Lesson 4
As we continue our work of studying The Science of Man, we will take up two worlds. Man exists in an environment, which is the man-made world. We are considering the society of the man-made world; we are not talking about the earth. The world is a society; it is a state of organization where the Earth is a planet. So there are two worlds, the man-made world and the real world. We will draw this on a sheet of paper. Put the real world at the top and the man-made world in the bottom half of the page.
The real world is the world of real living beings, no two of which are alike. No two of us even have the same fingerprints. No two of us have exactly the same tastes. No two of us see anything from exactly the same viewpoint as another because we can’t stand in the same tracks. The real world is the world of real living beings, no two of which are alike, no two of which are in the same environment at the same time. You and I may be in a small room but you are in my environment and I am in yours. That makes it very, very different for each of us so there can be no standards set. Each is an entity unto itself. Each of us must know self for self. We cannot have someone else tell us what we are like, if they did we wouldn’t believe them. This is why we are observing the conditioned self within. While there are some general patterns, each of us must do the work for self and we must understand the two worlds for self.
So we will observe all the people we know and we’ll observe their different tastes. One likes coffee and another does not. One likes sugar in their coffee and another wants it without. Another wants it with cream and another wants it without. Some like their steaks cooked well done, some like them medium, some medium rare. There is no way you should like coffee or you should like it at all. There is nothing that says you should like your steak cooked any certain way; it is what appeals to your taste. Maybe you don’t like steak at all. This goes on for every conceivable thing. Some people like certain colors, others do not like colors. We are each a separate entity and there is no standard for anyone of us.
The man-made world is the world of ideals, ideas, standards, machines and games. We can have the ideal of how wide the streets should be. We can have the ideal of how fast the traffic moves on the street. We can have the ideal of how many parking places there are for a given building. All of these are very useful and necessary for organized society on earth. The man-made world is very wonderful as long as it’s confined to the man-made world. It is somewhat of a parable of the real world. So there are many kinds of ideas. Anyone can teach an idea and ask for an examination and see how well you agreed with it. If you could replay it, you are an excellent student; if you did not replay it very well, you are a poor student. You may be a success or a failure according to how well you did this.
In the real world, there are ideas that give man an aid in knowing self but there are not any ideals for you to live up to. As you have noticed we have given ideas for study but no ideas or ideals to live up to. We are only trying to find out what makes up the self. We haven’t said it should “do this” or “what to do.” These are ideas for study. The others are ideas for accomplishment in the man-made world. Then there are standards. It’s wonderful to have standards for spark plugs, standards for sizes of shoes, dresses, suit sizes. A man who wears a 42 long can order a 42 long coat and all he’ll probably have to alter is the length of the sleeves a little bit. If he wears a size 12B shoe he can order a 12B shoe and in all probability they will fit very accurately because there are standards set for these. There are standards for sizes of nuts and bolts, standards for wrenches to use those nuts and bolts. There are standards for drill sizes to drill a hole to put the bolt in. So all of these and all the weights and measures that we have are all excellent uses in the man-made world and are necessary for trade, commerce and exchange between one person and another. But there is no standard for the human being. In Washington D.C. and in every other major capital of the world there is a Bureau of Standards. If you go there you will find that all the standards are for “things.” There is no human being that has a standard set for him.
Machines are very useful. They perform great functions and take much of the physical burden off of man. But when man begins to be a machine it is a perversion because man is designed to operate machines not be one. When a man can be controlled by a suggestion, when you can find out from observing him that he has a certain very set opinion or viewpoint and you challenge that viewpoint or opinion you will find that he is suddenly in a state. He is mechanical and you can control or manipulate him. If you can get him very interested in “security” then you can threaten him with lack of security and put him in a panic state. You can stick up for his rights and he thinks you are his friend. He doesn’t think about anybody and his privileges. You can tell him how different he is than the common herd and you can control him. You can blame for him and you can control him. It is obvious that machines are very useful but to change a man into a machine may be a perversion. We have been observing the mechanical behavior of the conditioned self and its mechanical responses that we could call “reaction.” We are beginning to observe that while man is of the real world, a real living being no two that are alike, that there are many efforts to have him exactly respond exactly according to conditioning.
The other aspect of the man-made world is the world of games. Now games are very essential. Not everything that we will refer to as a game is ordinarily referred to as a game in the man-made world. We recognize basketball, baseball etc. as being games. Now for a game there must be players, there must be rules of the game, then there must be an official of some sort, and then there is a reward for winning the game or playing the game according to the rules. If you don’t play the game according to the rules in the man-made world there are penalties to be paid and usually rewards for playing the game according to the rules.
So business is a game. It has players, it has rules of the game, there are officials of many kinds, there are severe penalties for not playing the game according to the rules and there are decided advantages for playing the game according to the rules. Marriage is a game. It requires players, it has rules many of which are set by society and some of which are set as dealer’s choice as one goes along like playing dealer’s choice poker. There are officials. There are severe penalties for not playing the game according to the rules and possibly many rewards for playing the game according to the rules. Traffic is a game. It has players and thank goodness there are rules and officials. There are penalties for not playing the game according to the rules and we have as the reward of playing the game according to the rules a reasonable degree of safety in the immense traffic on the streets, highways, and freeways.
There are four great games that we seldom think of as being games and they apply to man in the real world. So let’s consider these games and observe them over a period of time.
1. The first great game is THEOLOGY. It sets up a standard for man as good. There is no standard theology for the world, there are many different ones. Theology is not religion but man’s ideas about building an organization around religion, building an institution and setting standards of good such as: It’s not good to eat meat on Friday. It’s not good to eat pork at any time. It’s not good to drink coffee, in another one it’s quite all right. In one it’s very good and acceptable to get a divorce; in another it is not good to get a divorce. Thousands and thousands of infinite details are setup as good. Any particular person who subscribes to any particular theology finds that they have difficulty maintaining even the outward requirements of the theology. And even more difficulty, if they are reasonably honest with observing self, of keeping the inner state free of not being angry, of not being gossipy, of not stretching the truth a wee bit when it puts one in a good light which sometimes could be called lying. It requires a considerable amount of justification in order to make one’s behavior jibe with the idea of good. So most everyone feels that in some way they are bad, so they feel guilty.
2. The next great game is POWER POLICIES. Power Policies tells us what is in. A few years ago it was in to hate the Japanese and love the Russians, among other things. Today it is very in to love the Japanese. Most everything we have comes from Japan including the tape recorder we are recording these talks on. We are not to approve too well of the Russians. A few years ago we were to hate the Italians and the Germans, today we love them. What’s in? A little while ago it was very in to dislike China. Before that it was very in to like China. Now it’s thawing, it’s getting in to feel they are pretty well all right, at least for some purposes. So we have what’s in and what’s out and few people can agree with all the in’s so most everyone feels that in some ways they’re out. So they are now bad and out in many respects. They are out of step with the general run of everything.
3. Then come the HEALING ARTS as a great game. The healing arts set up a standard for normal. The speaker at one time studied some of the healing arts. On one occasion that is recalled, on the opening day of enrollment for entering the freshman class, the dean of the school gave a talk in which he said that for the first two years this class would study the normal so that when in the third, fourth and fifth years and in clinics they would recognize the abnormal. At that moment that sounded very reasonable, logical and sound. However, studying the normal consisted of studying mannequins, charts, books, and listening to many lectures as to what normal was. So an ideal was established. That was a great number of years ago and until this day, neither I, or anyone I’ve ever seen fits the normal all the way. So everybody is a patient, everybody is abnormal. Of course, we’re generally conditioned to feel that when we don’t fit the norm we are in a very bad situation and that we need decided treatment to restore towards the normal. There is usually a considerable bit of disappointment over not being normal, a feeling of being unfortunate or hurt that one is not normal. Then one looks for blame and comes up with fear that brings about chemical imbalance and neuromuscular tension from the various hormones in response to the fear, then there is an adaptation and then we are firmly convinced that we are abnormal.
4. Gradually there has emerged another great game of BIG BUSINESS. Big business, by advertising, constantly suggests that we are ugly. Now using the word ugly: You may smell ugly so you’ll need endless amounts of deodorants. Your hair is probably ugly so you will need the proper shampoos, hair sprays, coloring and even a wig to cover it up so you will then be pretty. We are constantly bombarded with suggestions that our cars are old and therefore ugly, our homes are old and ugly, our furniture is ugly, our appliances are now old and ugly and we should all be buying new ones. So everyone begins to feel that they are ugly in some way. You probably weigh too much. You’re too fat so you are ugly and you should fit the ideal of a skinny one or whatever. The clothes are now out of date and therefore ugly and we must buy the pretty one or we will feel embarrassed. We will be looked down on and disapproved of, ignored or rejected as unsuccessful people. We will be inferior so, of course, we spend great sums of money, obligate ourselves with tremendous amounts of debts in order to be pretty and normal. We struggle mentally with being good and probably a little belligerently with being in.
So we have the four dual basic urges, that first basic decision as to the purpose of living as the source of suggestion for manipulation of man as a machine. He wants to have pleasure and comfort; he wants to have attention and approval and to feel important. Big business, theology, the healing arts and power policies all tell him that he is in terrific danger unless he extends himself to a great degree in order to try to gain what they tell him he is not at the moment. You are bad, ugly, you are not in and you are abnormal.
Now if we go back and look again at the real world, there are no two alike or no two are in the same environment at the same time, therefore there can be no standard. When we begin to see this and observe it we recognize that the normal, good, in and pretty are rather false, that we have been conditioned with them. Being conditioned we are subject to suggestion that we are bad, ugly, abnormal and out. That by spending sums of money or performing certain rites or rituals or that by advocating and agreeing with certain political ideas that we shall have a utopia where we are all pretty, good, in and normal. Of course, to do this we’re only required to give up that which is really human, total independence, being independent. The dependent person, of course, is mechanical and can be manipulated and we see this happening all around. So we are studying the human being, I, so that we will be aware of these situations, not that we condemn them or justify them. They simply do exist and possibly some of us don’t prefer to be a machine.
Being aware of the two worlds, we are aware of what belongs in the real world and what belongs in the man-made world. We are not opposed to either one. We recognize the man-made world as being very necessary and we exist in it. But we also recognize that we are not of the man-made world, that we are of the real living world, the world of real living beings. As we begin to observe from the standpoint of looking down to observe the man-made world, without condemning it or without justifying it, we see what belongs in it, but that we are not of the man-made world. We are observing it, not identifying with it. We recognize games and we would like to play many games. When we play a game we play according to the rules to the best of our ability. But we don’t play the great games that say that man has an ideal standard and that he should fit it. You see this is the beginning of the world that everyone is born into. A world of ideals, a world of self-improvement to fit those ideals from many different directions, a world that has signs and demonstrations that one has improved, and then the world of blaming wherein when one doesn’t find the sign and the wonder one looks for blame. One has the anticipation that if one practices self-improvement that there will be self-improvement. But frequently that anticipation or expectation is disappointment because there is no way that any human being can fit an ideal because we are ever changing in an ever-changing environment and ever-changing situation.
One may be sitting in their living room very serene, peaceful, and joyful. The phone or doorbell rings and there is a very unusual piece of news. Some loved one has been injured or is in great difficulty. Suddenly one’s heart is beating wildly etc. Is that normal? It is what is happening. There isn’t anyone that says you should immediately have something that should slow the heartbeat down to 72 times per minute. If you go out and mow the lawn with a push mower or pull weeds or do some violent physical exercise and your heart pounds harder, is there something wrong or is it a normal adaptation? You see everything is a normal adaptation. There is no such thing as an abnormal human being. There is such a thing as an adapting human being. There is no such thing as a bad human being. There are mechanically conditioned people who can be stimulated by pushing a button to do almost anything, either that button from within or without. There is no bad human being, there are only unconscious ones or semi-conscious ones or shall we say conditioned ones. There is no such thing as a pretty individual or an ugly individual, there is only a person who express outwardly their inner state of being. They’re all perfect for their particular state of being. There is no such thing as an abnormal person, there’s only the adaptation going on. There is no such thing as ugly; there is only the outward expression of the inner state. There is no such thing as in or out. We each see from a different standpoint and, obviously, we will see it a little bit differently, and part of the understanding of man is to understand that. As we do that we find that there are less disappointments in the world because we did not expect them to all be like peas in a pod, even the peas in the pod are different. We did not expect them to be turned out like spark plugs etc.
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.
