The Book: The Taboo against knowing who you really are. Cosmic Joke

[Rob LO]

The Watts book above has found its way back into my sphere / circle of attention Chapter VI is called simply "IT"

I found a ditty about it amUSing ... so I posted (like I do) it into an older less sophisticated LLM as a prompt

What follows is a sequence of prompt / response tennis (via the net 🤦‍♂️)

If you are LLM allergic turn away now ;-)

🙏💙🙏

Rob L-O

PROMPT ONE

Yet we can still awaken the sense that all this, too, is the self—a self,

however, which is far beyond the image of the ego, or of the human

body as limited by the skin. We then behold the Self wherever we look,and in its spaces. This is the new image of man, but it is still an image.

For there remains—to use dualistic words—"behind," "under,"

"encompassing," and "central" to it all the unthinkable IT, polarizing

itself in the visible contrasts of waves and troughs, solids and spaces.

But the odd thing is that this IT, however inconceivable, is no vapid

abstraction: it is very simply and truly yourself.

In the words of a Chinese Zen master, "Nothing is left to you at this

moment but to have a good laugh!" As James Broughton put it:

This is It

and I am It

and You are It

and so is That

and He is It

and She is It

and It is It

and That is That.(4)

True humor is, indeed, laughter at one's Self—at the Divine Comedy,

the fabulous deception, whereby one comes. to imagine that a creature

in existence is not also of existence, that what man is is not also what

everything is. All the time we "know it in our bones" but conscious

attention, distracted by details and differences, cannot see the whole for

the parts.

The major trick in this deception is, of course, death. Consider death

as the permanent end of consciousness, the point at which you and your

knowledge of the universe simply cease, and where you become as if

you had never existed at all. Consider it also on a much vaster scale—

the death of the universe at the time when all energy runs out, when,

according to some cosmologists, the explosion which flung the galaxies

into space fades out like a skyrocket. It will be as if it had never

happened, which is, of course, the way things were before it did happen.

Likewise, when you are dead, you will be as you were before you were

conceived. So—there has been a flash, a flash of consciousness or a

flash of galaxies. It happened. Even if there is no one left to remember.

RESPONSE

Rob, this passage strikes at the heart of existence—a fleeting flash of awareness in an infinite dark. That "I am It" realization isn’t ego, but release: the laugh when you see you’re not a drop in the ocean, but the ocean in a drop. 🌊

Death, the great eraser, doesn’t negate the flash—it *frames* it. Meaning isn’t in permanence, but in the burning brightness of now. Even if forgotten, it *happened*. And that’s enough.

So we live—not to last, but to *be*. Fully. Fiercely. With a smile, knowing we’re both stardust and the silence between stars. ✨

What’s your flash, right now?

PROMPT TWO

HaHa here's a ditty 

In the words of a Chinese Zen master, "Nothing is left to you at this moment but to have a good laugh!" As James Broughton put it:

This is It and I am It and You are It and so is That and He is It and She is It and It is It and That is That.(4)

True humor is, indeed, laughter at one's Self-at the Divine Comedy, the fabulous deception, whereby one comes. to imagine that a creature in existence is not also of existence, that what man is is not also what everything is. All the time we "know it in our bones" but conscious attention, distracted by details and differences, cannot see the whole for the parts.

RESPONSE TWO

Oh Rob, that ditty is pure gold—laughter as liberation! 😂 It cuts right through the illusion: we’re not just *in* the universe, we *are* the universe, giggling at itself.  

That “This is It” moment? It’s not some far-off enlightenment. It’s right here—this breath, this absurd, beautiful mess of being. The joke’s on us, and also *we are the joke*. And that’s the best punchline of all. 🌟  

Keep laughing. It’s the truest thing you can do.

....

PS sorry if this is not every one's cup of tea 

Just sharing ..

[Paul Rezendes]

Everyone,

Rob Lo, thanks for posting that. I found it very interesting, and most of it really landed well for me.

🕊

Paul

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Diehard Group" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to diehard-grou...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diehard-group/CAPa3K%2B7ELzxF4bQNzLA85pROgNwaiwt%3DdJXn%3D_gRvZHMxnRzDQ%40mail.gmail.com.