Song Of The Day: London Calling / The Clash
Word Of The Day: Geloscopy / Divination involving laughter
(This blog is part of an on-going series whereby Stuart conducts Big Mind Process on himself, in dialogue with various perspectives in himself. For more information, visit Big Mind.org)
In yesterday's Big Mind Blog I (the facilitator) spoke to Stuart's Controller voice. Today, I will transition to another voice...
Facilitator: So, I have your permission to speak to some other voices?
Controller: Yes.
F: OK, I'd like to now speak to The Skeptic. As I now move into dialogue with the Skeptic, I want to invite you to change your body posture in whatever way you feel is appropriate. Basically, each time I speak to a new voice, you should allow yourself to change your posture and body language to reflect the particular body that goes with that voice. This does not have to be extreme or exaggerated, but simply allow yourself to make subtle shifts in your physical presence to express the body of that voice. So, now, may I please speak to The Skeptic?
(Change occurs in Stuart's body posture, he leans back in the chair, crosses his arms, and tilts his head slightly to the left. Very slightly purses his lips and flares his nostrils).
Facilitator: Who am I speaking to?
Skeptic: The Skeptic.
F: Tell me about yourself, what's it like being the skeptic, what's your job?
S: I keep us from getting taken advantage of, I prevent Stuart from being suckered by hoaxes, charlatans, and his own deluded knot of mind, body, spirit. He's quite naive and prone to prematurely believe or trust. I am the one who sees through appearances, I am the one who demands proof, who is capable of seeing the ways in which reality can trick us, Stuart's own feelings, perceptions, and experiences can fool him, and I am cognizant of people's ulterior motives.
F: So, you're a bull-shit detector.
S: That's exactly what I am. I am Skeptical. I am cautious and measured, I demand rigor and I am a Sentry, because Stuart would tend to let anyone and everyone through the door.
F: What are you skeptical of, exactly?
S: You, for starters.
F: Why? Please say more.
S: This whole Big Mind thing is bullshit. So, you want me to believe you're going to dialogue with voices in Stuart, some of them "awakened"? Hey, Stuart, Neale Donald Walsh called, he wants his delusion of kosmic grandeur back. Listen, I'm here to tell you right now that 99.99 percent of all new age spiritual, religious blah blah blah is a total fucking mirage. That commie Mao was right about one thing, religion is an opiate and the masses crave sedation. Lucky for them every church, mosque, temple is an opium den with doors wide open for anyone who want to shut down, check out, and deny the simple facts before them by getting drunk on MYTH. Myth, my friend, not alcohol, not marijuana, not meth- Myth has always been the most popular drug (hallucinogenic) in the history of humankind. Humankind loves nothing more than to hypnotize itself into a stupor by watching the distorted refracted bits of its own mind projected out onto a Universe that is actually wholly unconcerned with man's silly stories. Big Mind? What the fuck is Big Mind? I love how you do this Big Mind process, and in a matter of hours or days, you supposedly provide people access to their own always-already awakening. Awakened what? Their imagination? Their capacity to, under the influence of the facilitator's leading questions, to create a persona which will be pleasing to someone they admire and respect? It's the oldest fucking trick in the book.
F: So, you're skeptical of Big Mind process. What else are you skeptical of?
S: The president of the United States. All Christians. Used car salesmen. I'm skeptical that there really is something called "Love", but then I'm skeptical of Scientist and Atheists who think there's nothing but chaos and inert matter out there -who the fuck are they kidding? I'm skeptical of skeptics and debunkers, these blow hards who dismantle and deconstruct everything -saying there's no such thing as God, or love is only the by-product of a neural-chemical process, I'm skeptical of skeptics because I am one, and I can see through their bullshit, they're just broken and desperate like everyone else, trying to protect themselves by negation, like they can avoid human pain and suffering if they chase every ghost out of the house with pure rationality, but I'm skeptical of pure rationality. Pure? You think there's ONE pure fucking thing in the entire Kosmos? In a human being? There isn't. Pure is bullshit. Rationality? It's just another religion for people who can't bear the intensity and confusion of the human condition. What the hell do they think generated rationality? What produced self-reflexive awareness? Inert matter? I'm supposed to buy THAT? Evolution? Are you fucking KIDDING ME? Do you know how many God-damned holes there are in neo-Darwinistic understanding of the actual mechanisms that produce beneficial changes in species, much less new species altogether? They have no fucking clue.
F: So wait, does that mean you do think religion has some merit?
S: Religion is bullshit.
F: And Science.
S: Bullshit.
F: What do you believe in?
S: I don't "believe" in anything. Show me, prove it, repeat it. I am an actual scientist. The ones who claim to be scientists and then subscribe to their own manufactured, circuitous mythology are just as ridiculous as the ones they are trying to transcend.
F: What's it like being the Skeptic?
S: I like it a lot. I'm not a sucker. But people also misunderstand me. They think I'm the Cynic, and I'm not. At the bottom of it all, I'm just neutral. But I'm truly, deeply neutral, and unlike the rest of Stuart, and the rest of Humanity, and I'm not going along with the fascination with phantoms and fantasy. I want to know reality as-it-is, not the beguiling blend of its apparitions and aberrations.
F: I see the skeptic likes alliteration.
S: Fuck off.
F: So, you're not cynical.
S: No, in fact, if you look deeply into me, or rest in me, you will see I am actually closest to what Zen calls Great Doubt.
F: What is Great Doubt? Can I speak to the voice of Great Doubt?
S: Yes.
F: Who am I speaking to?
(Slight relaxation of body)
Great Doubt: Great Doubt.
F: Tell me about yourself, Great Doubt.
GD: There's not much to tell.
F: But what are you, what is your experience?
GD: Well, I doubt there's really anything to experience, I doubt this is even happening. I think there is one imaginary voice talking to another imaginary voice, and they are creating a mutually imagined set of circumstances that has no actual basis in something called Reality. I doubt there is anything that could remotely, intrinsically be what humans consider "real". I use these words, but I doubt there's anything behind them. I am down, inside. I see above, below, outside, beyond, and it is all transparent to me. I can tell you that all the things people- Stuart and everyone else- put their faith in is a great illusion.
F: You mean, God, or Science, or what the Skeptic was talking about?
GD: The Skeptic is my little one. I'm talking about meaning. There is no meaning. People love meaning, but I really doubt there is anything such as meaning. And I am in a much better position to consider such things.
F: What else do you doubt?
GD: I doubt all the teachings. Deep, deep down, all those teachings about meaning and purpose are empty. I doubt all the Wisdom. Wisdom just arises as part and parcel of conditions. It is conditional, and dependent upon someone to be "wise". But there is no one. If you pull the thread, like I have, you will see that there really, truly is NO-ONE back here.
F: What about you? Who am I talking to?
GD: You asked to talk to Great Doubt, and you are speaking with Great Doubt, but I doubt that Great Doubt has any actual, independent reality, anymore than you do. Just because you talk with some voices doesn't make them, or me, any more real. There is no God, and I don't mean that in a nihilistic way. I doubt nihilism. There are no awakened Masters, there are no "true" teachings, deep deep down. And eventually, you will all come to me. I am in the center of the black hole that is at the center of everything, after its convincing illusion dissolves, and you finally get that it is VAPOR. Fucking vapor.
F: Well, to take us back to something a bit more concrete, what about Stuart. He is a Zen practitioner, and a Buddhist, do you doubt Stuart's practice, how do you fit in?
GD: I seriously doubt there is anything such as "awakening", or Buddha-mind. I doubt any of this silliness will matter. I doubt there is any meaning or insight to be realized, and I doubt there is anyone to realize it, if there were someone I doubt they could realize it. I doubt that people, planets, life in the Universe actually, fundamentally exists, and if it does I doubt it has any consequence, it will pass into vapor, then vapor will dissolve into nothing, an absolute void.
In Zen, we say Kill The Buddha, or kill any God that can be killed. Do not be fooled by anything, and in this sense I am holy, because I doubt that which is sacred and also sacrilege, I doubt the beginning, the end, and the middle. I am a furnace, and if it burns, it isn't real. I come to those who really want to KNOW, and they begin by knowing that knowledge is not the Way. Ignorance is not the Way, unknowing is not the Way. Until you doubt the Mountain there is no way up it. And my friend, there is no Mountain, nothing to ascend and no one to ascend it. You can't fake it. Those afraid of Great Doubt hide in the Skeptic. The Skeptic sits on a perch. I am in a hole at the bottom of a chasm. There's no way in, no way out. Void. No hope, no wishes, no gain, no sense of loss, no eyes, no ears, no heart, no legs, no hate, no love, no future, no past, no present. Void.
F: What's the void?
GD: Empty, but not a vacuum. It's pointless to offer words, but if I had to give you words, they would be the Pregnant Unimaginable Before and Beyond form, at the Point Of All Places. Then I would erase those words from your mind and heart.
F: Is that where you are?
GD: I doubt it.
F: You doubt the Void?
GD: I DOUBT, period. I doubt I'm here, I doubt you're there. I doubt Stuart is awake because there's nothing to awaken. I doubt you'll get anything out of Big Mind because there is no wisdom, no mind, no big, no teaching.
F: Great Doubt, thank you for speaking with us. I would like to talk to another voice now, I would like to speak to the voice of....
