From a talk given by E. J. Gold
"We are trapped because we cannot use our attention. That is what keeps us
prisoners-that and nothing else."
"When we are using attention as it should be used, it will hurt, and we simply
have got to have the discipline to keep going, to continue day after day after day; and if
we let a day go by when we do not use our attention as it should be used, if we do not use
it every day, we will lose it. It is just like a language, if we do not use it, we lose
it. We lose any ability that we have developed, if we do not exercise it."
"If we develop the ability to look, if we learn to place our attention, to pull
our attention from where it is attracted, and place it wherever we want, that in itself
will be tremendously powerful."
"If we wish to have life as a being then we must use our attention as it should be
used, because it will give us the key to life."
As we start to really look at the question of attention, we will have some very strange
surprises. Our perception of the world will radically alter. As we begin to use our
attention as it should be used-as a being-we will violate the limits which are imposed
upon our attention by the body.
But the body is just a low form of energy anyway; not that consequential. It will
impose its limits, and so will the mind. There are physical limits, psychological limits,
emotional limits, and every time the being uses attention as it should be used, those
limits will be violated.
The machine does not like it when we violate its self-imposed limitations. We have been
well trained, and well indoctrinated to treat those limits as potent taboos-so potent that
they are all but unbreakable. Every bit of conditioning that has been poured onto us
lavishly in life, by organic life, every bit of the machines conditioning, and the
conditioning that we bought into as a being, goes against the correct use of attention.
We are trapped because we cannot use our attention. That is what keeps us
prisoners-that and nothing else. When we start to use our attention properly, all of the
limitations fall away by themselves. The beings use of attention burns all the
limits of the machine, and the limits of the lower centrums; That is, the use of attention
as it should be used, as it ought to be used, as it was meant to be used-as we have had it
all along available to us.
But a thing unused becomes atrophied, stiff, and unusable. The experience of having
ones hand in a cast for a year should be sufficient to convince anyone of the
difficulty of using it once the cast has been remove. It takes weeks, months or even years
to reachieve the same freedom of movement-if, in fact, it ever comes back.
If we do not exercise our natural ability-and we only have two real abilities, we can
be here and we can look at things-if we dont exercise those two abilities, they
atrophy.
Now, the point is not that they will atrophy, they have already atrophied. We have got
to realize that we are starting out with very creaky, unused muscles. And it is going to
hurt. Just like any new muscle, or any muscle that we have not used for a very long time.
When we are using attention as it should be used, it will hurt, and we simply have got
to have the discipline to keep going, to continue day after day after day; and if we let a
day go by when we do not use our attention as it should be used, if we do not use it every
day, we will lose it. It is just like a language, if we do not use it, we lose it. We lose
any ability that we have developed, if we do not exercise it.
When we start to recover our attention as it should be, we will feel as if we have been
in a deep, deep sleep for decades, and possibly for thousands and millions of years. We
will start to remember ourselves as we are, not remember ourselves as a machine, but
really remember ourselves. The only way we will do that is to start using our real
abilities, the only two powers we actually have, which means retraining our attention.
It might be interesting to engage ourselves in just exactly that-attention exercises
designed to help us regain those two profoundly important abilities. And then everything
else will just burn itself away. Nothing will stand in the presence of those two things.
If we can invoke our own presence into the present, into this space and this time, we
can invoke ourselves anywhere across dimensional barriers, wherever we want. We can invoke
ourselves anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances. And be where we want to be.
If we develop the ability to look, if we learn to place our attention, to pull our
attention from where it is attracted, and place it wherever we want, that in itself will
be tremendously powerful.
If our attention is attracted by interest, by hunger, it is rooted, and we cannot lift
it out of there. This is not our attention, it does not belong to us. Our attention has
been attracted by something. We have no control over it. So, to really control our
attention we must be able to withdraw it, take it back and replace it where we wish-to the
exclusion of intrusions. Our attention should be our own, it should not be subject to
intrusion.
If we are able to do that, our memory will come back. It will be as if we awake from a
very bad fuzzy dream. We will be functioning as an essential self, as a being. And that is
what we are after. A situation where we can learn, not only that our machine is secondary,
but that we can learn to assemble the form of the machine without needing the machine
itself. We should be able to-but we are not, because we do not have the attention.
When a very highly trained and very highly disciplined attention is placed on the
machine, the machine is immediately brought into the waking state. This only works with
very refined and very potent attention which can even awaken someone elses machine
when it is placed on it, though we must be careful not to do that.
We can also do other things with our attention; just by resting it on something or
someone-things can happen. Things which some might call magical or mystical, but those
terms are misleading. The things that happen are simply effects of placement of attention.
The potent placement of attention, or the placement of potent attention on an object has
profound influences on the object.
Remember that, by definition, attention is always specific and awareness always
general. It is never the other way around. We can put our attention on an object, then
include, in a radiating pattern, everything around it or connected to it, and continue to
expand indefinitely.
If we take our attention off all that, and put it on one object, all our attention is,
for the moment, on that object only. But our general awareness is on everything else. Our
attention can be fanned out, but still specific. We can move it around like a searchlight
or a laser light; only it is a little more expansive.
Attention can expand or contract, come to rest, move again; it can be lifted entirely,
or split; but it is always specific. It is not a general awareness. We should keep in mind
that there are two very definitely different types of looking. One is general awareness
and the other is attention.
Attention does not have to be focused, it can be disfocused, or even diffused. But then
it still is not awareness. There are two things operating here. Awareness comes by itself.
It drifts in through perceptions and impressions. Impressions is a catch-all phrase
meaning all kinds of things that arrive at us. Attention is something that we
direct which is not passive but active.
Attention must be intentionally directed. We can look at a book with our awareness but
direct our attention elsewhere. We can pull our attention back, and put it on the book. It
is like a physical thing we just take from where it is and put it wherever we want.
We can do other things also. We can take our awareness off and put just our attention
on. In the presence of certain people with high attention we can feel the difference;
there is a definite sensation.
We cannot generate and direct emotions until we can work with our attention, because
emotion-real moods-are a function of attention. They are not sentimental which
means to have physical sensations produced by the mind: in Latin,
sentire means to have physical sensations, and mens
means the mind.
If we are operating under general awareness, our emotions are equally dependent on
stimulus. They are reactions to stimuli. We are interested in developing something that is
not a stimulated reaction or response. Something that comes from within, that comes from
us. And in order to come from us, it has to be generated by us. We cannot generate it
until we practice generating it. It starts with small things. We are starting from an
atrophied point, with almost nothing, and we will have to work our way up.
Its the same as preparing for almost any kind of exercise we can imagine. If we
do not want to hurt ourselves, we must do some warm-ups first; work up to whatever it is
very slowly. We will have to make preparations.
If we take our attention and place it on a glass, for example, the glass looks like it
is being fused with light, it becomes more bright, more alive. It has a self-luminosity.
The machine has not become more awake, but that kind of attention-if directed on the
machine-will awaken it. When applied to the glass, it will just awaken the glass a little
more.
We must work on simple attention. Take it from grade one, and carry it forward. We
should not worry about awakening the machine. When we put the attention we presently have
on the machine, nothing happens. No need to wonder why! What most people call attention
and the kind of attention we are talking about here are two different things.
We learn by doing. Little by little the teaching has to be tailored to the time, place,
and people. Two, three, or four thousand years ago had we been gathered in Sumer, for
example, and we directed our attention to the machine, we would have been brought up with
a certain type of attention all our lives, and we could count on that attention to be a
machine-awakening attention. We would put our attention on our machine and it would be
effective. Our machine would awaken, and it would be no great shock.
But because we have been brought up in a society which is destructive to that type of
attention, to the use of attention in that way, when we are asked to place our attention
on the machine, our attention is so weak, so ineffectual that it has no real effect, no
awakening effect. We are not magicians, sorcerers, sourciers, sourcerers,
someone who is a source; a sorcerer is someone who is sorcing, scourcing.
Now there is also the question of where our attention is coming from. At the beginning,
our attention will seem to come from our eyes or from behind our eyes or somewhere in our
head, or around our body, or within our body-possibly our chest, head, or throat.
But our source of attention is actually nowhere near the body. We are associated with
the body and we are identified with the body, but we are not anywhere near the body. The
source of our attention, our genuine location will become more and more clear to us,
because we have a real location, and an apparent location.
Our apparent location has always been obvious, our real location as a being will become
more and more evident to us, as we practice using our attention as it should be used. Of
course, just because it should be used that way doesnt mean that we are required to
use it that way. If we wish to have life as a being then we must use our attention as it
should be used, because it will give us the key to life.
But if we choose not to live life as a being, then there is no direct urgency to use
our attention as a being. In which case, any use of attention or non-use of attention is
appropriate. The choice is to live as a being, to unlock our life as a being, or not. To
be or not to be, that is the question.
Until we solve that question, we can go no further. Until we make a decision one way or
another, no further progress is possible. We must choose. We will live or we will continue
as we are. That choice must be made first. Then, and only then, can we begin to unlock the
secret of life. I am going to live the life of the being, or I will continue as I always
have. That choice is before us now. And that choice will be before us until we decide
either way.
We cannot avoid the choice. And no one can make the choice for us. No one can encourage
us one way or the other. We may choose either path. If we know of another path, we may
choose that. Or we may decide not to choose, in which case we will just drift back to
where we were before we became excited as a being; before we were tickled by cat
whiskers-like a germanium crystal or a silicon chip is tickled into excitation.
Something excited our being and aroused it. Now we are faced with a choice, and we
cannot make any further moves, go any further, or do anything until we choose one way or
the other. The choice will not go away. It will always be before us.
The choice must be clearly understood. We can choose either the life of the being, the
essential self, or the life of the machine. We must make that choice before we can even do
a simple attention exercise. The exercises will do no good otherwise. Why must that be so?
There are real laws involved here, things that we can move like blocks.
It is also very straight-forward. We can experiment with poking our finger in a light
socket, but we have to make a choice about really wanting to experience what will come
from that, if we know ahead of time what that will be. Otherwise our efforts will be
misguided purposely.
If we choose the life of the machine, the life of the machine will not include
something like an attention exercise. Once we have decided upon the path, then events will
take place accordingly.
What becomes of the body of women body builders after the muscles have been developed?
The body looks very much like a male body does, built up with muscles in smaller portions.
Wide wings and rippling backs, great big biceps, and big thick legs.
Anyone enrolling into a body building class has to really decide if that is what they
want to have happen to their body. Before we can do the smallest thing in terms of body
development, we must decide if that is what we want to become-a grotesque thing like that.
Imagine how grotesque it would be for the essential self to develop along the same line
and become powerful, much more powerful than in the ordinary course of events; in the
ordinary course of events, a human being generally has a very undeveloped essential self.
So, it looks pretty ugly to the average human being to have a highly developed essential
self; as strange, as peculiar, as alien as these body built creatures look to us.
We could not really function in a human world, in the ordinary world if we were to do
that. We would have to dress it in something, just as if we built our bodies in that way,
we would have to hide them on the street. We could only reveal them among other body
builders.
In the same way, if we develop the essential self along these lines, we will develop
the essential selfs ability to self-invoke. This means we will be able to send
ourselves through the maze, rising above the maze, and dropping ourselves through wherever
we want to drop in by using some topological tricks. We will become shamen, voyagers and
workers in the Great Labyrinth.
It is a terrible mistake to learn to dress after having built the being. The training
to dress should accompany the growth of our being. When we dont learn to dress in
public, horses follow us down the street. We are very exposed, and it is extremely
uncomfortable not to be cloaked. The risk of being mobbed is always present. Our will of
attention and will of presence arent going to help us, should we get mobbed. We are
just as vulnerable to the mob as any other machine. And we will look grotesque to any
normal human creature, should they happen to catch sight of our highly developed essential
self muscles.
We must have a good picture, a clear picture of how grotesque the development of the
being will appear to those who have chosen the life of the machine. Those who choose the
life of the being are grotesque in appearance and in feeling to those who have chosen the
machines life-according to the way the other machines feel or sense.
If we were next to a highly developed body, we would immediately notice several
differences, even if clothing masked it. We would find it grotesque just as we would be a
pitiful caricature to that individual.
In that case, the body was developed because the person didnt know what else to
develop, didnt know what really could be done. What was known about and what could
be seen was developed. The evidence for something higher probably escaped that person
entirely.
The wish to develop is in every human being. We all know that as we are, we are less
than we really could be-far less than we really could be. We fall far short of the
mark-even as an ordinary human being, even as a primate. Every human being senses that in
one way or another, and attempts to do something about it, according to his or her
understanding of himself or herself, and of life.
There is this urge to develop something, to be all we can be, to do all we can do. If
all we see is the machine-that is what we will develop. We will develop what we are aware
of-if we develop anything at all.
So the question has become urgent. What is more important to us? The life of the
machine or the life of the being? If we choose the life of the machine then we must
develop the machine to its capacity, but if we decide to live the life of the being, then
we must develop the being to its capacity.
It means starting out small, because there is really nothing there and we will destroy
what little there is by going too fast. We need to take a very slow gradient until our
muscles have built, then we can do anything.
Imagine if we were able to direct our attention-as it should be used-right from the
moment of conception on. Imagine if our attention was at its maximum, and all our life we
never had to learn this. Wouldnt we take it for granted that everyone else had the
same ability? We might wonder why they were not using it, but we wouldnt assume that
they didnt have it. We would assume that they werent using it.
That is the predicament of those who are born with potent attention, an never have to
develop it. They assume that everyone has that form and potency of attention. They
dont know thats not true. They also assume that everyone can manifest the
intensity that they can, and believe that if they dont, its because they
choose not to. Not because they cant. They assume that people are simply unwilling.
But in most cases, people are not unwilling-but unable. Unfortunately, even if we want
to, we cant even manifest the amount of attention, potency and intensity of
attention necessary to awaken the machine. The beacon just isnt bright enough. Under
the scorching and glaringly intense light of attention, the machine must awaken. Radiating
attention is guaranteed to awaken the machine. So why doesnt it happen?
Our attention should look like a search light focused about two feet away directly onto
the machine. What can stand that kind of light? Sleep is impossible. Its hot and
uncomfortable under that intensity; electrical, bothersome and piercing. But we are
working with dull four inch flashlights where the batteries are so burned out that there
is just a dull orange glow, so nothing happens. It is as if we are directing the
flashlight from about two miles away toward the machine.
Weve got the correct instructions, weve got all the method. But we
dont have the strength to do what is required. And yet, every so often, the machine
will come into the waking state. It just happens. So we take advantage of that. The only
problem is, without attention what can we do? The machine is awake, but it is as if we
didnt have a machine in the waking state at all. Its as if it never happened.
Now, lots of people dont like that intensity, or find it hard to deal with at
first. Some people, on the other hand, really like it. If we find ourselves liking it, if
we like burning like a magnesium flare, then we have an affinity as a being to the
awakened machine.
We start out small, gently, one step at a time. But we cant start off until we
make the decision. How are we going to make that decision? It needs to be a formal
decision, it cant just be a casual drifting. We cant go back on it, we have to
follow it through one way or the other. Have we ever decided to do something and see it
through regardless of what happened?
When we swim a half mile out, we cannot decide to not swim back. That is a very good
example of this kind of decision. There is a point of no return, where we have reached the
half-way mark. We cant turn back once we embark on it. We cant reverse what we
are making of ourselves. If we suddenly stop somewhere along the line, we will look more
grotesque than someone with a fully developed essential self. Partially developed is
totally grotesque.
What can we do to assist ourselves in this decision? First of all, we must fully
realize its importance-what it means and why. Realize why we cant proceed further
until weve made it; and what it is about this decision that blocks further
development.
The example of body building will help us. What if we started muscle development
techniques without a program to follow, and without a real intention to actually end up
with a certain type of body? We need to have a picture of what it is we are aiming at.
Otherwise, we may end up with something we do not want at all. Except we wont be
able to do anything about it!
We dont start off with the most advanced exercises. We work very slowly in a
highly disciplined way, so that every step is built upon the previous steps. We dont
take any short-cuts. It is almost the same thing as beginning to dance. We develop our
body in a certain way for dance. And we suffer immensely if we try to stop. That happens
in fencing too.
But we can have all of that, if we develop the attention. We dont have to build
the body, we can develop the body. The body is unbelievable plastic to the attention-when
the attention is operating. We can easily dance, lift weights, fence, do any activity
which normally requires years of discipline and practice. Just like caring; caring also
comes from this decision.
Weve come to the point where we are faced with a choice. We must choose the life
of the machine or we must choose the life of a being. How will we make a choice that will
stick-knowing that the primates will hate us, fear us, and generally find us disgusting?
- Talk of the Month #41, "To Be or Not To Be", a talk given by E. J. Gold