He had a hat

Some of the people in this vignette are still alive, so I have to blur out the details a bit. Jan is standing at a bar, with a buddy. Not someone in the group. The guy is fuming about something political. (A lot like me, recently). Jan had this shrug, and I see him now, standing close to this person. Jan is nodding, big nods, with this shrug ( a yeah, well, what are you going to do, shrug) and rolling his eyes, in what someone who did not know him, would assume was sympathetic warmth. Then he reached for his beer. 

Gurdjieff left Russia in a time of civil war, he left Turkey in a time of religious strife, he left Germany quickly, and he settled in France, an exile from his homeland. When the Nazis  invaded, and though his friends were often terrified, Gurdjieff stayed in Paris, keeping a low profile. 

If the point of words is to remind you of silence, what could you say in a political context? Above are just two stories to restore perspective. 

A Hub You Have Seen

Picture this metropolitan hub, you have been there, you have seen this: buses lined up, rapid rail trains stopped or not, taxis idling, and people, hot, intent, definitely going some place. Lots of people. Empty kiss/ride lot. Best of all--- just like in your recollections--- there is a wall of paper schedules, little boxes lined up, they have identical looking folded sheets stuffed in plastic bins---but the schedules are for different city locations, and let you know times, destinations, in case, you are going by city bus.

Because this is a transportation hub, people pass through, it facilitates, but is itself not a destination. The hub is how you get someplace---besides the hub. 

Or-

That's what you have been told. Because those places in big letters on the front of the bus, those street corners in tiny print in the schedule, stops the loud speaker yells out---- the point of the busy activity, the reasons you are passing through the hub---- are just a fib---those are not the places you are going. The destinations, are all, a myth.

The destinations just exist so you will keep cycling through the hub, and not noticing -- the hub. The hub only works when you do not notice it. 

Do you see? 

The hub is in your head. 

Chew on this

Eating meat, especially red meat, was not encouraged by the mystical philosopher Jan Cox. But that is just a background point, now, to my setup of a new picture for a person's efforts in their struggle to taste, and persist in, the cerebral objectivity Jan taught his students. The link embedded is to an article about meat consumption, but my interest is in the news item there, about a cow named Molly, who bolted from a slaughter house. Our effect to remember the goal, to practice the special attention, Jan taught us, -- the goal of neuralizing, is one word he made up to describe it, -- could be likened to a black cow, leaping over a fence, and running away. Our personal effort then, is like a cow, escaping from the factory of mechanical thinking. 

That picture is of just one moment, that must be repeated, to gain any traction. Still, a black cow bolting from a meat packaging facility, is an educational picture of the reality of spiritual ambition, mechanical human mentation, and the odds of anyone, sustaining their efforts to see individually, apart from the group mind. Molly, was allowed to end her days in a pasture, but for people, the reality of freedom must be enacted every moment. 

Although Jan's students did not, eat meat, often, they were not "vegetarians" for such labeling is an example of binary thought, the very mechanical thinking one escapes any moment the neuralizing occurs. 

headline -- Gut Bacteria Regulate Happiness

"Gut Bacteria Regulate Happiness"

That's the headline of an article referenced at neurosciencenews.com, and about research being published in  Molecular Psychiatry.

You want to read this. It is consonant with most of the research of the last century. And yet the scientists cannot face the empirical implications of their research -- man is not even captain of the boats in his bathtub. 

 I will only highlight here, the last sentence in the review, a quote by a University College of Cork researcher:

"We're really excited by these findings" said lead author Dr Gerard Clarke. "Although we always believed that the microbiota was essential for our general health, our results also highlight how important our tiny friends are for our mental wellbeing."

Dear Doctor Clarke, what if, what if--- humans are the tiny friends of microbiota?  I am not saying that is the case, I am saying we are stuck in a crippling perspective which prevents our drawing empirical conclusions. And, really,  that perspective is only crippling from the point of view of someone struggling to understand their selves as well as the cosmos. For a student of Jan Cox, the views of scientists are just part of the world to be studied. 

How to say this

A Procrustean bed is a classical reference which has come to mean a situation where the facts are forced to fit. Perhaps it also refers to crustaceans? Oh, let's make it fit.

Crustaceans are the order to which lobsters belong. This particular crustacean, was in my mind when I thought how similar were lobsters and binary thought. The lobsters have two front claws to manage their environment. Each claw has a two sided pincher. Just like people, well, okay, just like people's rational mind.

The rational mind is characterized by binary thought, according to the philosopher Jan Cox. Binary thought focuses on the fact words define everything according to an either/or formula. Everything is either this OR that. Whenever you speak, really, you are using binary thought. Cause or effect, everything or nothing, now or never, electron or proton, wave or particle. Oops, that last, is a GOOD example, because that simple polarity refused to fit the scientific bed. And refused to go away, which is what usually appears to happen to facts that don't fit. It is even becoming less tenable now to throw the old bedspread of statistics over the messy reality. Both/and confuses the scientists. Thus their procrustacean logic.

But still the linguistic domination of modern man continues. That ambiguity is intended. Over the preceding several centuries man has become increasingly defined by his linguistic realities, to the point where people who get Oxford appointments can assume, the verbal reality is all that counts. And THIS is like living on the sea floor, and telling the children, there is no such thing as eight tentacled creatures. There is no octopian reality---that is a myth. That there could be, not one explanation for a phenomenon, but eight explanations, in a both/and configuration, is not plausible. For instance, if evolution explains something, there cannot be other explanations which also contribute to understanding an event. Just like stories of cleavers and boiling pots are tales to scare the children.

So I myself AM procrustacean. Otherwise I couldn't really talk.

What if any conclusion is the wrong conclusion?

Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the physicist, is everywhere on the telly it seems. He said something interesting---speaking of the big bang, he said the fact that no one knows what happened prior to this event, is used by religious types as evidence for god.

He is quite correct, and such conclusions are not appropriate. Though Tyson is not aware of why. When you say something is a mystery, when you say something is proof of god---- you are using words to cover your own ignorance--you are not using words to help anyone understand freshly. When something is called a mystery, it is filed away, under the aspect of things categorized, it is treated as evidence, and how could that be? By putting a word on something, you can forget what is under the word, and that is just what the alert do not want. 

Here's another approach, for those concerned to recall that to which  Jan Cox pointed. We have all heard  the story of the scholars studying an elephant, and each had one part of the beast, and assessed the whole animal based on just their own part of the elephant body. This story which has an eastern origin, ntends to portray the limitations of knowledge. Consider this, the real, original story ended without naming the animal central to this story, we do not know what animal the scholars were investigating. 

Jan kept changing the maps to keep us from concluding, anything...

The message on that totebag

You may have heard the phrase, "Every pledge counts," this week: it is
NPR fundraising week. But our point is not radio, it is the
reverberations of the phrase--every pledge counts. In fact, the phrase
makes sense to all, even while it is literally silly. The phrase says
each individual is responsible for the whole; this assertion does not
bear scrutiny. But EPC sounds right to everyone --it has a real
punch-- because it is. in fact, an old old story which supports all
life. EPC is the cellular wall constituent which preserves the
individual, that is, some would say, the human ego. EPC is the
determination of the single persevering ant. Every Pledge Counts
supports a larger organism by insisting on the integrity of the
individual component. Much people call evil, is in fact simply a
reflection of life's necessay constituent organization. There might be
no Humanity if the individual did not insist, and feel strikingly
justified in so insisting, on, its own importance.

The widespread appreciation of this situation would render ordinary
life untenable and nobody wants this base for our joys and efforts
removed. So, forget I said anything. UNLESS you find this exposition
fascinating, in which case, you could reseach Jan Cox at
www.jancox.com.