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We all know what the world looks like from the POV<\/strong> of the \u2018central distortion\u2019 or \u2018bias\u2019 that we fondly call \u2018the self\u2019. This never<\/em> comes as a surprise! The question that we never ask is however, \u2018What does the world look like when this central distortion or bias isn\u2019t<\/strong> <\/em>in play?\u2019 That is an infinitely more interesting question to consider\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When we look at the world from the POV<\/strong> of the everyday self (the bias we can\u2019t see to be a bias) what we see is a function of that bias and nothing more<\/em>. What we see is<\/em><\/strong> that bias, reflected right back at us. The everyday conditioned self can only see that view of the world that allows it to carry on<\/em> being the everyday conditioned self. That\u2019s the way the self functions \u2013 that\u2019s the only way it can<\/em> function. If the self saw a view of the world that didn\u2019t confirm its validity as \u2018the self\u2019 then it wouldn\u2019t be able to function as a self and the whole point of the self is that it can<\/em> reliably continue to function as such! The self is an assumed viewpoint that never changes, an assumed viewpoint that fears changing, and so whilst everything in the universe changes, the self alone stays the same<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The self\u2019s view of the world is only there to maintain the fiction of itself in other words, and as such it is of no interest. It is \u2018of interest\u2019 only to that self and even then it isn\u2019t something that the self is genuinely interested in, only something that it needs to be able to rely on. The self needs to feel that its narrow view is the only view that there is, the only view that matters, but beyond this it is has no curiosity. The self has no curiosity about itself! The self and the view of the world which it relies on comes as a sort of a tautological package \u2013 the self gives rise to the view and the view gives rise to the self. This is like saying that society<\/em> is of no genuine interest to us and that the only point in it is to stabilize our idea of ourselves. Society is of no real interest in itself – it is an equilibrium state, it is \u2018a state of being that agrees with itself\u2019 and as such it is quite vacuous, quite hollow. When we adapt to the social system we become it and it becomes us, and all for the sake of perpetuating the status quo, whatever that \u2018status quo\u2019 might be<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There is no way anyone can say that an equilibrium state is interesting \u2013 it cannot be interesting because it contains no information and the reason we can say that it contains no information is because it exists \u2018in agreement with itself\u2019. \u2018Where there is conflict there is consciousness\u2019 says Jung. To be incongruent with society is to exist \u2013 how can one exist unless one stands out in some way? It is of course true that we are all continuously looking<\/em> for ways to \u2018stand out\u2019, ways to be different, but the problem with this is that the social system itself provides us with those ways of being different, and so this isn\u2019t really going to work! We opt for lifestyle choices that will enhance our individuality; we buy the product that will say something about us as the true unique individuals we are. To be defined by society is not to exist, so we look for more interesting, more \u2018edgy\u2019 ways of being defined by society. Physically speaking we still exist, it is true, but psychologically we cannot make this claim<\/em>. Psychologically speaking, we haven\u2019t been born yet! In terms of being \u2018our true selves\u2019 we do not exist \u2013 we are simply reflections of the system. We are its reflection and it is ours\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To agree with society is to agree with the generic and to agree with the generic is \u2013 of course \u2013 to be<\/em> the generic! If we agree with the generic then we can be ourselves because \u2018the generic\u2019 and \u2018who we really are\u2019 are antitheses. Being incongruent with society doesn\u2019t mean breaking the rules or \u2018being a rebel\u2019 (which is itself of course a societal construct), it just means that we don\u2019t see the world in a generic way. Of course we all feel <\/em>that we are non-generic \u2013 this is a ubiquitous illusion. Even the most socially adapted person still feels \u2013 very strongly \u2013 that they are a unique individual. We can\u2019t be persuaded otherwise! We would get angry or affronted if someone tried to persuade us otherwise. This false perception of individuality is the \u2018gift\u2019 that society provides us with in return for our freedom.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To see the world in the way that the socially adapted mind does is of no real interest. To find out that someone subscribes to this view is not an interesting datum; this is not information. It is not information because we could already predict this to be the case with over 99 % certainty. What constitutes information is when someone is non-congruent with the consensus view \u2013 this is the surprise, this is the thing that we can\u2019t predict. The moment I start to see things differently is the moment I wake up from my socially-prescribed sleep. Society is<\/em><\/strong> sleep \u2013 the gift it gives us is the gift of not existing and yet thinking that we do<\/em>. This is \u2013 we might say \u2013 \u2018the easy option\u2019; we are provided with the two-dimensional illusion of being the true individual that we are without the need to make any effort on our part. Nothing of who we really are has to go into this \u2013 it\u2019s the default position, it is something that is done for us by the external authority. It just falls into our lap and we never question it. We are too easily convinced. We don\u2019t want to know otherwise \u2013 finding out who we really are is hard work; it involves very painfully disinvesting from the illusion that we have become so solidly wedded to. We\u2019d rather just take the difficulty-free option; we\u2019d rather just play<\/em> at being true individuals and society facilitates this game superlatively well\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To be born (in the psychological sense) is the most difficult of things; we are – as Jung says \u2013 completely unsupported in this. The world is against us \u2013 the sleepers will always do everything within their power to pull us back into the collective dream. Either that or we are rejected, shunned, ostracized, driven out from the group. Being who you really are is a formidably arduous task and there are no structures to support you in this; structures only exist to support you in being who you are not. If being who you aren\u2019t is your wish, then people will bend over backwards to help you! When we are socially adapted then the deep-down pain of having lost one\u2019s core (having lost one\u2019s essential being) turns into condemnation and enmity towards anyone who might be breaking out of the group, going against the structure, and thus betraying everyone else. No act is more unforgivable than this! When we are \u2018unfree without knowing that we are unfree\u2019, and when (as we do) we have a deep reluctance to confront this profoundly unpalatable truth, then the one thing we resent more than anything else is to see someone else moving towards freedom. We resent this without knowing (or caring) why we do, and all of our un-owned personal darkness is visited upon them\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Being \u2018who we truly are\u2019 doesn\u2019t just fall into our laps, therefore. Far from it! This is the \u2018pearl of great value\u2019 spoken of in Matthew 13:45-46 and it is not to be found at a bargain price in any second-hand store. The tawdry, second-hand \u2018version of the truth\u2019 which is obtained with no effort is not just of \u2018no worth\u2019, it is a curse, it is a liability.<\/em> Although this gift of the system (i.e. \u2018the pseudoself\u2019) represents an avoidance of effort in the first instance \u2013 and this is of course what is so attractive about it \u2013 the price that we pay for it later on is very, very high. We\u2019re just not told about it and that\u2019s why the offer seems like such a good one! The details are in the small print somewhere and we\u2019re in far too much of a hurry to avail of the deal to be bothering to read that. The deal is \u2018avoidance of difficulty in the short term at the price of unimaginable difficulty in the future\u2019 but we don\u2019t see the second part of it. We get a holiday from facing life\u2019s challenge but this holiday is paid for dearly later on when that challenge \u2018turns negative\u2019 on us and starts pursuing us to the ends of the earth like one of avenging furies from Greek mythology. This is always the deal with psychological unconsciousness, the state of \u2018soul-sleep\u2019 \u2013 \u2018sleep is very comfortable but waking up is very bitter<\/em>\u2019, says Gurdjieff. According to Jung, unconsciousness is the \u2018original sin\u2019 for which nature will punish us without leniency. Not knowing what we were doing (because we were unconscious) will not work as an excuse!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We started off by saying that \u2018we all know what the world looks like from the POV<\/strong> of the central bias which is the self\u2019. Strictly speaking however, this isn\u2019t actually true. It isn\u2019t true because what we\u2019re seeing is an illusion that isn\u2019t known to be an illusion. The system that is made up of the self and its view of the world is a closed system, and anything that is \u2018seen\u2019 in a closed system isn\u2019t true, isn\u2019t real. What we\u2019re seeing just plain isn\u2019t there so we can\u2019t<\/em> be seeing it! There\u2019s no such thing<\/em> as \u2018a closed system\u2019 in the first place and so naturally we can\u2019t see anything real when we\u2019re in one. What we\u2019re seeing when we see the world from the POV<\/strong> of the everyday self isn\u2019t there because there isn\u2019t any such thing<\/em> as \u2018the everyday self\u2019. What we have here are two illusions feeding off each other, only it\u2019s really just the one illusion. It\u2019s an illusion that isn\u2019t really there (just as all illusions \u2013 by definition – \u2018aren\u2019t really there\u2019) but to itself it seems to be there<\/em>. There is this big generic \u2018definite reality\u2019 and we would all \u2013 inevitably \u2013 swear that this is what we are seeing. But it isn\u2019t \u2013 we can\u2019t be seeing it because there\u2019s no such thing. The view of the generic mind is an illusory one \u2013 it\u2019s illusory because there\u2019s no such thing as \u2018the generic mind\u2019. Just as there isn\u2019t a \u2018generic person\u2019, there isn\u2019t a generic mind<\/em>. The view we rely on every day to stabilize who we like to think we are is an illusory one; it is the illusory reflection of an illusory mind. So the upshot of all this is that we don\u2019t<\/em> know what the world looks like from the POV<\/strong> of the everyday self, which is the POV<\/strong> of the illusory mind. We only \u2018know\u2019 a hallucination. But if we don\u2019t know a hallucination to be a hallucination, what do we know? When we don\u2019t realize that the world we are relating to on a daily basis is merely a mental projection, what are we really seeing?<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n When we look out at the world without<\/em> the central bias being there then there is no hallucination, no unacknowledged reflection of that self; no \u2018agreement\u2019 of the generic mind with the world that it projects. There is no hallucination, no reflection, no \u2018agreement\u2019 because there is no assumed self there at the centre of it all. There is no \u2018self\u2019 and no \u2018other\u2019. When there is no central distortion or bias there is no splitting up of the world into subject and object \u2013 there is no polarization, no dualistic divide. So what we are saying is that it is the rational mind and nothing else that creates this all-important divide between subject and object, observer and observed and the funny thing about this split is that although to us in our conditioned state there is the biggest difference in the world between the one pole and the other (i.e. self and other, subject and object), in reality there is no difference between the two poles at all<\/em>. \u2018Positive\u2019 agrees with \u2018negative\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s all the one logical continuity. One side agrees totally with the other just like buying agrees with selling (to paraphrase Alan Watts) and because there is nothing but agreement there is tautology, there is hollowness. Duality is an illusion, as Eastern philosophy tells us; we say that there is a difference between subject and object but that is only because we are looking at things in the particular way that makes<\/em> there be a difference. We insist<\/em> on there being a difference between positive and negative by the way in which we adhere like limpets to the one-sided viewpoint provided by the rational mind (which is predicated<\/em> upon [+]<\/strong> not being the same as [-]<\/strong>).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When we\u2019re operating out of the rational mind we\u2019re always seeing something that isn\u2019t there, in other words. We\u2019re seeing reality with all the information (all the \u2018surprise-factor\u2019) taken out of it and reality with all the information sucked out of it is a type of a trick, a kind of a phantom appearance that keeps running away from us. One way to describe this phantom appearance is to say that it is a type of black and white optical illusion where the target we are approaching keeps reversing or flipping over from white to black every time we focus in on it. Every time we imagine that we have the target (i.e. the white spot) cornered it \u2018becomes its own opposite\u2019 and we have to start chasing it all over again. \u2018Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions<\/em>\u2019, says Friedrich Nietzsche.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n