Deprogramming Consciousness

Conscious work (which is the only kind of work worthy of the name) can be very simply explained by saying that it is when we don’t exercise prejudice. Or rather, it is when we allow ourselves to see that we are operating on the basis of prejudice since there is no way to prevent ourselves from doing so! Going against our biases doesn’t undo them, it compounds them, it makes them more complicated, more convoluted. If I fight against my prejudices then all this does is to drive them underground, and at the same time give them even more power over me…

 

In meditation training we practice ‘observing the mind of like and dislike’, which is the only way to find freedom from that mind. We can’t become free from the mind of like and dislike by being prejudiced against that mind, by taking against it (or by supposedly ‘acting against it’). If we act against anything we are inevitably acting out our prejudices – all purposeful behaviour is prejudice-driven, just as all control is biased. My purposes are my prejudices; my attempt to control is the manifestation of my bias, my ‘prejudice with regard to outcome’.

 

When we exercise prejudice or bias but do not take the trouble to be aware that this is what we are doing then this is ‘non-work’. If conscious work is how we free ourselves from the mind of like and dislike then non-work is how we sign ourselves up to be its (unconscious) slaves! One way we get back our freedom, our independence, the other way we lose it (and also lose the ability to know that we have lost it). One way we come ‘back to ourselves’, so to speak, the other way we disappear under the weight of mechanical programming. The other way we get to donate our life-energy to the mechanical system, and make it stronger than ever…

 

There are only two possibilities in life – either we work consciously or we work unconsciously. Either we move in the direction of awareness or we fall deeper and deeper into the state of sleep, into the realm of fantasy. When we are involved in conscious work our fantasies are revealed to us as fantasies, and when we (unwittingly) allow ourselves to be operated by the mechanical system then these fantasies congeal and coagulate all around us, inexorably driving out anything else, anything of a ‘non-fantasy’ nature. Our fantasies solidify around us like quick-setting concrete and as a result all genuine movement (or ‘growth’) ceases.

 

We might ask why it is that there is this inexorable pull in the direction of ‘falling asleep’, the direction of ‘identifying with the mechanical system and allowing it to live out its crude ‘pseudo-life’ through us – as if this were of any value to anyone. Why do we give way so limply, so feebly, so resignedly to all the programming, instead of rebelling against it and persevering with this revolution until we had recovered our own true voice, our own true nature? Why do we let what Colin Wilson calls ‘the internal robot’ live our lives for us? Why – when a bias or prejudice gets activated – are we so keen to put every last drop of our precious life-energy at its disposal? What kind of perversity is this?

 

The point is that when we act out the bias something is being perpetuated. Something is being perpetuated that ‘wants’ to be perpetuated (so to speak). To not act out the prejudice that has been activated is to refrain to perpetuate this ‘thing that want to be perpetuated’, whatever it is. We are going against some kind of blind mechanical force. As we have already said however, we can’t actually wilfully prevent ourselves from acting out the prejudices or biases (although we might think that we can) but what is possible is for us to be aware that we are acting them out. If I take the trouble to be aware of what I am doing (instead of just automatically validating the behaviour) this makes a very big difference however. If I am aware of myself ‘obeying the rule’ this is actually the same as me ‘not obeying the rule’ because obeying the mechanical rule also means not seeing that we are obeying it. That’s part and parcel of the rule so already I am rebelling, already I am breaking free of its control. To become aware is an act of subversion; it’s an act of insubordination – we’re not supposed to be aware, we’re supposed to obediently swallow the official story!

 

There’s actually nothing we can do in order to become more conscious. It’s not a matter of ‘doing’ – when we purposefully do something it’s because there’s something we want to gain and something we want to avoid and this equals ‘a rule’, this equals ‘a bias’. Consciousness has nothing to do with rules and biases; it has nothing to do with trying to obtain one outcome rather than another. It has nothing to do with trying to reach one state of mind rather than another. If we are trying to reach some particular state of mind then this is simply the mechanical mind trying – as it always does try – to obtain what it sees as an advantage in the game its playing. Consciousness has nothing to do with trying to obtain the advantage…

 

The notion that some states of mind are closer to the truth than others is a typical delusion of the thinking mind. “The sufferings of birth and death are nirvana”, says Nichiren Daishonin… Whether a particular state of mind seems noble or ignoble, righteous or sinful, whether it is pleasurable or painful, triumphant or despairing depends entirely upon a wholly arbitrary point of view; the value we ascribe the mind-state depends upon the game we are playing, in other words. Take away the arbitrary POV, take away the game, and all states of mind are seen for what they truly are – nirvanic bliss. It’s only the biased or prejudiced viewpoint which is the self that divides everything into either good or bad, right or wrong, pleasure or pain. Whether a mental state is regarded as advantageous or disadvantageous is only so regarded from a wholly arbitrary viewpoint, the viewpoint of a self that doesn’t really exist.

 

What we may call ‘unconscious life’ is therefore driven by the compulsion to perpetuate an unreal self. When we are compelled to obey to act out our prejudices what we are really being compelled to do is to perpetuate a self that doesn’t actually exist! And by the same token, if we cease liking and disliking everything in sight (i.e. if we cease judging) then what we are really doing is that we are ceasing to promote or perpetuate this nonexistent self. As we have already pointed out however, we cannot deliberately or purposefully refrain from promoting or perpetuating the conditioned self because anything deliberate or purposeful is always done in service of the concrete sense of self. That’s what the word deliberate means – it means that the ‘me’ is doing it. That’s what ‘purposeful’ means – it means that there is a ‘me’ that has the purpose. What is possible however is for us to be aware of the judging, aware of the ceaseless activity of liking and disliking and in this gentle, unprejudiced awareness there is no ‘me’, there is no sense of there being a ‘concrete doer’.

 

No one does awareness, after all. Awareness is not a doing and there isn’t a right and a wrong way for it to happen. Being aware of the (unreal) self and its doing is work however because this awareness is not following the pre-existent pattern. Not only is awareness not following the pre-existent pattern, the established way of seeing and doing things, it is challenging that pre-existent pattern, it is going against that established order of things. The pattern cannot continue when there is awareness and so it could be said that awareness or consciousness is the enemy of the established order. This is always how it is – consciousness is always the enemy of the established order! Where there is consciousness there is change and change – needless to say – is the sworn enemy of the existing pattern, the existing way of seeing and doing things!

 

This is not to say that the mechanical mind (which is to say, the judging mind, the mind of like and dislike) is ‘the enemy of consciousness’. In one way it could of course be said that it is indeed the enemy since the mechanical system (whether we are taking about the ‘machine mind’ or the ‘machine world’ which is society) will automatically annihilate consciousness as a matter of course. It will gobble our awareness up in a flash like the big bad wolf, like Rumi’s ‘dragon in the snow’. The machine mind / machine world will, by its very nature, eliminate all traces of awareness by unceremoniously degrading or downgrading it into a system of mere mechanical reflexes. In this way the mechanical system may be said to be the enemy of consciousness, but in another way it is not an enemy at all but a helper. The mechanical order of things that does not – by its very nature – allow anything that is not itself is only our enemy when we are unaware of it, when we conform to it without knowing that we are conforming, when we do its bidding without seeing that we are. When we take the trouble to see what is happening however, the mechanical (or group) mind provides us with the necessary training ground (or gymnasium) to regain the freedom and independence that we have lost. As Paul Levi says, the mechanical system (the ‘dark father‘) then becomes the ‘worthy adversary’ which pushes us relentlessly and pitilessly to become who we truly are…

 

 

 

 

 

2 comments

  1. doyourwork · June 6, 2017

    If we could consider “pain” as a portal for consciousness or recovering our whole being intelligence. Then, maybe we could say, ego-mind or the mechanical-mind’s very resistance to let consciousness in can serve as the portal too, if we could allow and start with the very resistance as the material 🙂
    Thank you , Nick.

  2. doyourwork · June 6, 2017

    If we could consider “pain” as a portal for consciousness or recovering our whole being intelligence. Then, maybe we could say, ego-mind or the mechanical-mind’s very resistance to let consciousness in can serve as the portal too, if we could allow and start with the very resistance as the material 🙂
    Thank you , Nick.