Lesson 5
For the past several weeks we have been studying man as he is in his conditioned state that we may be aware of the actual situation as it is within each of us, not with the idea of condemning it or justifying it, but simply being aware of what is. The whole idea of Schools is for man to be aware of what is, as it is. The whole idea of the world is to set up ideals and ignore what is and struggle with what is to change it into the ideal of what ought to be. Man thinking that he knows better of what ought to be rather than finding out what is and possibly something would appear that would result in a new man, not just a patched-up one. Somewhere it said that one cannot patch an old garment with a new piece of cloth or the new cloth will rend the old garment and it will be worse. One cannot put new wine in old bottles because the new wine would break the old bottles and all is lost. We have been studying the old garment and the old bottle so that we will know something about it.
As a preliminary to begin another level of work, which we will take up next week, we will start this week with understanding and observing for ourselves the function of each aspect of man. In the picture of man we have the Physical Body, Awareness, X and Function. Now if we can, we will take these four aspects of man and begin to see their function in relationship. No one of these aspects ever seems to function alone. It is an interrelation of four aspects or factor of one man.
The first thing we will attempt to study is X. We will try to see how X works. Here is a guide or road map for observing and you must do the observing. Let’s see if we can observe how X works. X always does the proper thing for the information received from awareness. Now it doesn’t say that it always does the proper thing, but the proper thing for the information received from awareness.
One time in a mental institution a young lady who had a delusion that the room frequently filled with poison gas was observed. She would begin to have this delusion from some association. The first thing she did was climb up on the piano stool. That got her head above where she thought the poison gas was. When the gas filled the room up to the level to where she would have to breathe again, in her delusion, she climbed up on the cover of the keyboard of the piano. That got her still higher and when she felt that the poison gas was to her nose again, she got up on top of the piano with her head almost to the ceiling. When she felt the gas arrive there she passed out. The room was continually filling up with gas, to her, but the rest of the people were sitting around in chairs. This she didn’t take that into consideration; she was in a mental hospital. After awhile she revived and would go on about her usual affairs until this particular delusion set in again. What she did, what X did for the being, climb upon the piano stool, on the keyboard cover and top, was the appropriate thing to do for the information X received from this deluded awareness.
Now this was an extreme case, possibly, but each of us sees that the way to get along well in the world is by complaining, sticking up for rights, pleasing people, and we might even see that the whole purpose of living is to be non-disturbed. As long as this information goes to X, it does the appropriate thing for the information received. As we continue to study we may find that different information would go to X than that which has always gone. Then, of course, there would be an entirely different state of being. Further, X receives as truth all information furnished from the awareness of man. Whatever the awareness says is truth, X operates upon it as truth. When the poor girl reported that the room was filling with poison gas and that she was going to be poisoned or suffocated by this gas, X accepted that as true and did the appropriate action for that truthful information as it seemed; it accepted it as being true. So if we say that the whole purpose of living is to be non-disturbed, X operates upon it. If we say the way to be non-disturbed is to kill someone, X kills them. If we were to say that the appropriate or the ultimate thing that the truth of the matter was that we should be dead in order to be better off, X pulls the trigger that blows the brains out.
The AWARENESS FUNCTION or I is function, not a thing. The awareness is simply a function of X, not a separate identity or thing. It has awareness and therefore can be deluded into believing it is a thing. X generates the energy for any act that the awareness function, I, says is valuable or good. If one sees something as being true but of no value to one, X doesn’t operate on it; it is that we simply see it as no value, or I, awareness, sees it as being of no value so no action is taken on it. The awareness function being 100% subject to suggestion 100% of the time accepts ideas that are false as being true, such as the ones we have been observing for the past weeks. This establishes what we refer to as bits of conditioning or as Not-l’s, personalities that are really not true I but conditioned to observe things in a false light.
All this conditioning has the effect of putting I into a hypnotic sleep in which it identifies with the Not-I’s. Too identify means “to treat the same as.” In other words these bits of information, conditioning, that go to X are treated as though it is really awareness or I and the real awareness identifies with the bits of conditioning and feels it’s all the same. It is as though an intelligence corps in an army were to identify with some fifth agents and says, “Well, they’re the same as I; they’re in the intelligence corps,” and, of course, they could all report to the general and the general would act upon everything he received from the intelligence corps as being true.
Another little parallel: It is as though there were burglars invading your home and they all used the telephone in your name. They could call up the store and have things sent out, charged to your account. They could cause you considerable difficulty without you knowing it because they could use the phone in your name. When this state is in existence, of the I being identified with the Not-I’s, X provides energy to the conditioning as though it were I. All human energy comes from X; it is all spiritual energy. The Not-l’s, the bits of conditioning would, of course, wither away and not have any power, any energy to express, except I identifies with them and treats them the same as, and they receive energy from X.
As a parallel: Suppose you had a son or daughter and that son or daughter fell in with a hypnotist. And the hypnotist would have your son or daughter call up and tell you what the hypnotist wanted while he kept the son or daughter in a state of hypnotic sleep and only told him by suggestion, “Tell your parents thus and so, to send you money.” It would come and the hypnotist would use it. This is much the case of the Not-I’s.
Now this conditioning of Not-I’s receiving energy from X accounts for the misery and the disintegration of man. The struggle toward the illusion of the ideal, self-improvement, of blaming which results in wars, fights etc. results in and accounts for the misery and the disintegration of man. We have been studying it to be acquainted with it. The way out is for I, I with a line drawn under it, the real awareness, to disidentify from all that one possesses, from all that which one calls “my.” Like my opinion, my thoughts, my feelings, my attitudes, my house, my everything, everything that one possesses, because that which we possess we depend on and we depend on it to give us the ideals and we are very disappointed when it doesn’t. When we are disappointed we feel hurt, look for blame, and then we have anger, guilt, fear, insecurity and a host of the subdivisions of those very unpleasant damaging emotions. So the way out is for I, the awareness, to disidentify from all that one claims to possess, everything that one says “my” too.
Now this results in a state of affairs wherein I observes the self as though you were a traveler on a spaceship from Mars and you had come in and were observing an earthling named whatever your name is. This observing is without condemning or justifying but it is totally disidentifying from this conditioned self. Now you may see why we have been studying the self. It is not really something one wants to identify with. It’s in a state of conflict. It is somewhat “missing the mark” as to the whole purpose of living. It is using very infantile methods to attempt to gain those. It’s disappointed when this ideal of the purpose of living of being non-disturbed is not achieved. So maybe it makes it a little easier for us to disidentify from the self. The self is that picture of man we drew with the basic decision at the bottom, three on one side going one way and three on the other side going the other way. Now “I” is going to wake up and observe these Not-I’s in their work as to how they report to X. But one intercepts here. One says, we’ll use the name John for all men and Mary for all women, if you’re a woman then “Mary is doing so-and-so.” But I then is reporting to X and X doesn’t operate on or give the energy to the Not-I. “I observes that Mary is mad.” “I observes that Mary is jealous.” “I observes that Mary is trying to have her way by complaining; she’s putting on the tears.” “I observe that Mary is trying to have her way by sticking up for her rights; she is rather belligerent.” “I see that Mary is blaming John because she feels rough.” “I see that Mary is blaming John for not having gotten home at 4:05 and therefore she is disappointed and feels hurt.” One begins to observe, from a separate position, all the things that this conditioning is doing.
We have been observing it, making some notes, now we will disidentify. No longer is it, “I am doing this,” but “I am observing John or Mary doing this.” As we observe this we begin to sense an entirely different sense of I. It is the beginning and only the beginning of a permanent state called I. I has been jumping from the one that wants to complain to the one that wants to please, to the improver, to the blamer, back to the believer in authorities. There has been no permanent I, it jumped all over.
Now this little thing of disidentifying and beginning to observe the self will not be possible 100% of the time but it can be done considerably, and every moment that is spent on it is accumulative and it weakens all of the Not-I’s.
So we will start now on the first of the way out of the state of being conditioned and controlled, being mechanical, having burdens and being loaded down with all the things from the past by starting to disidentify from the self. Therefore, the self owns things but I do not own anything. The self has a dress or suit, a house, opinions. John has an opinion and he is defending that opinion. Mary has feelings and her feelings are hurt. And I am reporting to X; I has taken up my rightful position. The Prodigal Son has arisen from the hog pen in Egypt, which all the conditioning represents, and has started home. He is still a long way off but he has started back to be a servant in the Father’s House.
So this is the beginning of I being real and observing the Not-I’s in all their carrying on. We will call it “self” or your name. I observe self doing so-and-so or I observe John doing so-and-so. Now this results in I, bolded and italicized, being simply an observer and a reporter without any condemnation or justification. I has just taken up its chore of observing and seeing what is going on, seeing what is. It is not ready yet to start applying values; that will come a little later.
Further, what I observes is self, John or Mary, or the conditioning or the Not-I’s. There’s a legion of them. They’re in two parties and they fight with each other also. I is observing all the Not-I’s or I is observing John or “self.” These are interchangeable terms and they may be used in various discussions as we go along, interchangeably. As I, bolded and italicized, observes the legions of Not-I’s without condemnation or justification, X renders the Not-I’s inoperative one by one as observed.
In other words you may have wondered “What can I do about it?” Many have been asking when they observe these various conflicts and these various bits of conditioning. All one can do is observe it and report it. X does the work of rendering them inoperative. How does it do it? I don’t know. What does it do with them after it rendering them inoperative? I don’t know. We just know that they cease to be conditioning and they cease to take on and operate the body and the being.
It is impossible for I, bolded and italicized, that has been asleep, dead or blind, as so many parables and stories use it, for so long, to suddenly be 100% capable, so I will frequently go to sleep. But when it wakes up again I merely says, “I’m back on the job and reporting to X.” Now there will be a host of accusing Not-I’s, the self-improving I’s that say, “You ought to believe and do as you are told by your authorities,” and that’s a very large family of them because there have been many authorities. One says you ought to be different and they will all accuse I for having gone to sleep from time to time but I does not identify with them, does not accept their accusations or their condemning and does not talk back to them. He merely reports that there are accusing Not-I’s saying that the observer should never have gone to sleep and X renders them inoperative. One does not contend with these Not-I’s. I is an observer and a reporter to X and nothing else. It does not argue or play the lawsuit part with the Not-I’s. It only observes and reports.
We will talk on these many times. But do observe that a Not-I will jump up and try to give I a hard way to go because suddenly I wakes up and realizes that it has not been observing self for several hours or maybe even days, who knows? The tricks of the Not-I’s are many and very cunning, even seeming to be helping with the work of trying to straighten I out. Merely observe the many, many Not-I’s and totally disidentify from the self. I am observing John and John is doing so-and-so. John is getting angry. John is dreaming up a story he’s going to tell to put himself in a good light. John is blaming Mary for making him mad. I observes all of this going on within self, in the self, as something entirely separate, and it really is something separate. It has been something that’s added on. It is not the real person at all; it is conditioning. It is a group of Pinocchio’s and I is reporting the Pinocchio’s to X.
What is the function of awareness? It is to be an observer first and report “what is.” It reports what is true without any condemning or justifying; it merely reports. The other thing it will do later is begin to place relative values. It never judges. Only the self or conditioning judges. Judging says that it’s “good” or it’s “bad” according to whether it made me comfortable or not or whether it produced pain. It says it’s true or false according to how close it agrees with a given opinion of a Not-I. The I, the real observer, I bolded and italicized, the function of X reports “what is” and later it will report its relative value. But right now it’s merely reporting what is.
The function of the physical body is an instrument of the expression of X. The body is a function of X like awareness is a function of X. Its function is to express into physical activity that which awareness said was true and valuable. The body is the instrument of X like the awareness is. Its first function is to maintain the instrument in existence. X keeps it in a state of repair. It prepares it for whatever awareness said was the actual circumstance. If awareness reports there’s great danger because someone disagreed with it, X prepares it to fight or run and it must adapt to that. If that adaptation is seen as a danger and not as the work X, then again it is prepared to fight or run and this gradually goes on into deterioration and the body falls apart. But if I is awake and aware and reports, the body is functioning, it is adapting to your adaptation. It is burning up the mobilized and unreleased energy that one time when I was asleep one of the Not-I’s reported to you it was in danger. Then you see and all the physical symptoms are over with very quickly and very shortly the body is being completely renewed.
If correct information goes to X from I and the conditioning is disidentified from the body undergoes rejuvenation, the same as the awareness is a new man. It is a new man because it is no longer being used for purposes that no longer exist which were reported by a Not-I in the name of I to X. As we observe this we’ll see how the body completely changes as I observes self and does not identify with self. Self owns houses, cars, opinions, bank accounts, viewpoints, rights etc. I only OBSERVES. I am a FUNCTION of X that observes the self and X renders inoperative those various bits of conditioning one by one as they are observed and reported to X.
One does not have to judge, condemn or justify the Not-I’s. X knows what to do the same as it knows what to do if the house is on fire. One reports it and X gets the being out. If one hears from the body that water is needed and it is reported to X, it doesn’t say it’s good or bad. X gets up, walks to the tap or the refrigerator pours out a drinks, swallows it — all of which are miraculous happenings if one ever observes. Do you know how to walk or are you only aware that you want to go to the door? All of it just takes place and you experience the walking, you are aware of the walking. If it was left up to us to figure which muscle to move in sequence in order to carry out the act of walking there would be no walking.
Function is to bring about the play of X in awareness; bringing about the ever-changing series of events that continually gives man all the values and the joys of living when we can report accurately. When he has been taken over by usurpers, and they are talking in his name, that function demonstrates very clearly that error is being reported to X. X accepts as fact everything that the awareness reports to it whether from a Not-I or I. So we see very excellent reasons for observing the Not-I’s. They’re speaking in your name to the SOURCE OF ALL ENERGY.
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.
