Lesson 20
Fellow students frequently ask why there is not more written material on the Teaching of self-knowing and self-observation around the world as long as it’s supposed to have been in existence for ages upon ages. Possibly it is and only due to being conditioned we have never noticed it. For the time being we’re going to discuss a few points of reference works which do indicate that self-knowing has been taught for ages upon ages. Were going to read from a very commonly known book. It starts off; “Then He called the crowd to him again and said to them: Hear me all of you and understand.” Not just hear but understand also. “There is nothing outside of man that entering into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a man, these are what defile a man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” In other words, did you hear or did you merely hear some words. By hearing means inner comprehension. I without the conditioning hears. If it goes through the conditioning one doesn’t hear.
It continues, “And when He had entered the house away from the crowd his disciples began to ask him about the parable and he said to them: Are you also then without understanding? Do you not realize that nothing from outside by entering a man can defile him for it does not enter his heart,” his awareness, “but his belly and passes out into the drain. Thus he declared all foods clean.” And he said, “The things that come out of a man are what defile a man; for from within out of the heart of man” the conditioned area of men, the awareness that has been conditioned and taken over by the basic idea that the whole purpose of living is to gain pleasure and escape pain on all levels and the way to get it is to complain, stick up for rights, please, do as one is told by authorities, put on a different front, and to blame, is all trying to what, gratify the four dual basic urges. All of this makes up the heart of man.
He said, “The things that come out of a man are what defile a man for from within, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, adulteries, immorality, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, shamelessness, jealousies, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All of these evil things come from within and defile a man.” Why do they defile a man, because X operates upon them as being true if I is identified with all these bits of conditioning. Now how could one know that they were within a person unless he was observing self? It is implied by HEAR AND UNDERSTAND that one would inspect what is within self, what the self is made up of.
Let’s look at all the things that he said come out of the self: evil thoughts, thoughts of revenge, thoughts of having accounts due one, thoughts of vanity, thoughts of defense of that false picture of self, thoughts of all sorts of things. After all thoughts of revenge would lead to murder if carried to its ultimate, it’s getting even.
ADULTERIES: Adulteries, which is to gain a pleasure, is to adulterate things instead of seeing them in their purity not only from the standpoint of interpersonal relationships between people but to adulterate ideas, to adulterate the Teaching. To convert it, twist it around and to say it has nothing to do with the inner state of man but only has to do with his outward behavior would be to adulterate the Teaching. To change agape into being tolerant, to change being washed of all these things that man would be washed of if he observes them into merely being dipped through some water would be to adulterate.
IMMORALITY: Immorality possibly has nothing to do with one’s particular behavior with others. Let us see what immorality might mean. If I do not know how to control another person, and, of course, I don’t, would that be because I was moral or simply because I do not know how to control him? That couldn’t be considered moral. If I know how to control a person and do control him could that be considered moral or would it merely be cunning? But if I know how to control another person and don’t because I don’t feel that I have dominion over another man but only over the self and things lower than man, that might be considered to be moral.
JEALOUSY: Wanting the attention that someone else is getting or feeling or the approval that someone else is getting. It is feeling entitled to, stick up for one’s rights. It is the four dual basic urges in action with A running the show. Complain to get my way, being pitiful, making the person feel bad, come wait on me, stick up for my rights and blame somebody for having run off with the objects that so aided my comforts and pleasures and gave me attention and approval. Now they’re given to someone else.
BLASPHEMY: Using that which is holy for an unholy purpose. If one takes the Teaching and uses it to control people, to put threats on them to make them obey it could be called blasphemy.
PRIDE: Defending the false picture of self, the self as being so fully conscious when it is not, when it is going along in a state of sleep, I identifying with all the Not-l’s, and there is purely reaction. Then when someone calls it to account then there is the defense, “I did it for a certain purpose. I did it because of certain reason. I wanted to see how you would react, to see what was going on while I was free to do it etc.” Pride defends the false idea that one was conscious when one was not. One was in a dream state of knowing what ought to be and reacting accordingly from these things that arise from within the heart or the awareness of man that is conditioned.
FOOLISHNESS: Is anything that isn’t paying attention. Whenever one is not paying attention is considered foolishness in the Teaching of all things. Foolishness is taking a false idea and accepting it as true. Living by beliefs without checking out the beliefs because someone said, “This belief, if you follow it, will give pleasure and comfort in the future or if you don’t follow it will bring about pain.”
So is there any doubt that 2000 years ago self-knowing was being taught, that the picture of man was laid out, out of the heart of man? Instead of calling it the awareness it was called the heart. It’s still the heart, the vital area of man. Is there any doubt that it was there being taught at that time and has it been adulterated down through the ages, left out and said this only has to do with outward foods — you can eat anything you want to now and don’t have to leave off all the prohibited foods.
You see the things were called foods and prohibited were because they represented conditioning or unconsciousness. They weren’t fully aware, and on the using as the symbol, they had perverted the symbol. Somebody said you had to see within, what is really within man, what arises from within the person so that they can see what is going on within. When we begin to be aware that the heart or the awareness factor of man is fully conditioned and that I has been lying there asleep, and even though I has awakened and now and then and is able to observe that self, that from it comes all manner of things that defile the human being.
DEFILE: The word defile comes from an old word meaning trampled underfoot. Therefore it was the idea that was defiled; it was trampled under foot. Most of us feel we are trampled down, that we are controlled by all kinds of forces that we attributed to come from without. We indulge in great amounts of self-pity, we come up with hate, with revenge, we feel that we are victimized, and, of course, there are plenty of forces that attempt to tell us that we are the victims of all manner of circumstances. Man is told to look to his political ideology or to his other various organizations to be protected from being victimized. He is told there are enemies in the open that they are outside, that they are controlling him, and that these must be overcome by force and by power.
How many times have you ever been told look within and you will find that which defiles you? It comes out of the conditioned area of man, everything that’s in conditioning tramples man, the real living being, underfoot. It defiles him, tramples him, renders him incapable of performing and lets the conditioning mechanically operate and destroy the human being, and in the meantime he suffers many agonies. This has been taught for thousands of years, if it was taught, but very few heard it. The Great Teacher said, “Hear and understand.” We don’t understand unless we apply something. We could hear something over and over but until I begin to apply it, in no way could it be said to be understood because only by experiencing it, by discovering it for self and seeing can one say that one understands. So hear that all things that tramples one under, defiles him, causes him difficulty, comes from within.
If that is the case we will have to look and see where it is within, is that correct? We would not find it in the muscles or bloodstream, saliva, the heart pumping away the physical organ; we would find it in the mind, in the area of beliefs, in the awareness function of man. If we begin to look there by self-observation, by separating I the observer, the awareness function, by awakening it, by beginning to observe this we will see without any doubt where that which causes all the trouble in an individual’s existence comes from. We will see what defiles him or tramples him under, makes him sick, makes him in conflict with his fellow man, in conflict within. We’ll see that all of that is on the basic ideas of the four dual basic urges, that the whole purpose of living, which is a false idea but it’s there, solid and one can observe it. That the whole purpose of living is to gain pleasure and escape pain, to gain attention, avoid being ignored or rejected, to gain approval and escape all disapproval, to feel important by being able to control others and by feeling inferior when one cannot. That one then tries to gain these methods, these ideas, these purposes, by complaining. Of course, complaining includes jealousy, contention, envy, and all of this comes from within the awareness function of man that has been conditioned. We might say that it is his psyche or soul and it is lost and incapable of functioning as it was designed to function. And all these things arise, all the many lusts, the urge to gain gratification of the senses from whatever level, from having thefts, which says, “I must have that so I will be non-disturbed, I must have that in order to give me pleasure.”
Of course, then there is the rise in what we know as crime. Of course there are many kinds of thefts not mentioned here in the idea of crime. When I can thieve by taking credit by saying I did this and I did that and I did the other, I did all these wonderful things. I does not know how to do anything. I can only be aware at the best and usually not that. It is usually lost in the conditioning and can do nothing. ONLY X CAN DO. No person knows how to walk even though you experience walking every day, many, many times. No one knows how to chew food even though we experience chewing. We don’t know how to see but we experience seeing. We don’t know how to hear. We experience hearing the physical sounds usually not hearing what is implied and thereby understanding it. I can only experience things, sense things, but it does not do anything. When I claim to be able to do I am a thief. Is that correct?
DECEIT: Deceit comes about because I hopes to gain some pleasure I feel I am about to lose some other way, but if I deceive someone I will gain attention and approval. If I can claim to be something I’m not, if I can put on a good front and appear to be different than what I really am, that is deceit. If I claim to be conscious when really I’m sound asleep and lost in conditioning, that is deceit and the greatest one that’s being deceived is, of course, self. I is being put to sleep and is still being convinced that it’s awake and is capable of choosing, doing, when all it is doing is reacting moment by moment, reaction with never a solid moment of understanding, not one.
Does this particular parable we read indicate that self-knowing, self-observation was very definitely taught and has been available to everyone of us? But we read it and we read where it said, “Hear, all of you, and understand.” We always deceived self by saying I understand because I understand the general, physical, literal meaning of the words. We do not seem to understanding that there is an inner state of man and that this is what deceives a man, what tramples him under, what destroys him, what disintegrates him is because that inner state which is the real state of being is really unknown. The person usually thinks they’re in a very wonderful shape if the physical body is not hurting at the moment and if it has a few gratification’s of the senses. He says everything is fine. However, if the inner state could be seen do you suppose it would be said everything is fine? If one could see it one would have to say, “Everything is in a state of confusion, in a state out of hand, that the whole thing is lost.” Possibly by very careful tedious work over a period of time, by observing the self, it might be salvaged. To be salvaged is to be saved.
The Great Teacher was the savior because He brought the words and the Teaching whereby man could be salvaged, salvaged that which was lost. His awareness lost and full of material that defiled him, disintegrated him and kept him falling apart. What was true 2000 years ago is true today.
Now let’s see if we can, with renewed vigor and valuing and seeing the purpose of it, begin to observe every aspect of that inner self, that conditioned state of things that we at this point at least have a small sketchy road map that shows us what is there to some extent. It at least shows the families. We have the picture of man and we can observe it and we can observe it in function, and that it does disintegrate and destroy the human being, that it does defile and trample him underfoot. We can also observe, that as we observe it, that X removes those things that come out of a man that defile him. It begins to cast them out. By doing this then one understands where illness, where troubles, where gradual disintegration of the whole being comes from. It comes out of the heart of man, the inner state of the awareness that has been conditioned. One then particularly pays attention to the constant bombardment of suggestion that tells one, “If one does this sooner or later one will gain great pleasures and comforts and if one doesn’t do it one will come upon miseries and agonies.” One finds that there are all manner of forces that are continually trying to exploit this conditioned inner man and doesn’t want him changed one iota, because if he changed they wouldn’t have the power. If everyone were conscious there wouldn’t be any power structures. There are constantly suggestions that you’re really to be pitied, you are most unfortunate, you have rights that should be stuck up for and “I am going to stick up for your rights for you to be non-disturbed.” That’s what the rights always are. Now the word is security, security meaning, you are not only non-disturbed at this moment but “we will assure you of non-disturbance in the future. You have a right to have everything you want without doing anything to get it because you were born and that gives you the right to have it. You are a very special person, therefore that’s why you are being mistreated.”
No, we are all the same, we are all conditioned, and discovering that we are conditioned and thereby mechanical is not something to feel upset about. It is the first step to coming out of that state of being controlled by that which is within because the cleansing starts the moment one recognizes that one is in a conditioned state, a lost state if you please. The conditioning is operating purely as a machine and that I is not on the job at all. That it has been hypnotized and put sound asleep and the real individual, the real I is totally out of functioning, is asleep and that Not-I’s, false personalities, bits of conditioning, programming is a good word to use today much like a computer is programmed and does whatever it is programmed to do. Whether the programming is true or false doesn’t matter, it does what the programming is laid out for it to do.
When one realizes that one is programmed and manipulated by whatever fits that programming, that one is used as a mere machine and that from that machine comes all manner of things that are destructive to the entire organism, to the temple of the living being, then one has discovered something to be very, very thankful for. One has set out on a chore, on a task that takes some length of time. It is a meaningful task and it has worthwhileness to it, it has value to it. One has found the PATH of where the ending of misery and disintegration starts. One can enter into a gate and start on the way that will begin to bring liberty, freedom and life. Without making that discovery where the whole problem is we will search for it through doctor’s offices, through pills and potions, through drugs, through alcohol, through every manner of attempting gratification’s, all on to total and final disintegration.
It has always been taught that man must know himself. He must be in the state of knowing self from moment to moment. Self-awareness can only come from self-observation. But that’s usually glided slightly over and, of course, we always say, “I heard and I understand,” which is deceit because we could not say, “I don’t understand what that means. I will have to check it out. I will have to experiment with everything I hear and I read and find out what it means. If I find out that all this is coming from within me instead of from temptation without then I would have to observe self and see.”
By following this observation one comes upon what is TRUTH. To know the truth begins to make one free. In order to know what the truth is one must see what is and what is, is that we are conditioned, and even if we have observed it a while we still have gobs of that conditioning in the heart of man. That is to see the truth of the matter. When one sees the truth, X then operates on it. I think the statement is, “KNOW THE TRUTH, be aware of the truth AND THE TRUTH WILL MAKE YOU FREE.” And that seems to be exactly the way it works. It does not say, “Know the truth and then work real hard on the truth and maybe you’ll make it free or try to change what you have found, deny what you have found as being truth and that will help.” It is know the truth and the truth will make you free.
As one sees the fact, the truth of one’s state, that is reported to X and X does the appropriate work that undoes the agony and begins to remove the conditioning, that which defiles a man, that which tramples him under and utterly destroys him. So we see from one statement here that this Teaching has been around a long, long time and that it always starts out, always, with SELF-KNOWING.
Incidentally, the statement that was read is from the New Testament, the Book of Mark, chapter 7, starting at verse 14 and going through to verse 23.
Copyright © 1973 by Rhondell. All rights reserved. This material is for an individual student’s personal use; it is not to be duplicated or loaned to another.
