one may feel that to stay with familiar ills and fears is far better than risking a seemingly horrifying hollowing out of the self. Or one may, instead, instantly assume that the imperious greed of others would soon destroy whatever would be left of one once no longer defending or striving for anything of predetermined psychological or social value. But seldom do we take stock of how impoverished, restless and dangerous our present lives already are, with most everyone aggressively reaching for a false sense of exclusive security in whatever is not presently possessed, experienced, or realized. We have no idea of what it would mean to live a life in which an easily accepted material and psychological austerity grants freedom from anxiety, anger, frustration and melancholy.

We are terrified of not being anything and yet it is plain to see that we are already not much more than puffed-up bubbles obsessed with flying higher and higher propelled by the inane belief that we are indeed something; something permanently in the process of becoming better, far more important, more knowledgeable, wealthier or far wiser than others; others who are also hoping to attain some of the same but in contrast with us and, perhaps, at our expense. (228)

Having realized that just about everyone is desperately looking for some form of status and privilege, is it not absolutely foolish to continue to desire the same? This, not only because-given the competition-it is unlikely that one will achieve and retain anything for very long. Nor because such ambition might turn out to be too much of a rough ride. But mainly because it implies a total disregard of other less fortunate human beings, criminal collaboration in the gang rape of the biosphere and, finally, a moronic indifference to the beckoning mystery of life and death itself.

To question the ever expansive perdurability of the egotistical self does not, in itself, warrant anything other than the possibility of seeing things as they really are, but that alone-the gift of clear and honest sight-might more than warrant leaving everything else aside. For it is only when one is no longer just another mad rat competing in the species-wide race towards obscene respectability and unnecessary wealth, that the viciousness and absurdity of this race becomes apparent. It is only when one is no longer a believer of any creed, that the contradictory multiplicity and sheer nonsense of all structured and unstructured religious belief becomes apparent. And it is only when one is no longer a citizen of any nation, that the parochialism and often homicidal and suicidal tendencies of patriotism become obvious.

The fear, the suffering and the ultimate futility implicit in the need to identify with something greater than oneself and of permanently striving to become something one is inherently not, is only apparent to a mind aware of its own conditioning. And it is only this awareness that can eliminate the double illusion of freedom and the presumed capacity for-and the right to-self-fulfillment. And since anyone's conditioning is essentially that of the entire human species, any individual who stops attempting to escape his part in the general mess, is literally flooded with the direct vision of the totality of human suffering and sorrow and, hence, utterly beyond himself. The end of personal sorrow is this impersonal capacity to see things as they are and vice-versa. (229)

The perception that there is no division between the "me" and the rest of the conditioned psyche ends mental time because it destroys the notion that the "me" can significantly improve itself. Alienated and self-centered limitation cannot ever improve or overcome itself. How could what is intrinsically conditioned, de-condition itself? And how could what is inherently limited improve by adding to or subtracting from itself?

Clearly, the only relevant change for any individual, and for humanity as a whole, would be the ending of the conditioned separation underlying the entire mental operation of the human brain. But-and here lays the central difficulty-while this may represent a correct assessment of the root problem and of its only real solution, it is erroneous to project the actual de-conditioning of the human brain/psyche as if it were a goal attainable through the exercise of thought, desire, and will. If there is nothing we can do directly about who we are, what then will penetrate our thick defensive walls to dissolve our separation and heal our pain? Is this an adequate question, or is the very posing of it an indication of having missed the point? (230)

Looking at the intensity and pervasiveness of human discontent and its concomitant yearning for deliverance in a million different and contradictory ways, one wonders if there is not deep in the brain a natural inclination or movement towards something utterly beyond the measure and reach of thought. One may wonder about this and yet, out of habit and convenience, continue attempting to satisfy this strange mental hunger for the unthinkable, with false alternatives mediated by cultural and personal memory/desire. The self-centered and self-projecting psyche is, in fact, the permanent struggle to reach small-minded and self-serving goals, all along mistakenly assuming these goals to be (or to lead to) that inconceivable reality darkly and universally sought by something deep and impersonal in the brain. In the conventional human being, wealth, pleasure and power impersonate the sacred.

However, when it becomes clear that the personalized psyche, (separate psychological memory with its exclusionary projections), cannot but block the manifestation of what we may want to call the totality, the sacred, or a state of non-duality, there is an immediate end to any effort to achieve a direct or mediated connection between the self and what is but an image or idea of the sacred. Sacredness implies, evidently, an actual totality, non-duality. And duality-the division that attains intra and extra-psychically between subject and object, the observer and the thing observed, the thinker and whatever is thought about-implies the denial of the totality. So, the whole or the sacred, if there is such a thing at all, could not possibly be something accessible to the separate self. (231)

Perhaps our greatest mistake is to conceive of the "I" as an independent agent sitting at the main switchboard of the mind and expertly determining every goal as well as the sequence of actions necessary for its realization. It is this illusion of gradually acquired freedom that weaves the unyielding fabric of our straightjackets and keeps tightening their many psychological and cultural belts. (232)

Do not be afraid to see yourself as pretty much identical to everyone else. Who could possibly be unique in a world where just about everyone thinks of himself as unique? And what are the odds of living a decent and peaceful life, let alone of "realizing" yourself if everyone else is equally attempting to attain financial, intellectual, social, moral and spiritual superiority? (233)

We seem to spend our lives asserting particular opinions over and against the opinions, positions and causes put forth and defended by others. More often than not internal conflict and interpersonal acrimony, and no discernible change or long lasting advantage, is all that accrues from our constant attempts to assert ourselves. And, yet, to let go of our preferences and particular views on things seems to most of us a fate akin to death, because our sense of particular existence rests squarely in our knowledge and preferences, our claims and conceits.

The immediate and irreversible disappearance of all one's overwrought financial, intellectual, ethical, aesthetic, professional, and religious or "spiritual" claims, motives and goals, implies-within the span of the physical life of a given human organism-the death of self-centered thought. A death that comes, not because one hopes it will unleash the manifestation of something totally other than what we have ever known or could possibly ever know, but rather from having punched through layers and layers of self-deception in order to simply see the truth in things as they are. A certain passive ignorance is infinitely more perceptive than any form or amount of experience and knowledge. (234)

There might be only one problem for human beings, one that subsumes and creates all others, and that is the problem of duality. For the "me", all others and the world at large appear as "not me". The existential chasm from which the universe of "not-me" is perceived breeds fear, and this fear generates in turn the mechanical and often violent efforts made to breach that anguished separation. Because of this separation, our lives are spent in a permanent and contradictory struggle between the urge to assert ourselves and a deep yearning for unity, or at least for a state in which the sharp limitations of the self would blur in deep relationship with someone or something else.

The enormity of "not-me" appears as an impersonal and largely indifferent, if not openly hostile, presence to the frail and thus forever threatened relative standing of the "me". We are generally convinced that this is the only possible state of affairs, that this existential separation is permanent and constitutes the essence of what it is to be human. The multiple forms taken by our separate sorrows and anxieties are seldom attributed to this tragic rupture of the human being from most everything else, and thus the solutions devised to assuage our psychological pain are, at best, insufficient-at worst, the source of ever increasing conflict and suffering.

It is commonly believed that one is a human being because "I" know myself to be different from others and, especially, different from the material world at large. One may realize that this sense of exclusive individuality is closely related to the pleasure, fear and pain I feel, but since that is all I know, the possibility that things could be totally different does not even surface. Like most everyone else, I just try to get by working as hard as I can to attain some measure of security, pleasure and status. However, this very effort to shore myself up psychologically creates, not only some distress in my own psyche as I compete and fret about losing what I may have already achieved, but also distress in others who, in a world of limited material resources and even more scarce psychological privilege, also fear the frustration of their own aspirations or, worse yet, the appearance of hard to meet challenges to their most fundamental survival needs.

When all this becomes evident not as a theory but as fact, the existential separation of the human being is suddenly unveiled as a catastrophic misunderstanding; a fundamental error of perception responsible for most human sorrow and, perhaps, also for blocking the realization of the possibly immense potential of the human brain within a non-manifest and, therefore, unthinkable dimension of being. Why is it that we feel that we look "out" from our eyes? Who is it that is looking, and out from what and into what?

Why is it that the sense of our own particular existence as discrete physical and psychological beings, seems to reduce or altogether negate that of the totality obviously containing and maintaining our own?

Trying to test my perception of these things, I look intently at the hill and the opening sky across the library room from where I write and, although I readily grant them their own existence and their independence from the process of perception and thought, their reality does not seem to be particularly relevant to mine. Strangely, their presence, (their "suchness" as some Buddhists like to say), seems to be lessened by that of mine. I feel isolated and, hence, fearful and needy. I close my eyes and suddenly the flowing presence of the totality of manifest and non-manifest being in contrast with the insignificance and vulnerability of what I think of as "my" self, makes me gasp with awe at the sheer immensity and unapproachable complexity of life as whole.

Because the idea of a particular act of existence-yours or mine-creates the need to justify, defend, maintain and expand its all-important reality, it also generates and suffers the idea of its unavoidable decline and final demise. The whole of existence, life as a whole, knows no degradation and no death, whereas both of these are the inexorable fate of any human being as well as of anything else that-by the mere touch of our pre-informed, limited and utilitarian intellect-gets torn away from the whole. We are generally unaware of simply not having the sensorial and cognitive capacity to perceive the totality. Nor are we generally aware that, in our self-preoccupied myopia, we construct largely false, multiple and contradictory realities composed of many separate things, us included.

To open one's eyes to the source of suffering, is to break ranks with tradition and question the assumption that to be a human being is to be, not primarily whatever the ever changing and unknowable infinity might be, but rather a clearly limited act of separate existence desperately trying to find a way out of its fearful isolation and certain death, while simultaneously and paradoxically asserting itself, literally, for dear life. (235)

Because thought is strictly the territory of the known and the desirable, any reaction based on a critical assessment of aspects of itself (of its psychological knowledge) leads inevitably to a modified projection of the same knowledge and to further, in fact endless, maneuvers of self-adjustment. In other words, if "I" do not like this or that in myself, I have no other recourse than to check memory files and see what prerecorded information may be spun forth to describe and then try to construct something better in the future. Certainly, one may also check someone else's memory or the collective memory (tradition) of the group(s) to which one belongs in order to effect the same kind of "progress", but there is no significant advantage to be gained from dependence on experts for all stored experience/knowledge is intrinsically limited and, therefore, equally biased and divisive.

We have to come to grips then with the fact that we are not anything other than the accumulation of what we have personally experienced, added to the knowledge we may have derived from the experience of others and the rather restricted social and psychological reality that has resulted from our joint application of that fragmented and often contradictory knowledge. Thus, to keep attempting to solve our personal and social problems with new versions of old (and mostly failed) solutions, is patently absurd.

If this much is clear, does one not stop robotically judging and reacting with previous knowledge to observations about oneself, others, and existence at large? If it is insane to keep hoping that human unity will be achieved someday by a particular group's ability to crush other groups' resistance through coercive assimilation or outright domination, does not the only real possibility of attaining unity and peace lies necessarily in something totally other than particular knowledge, belief and power? (236)

Thought has created and laboriously attempts to maintain and strengthen all the ideological walls that divide us. Thought has also created all the other problems we suffer from, and these include all the divisive, insufficient and outright false solutions created by the same mental process in response to them. As the contentious divisions deepen and multiply, and the problems become more and more complex and interrelated, could we think of something better to do than to keep piling on the pseudo solutions? Since separation, partiality, and graduality are all we know, we tend to stay within that realm even as we begin to see that our efforts-even the noblest of them-lead nowhere, and even as violence continues to lead to greater violence, and "peace initiatives" to new violent initiatives and new wars.

What are then the implications of a form of self-abnegation that freely and easily abandons reiterative thinking leading to wasteful and unproductive behavior? -There is first of all, an immediate abandonment of any commitment to anything in particular and, with that, an irreversible interruption of the continuity implicit in hope, identity and power. To effortlessly relinquish one's role in the hypothetical salvation of the world does not imply a renunciation to its possibility. It is merely the logical realization that such salvation cannot possibly come about through self-centered thought which is, by definition, provincial, divisive and, ultimately, source of nothing but further disorder and conflict. And since this insight is logical in the sense in which the best thinking can be logical, thought itself brings to an end without any trace of resistance the mechanical impulse to create and implement further knowledge and belief-based solutions to personal and social problems. By the same measure, thought then also restricts its operation to those areas in which it plays a relatively adequate and necessary role. In this manner, the mental movement of a personal past overriding the present in order to recreate itself in the future, can definitively end without endangering the physical or mental heath of the organism.

Further speculative verbalizations regarding this matter are useless. Whoever is keenly interested in passively observing the mind at work will simply and inevitably find herself confronting this blank wall of psychological non-existence standing at the end of psychological time. (237)

Having abandoned the claims of particular identification with country, social class, race, gender, age, education, profession, and faith, one may be still caught in trying to resist the vociferous manifestation of similar claims in others. This resistance naturally generates feelings of frustration, confusion, and anger which indicate, in turn, the need to go still further and abandon any remaining hope of being or achieving anything, including any intended impact on others. Nothing good can come from action related to sentiments of personal obligation and a sense-no matter how subtle-of superior personal knowledge or experience. And, certainly, nothing good can come from trying to influence others when failure to do so still brings about feelings of impatience or even rage. Exasperation or even mild annoyance are clear indication that one is trying to fix things from limited theoretical knowledge, fear, and the overt or covert motive of personal gain.

Is there an action not informed by the conditioned self as the remembered past, the interpreted present, and the desired or feared future? Do we see that unless there is an actual mutation in our brains, the future of humanity will necessarily be but a different expression of the same chaos and violence that has ruled the past, that rules the present and everlastingly threatens the future? Clearly, if nothing changes radically in the individual psyche today, the future of humanity will be but a slightly modified continuation of what it has always been.

Whatever we do from the memory-self as the source of action is but a reaction conditioned by self pity and a threatened sense of manifest destiny: "I must do this so that I can attain or become that". So can the psyche, your psyche and mine, be free of sorrow and fear first? And how could the psyche ever be free of sorrow and fear, if we are still trying to act from our memorized limitation and with the intent of satisfying the self-serving desires engendered by that limitation?

Having realized that any action motivated by regret, fear, and ambition is doomed to recreate the same conditions we already suffer from, can we (you and I) stay with the totality of human suffering without attempting to do anything about it? Would that not imply a total hallowing out of one's psyche and the consequent immediate, total and spontaneous simplification of one's life? Can the psyche be passively overwhelmed by a direct and total perception of human disorder and sorrow? And what will happen if we are indeed shocked and overwhelmed in this manner?

Is not this last question begging for a security guarantee? Does its appearance not reveal the unwillingness to actually plunge into a level of unfamiliarity that one might have only intellectually determined as most reasonable and necessary, but still not seen as an inexorable truth? (238)

What is it that one can look forward to if new instances of deliberately pursued sensory and status-related pleasure will just not do, and if there is no substantial psychological change that can be expected for all foreseeable future? If what I am now is, essentially, what I have been in the past and will continue to be in the future, then there is really nothing to look forward to. And if there is nothing radically different that the contents of "my" mind can licitly and meaningfully evolve into, then do "I" exist at all? Because what am I-and what are you-if not that paradoxical self that simultaneously wants change, resists change, and assumes executive responsibility for designing and implementing that same, illusory or inadequate, change?

One may make a lot of different decisions chosen among a great variety of options, but none of them can fundamentally wash away the manure that has accumulated over the years in the old subterranean stable that is the self. Consequently, one finally decides to simply stay with that fact. I am not different from the manure I have told myself must be either swept away, tolerated or admired and further accumulated. I am irrelevant; in and by myself I do not exist. It is the facts that are important and, as far as the self-centered psyche is concerned, these facts are a particular set of self-modifying memories and memorized instructions filling to capacity the ancient stable of the human mind; a stable that because it is filled with crap to capacity, occasionally dreams with the visit of a charitable Hercules. But then, what are these "facts" without me there insisting in changing or transcending them and so, merely assuring their mimetic continuity? (239)

Thinking is a brain function that has somehow appropriated-in the creation of the "I"-a fraudulent sense of separate existence and particular identity. This sense of distinct existence is perceived to be (or is attributed to) the durable presence of a central entity. But this entity, the "me", does not exist as anything other than a process of identification with a particular accumulation of sequential memories and their largely imaginary projection in mental time. This sense of there being an "I" who perceives, evaluates, and wills to be and become, is so powerful and so interconnected with actual sensations of the physical organism, that the general mental system has hardly any capacity to seriously challenge itself.

The presence of the "I" with all its peculiar discordances, nostalgias, yearnings, interpersonal conflicts and imperative claims and ambitions, drastically narrows down the over-all sensitivity and perceptual capacity of the organism. All of which, in turn, contributes to the personalized psyche's propensity to misread situations and thus react insufficiently and erroneously to them. But if this is at all apparent, to whom is it apparent? And, who is it that is going to do anything about it? (240)

What does one do when confronted with the general wretchedness of humanity and one's own mechanical cause-and-effect participation in its projection in time? How does one relate to others, especially those still unaware of violence and suffering as the inevitable consequence of psychological separation and cultural fragmentation? What does one do when it becomes evident that no human action is commensurate with the nature and magnitude of the problem? How does one prevent isolation and prevent the bitterness of melancholy, if not the burning acid of hatred, from taking over one's mind?

If what we know as the human condition cannot be changed from the inside, as it were, as the color of one's skin or the fact that the sun sets cannot be changed, then is any emotional or intellectual reaction to that fact warranted? Can one stay with the facts of our present existence without describing them in words and without seeking to escape from them in any way? And if there is no longer anything to identify oneself with and be passionate about, if all that is warranted is a passive but extremely alert perception of everything as it is, then who is the one observing the disorder, destruction and suffering characteristic of human existence? Does an all-inclusive observation of the totality of the human phenomenon without recourse to re-action informed by previously gathered psycho-cultural knowledge, have room and tolerance for a presumably discrete and independent psychological presence? Who is aware of the totality of human suffering, if that awareness-in negating the possibility of correct predetermined action-is in itself the only appropriate and sufficient action?

In other words, what happens to self-centered thought when there is a realization of its inconsequence regarding the truly essential issues of human life and death? Does that realization not stop its relentless attempt to escape from the problem, or to find a future solution to it? And if the process of thinking is no longer trying to do any of these things, is there a thinker? Finally, if there is neither thought nor thinker is there fear, is there suffering, is there death? (241)

Perhaps the most amazing fact about humanity is its lack of common ground. It is extraordinary how prone we human beings are to disagreement amongst ourselves, and to what extent the extremely high incidence of our discord leads either to paralytic isolation, or to wasteful and destructive conflict. So, it is not without some trepidation that I risk presenting below a few basic and intimately related general facts presuming that no person of reasonable good will and honesty would miss when called to see them, (these are not issues of agreement or disagreement): First, that humanity is fragmented along the lines of an ever increasing number of different (and generally antagonistic) cultural interpretations of personal, social, and existential reality, each with its own project to overcome irrelevancy and suffering. Second, that confusion, conflict and suffering are pervasive both socially and psychologically. And, third, that dominant cultural groups are generally gripped by the bizarre messianic intent of imposing their particular traits and phony solutions on other groups as the only "right" way of bringing about some measure of unity and peace in the species as a whole.

If you happen to see the realities to which these few basic statements refer, then we can push further and deeper, by saying that because we care about life and the future of humanity, you and I, have also come to see, first, that we make others suffer just as others make each one of us suffer, and that we feel psychological pain in the same measure that others do, and largely for the same reasons. Second, that way beyond whatever measure of pain and pleasure we may each feel, lies the immensity of human sorrow implicit in the isolation, loss, defeat, humiliation, accident, disease, aging, and death of billions of people across space and throughout historical time. Third, that, in one way or another, every individual reacts to the insecurity we all feel by fighting or competing with others for similar or divergent goods and honors presumed by all to be effective antidotes to dread, powerlessness, suffering and even the certainty of personal death. Fourth, that different cultural enclaves provide particular groups of people with a personal sense of importance and security (identity) that necessitates and maintains separation. Fifth, that each and every cultural and psychological demarcation has the general function of protecting the individual-you and I-from having to confront the general suffering of humanity directly and completely; that is, independently and without a trace of self-protective prejudice. Sixth, that it is through uninterrupted dependency on the traditions and authorities typical of particular cultural forms that individuals participate in the destruction of their own minds, because it is through fearfully hopeful submission to the limited and self-serving point of view of others that we desensitize ourselves to our own pain, to the pain of others, and to the terrible plight of the biosphere, victim of our destructive appetites.

We are both, you and I, stuck in being who we think we are, but there is sharp awareness of it now. It is finally clear that we are nothing more than the particular cultural and psychological contents of our psyches habitually moving forward in mental time through thought as desire in a permanent search for particular and exclusive (and, therefore illusory) forms of status and self-fulfillment that we hope will make us feel less irrelevant and more secure.

Now, to realize that the "I" is no different from the evolving contents of what each one of us calls "my" consciousness suggests, does it not?, the impossibility of adequate action and, therefore, the absolute necessity of an entirely different form of being in the world: A form of being in the world that cannot be characterized except by stating its freedom from the influence of predetermined images and ideas and, therefore, also from the stranglehold of desired or feared outcomes.

Because this mental freedom has neither memory nor predetermined intention, it has no continuity in time. In other words, it is a moment-by-moment presence that does not dip into memory to interpret and evaluate current mental, social or environmental events and that, consequently, does not add to memory as knowledge and desire. Freedom from the self implies intense impersonal attention to the mechanical reactions of the pre-programmed psyche itself and to what occurs in the thin-instant by instant-wave of interaction with others and life as a whole. Who are we now? What has occurred, if anything? (242)

The habitual waste of psychosomatic energy that characterizes the way we live, can be radically stemmed only if and when there is absolutely no advantage to be gained, psychologically or materially, from the kind of comparisons with others, (positive or negative), that are instrumental in constructing and energizing idealized projections of the self. It is patent now that any effort made to fight off or emulate the practical or theoretical example provided by others, will inevitably lead to greater mental disorder and further interpersonal or social conflict.

Energy wasted in old commitments or committed to new ones for future waste, is now energy that pools free of the fixed imprint and imperatives of self and culture. Such freedom cannot be taught or imitated by others. It can only be approached in negative terms through close examination of one's own actual lack of freedom. Freedom is what is left when the intent and effort to defend and assert the self has ended. It is what is left when the individual no longer embodies any particular tradition, cause, hope or faith. When anger, jealousy or envy are no longer the expression of self-conscious ambition and resistance, freedom is. When the willful pursuit of ever-greater pleasure and status has ended, bringing down with it the bitter and depressive aftermath of sequentially unfulfilled desire, freedom is.

Highly energetic but passive, timeless, and all-inclusive perception-what Jiddhu Krishnamurti called choice-less attention-carries no sorrow, no regret, no fear, no expectation, absolutely no illusion. Effortlessly stripped of all its particularities and the monumental effort necessary to maintain, defend, expand, or modify these particularities, the self has succumbed to a radically new state of high energy characterized by clarity and impersonal objectivity.

Freedom from the double illusion of separation and psychological time, ends all forms of resistance and conflict. Thought shrinks back then to being a mere function of the brain that deals impersonally with the practical issues of existence only whenever that is what is called for, remaining in all other respects silent. (243)

Psychologically we are all fundamentally the same. We all feel separate from others by our particular experience, knowledge and culture, and this common alienation interminably creates insecurity, pain and fear that are generally experienced as individual or, at most, group, afflictions. However, these afflictions are our common lot, regardless of what and how we each feel, who we might think we are and of how hard we work and fight to improve ourselves and raise our relative standing in the greater social scheme of things. Eventually, all individuals, families, clans, nations, and alliances of nations, come undone losing in the process most if not all of what they might have gathered and desired.

To see this fundamental human similarity and the dreadful consequences of pretending that there will be an eventual fix to one's particular fear and sorrow, is to live unattached-free of the false security of exclusive identification-and, hence, to not exist as a separate psychological being. (244)