THE USELESS SELF

Jean-Michel Terdjman

The head monk Shen-hsiu wrote a verse:

The body is the Bodhi tree,
The mind is like a clear mirror.
At all times we must strive to polish it
And must not let the dust collect.

Hui-neng had someone read the verse to him (he was not an intellectual) and then offered his own verse:

Bodhi originally has no tree,
The mirror also has no stand.
Buddha nature is always clean and pure;
Where is there room for dust?

The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, p.130-132. Columbia University Press, New York, 1967.

"By reality and perfection I mean the same thing." Spinoza, Ethics, Part II, Definition VI.

CONTENTS

I. Why Read This Book?
II. Two Levels Of Consciousness.
III. The End Wants To Come At The Beginning. IV. Free Will: There Is No Such Thing.
V. A River Has To Keep Flowing…
VI. You Are Not What You Think You Are. (I)
VII. The Mountain And I.
VIII. Awareness Without Judgment.
IX. Why The Quest For Liberation is An Impossibility.
X. Reflections To Nowhere. XI. You Are Not What You Think You Are. (II)
XII. The Absolute Illusion Of The Ego.
XIII. Consciousness, The Cat And The Camera.
XIV. Gravity Does It All.
XV. The Problem: I Believe That I Exist.
XVI. Mental Activity: The Thinking Process Is The Entity.
XVII. My Dumb Body Knows More Than I Do.
XVIII. The Individual Self…
XIX. Consciousness And Self-Consciousness. XX. The Fundamental Confusion.
XXI. Everything Is An Event In Nature.
XXII. U.G. Krishnamurti: Neither Knowledge Nor Wisdom.
XXIII. Adolf Hitler Versus Albert Einstein.
XXIV. Basta!
Appendix: Where Does It Come From?

Chapter I WHY READ THIS BOOK?

This book is about the non-existent entity called The Self, in which we all believe so dearly. Contrary to our most direct intuition and to our deepest-seated beliefs, we are not an autonomous self that acts in the world. Each one of us is an event in nature. Every finite thing (and that means everything under the sun, including us human beings) is a link in the infinite chain of cause-and-effect. We exist as part of a determined reality which comes from we don't know where, and rushes we don't know where. Our actions are not ours, even though they are done under our name. Objectively, they are part of the web of things. But, subjectively, we believe that we are a Self, which beams consciousness over an inert world, which decides and which acts. There is no such thing.

"Our" actions are only the expression of the infinite power of nature to be and to act. That's why the subjectivesense of Self (the direct intuition at the center of our individual being) is Useless. Can this book help you understand yourself? Possibly. It is about all the things we think we know without a doubt because they seem to be self-evident, and about which we are in total error.

This book questions the most fundamental assumption that everyone has about oneself, namely that one is a thinking subject, an autonomous self. The personal self is not what we think it is. As a result, our goals in life are sheer delusions. Our values, hollow shells. Our emotions, irrelevant and superfluous, even though they happen necessarily. Our most cherished beliefs are nothing but grotesque fixations. Our most certain convictions nothing but crumbling dust. The only possible escape is spiritual enlightenment. But can one reach enlightenment just because one ardently desires it?

You may not want to read this book because, if you go along with it, that will force you to let go of your foundations, which is always a lot of trouble. If you don't go along with it, you will loathe having been challenged in that way, and having had to defend yourself without gaining any benefit or making any progress whatsoever at the end, for no enlightenment or liberation is possible for the self. The individual self cannot reach enlightenment. It can only fall into dissolution and nothingness. Enlightenment means the end of you (or me, as a self,) so how can you (or I,) experience it? This book is not about liberation, but about the necessity of bondage. But bondage itself is illusory. The law of cause and effect is not bondage, it is just the way things are. Bondage comes into play only in reference to the illusion of a free and autonomous individual self. Drop the illusion, and you also drop the illusion of bondage, and all the accompanying miseries. But if you drop the illusion, nothing is left of you, except your objective existence, AND YOU DON'T WANT THAT. The center of your existence is your own subjectivity, and you always use and abuse your objective existence in favor of your subjective delusions.

Chapter II TWO LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Observation tells us that consciousness can manifest itself in two ways:

--direct consciousness: direct awareness by the body (the senses) of the outside world or of itself. Examples:

a. I inadvertently bring my hand close to a hot stove. The heat sensation provokes a withdrawal of my hand.

b. I am driving, the car in front of me slows down, and I lift my foot from the accelerator pedal.

c. More generally, the entire functioning of my body, which is sensitive to literally billions of internal and external stimuli, reacts accordingly, and exists as an incredibly complex biological factory. What happens is that there is awareness--or sensitivity-- taking place in my body, with some kind of reaction following. Yet, at the moment this is taking place, I do not know --I am not conscious-- of the hot stove or of the car slowing down, and I do not know that my body knows, or that there is that awareness taking place in my body.

--reflected consciousness: I see the mountain, and I know that I am seeing the mountain. Usually, we limit the use and meaning of the word to this latter sense. This is misleading because it leads us to believe that reflected consciousness can take place in itself and by itself, independently of anything else. That cannot be. Reflected consciousness --what we could call second levelof consciousness--, cannot take place unless a primary or direct consciousness has already taken place, --what we could call a first levelof consciousness. I have first to see the mountain (even if in a dream) in order to know that I am seeing the mountain, thus becoming conscious of my own existence.

All movements by our body or inside of it (physical movements and mental events) are of the first, immediate level of consciousness. As a result, THE MIND DOES NOT ORDER THE BODY AROUND (in which case reflected consciousness would precede direct consciousness and be the cause of it.) We only have (or rather we only are) a mind-body unit: the mind isthe body, or vice-versa. Whatever we do, think, feel, is always the mind-body acting at the level of direct consciousness.

Chapter III THE END WANTS TO COME AT THE BEGINNING (OR: THE MARIONETTE WANTS TO BE FREE)

What we think comes at the beginning comes in fact at the end of the process. Life is not a clean slate, a virgin land waiting for the all-powerful individual self to realize its full potential. The machinery is there, all the causes are there, and it is only as a result of the functioning of the machinery that an individualized center of consciousness emerges. Looking at itself, and not knowing where it comes from, what causes it and what its true being is, not knowing that it is the end-result of the process, the self looks forward. It wants to do something with itself. It sets or looks for goals and meanings and values and ideals. Not knowing that it comes at the end, the self sees itself at the beginning, as self-caused, a miracle in nature. Once it knows itself to exist, it wants desperately to become something, anything, to give itself substance and confirmation. It will find ideals to strive for, models to conform to, deeds to accomplish --anything that would give it the substance it lacks, for being aware of itself but not of its origin, it does not know that its existence is already fully caused, and that there is nothing for it to do. I DON'T HAVE TO ACT,BECAUSE THE "I" (the sense of being a personal self) IS ALREADY THE RESULT OF EVENTS OVER WHICH IT HAS NO CONTROL. But we think we have to act, because we think that if we don't, no action will take place. We are confusing awareness of the will to decide and to act with the event itself.

Like a marionette aware of itself, but not of the strings moving it and bringing it into existence, the self believes itself free to go here or there. It tries desperately to give meaning and purpose to its movements, --whereas the whole show is decided elsewhere. And the marionette becomes aware of itself only insofar as it is moved here and there by the strings, and has absolutely no freedom of movement of its own.

The individual self, not knowing what to do with itself, and powerless to do anything about itself (but it is not aware of that) is filled with anguish and suffering. Not only does it want to have goals and meanings, things to realize, it also wants to free itself from its painful predicament, "to escape from bondage." Yet, try as it may, nothing gets accomplished and no problem gets solved: the only feeling of accomplishment comes from the hardening of illusions and beliefs, the only alleviation of suffering from biological exhaustion and death. All the while life goes on, and the marionette moves to and fro, its movements and states of mind entirely dictated by the strings, i.e., by the iron law of cause and effect.

Chapter IV FREE WILL: THERE IS NO SUCH THING

Free will is as much a possibility as the reflection in a mirror which would want to control the reality of which it is a reflection: that cannot be. The belief in free will comes from the fact that I know what I want (reflected consciousness,) but that at the same time I am in the ignorance of the cause and the origin of my wants (at the level of direct consciousness.)

MIND OVER MATTER: AN IMPOSSIBILITY

Mind (in the human individual) is matter becoming conscious of its own existence through its own changes and interactions. Individual self-consciousness is the reflection of changes in matter, not their cause, even though it can be parallel and simultaneous to those changes. Thus, mind can no more control matter than a hammer and chisel can shape an idea, or change it, or control it.

Chapter V A RIVER HAS TO KEEP FLOWING IN ORDER TO EXIST AS A RIVER OR, DESIRE IS THE ESSENCE OF MAN.

If the personal self exists as an entity only as a reflection in a mirror, it follows that it can be only what it reflects--nothing else, nothing more. And, of course, it cannot control what it is a reflection of.

What does it reflect? It is a reflection of desires, fears, conditionings, memories, emotions, --in short all our mental states. If we agree that it is nothing else than, let's say, the reflection of this or that desire, then the disappearance of this or that desire (emotion, fear, etc) involves the disappearance of the self itself: if I don't desire, fear, emote, etc, I do not exist(in my accustomed way of perceiving myself.) The self, like any idea (in a Spinozist definition, any mental state or event,) wants to persevere in its being, it wants to continue to exist. It does not want to cease. I WANT TO EXIST . On the surface, I want suffering to cease. In reality, if suffering is the way I exist now, I want suffering to continue, because I amit. Of course, I could exist by being joy, or indifference, rather than suffering. But that depends on outside factors and internal dispositions already preexisting, not on what the self does, or wants, or decides. The only thing the self can do is exist, be itself, i.e., reflect something else, and keep reflecting that in order to keep existing.

In order to keep existing, the self will take anything that comes --joy, suffering, indifference-- not that it has any choice in what it will or will not reflect. The self cannot alter outside factors or internal dispositions: it isthem (by reflecting them.) It cannot be anything else than what they are. And they are what the chain of causation, including the chemicals in my brain, will make them. If there is a desire to alleviate suffering, to pacify mental agitation, I should take heroin: it would be a more effective, realistic, and humble attitude. If not, let me suffer and be myself.

The only alternative (beside heroin) would be, not so much to accept suffering (difficult to do wholeheartedly and sincerely, unless one is already a masochist,) as to accept the fact that one issuffering (is made of suffering,) at that given moment, and that one will continue to be suffering, and exist as suffering, till external factors and internal dispositions change (i.e., satisfaction of desires, fear of consequences, biological fatigue or exhaustion, another stronger emotion coming along, death, etc.)

Chapter VI YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE --I

You are not a self which has this or that project, which feels this or that desire, which holds this or that belief. You arethis desire, this project, this belief, and besides those there is nothing else. You don't havethe desire to make money: you areit, or it is you. You don't have the fear of death: the fear of death is the only thing that is there. If all those things come to an end, if there is no longer the desire for an object, the fear of something happening, the love for this or that, the feeling that it would be nice to sit down with the newspaper and a cup of coffee, or even the fatigue and despair and disgust about it all, if all those things were to disappear, to come to an end, that would be the end of you too, you would drop dead. Dead, not in the sense of biological death, but dead in the sense of a subjective self-aware self which is no more: dead to yourself. You are not a self which experiences desire for that woman passing there under the sun: at that particular moment, you are that desire --and nothing else, if the emotion is violent enough. You don't experience that desire; that desire experiences itself, that is, the desire knows that it exists. The sense of the individual self --of me existing as an individual which has all those desires-- comes as a by-product, as a generalization of all those desires, fears, emotions, thoughts,memories,experiencing themselves and coming to self-consciousness. There is fear, then there is a reflection of fear, and through that reflection a sense of the self emerges. In time all three things happen simultaneously: fear, reflection of fear, sense of myself being afraid.

Chapter VII THE MOUNTAIN AND I: I DON'T KNOW THAT I EXIST IF I DON'T SEE IT

When I see the mountain, I do more than that. I see the mountain, and I know that I am seeing the mountain. Likewise, I feel hot, and I know that I am feeling hot. How do I know that I exist at all? Only by seeing the mountain, feeling hot, etc. There is no self-consciousness unless there is some basic perception first, which then becomes reflected upon itself, thereby bringing about the sense of an individual self aware of itself and of the world. But this self comes last. It is a result, not a cause. It is not a source of consciousness, but a reflection of consciousness. It is not a source or a center of action and of decision, but a result of the interaction between the world and my body --and that includes "abstract thinking."

We have to understand that whatever "I" know, my body also "knows," and knows first. I cannot know that I am seeing the mountain unless my eyes see it first (or, more precisely, an image of the mountain is formed in my eye.) Any awareness that I have of myself being aware of anything whatsoever presupposes that this awareness is already existing in my body. Without it no reflection at all could exist. In fact, my body (senses, nerves, muscles, organs, glands, bones, etc.) "knows" infinitely more than I do. Some (not much) of that knowledge becomes reflected, mostly through the senses and the nervous system, thereby causing the "I" to exist as an individual self, whose main characteristic is to be aware of itself as existing and as a center and source of consciousness, decision and action.

As a result of the illusory self people are not trying understand and know the world and themselves in it. All their cogitations and emotions aim at confirming to the world and to themselves that they are what they ought to be, thus confirming --to the world and to themselves-- that they do exist. This is the direct consequence of falsely believing that one exists: then, one has to prove that one is good, or decent, or powerful, or attractive, or happy. Even the striving for happiness is another way for the self to prove, or confirm, that it exists.

Chapter VIII AWARENESS WITHOUT JUDGMENT

J.Krishnamurti (not to be confused with U.G. Krishnamurti) suggests that we should strive to achieve awareness without judgment. In fact, the second level, or reflected level of consciousness, is just that: when I see the mountain, I know that I see the mountain. I am aware, and I don't have to judge. But then what happens immediately after is that, by making it possible for the individual self to come on stage, the reflected level brings about a whole mental structure which looks for tasks, goals, ideals, and constant reaffirmation of its own existence. So, I give value to my perception: the mountain is beautiful, or it has been spoiled by clear cutting of the trees, etc. We now have awareness with judgment.

If we stop judging (at least in theory,) there is automatically awareness without judgment: things are happening in nature (meaning inside and outside ourselves, within and without, subjectively or objectively,) and there is a reflection of them. I see the mountain, and I know that I am seeing the mountain. That's all. But I am a thinking being, and judgment follows automatically: I want to live on the mountain, or climb it, or run away from it. The sight of the mountain will bring about other images, thoughts, or emotions. I will have them and at the same time I will know that I am having them, thus constantly reinforcing and re--confirming awareness of myself as an individual thinking and judging self.

At the level of direct consciousness there is no suffering as such. There is only perception of reality and of events, without any reference to a centerof consciousness. Suffering takes place at the level of reflected consciousness, when the panicky self runs away from reality, or desperately tries to change it. Psychological suffering takes place when there are values and purposes and meanings. The individual thinking self believes in values, or searches for them, because it will automatically appropriate to itself and identify with any value it can latch onto. It wants to believe that there are values because, by identifying with them, it believes that it adds more being to itself. It can see itself not only as existing, but as existing as the most worthwhile and elevated thing in nature. In fact, values (moral, aesthetic and otherwise) are grounded in this striving of the individual self to affirm absolutely its own existence and worth.

The second level may reflect only partially or incompletely --or not at all-- all those events happening in nature (i.e., the external world and my body as a part of it.) In any case, IT DOES NOT MATTER, AND THERE IS NOTHING TO DO. In all cases, without exception, even in all my conscious decisions, things (or more precisely the causes that bring them forth) have already happened when I become conscious of them, i.e., when they become reflected on themselves, thereby making me conscious of myself.

So, Krishnamurti is both right and wrong: awareness without judgment is a great thing. On the other hand, it is not something that one can strive for: at the direct level of consciousness there is nothing to do, because there is no judgment possible. And at the reflected level, there is nothing doing: the self enters stage and craves judgment, because it thinks that values will give it the substance it does not have.

Chapter IX WHY THE QUEST FOR LIBERATION IS AN IMPOSSIBILITY AND A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS

Let us say that the ego, the sense of an individual self acting and thinking, is a fiction created by the mind --or, more exactly, a by-product of mental activity, a by-product of the existence of ideas at the first level of consciousness which are then reflected at the second level. So, it is a fiction in the mind like, say, the idea of a unicorn. The problem is: I can have the idea of a unicorn, then add that this idea is a fiction, thus denying that there is a corresponding object in the outside world.

Thus:
--the idea of a unicorn,
--the idea that this idea is a fiction, which implies the denial that there is a unicorn out there.

In the case of the self we have:
--the idea of the self: I think of myself as an independent agent, center of consciousness,etc.,
--the idea that this is an illusion, for a number of logical or existential reasons,
--at that point, the sense of the self, like the idea of the unicorn, remains. But, unlike the idea of the unicorn, telling myself that the self is an illusion does not really -existentially- convince me that it is an illusion. I still apprehend myself as a self, just the way Descartes described it. Positing that the self is an illusion, denying that the self exists as an autonomous center, just adds substance to it and reinforces it. Why?

Because denying the truth of an idea does not dissolve it into nothingness. Denying an idea means that one has a second idea about it (the original idea.) The second idea cannot exist without the first, and positing the second idea (as a denial of the first) automatically reinforces the first idea (as an idea) rather than pushing it into nothingness.

Saying that the unicorn is a fiction does not dissolve the idea of the unicorn. It simply adds another idea, which is the denial of the existence of the unicorn as an object in the outside world. In the case of the self, saying that the self is an illusion cannot lead to the denial of the existence of an object, for the sense of the self is the idea not of an object, but of an idea: the sense of the self comes from the selfreflective power of ideas. It is a generalization, an abstraction derived from the power inherent in some of our ideas to be reflected upon themselves. Saying that the self, like the unicorn, has no object corresponding to it is useless, because it is not the idea of an object in the first place, but the idea of a general idea of consciousness, a reflection of itself: reflective consciousness being a reflection of itself, thus telling itself that it exists.The self establishes itself solely by thinking itself,without any reference to the outside world --a process very well described by Descartes. The self, by thinking itself, establishes its existence as a thinking self. The more it thinks about itself (either by affirming its existence, like Descartes, or by denying it, like me) the more it creates ideas about itself. And the very existence of those ideas reinforces its existence even more firmly. Denying the existence of a unicorn denies that there is an object, and posits the idea of the unicorn as a fiction. The idea does not disappear --in fact, it affirms its own existence by denying the existence of its object.

Denying the existence of the self, likewise, denies that there is an object in the world --and by so doing reinforces the idea which is the origin and possibility of the second idea as the denial of the first.

The more the self denies its existence, sees itself and thinks itself as an illusion, the more it establishes its existence. The only way it can go into oblivion is by stopping thinking (i.e., stopping its own existence as an idea, with the corollary of a physiological transformation.) An idea can deny the existence of its own object, it can think itself as being a fiction, but it cannot be the cause of its own extinction, any more than an atom or object can make itself into nothingness.

Chapter X REFLECTIONS TO NOWHERE

The individual thinking self is based on a general idea of consciousness which accompanies a few of the events taking place in the mind-body unit --only a few, because most of the events taking place in the body don't reach the level of reflected consciousness. This idea of reflected consciousness in turn reflects upon itself --like all the other ideas in this category-- and, because it is not related to any particular object (or idea, emotion, etc.), it pre-empts the field and declares itself in charge of all the other ideas. It says that they belong to it, whereas in fact it is just a common characteristic of all the reflected events. Some of the events taking place in the mind-body unit are reflected upon themselves but, by the very fact that they reflect upon themselves, the same mental process of reflectionwill automatically bring about this general idea of reflected consciousness. This idea then sets itself up as the boss and owner of all the other ideas and events of which it is in factonly a result.

The self knows only itself and, in its isolation and solitude, dreads the loss of itself. It is derived from the power of impressions on the senses to be reflected on themselves. But it is directly connected only to the reflection (which is a generalization) and not to the impressions themselves (which have an actual content of information.) It has nothing but itself to connect to and cling to. Outside of itself, it can only grasp the void. Hence, its self-obsession. When death comes the reflection --and the obsession-- come to an end.

ChapterXI YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE (MY PROBLEM, TOO)--II

Your consciousness of yourself has nothing to do with what you are in actuality.

You are (we all are) in actuality a biological machine which includes a computer. A mind-body unit. As such, our objective reality is entirely the result of past and present causes (biological and mental conditioning together with external stimuli.) As such, this objective reality (which is us, which is our objective being) has no intrinsic purpose and no intrinsic meaning.

My perception of myself is in no way a reflection of my objective being. Except in a very superficial way I am not aware of the internal functioning of either my body or my mind. I am only aware of some of the reflections of the body-mind events, as they are triggered by external or internal stimuli. I (and you too) am only aware of what I need from the outside world, physically and emotionally: food, shelter, security, attention, fame, love, power. I am aware that I want food, or that I am sated. You and I have no idea (or so little) what our body does with this food, or how it does it. A tremendous chemical factory is at work, dissolving food into proteins, minerals, sugars, etc., and using it with maximum efficiency to feed the machine and keep it working. We are totally and blissfully ignorant of it all, even though a doctor or a physiologist has some theoretical knowledge about it.

When we are digesting, we never think of ourselves as a digestive machine. More to the point, we do not think asa digestive machine, for the simple reason that a digestive machine, or any other machine, does not have to think in order to function. It does not have to know that it knows, or to know that it exists, in order to function. A machine has to know a considerable amount (i.e., must have the capacity to process information) to function, but it does not need to have a reflection of its own "knowledge," it does not have to think.

A machine does not have to reflect on its own knowledge in order to function, and that's true even of a "thinking" machine, be it a computer or your mind or my mind. A machine does not have to know that it knows, and does not have to be conscious of its own existence. The reflection of events in the mind-body unit brings about self-awareness, or awareness of the self: the self comes into being by being conscious of itself. Nothing else in nature needs to be self-conscious in order to exist or to function. Conversely, the individual self does not have to function and act in the world in order to exist. Even more: not only the individual self does not have to function, it does not function at all. It does not play any role at all--except to itself, of course. It comes into being at the end of the chain of events, and it is only a reflection of what has already happened or is now happening through causes other than itself.

ChapterXII THE ABSOLUTE ILLUSION OF THE EGO

Because it has no particular role to play and is entirely superfluous in the whole chain of events, and because its being is to be conscious of itself and of nothing else in particular, the individual self can easily give itself the central role in the scheme of things: the absolute illusion of the ego arises precisely because everything can, and does, function without any need for it. Being totally useless and superfluous, it can the more easily feel itself omnipotent. It puts itself at the center of the action (the unfolding of events.) It sees itself as the cause, the meaning and the purpose of it all: The whole world exists for the sake of the individual self, as a stage where the glorious apotheosis will take place (after many trials and tribulations which will of course only serve to enhance the meaning and worth of the self.)

ChapterXIII CONSCIOUSNESS, THE CAT, AND THE CAMERA

It is a commonly held view that animals don't "have consciousness," and plants and minerals even less. This is a mistake, which arises from the fact that the term "consciousness" is usually restricted to mean "reflected consciousness," i.e. awareness of the contents of one's own consciousness: I see the tree, and I am aware of the fact that I am seeing the tree. In contrast, we don't know whether the cat which sees the tree knows that it is seeing the tree, and it seems pretty safe to assume that the camera does not know that it is seeing the tree that it is photographing. Yet the cat, the camera, and my own eyes and brain --i.e., myself-- are all equally "conscious" of the tree. Cat and camera "see" the tree as well as I do, even though they may not know that they see it. The only difference is that there is in my brain a reflected consciousness of the primary "seeing of the tree" --I know that I am seeing the tree-- which presumably does not exist in the cat or in the camera. But the primary, direct, immediate, and absolutely necessary, sensation or "feeling" of the tree exists as much in the cat and in the camera as in me. The camera senses the tree as well as I do. The difference is that the camera, lacking a brain, does not know that it is seeing the tree: the primary consciousness of the tree is not reflected in the camera, but it is in me, simply because my nervous and physiological organization is more complex than that of the camera.

As a result of knowing that I see the tree, I know that I exist, whereas the camera does not know that it exists. But knowing that I exist does not make me exist "more," or differently, than the camera.I do not see the tree better than the camera simply because I know that I am seeing, whereas the camera does not.

If we want to mention "thinking" rather than "seeing" --as proof of our essential difference with the rest of nature--, then let's replace the camera with a computer, and we will be able to use the same reasoning. The fact that I know that I am thinking --i.e., processing bits of data-- whereas the computer does not know that it thinks and exists as a data-processing machine, does not make me a better machine, and does not give me more "existence." Reflected awareness of the processes that are going on in the mind-body unit, the biological-computing machine, does not add ANYTHING to the processes.It is only a by-product of those processes.

Chapter XIV GRAVITY DOES

IT ALL Let's be more precise: it does almost everything, as in the case of a stream rushing down the mountain. Without gravity, water would remain floating above the ground, and there would be no stream. There are other factors, also physical like gravity: the slope of the land, the nature of the ground (hard or soft, etc.,) the temperature; if it's too cold, the icy water does not flow freely, and the torrent is replaced by a glacier; if it's too hot, the water becomes vapor, and again there is no stream. The point is that the very existence of the stream, and the way it exists, is controlled by forces of nature, the most important being gravity.

What about the case of a human being? We have a myriad of complex physical, mechanical, chemical, biological, electro-mechanical interactions between a material body and the rest of the world. Like gravity, all those forces are expressions of nature in action. A human being who is alive, breathes, moves, thinks and decides, is an event in nature, like the stream rushing down the mountain. More than gravity is at work, but the forces at work are likegravity: they express the power of nature to be and to act. The entire being and behaving of a human being is controlled by those forces, exactly as the being of the stream is controlled by the force of gravity and the slope of the land.

The rush of the stream is a direct result of the force of gravity combined with the slope of the land. In the case of man, the energy that makes him move, think, decide, and act, is also the result of the forces of nature, this time expressed (in addition to gravity) as chemical reactions and biological metabolism. The same is of course true in the case of animals and plants. Natural forces are at work, whether we are talking about streams, plants, animals, or man. They are at work creating and maintaining the networks of neurons that make a mind-body unit think, "decide" and "act." The individual self that comes as a by-product of mental activity can neither create, nor control those forces.

Chapter XV THE PROBLEM: I BELIEVE THAT I EXIST

Something is bothering me. Existential anguish. Malaise. No joie de vivre. Even wretchedness, at times. Or, on the opposite side, I feel great: I am doing great things, I am making progress; there is hope, a feeling of plenitude, accomplishment, power, control, creativity, etc. In both cases, I believe that I exist.

In both cases I am laboring under the innate, compulsive, all-pervading belief that I have to do something with myself in this life. This belief takes a myriad forms:

--I want to give meaning to my life.
--I want to "realize myself," to reach my true self, to reach enlightenment, to have the true faith.
--I want to "help others."
--I want to leave my mark in this world.
--I want eternal felicity, in this life or in the thereafter (if it is too painfully obvious that I am really not fit for it this time around.)
--I want to be good, to be virtuous.
--I want power, or fame, or riches, or love.
Desires, cravings, fears, do exist. In fact, they are the only things to exist. None of the actions or deeds that I will accomplish--more accurately, that will take place-- during the pursuit are illusory: they will become part of the general web of things, they will be part of the general becoming of reality. Yet, the goal itself, as something reached or accomplished by the individual self, is totally illusory. The self cannot act or do, the self cannot be realized, because it can exist in the first place only as the reflection of something else. It is already realized as the reflection of something else.

Those aspirations for the self to do something, for the self to realize itself, may be more or less confused, articulate, diffuse. Yet they are always there, from birth, or almost, till death, or almost.

So my capital mistake is: I believe that I exist. I do exist as a mind-body unit. But that's my objective existence, and that, incredibly enough, is not really important to me. What is important to me is the use that, in my subjective existence (as a self,) I make of my objective being. I believe that I exist as a center of consciousness, of thought, of awareness of myself and of the outside world. I believe that I enjoy free will, that my mind controls the movements of my body, that my mind, as a center of thought and reflection and self-awareness, is in control of its own decisions.

When I look at the world, a relationship, a connection is established between the outside world and the mind-body unit. It is a connection between two parts of the same world. There is consciousness in action in the world. The world becomes conscious of itself, and as a result of this event at the level of primary consciousness, there is in the mind-body unit a reflection of this primary consciousness, and as a result of this consciousness of consciousness, the mind-body unit reaches self-awareness.

Chapter XVI MENTAL ACTIVITY, OR: THE THINKING PROCESS IS THE ENTITY

Self-awareness (awareness by the individual of himself or herself as a thinking subject) is the by-product of the reflection of mental activity in the mind-body unit.

Mental activity itself is the result of external stimuli, i.e., the impact of the outside world on the body through the senses. Therefore, mental activity (perceptions, emotions, feelings, and also abstract thinking,) is a physical, matter-based event. We think that self-awareness and mental activity are not matter-based because we are aware of our thoughts, but not of the neuronal, chemical, electrical changes in our brain which are the basis of those thoughts.

Self-awareness is like a reflection in a mirror which perceives itself as a disembodied and self-caused entity, without realizing that it is nothing but the fleeting image of a real material object out there, and that its movements (in this case mental activity, part of which results in self-awareness) are entirely triggered by movements of the outside object, and that nothing could exist (mental activity or the resulting self-awareness) without the outside material object, which itself is moved by other external forces. So objectively the self is the end-product of reality impacting the mindbody unit, not the beginning or the cause of reality. But subjectively things look to us to be the other way around.

Chapter XVII MY DUMB BODY KNOWS MORE THAN I DO

There is a thousand times (or is it a million times?) more "consciousness" in the body itself than in what we think ordinarily of as "my consciousness." Our regular, self-reflected consciousness of ourselves and of the world pales in comparison to the exquisite sensitivity of the body. Think of those few milligrams of copper, zinc, iron, as well as the more complex chemical compounds, that affect our growth, our health, our appearance, our moods, our sleep, indeed our entire being. Each of the billions of cells of our body is affected --"sensitive to," in terms of consciousness-- by a few molecules of those almost infinite combinations of "inert" minerals. Compared to that, how aware of, how sensitive to the world are we in our everyday wakeful consciousness? What do we know of the world and of ourselves that we are aware of? Very little, of course.

We see, we hear, we touch, we smell the world around us, and we derive from those superficial, epidermic sensations a few abstract ideas and concepts: some of them prosaic (table, chair, stone, cat, person,) some more exalted (beauty, nobility, morality, love, the flag, etc.) Very little true knowledge, altogether, but knowledge that we are aware of, knowledge that knows that it exists. The body, of course, has a tremendous knowledge of the world and of itself, but there is no awareness of that knowledge.

So there we are: tremendous and exquisitely complex consciousness in the body, but with no reflected awareness of the process itself, versussuperficial, incomplete and confused consciousness in the mind, but with an awareness of it. When I look at the tree, I may not know much about it --or about the incredibly complex processes taking place in my eye, optical nerve, and brain, to enable me to see the tree-- but at least I know that I see it.

You are going to object: "What are you talking about? Consciousness belongs to us, individual human beings, not to the body, and even less to the outside world, especially the mineral world. Don't talk about the body having consciousness. My liver does not have consciousness, nor does my stomach. They are just dumb, even if complex, biological machines. Consciousness belongs to me." "Besides," you might add, "why argue about words? Consciousness means "reflected consciousness," which the body does not have. So let's keep it that way." Well, it's more than a problem of definition. If consciousness really means only "reflected consciousness," then what is consciousness, what does it mean, if we drop the "reflected" part of it? The answer is very simple, and the words tell us exactly what it's all about: reflected consciousness is a reflection of a more general, basic, non-reflectedconsciousness, it has no existence outside of being a reflection of something else, and it could not exist without this basic non-reflected consciousness.

Let's take a very simple example. As a baby I see, or sense, say, a "table" (or, more likely, the leg of a table, or the flat surface, etc.). At first, I don't even differentiate it from the rest of the world, or even from my own body. And, of course, I do not know that I am seeing the table, or that it is a "table" at all. At the same time, I do not know that I exist, I do not have yet any concept of myself as a separate entity, individual self, conscious being, etc. But, as a baby, "I" --in actuality, my body-- sense a million things around me and within me (not yet making a difference between the two.) Some sensations, through daily repetition, will become familiar. They will leave a trace on my brain, and pretty soon I have a vague idea of "mommy," "table," and --lo and behold-- of "me." Now, not only does my body sense the world, but I also know that I see the world, thereby becoming aware of myself.

How do I know? How does this new knowledge manifest itself? There is recognition in my brain of the object outside (a table, a chair, mommy, etc.) That object can relate to a previous impression in "my mind." Is there more knowledge or consciousness in me? Not really. There is only another level of consciousness, added to the first one and based on it. There is a reflection of the --so far-- non-reflected awareness of the world. This new level of consciousness -recognition and name calling, so to speak, is accompanied by a general idea of "me," the one who "does the thinking," who "has" this general idea of table, cat, mommy, etc. Reflected consciousness of the world and the sense of the "I" as a separate entity grow together. They are in fact the same thing (a general idea of table, or a general idea of me as an individual center of consciousness "knowing the world") and both of them come (both essentially and chronologically) as a result of basic, non-reflected, direct sensitivity of the body to the world and to itself.

KNOWLEDGE IS NOTHING BUT RECOGNITION THROUGH REPETITION. The impact of the world on my nervous system leaves a trace, and the renewed and repetitive impacts find the groove that fits them. Their energy, no longer absorbed by the digging of the groove, bounces around, so to speak. Each specific impact reverberates or resonates upon itself. It becomes its own echo. Each impact which fits the pre-existing groove and echoes itself recognizes itself: things become familiar to themselves.What is this mysterious power that enables the impact to recognize itself? Nothing else than the all-pervading power of primary consciousness which made the impact possible in the first place. My nervous system is sensitive to the outside world. The impact thus created will, when repeated, be also sensitive to its own groove, i.e., it will become sensitive to itself.

Each groove becomes the general idea of "table," "mommy," "warmth," "hunger," etc. Each impact, recognizing itself in a specific groove, identifies itself with it, and becomes known.Known to whom? Not to the baby, who does not know yet that he exists. Each impact becomes known to itself. The general echoing of those impacts upon themselves in turn digs a new groove, in which each echoed and reverberated resonance will recognize itself: not as a specific resonance(of "table," "mommy," etc.) but as a resonance of other resonances, as a general idea of resonance.This reflected resonance which recognizes itself is the baby who becomes self-aware. A new self is born. Once it knows that it exists --by being a resonance of itself, which derives its primary energy from the impacts of the outside world-- there is no going back. Only death, or some "calamity" à laU.G.Krishnamurti, will put an end to this reflection looking at itself.

Chapter XVIII THE INDIVIDUAL SELF IS A LIMITED BYPRODUCT OF A PERVASIVE CONSCIOUSNESS, AND IT DOES NOT ENJOY FREE WILL

The general idea of a table and the general idea of myself (as an individual thinking self) are both a result of the mechanism of reflected consciousness. Reflected consciousness is itself the result --in fact, very simply, the reflection-- of basic direct non-reflected consciousness. Basic non-reflected consciousness is everywhere. It coexists with matter. It is an integral part of it.

The reflection of an object in a mirror cannot exist unless there is an object there in the first place. It cannot move unless the object moves. Its movements will be an exact duplication of the object's movements. Likewise with reflected consciousness. It is totally enslaved to basic consciousness -- and not the other way around. The individual self is nothing but a general idea of myself knowing that I know.Far from being a center or a source of consciousness, the individual ego --just like the general idea of table-- exists first because there is consciousness, then because there is reflected consciousness, and lastly because daily routine and repetition of the same reflected ideas (i.e., bits of consciousness) create a general idea of myself and of a table.

When I see the tree, my knowing that I am seeing the tree does not affect in any way the seeing itself. In fact, we do not need reflected consciousness to function in our daily life: we walk, we move, we drive, we write, we talk, we do a million things --all at the level of basic non-reflected consciousness (not to speak, of course, of the wondrous biological activities taking place in the body.) If we concentrate, we know that we are walking. But I do not have to know that I am walking in order to walk. The only difference between, say, walking and digesting, is that a reflection in my mind of my walking is possible, whereas it is not in the case of my digesting --except in case of malfunction and pain.

The enslavement of reflected consciousness to consciousness itself makes free will a total impossibility. The reflected image in the mirror cannot do as it pleases, and it can even less order the object around. Likewise, the ego, the self, as a general idea in reflected consciousness, cannot will the body to do anything. Just like the cells of the body go about their business without caring a bit whether there is a reflected manifestation of their activity or not, in the same way our senses and our brain go about their business --and they don't need the general idea of the self in any way to function. On the contrary, it is the self which needs their functioning in order to exist at all -a totally superfluous existence for everything concerned, except for the sense of self itself.

Chapter XIX CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

Consciousness is the sensitivity of matter to itself. Matter interacts with itself, at a complex level, as when the outside world acts as a stimulus on my senses and then on my brain, or at a simpler level, as in chemical reactions between different elements, or at a more fundamental level, like magnetism or gravity. It’s only at the level of the absolute zero that matter ceases to be sensitive to itself. Otherwise, matter interacts with and is sensitive to itself, and it does not make any difference whether we call that "consciousness" or "chemical reactions" or "laws of physics": when I see or sense the world outside, it is consciousness and it is also a chemical reaction and/or an electrical exchange.

Self-consciousness comes into being as a generalization of different reflections of basic consciousness. It is a chemical reaction becoming conscious of itself, in its own way: not really conscious of its inner workings, but of some surface aspect of the process. When I see the tree, I don't know what's really happening in my eye or along my optical nerve. I just see the tree, like a camera. I know that I see the tree, whereas the camera does not. The chemical/physical reaction becomes conscious of itself, it becomes self-conscious. When these reactions happen enough times a general idea of self-consciousness arises. This idea becomes conscious of itself, i.e., the self comes into being through being conscious of itself: I know that I exist.

Chapter XX THE FUNDAMENTAL CONFUSION (THOUGHTS ON SHADOWS)

The fundamental confusion is to believe that reflected consciousness (which, together with the way mental processes --i.e. thought-- work, brings about the illusion of the ego) is "more" or "better" or "higher" than a basic all-pervasive non-reflected consciousness, of which it is in fact only a pale and limited reflection.

An ensuing confusion is to believe that "I" (a general idea of reflected mental events in my body) order my body around or control my own thoughts (a logical as well as a chronological impossibility, since both body and mental events have to be before the "I" can come into being.)

Another parallel error is to believe that progress --or accumulation-- of abstract knowledge is due to the existence of reflected consciousness. It is not. Both reflected consciousness (with the sense of the individual "I" following) and abstract knowledge are possible because of a more powerful "hardware" in human brains. More connections can be made, and more can be retained in memory, and thus more similarities can be perceived --and stored-- between basic perceptions. Both reflected consciousness and abstract knowledge are the result of the complexity and specificity of the human brain --which of course is nothing but a matter-based device to store and process information. Reflected consciousness is not the cause of the existence of abstract knowledge, or of its accumulation. It is simply a reflection of it, as it is also a reflection of other sensations, perceptions, emotions, etc. In fact, it is the existence of abstract knowledge in the form of general ideas which brings aboutreflected consciousness, which itself brings about its own by-product, the sense of self, which itself becomes the absolute illusion of the ego by reflecting upon itself and misunderstanding itself.

Lots of mental processes (which are, of course, all physical processes) can take place without being reflected. The fact that some of them are reflected does not mean that the reflection is the cause of them: I do not create an idea by thinking it. Thinking an idea simply means that a reflection of it comes into being and can look at itself to know that it exists. There can be no reflection of an idea, or of anything else, if it does not exist in the first place.

This all means that there is absolutely no difference between the itinerary of a river and the itinerary of my own life. The evolution of my personal life is no more my "doing" than the river deciding about its lay-out. Both are the result of forces of nature at work (or at play.) Both areforces of nature. Mountain ranges come into being, grow, and take their place in the scheme of things: geology, topography, climatology, botany, zoology, etc., are affected as a result. So it goes with human civilizations and human groups: they are forces of nature, and they express its power to be anything conceivable under the sun.

But the fact that human beings know that they exist and that they act does not mean that they are the cause of their existence or of their actions: very simply, the human hardware is such that its functioning (which is entirely automatic, like everything else in nature) will, again automatically, create an image, a reflection, a shadow of some of those happenings. Those shadows are called "the individual self," "the individual will," "the national will," etc. In order to pretend that they are more than shadows they create goals, purposes, ideals, and values (moral, religious, esthetic, etc.) They have no more impact on the world than the shadow of the tree has on the tree, turning around it during the day. As for the impact that the shadow has on the ground (making it wetter, colder, etc.) it is due to the presence of the tree, as is the shadow itself: the extra wetness and the shadow exist as the same phenomenon,and the one is not the cause of the other.

And so it is when I move my arm: moving my arm and the awareness of the movement (what I call "my decision" to move my arm and which is in fact nothing but the shadow going with the movement) are one and the same thing -- neither one is self-caused. And so it is with everything else in my existence: the body moves around (and that includes physical activities as well as mental events) and those motions of my body --i.e., my life-- are neither self-caused nor self-directed. They are the energy of nature at work, as it is shaped and channeled by my genetic being, my conditioning, and the physical impact of the environment on the mind-body unit that is me. Meanwhile a shadow --my consciousness of being an autonomous self-- pretends to itself and to other shadows that it is the master of the show, and that the show itself has meaning and purpose. The absolute illusion of the ego has taken over --not taken over the world, of course, which continues on its own implacable way-- but taken over itself. Big deal.

Chapter XXI EVERYTHING IS AN EVENT IN NATURE, INCLUDING MY ACTIONS. I DON'T DO ANYTHING. ON THE CONTRARY, THINGS HAPPEN, AS A RESULT OF WHICH THE SENSE OF THE INDIVIDUAL SELF ARISES.

Once more, let us define and explain the absolute illusion ofthe ego: there is in the mind-body unit a general idea of reflected consciousness which becomes aware of itself as "I," as "myself." Period. Nothing else.

1. Mind-body unit: an individual human being is an event innature, like everything else in nature --like a wave in the ocean, like a planet in orbit, like a volcano erupting, like a seed germinating, like a plant growing, like a cat stretching and yawning, like a baby crying in its bed or crawling on the floor and looking at the world. All those are events in nature, and they are all different from one another and from you and me in their manifestations BUT NOT IN THEIR ESSENCE.

IN ESSENCE, EVERYTHING IN NATURE IS A MIND-BODY UNIT. That is, everything in nature will behave according to the complexity of the body and its material organization: the more complex the body, the more complex the behavior, i.e., the more complex the interactions with other events in nature. A stone, which is a simple body, will behave like a simple body, i.e., with a lot of inertia. It won't interact much with anything else. A piece of metal, with a different organization, will react more to outside factors, e.g., it will expand when heated, it will conduct electricity, etc. A light bulb, more complex than a piece of copper wire, will glow. A computer, being an even more complex organization, will perform the equivalent of mental human activities (mathematical and logical operations, etc.) A human mind-body unit, being infinitely more complex, will be infinitely more sensitive to the rest of nature: it will hear, see, feel, store information, process information, etc. I call "body" the basic material organization of what we perceive to be a separate unit in the world, and "mind" the resulting changes in that unitof its interactions with the rest of the world around it.

Because of the complexity of its organization and of the processes involved, the behavior of a human mind-body unit is much less predictable than that of, say, a piece of copper wire. Hence, the illusion of freedom, or rather, of free will. When natural phenomena were not understood in terms of their causes, people attributed to them emotions and a will (either to help us or destroy us.) Nowadays, no one --except for those who believe that floods or droughts are divine punishments-- thinks that the weather, which is difficult to predict long range because of the multiplicity of the factors involved, "has a mind of its own" or capriciously "decides" to be fair or foul. Likewise with man: ignorance of the factors, processes and interactions with the rest of nature that affect my behavior does not mean that I have free will, that I can decide, that I am "a miracle in nature," or "a kingdom within a kingdom." Every aspect of my behavior, at every instant, is an event in nature, the expression of the interactions between this mind-body unit and the rest of nature.

Ignorance or lack of understanding of the processes at work does not mean that I am a free agent which can decide on anything. Conversely, knowledge of what's going to happen (foreknowledge that I am going to sit down, or raise my hand and grab a pencil) is not the cause of what's happening. My sitting down, raising my hand, etc., is another event in nature, subjected to the same laws as the rest of events in nature. The fact that I am aware of my impending sitting down, i.e., that I am aware of the factors bringing about my sitting down (the presence of a chair, my feeling the need for a rest, etc.) does not mean that this awareness is the cause of my sitting down: the perception of the chair and the feeling of fatigue together bring about the sitting down, not the awareness of them, even though this awareness precedes the sitting down. An automated subway train will sense (through TV cameras linked to a programmed computer) that there are still passengers on the platform, and will then "decide" to delay closing its doors and leaving the station. Whether it is aware of its sensing and of its "decision" is irrelevant: its hypothetical awareness of its own processes and perceptions, and consequently of its own "self" (as is the case for humans) would arrive at the end of the sequence, and could not be the cause of it.

Knowing that I am going to raise my arm is not and cannot be the cause of the movement itself. The mind-body unit functions as an event in nature, in interaction with the rest of nature, and no amount of reflected awareness, of consciousness of what is happening and of foreknowledge of what is going to happen, will make it autonomous, independent and unconnected to the rest. REFLECTED AWARENESS, BY ITS VERY NATURE, IS SELF-CENTERED. THE MIND-BODY UNIT, WITHIN WHICH THE PHENOMENON OF REFLECTED AWARENESS TAKES PLACE, IS NOT. IT IS ONE WITH THE REST OF NATURE.

2. General idea.The mind-body unit, which is highly complex and highly sensitive, is being impacted by the outside world, and interacts with it according to the nature of the impact and of its own organization. Those impacts leave traces and impressions in the mind-body unit. They are stored, or rather, they linger on, due to the extreme sensitivity and complexity of the human body. The similarities of certain repeated impacts will be processed, and stored together so that they become one; this reduction and simplification of similar impacts is called a general idea: the general idea of a chair, of a table, of carrots, of hot, of cold, etc. Pretty soon, we can recognize and "know" the world around us because we have created and stored enough general ideas of everythingaround us to make a reference to. And by "everything" I mean everything: people are also, for us, general ideas.The baby who recognizes and knows his mother is in fact recognizing the general ideas he has formed of his mother.

Thus, all knowledge and thought --i.e., "naming"- is alwaysbased on the recognition of general ideas which are the products of past interactions with the outside world, and which have been processed, reduced, simplified, and filed in the mind-body unit. It is impossible to know directly anything, or rather "to know" means to have the general idea (of my mother, my house, my body, etc.,) and to recognize it whenever there is an impact from the outside similar to this idea. Thus, I do not know my mother, but only a general idea of my mother. Every time I see my mother, or anything else that I "know," I simply recognize the general idea I have already formed of her. Can I know my mother herself? No, because knowledge is exclusively made up of general ideas. As soon as there is recognition, naming ("this is a tree," "this is a house",) as soon as there is knowledge of anything, we are looking at the general idea we have formed of the thing, not at the thing itself (the "thing itself" is, of course, another general idea, another concept.)

3. Reflected consciousness.Due to the complexity of the mind-body unit, a general idea may be related not to an outside impact with which it has some similarity, but to itself. That is, there is an image, reflection, resonance, reverberation of it. This reflection takes place when the recognition (with the outside impact) takes place, and as a result of it. Looking at a table strikes a chord, so to speak, in the mind-body unit. The general idea of table, for instance, recognizes itself in the current perception of a table, vibrates with it, and by recognizing it as identical to itself, becomes conscious of itself. Recognition means identification, which becomes self-identification. Self-identification of the general idea by itself.

4.General idea of reflected consciousness.Pretty soon this process of recognition by themselves of many general ideas brings about another general idea which will, in turn, recognize itself every time there is a recognition of anything in the mind-body unit. The idea of a table recognizes itself. So do, for instance, the ideas of warm food, of mother, etc. All those ideas are neatly stored, filed, one next to the other. Sure enough, the same process will take place, and their commonality, their similarities, will bring about yet another general idea. What do they have in common? Well, the fact of recognition. Ideas of table, food, mother, warmth, etc., have in common the feature that they all have their familiar grooves in the mind-body unit, the fact that each one recognizes and reverberates upon itself whenever the occasion (presented by the outside world) arises. A general idea of recognition, of reflection, of self-identification arises as a by-product of the impacts of the outside world on the mind-body unit, and of the mental processes and mental activities triggered by those impacts. This idea of recognition, of awareness, will in turn recognize itself whenever any other general idea is itself triggered to self-recognition. When that happens, the "sense of the self" is born.

5. The absolute illusion of the ego.The functioning of the mind-body unit as an event in nature is not affected by the appearance of the sense of the self, because the sense of the self is the RESULT of the mind-body unit being impacted by the outside world and of the resulting mental processes. Far from initiating anything, the sense of the self is the end-result of events in nature, and it comes to an end when the mind-body unit ceases to interact with the rest of the world. I know that I exist solely because the phenomenon of awareness and recognition has been triggered in the mind-body unit by impacts from the rest of the world and by its reactions to them.

The absolute illusion of the ego lies in the fact that the self apprehends itself as the beginning and the center of consciousness. Thus, when I am conscious of my movements, I think that they are the result of conscious decisions, whereas in fact my movements are the result of a chain of causes which exist regardless of my being conscious of them or not. Thus, the sense of the self, not aware that it comes at the end of the process, thinks that it is at the beginning of the process, and also that it gives purposeto the process. Thus, the self wants to "realize" itself, its "true being," its "destiny." Thus, it sees itself as a "kingdom within a kingdom," endowed with complete autonomy and free will. The self is like a wave in the ocean which would be conscious of itself, but unaware of its true nature: it would find a purpose to "its life" by crashing furiously against the rocky shore, believing that it has done "its duty," and not knowing that the only things that exist are the ocean and the force of the wind. The wave, however conscious of itself it may be, does not "exist:" you cannot take a wave out of the ocean. Likewise the self, however conscious of itself it may be, does not "exist." Try to take it out of the web of reality, to look at it "as it is in itself," stripped of all its relations to the rest of nature, and of all the emotions, ideas, memories, etc., "it has." There is NOTHING.

In fact, the self which knows itself knows onlyitself. Self-awareness means complete self-absorption and self-centeredness. It thinks it "has" ideas, but it is nothing but the by-product of their processing in the brain. (And the knowledge of the world it thinks it has is not direct knowledge of the world but only the information represented by ideas.) The self does not look at the world, it is just a reflection of some of the mental events taking place in the mind-body unit, all the while believing that it knows itself and the world, all the while succumbing to the illusion of being a source of consciousness, the illusion of being a center of decision and a center of action.

Chapter XXII U.G.: NEITHER KNOWLEDGE NOR WISDOM THERE IS NOBODY THERE

What the man U. G. Krishnamurti is telling us is not contradictory, incoherent or illogical. It may seem so because we don't know how to take it. We don't know how to take it because what has been called his "teaching" is no teaching at all. U.G. is enunciating mere statements of fact, in their rawest possible form.He does not provide us with the context, the perspective necessary to see how they fit. The reason this is so is not that he is trying to wake us up from our stupor (in my opinion, he has no agenda whatsoever,) but simply that he has no reason of his ownto do so. What he says is absolutely true, yet at the same time an expression of history(being from India, he says it in English and not in Chinese, and he speaks English with a foreign accent) and of his personality (he is lazy and full of energy and aggressive inclinations, very gentle with the heart of a butcher, and an anti-Semite to boot --not out of conviction, of course, but because it is an idea, among myriad other ideas, floating in the air.) In other words, U.G. is not a creature from outer space: his actions and his utterances, like ours, are expressions of total conditioning. Like us, he is an event in nature.

Does U.G. bring us anything of value? He says himself that he cannot help us, and that there is nothing to do in any case. Yet, most people like his presence, and keep going to see him; they ask questions, and keep listening to his pseudo-answers. We don't learn anything "positive" from him (in the sense of "positive knowledge") and yet we keep coming back for more of the same.

U.G. does not teach us anything. He is not noticeably wiser or more knowledgeable than anybody who might have applied himself to the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom, and who might have been reasonably successful at it. His knowledge of the world is derived from weekly magazines. He is not averse to repeating their clichés, as well as any preconceived ideas, accepted values, unexamined opinions that are lying around and that strike his fancy or stimulate his "esprit de contradiction." Anybody who has been around him for a while knows that he can be gentle or quite mean, indulgent or harshly critical. It would be tempting to find a hidden agenda, a grand design in all his idiosyncrasies; but he himself denies it. There does not seem to be any reason to doubt his statement. And the most reasonable conclusion is to accept the fact that he is just like anybody else: HIS BEHAVIOR, LIKE THAT OF ANY OTHER HUMAN BEING, IS THOROUGHLY CONDITIONED BY HIS ORIGINS, HIS UPBRINGING, AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF HIS LIFE.

So what is it that makes U.G. so special and so different? It is not what is, but what is not, that can give us an answer. U.G. is a mind-body unit, like the rest of us. Unlike the rest of us, there is no sense of self with the mind-body unit. Unlike the rest of us, U.G. does not have a general idea of himself as an individual self, except in the most practical and mundane way. As a result, he does not have any of the grand schemes that we concoct for ourselves when we start believing (very early in our life) that we exist. His mental processes, for reasons that I, not being a brain physiologist, do not understand, are no longer functioning in the usual time-space framework. More importantly, this individual does not know that he exists, and could not care less. Not being aware of himself, he can be aware of a lot more things around him than we usually are. When I say that he is not aware of himself, I do not mean that he does not know that a body is there; that he does not know his name; or that he is not aware that somebody is talking to him. I mean that he has no subjectivesense of himself as an "I", as an entity separate from the rest of reality, with a purpose and a destiny. U.G. ishis perceptions, thoughts, etc. He does not havethem. The difference between U.G. and me --or you-- is that when things happen, they happen to ME. For U.G., they just happen.

As soon as the sense of the I as a general idea of this mind-body unit comes into being as a reflection of itself, "I" start keeping a strict and thorough accounting of everything happening to me. Everything happening affects ME, because ME is the general idea of anything happening which self-reflects in this mind-body unit here. Everything leaves a trace --a scar?-- in my psyche. I exist --that is, the "I" becomes self-conscious and self-perpetuating-- because of these memories, these accumulations of desires, pains, joys, feelings, emotions. I amthem. But a general idea is created out of them as a by-product of the functioning of thought, and lo and behold, I no longer am them but I havethem.

There is no accounting with U.G. Things come and go, they don't leave a trace in him, not because the memory is failing, but because there is nobody there to reflect them. Everything is an event in nature: the cat scratching himself, the sun rising over the horizon, a super-nova exploding, and my thinking about U.G., and typing my thoughts. Each one of my emotions, thoughts, desires, movements, decisions, etc., is an event in nature, and is a part of the overall chain of causes. Yet, in an amazing and very arrogant way, I decide that I am "a kingdom within a kingdom" (Spinoza.) That is, I perceive myself as an independent and autonomous center of consciousness, creator of its own thoughts and decisions and cut off from the rest of the world.

There is no way to escape this illusion. Any bit of consciousness that "I have" about anything is automatically accompanied by the sense of the I. Events in nature --the sun shining in the sky, this noise there, this car passing-- do not just happen: they happen to me. Ideas, emotions, desires, that "I have" do not just happen: "I have" them, "I think them." This is where U.G. is different from the rest of us: the "software" of the general idea of the self has been erased in him. "He" does not exist as a self. Only the mind-body unit labeled U.G. exists.

Everything is an event, including what we do, think, etc. My knowing that the sun will rise to-morrow is not the cause of the sun rising. Likewise, my knowing of what I am going to do in the next 10 seconds (like raising my arm, or typing, or getting up) is not the actual cause of my doing it, of it happening; each and every one of those things is happening as an event in nature, as a link in the chain of causes. I am just aware of the idea of it happening, in advance. EVENTS IN NATURE, INCLUDING THOSE THAT ARE RELATED TO THIS MIND-BODY UNIT, TAKE PLACE WHETHER I AM AWARE IN ADVANCE OF THEM HAPPENING OR NOT (aware in advance in the way I know in advance that the sun will rise.)

U.G. is there as a personality (a conditioned mind-body unit) not as a person. A non-person is a natural event which has no agenda. He is not specialized in any particular field --or he does not care to show it-- and therefore cannot teach us anything. That does not mean that he talks in vain, or that we listen in vain: having somebody constantly reminding us of the bare bone facts cannot be that bad. But it would be nonsense to expect anything concrete from U.G. : neither knowledge (knowledge is irrelevant to what we want) nor liberation. Liberation is what the ego wants, but U.G. cannot give it to us because we are already liberated. That is, we are already in our natural state, existing as events in nature (where else or how else could we exist?) The problem is, we are already liberated, but we want to know it. We want to experience liberation.Unfortunately, the natural state in which we are cannot experience itself, or know itself. Only the sense of the I --the absolute illusion of the ego-- can know itself or think itself. The ego is a by-product of mental activity, of thought, of the act of knowing, and it wants to know itself beyondknowledge. This is like the reflection in a mirror trying to be a concrete material object in three dimensions. The quest for liberation, the desire to know liberation is, of course, doomed and self-contradictory. Yet at the same time, very pleasurable, because by so doing the ego experiences itself, thus increasing and reinforcing itself. As Spinoza says, everything in nature wants to persevere in its own being, and to reinforce it.

Is U.G. "free"? No more than you and I. His conditioning is as thorough as anybody's --all events in nature exist in the chain of causes. But there is nobody there to experience either the desire for liberation, or the imagined freedom that is supposed to come after the cessation of desire. U.G. is neither free nor in bondage, because he is not -as a self. How about us? Our objective existence is no different from his. Our subjective sense of the self creates the concepts of freedom and of bondage. We may think equally that we are free or in bondage. Like U.G. we are neither. Just events in nature.

Chapter XXIII ADOLF HITLER VERSUS ALBERT EINSTEIN (SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER)

The sense of the individual self is a general idea derived from the self-reflective power of particular "ideas" (i.e., perceptions, emotions, feelings, and thoughts.) Their adequacy or inadequacy does not affect the nature of this general idea. I have a sense of myself, whether I am a moron or a very intelligent person. I believe that I exist, whether I am calm and dispassionate or very emotional and completely confused and unbalanced. Whether I succumb to my passions or question my very self, the resulting reflection of those mental events is always the same: a general idea of consciousness which exists at the center of my being and which, simply by being conscious of itself and coming into existence, becomes inexpugnable.

Good deeds, righteous thoughts, clear thinking, even self-knowledge, won't bring me one inch closer to "liberation" or "enlightenment" --i.e., to the dissolution of the self, the annihilation of the self-centered general idea of reflected consciousness. The contentsof my ideas (their "rectitude," "righteousness," etc.) may influence my moods, my inner balance, my perceptions of myself, of others and of the world. But contents, and reflection of ideas, are two different things. The "quality" of the contents won't change the nature of the reflection, or the fact that there is a reflection. So Adolf Hitler is as close to (or as far away from) liberation as Albert Einstein or any other innocent little shepherd /ess you can think of. As far as enlightenment is concerned the wise man or the saint are no better off than the fool or the criminal.

Chapter XXIV BASTA!

One day, the Master (in the mind of his listeners) was giving a talk. Then, he got tired of talking. So he said "Basta!" [Enough!], got up and left.

APPENDIX WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?

(Let's render to Caesar what is rightfully his, and to others what was never theirs.)

In this book I have recycled materials from the following sources (all mental speculation is based on information already there, but rearranged in a new or not so new presentation):

1. The Buddha, who put in me the idea that there is no personal, or cosmic, self.
2. Spinoza, who provided the concept of reflected idea, and the concept of the energy inherent in each idea, rather than in the mind which "has" the idea.
3. U.G. Krishnamurti, an international vagabond, who has not taught me anything at all (but what energy!)
4. Armand Pekar, a Parisian adventurer who, one day, as I was mouthing conventional pieties on the dignity of man, stopped me with his usual wisdom: "Jean-Michel, you don't know what a shit man is." In that instant I was cured of the affliction of idealism and other related cobwebs, and that's my debt to him.

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Jean-Michel Terdjman's interests center on consciousness, the nature of the individual self, and the limitations of the human mind. He has defined and explained them as Error, Ignorance and Illusion (based on Spinoza and Sri Aurobindo.)

He lives in California and Oregon.