so if you realize that that's what it is
and that it doesn't really matter if the
whole human race blows itself up then
there's a chance that it won't do it
that's the only chance we have not to do
this thing which attracts us like the
kind of vertigo like a person who looks
over a precipice and is all set to throw
himself over or a person who jumps out
of a plane when they're skydiving and
forgets to pull the parachute ring
because he gets fascinated with a target
called target fascination he just goes
straight at it you see so we can get
absolutely fascinated with disaster with
doom oh you know all the news in the
newspapers is invariably bad news there
is no good news in the news babies
people wouldn't buy a newspaper
consisting of good news even the Free
Press is full of terrible news except
the San Francisco RFA and the
fascination you see for this doom might
be neutralized if we would say well
why bother about that is just another
fluctuation in this huge marvelous
endless chain of our own selves and our
own energy going on see here's the
problem because of our myopia because of
our the way we've as it were restricted
consciousness to focus upon just that
certain little area of experience that
we call voluntary action that's us
and everything else happens to us now
that's obviously absurd the suppose you
take in your hand one of those toys at a
gyroscopic top and you suddenly notice
the minute you get this in your hand
that it has a kind of vitality to it it
seems to resist you it starts pushing
you in a certain way see and sometimes
you're with it and following it then
sometimes you see it it's just as if you
held a living animal in your hand you
know you pick up up a hamster no or
guinea pig you hold this little thing in
your hand it's always trying to escape
but so the gyroscope always seems to be
trying to escape your hope now in
exactly the same way what you're
experiencing all the time all sorts of
things are getting out of control and
doing things you don't expect it's
trying to escape your hole all right
then don't grab it so hard and you
discover that this living thing that
you're feeling like the gyroscope top
it's your own life because you can see
very simply that you would not
understand the experience that you call
voluntary action and decision being in
control and being yourself unless in
opposition to that there was something
else you couldn't realize self and
control and will unless there was
something other out of control and
instead of will won't it's the two
together only that produces the
sensation that you call having a
personal identity
only there is a funny thing about human
consciousness which has been worked out
very carefully in Gestalt psychology
which is that our attention is captured
by the figure rather than the background
by the relatively enclosed area rather
than the diffuse area and by something
moving rather than what is relatively
still and to all those phenomena that in
this way attract our attention we
attribute a higher degree of reality
than the ones we don't notice that's
only because for the moment those are
more important to us consciousness you
see is a radar that is scanning the
environment to look out for trouble
just in the same way as a ship's radar
is looking for rocks or other ships and
the radar therefore does not notice the
vast areas of space where there are no
rocks no other ships so in the same way
our eyes or rather the Selective
consciousness behind the eyes only pays
attention to what we think is important
I am at this moment aware of all of you
in this room of every single detail of
your clothing of your faces and so on
but I'm not noticing it all and
therefore I will not be able to remember
tomorrow exactly how each one of you
looked and what you were wearing because
what I notice is restricted to things
that I think are particularly important
if I notice some particularly beautiful
girl in the audience then I might notice
also what she's wearing
and that would be memorable but by and
large you see we scan things over but we
pay attention only to what our set of
values tells us we ought to pay
attention to and so in this way we have
this rather myopic way of looking at
things and we screen out from attention
anything
that is not immediately important to a
scanning system based on sensing danger
but quite obviously you as a complete
individual are much more than the
scanning system you are in relationships
with the external world that on the
whole are incredibly harmonious going
back to this illustration of every
living body of something like the flame
of a candle the energies of life in the
form of temperature light air and food
and so on are streaming through you all
at this moment in the most magnificently
harmonious way and you're all of you far
more beautiful than any candle flame
just sitting in these chairs just going
only we are so used to it we say about
that so what show me something
interesting show me something new
because it's a characteristic of
consciousness that it ignores stimuli
that are constant when anything is
constant it says okay that's safe it's
in the bag needn't pay attention to that
anymore and therefore we eliminate
systematically from our awareness all
the gorgeous things that are going on
all the time and instead only become
focused on the things the troubles and
things that might happen to upset it
which is alright but we make too much of
it and become we make so much of it that
we identify our very selves I go with
the radar with the troubleshooter and
that's only a tiny fragment of one's
total being so that if you do become
aware that you are not simply that
scanning mechanism but you are your
complete organism then very swiftly in
turn
as a consequence of that you become
aware that your organism is not the way
you think about it when you look at it
from the standpoint of conscious
attention from the standpoint of the ego
from the standpoint of the ego your
organism is your kind of vehicle your
automobile in which you go around but
from a physical point of view your
organism is again like the candle flame
or the whirlpool
it is something which is a continuous
patterning or activity of the whole
cosmos
