When we are ‘orientated towards a centre’ then we are blind to the world that really is all around us (which is the world that doesn’t have a centre, the world that doesn’t have any rules) and – instead – we see the world in terms of this ‘centre’. This is the most basic ‘psychological truth’ there is! We can’t conceive of ‘centre-lessness’ any more than we can conceive of ‘selflessness’ – the idea that there doesn’t need to be a fixed point that everything revolves around, that everything has to be compared to in order to make sense, is not one that ever occurs to us, and yet if there is a fixed point of reference (that all incoming data has to be checked against) then the world we end up with as a result is going to be wholly redundant, is going to be entirely collapsible. The world we end up with as a result is going to be nothing more than a projection of that centre, a linear extension of that centre. We can talk about ‘the centre’ in purely mathematical terms, but we can also use it as a way of talking about the self or ego, as Krishnamurti does here –

 

The so-called psychological experiences only exist when there is a centre from which the experiencer is experiencing.

 

Because the Conditioned (or mind-created) World is constructed entirely in relation to a fixed point of reference it must therefore be collapsible back down to this same fixed point of reference. That’s the only thing that’s ‘in it’, after all. The self-referential world is thus 100% collapsible – there’s nothing in it other than the ‘psychological centre’ which is: [1] The self or ego, and [2] The world that has been created by comparing all incoming information to that self or ego, the world that has been organized and defined in relation to it (which is as we have just said, a projection of that self. The ‘centre’ in itself isn’t anything however – it doesn’t actually exist. It’s just a position that we picked purely at random; it’s just ‘a convenient source of orientation’ for us. There’s nothing special about it at all and yet we say that it’s the ‘be all and end all’ – we make it into the standard by which all things are judged, we make it into the unquestionable metric with which everything in the whole universe must be measured. The centre (or ‘self’) is how we ‘collapse reality’, therefore…

 

 

We might wonder what the point of collapsing the universe in this way is; we might wonder just what the hell we get out of it. One answer is to say that it serves to create a smokescreen; it is – we might say – the smokescreen that neatly prevents us from catching a glimpse of the mystery that is going on all around us. We automatically become ‘blind to the Enigma’. Anything without a centre is always mysterious, just as anything with a centre is always going to be banal (it’s going to be banal because anything constructed in relation to a centre is going to be that centre, albeit it in disguised or unrecognizable form’). Instead of mystery what we have therefore is logic, rationality, literality, and so on and so forth. Instead of ‘unending depth’ what we have is quantification – everything gets turned into dry facts and figures. Everything gets turned into the particular type of data that supports the ‘assumed logical framework’; everything gets ‘pinned down’. Our existence then becomes all about following logical procedures in order that we might obtain the outcomes that we are told we should obtain (the outcomes that we are told are going to be beneficial to us). This is all about control in other words – it’s all about either controlling or being controlled. There is no freedom here whatsoever, only the sterile mechanical interaction of ‘one cog in the machine turning another’. Controlling is of course no use at all when it comes to the mystery that is ‘unending depth’; it’s irrelevant for the simple reason that we have no way of identifying meaningful outcomes. The game we are playing is ‘hollow’ since the outcomes we chase are only meaningful in relation to the assumed ‘fixed point’ that wouldn’t exist unless we assumed it. Because there’s no way to ‘identify anything, because without self-reference (without the strategy of ‘comparing everything to our taken-for-granted reference point’) there is no way to identify anything. There’s no way to ‘say anything about anything’.

 

 

Without the ability to identify this is being this and that is being that life takes an entirely new meaning – it’s no longer a matter of knowing what’s going on, no longer a matter of making skilful interventions or exerting power in order to suit our agenda, in order to obtain our goals. When we succeed in manipulating the proceedings to suit our agenda then this movement is reinforced psychologically – we are flooded with the irresistible sweetness of euphoria – and yet this super-sweet euphoria has nothing to do with any real outcome that is being achieved. Rather, it has to do with the successful creation of an illusion. When we talk about ‘succeeding at slanting things (or our perception of things) to suit our agenda we’re talking about making everything relevant to us, we’re talking about filling up all the available space so that there simply isn’t any space left. This is our aim; this is the point of what we’re doing. We’re turning reality into a game! On the level of the game, ‘obtaining this or that goal’ is good, ‘enacting our plans’ is good, but behind this level (which is the overt level of description) what we’re succeeding at is in swapping the real world for a formal one, and this is where the euphoria comes from. By bringing <actual> closer to <expected> (which is the movement that gets psychologically reinforced) we are creating a situation that is meaningless (since a thing can’t be understood in terms of itself) but which we can’t see to be meaningless. This is our ‘problem’ in a nutshell therefore – this is our ‘predicament’ (as Ram Dass might say). By controlling (or striving) we create a null domain which – when we are operating within it, when we are obeying the mechanical rules – we can’t see to be ‘null’. Within this Null Domain we are subject to endless unrelenting compulsion – we are compelled to obey rules which are meaningless, but which we can’t see to be so. The system is in effect abusing us – it is abusing us since we are continually given the message that if we follow the rules scrupulously enough, determinedly enough, we will benefit greatly as a result (which means that we’re acting out of self-interest rather than being taken advantage of, rather than being exploited by some kind of predatory agency). The more we struggle to benefit ourselves the more we play into the hands of this agency since everything is defined in the system’s terms – who we are is defined in the system’s terms, the way the struggling or striving must be conducted in order to be successful (the ‘method’) is defined in the system’s terms, and the great benefit we are to obtain (if we struggle successfully) is also defined by the system’. Nothing here is about ‘who we really are’, therefore…

 

 

In a set up that is created via ‘reference to a centre’ we create a situation where everything we do serves that centre, therefore. It can’t not do. Absolutely everything we think and absolutely everything we do is in honour of the self-referential system and that ‘SR system’ is an empty fantasy. To exist exclusively within the terms of an empty fantasy is an irredeemable horror, a horror with no good side to it at all. ‘We have to see ourselves as part of a hideous dream, and struggle against its ghastliness’, Thomas Hardy tells us. ‘A man who lives in imagination loses his life,‘ says Robert Burton. Despite the fact that we can’t for the life of us understand what is being expressed by Hardy here (it tends to sound terribly nihilistic to us), we nevertheless ‘feel the pinch’ on some level or other – there is a deficit within us (a deficit of meaning) and this deficit is what lies behind all our rational – purposeful activity (even if we don’t appreciate the fact). This is Abraham Maslow’s deficit motivation – we’re always trying to fill a hole that can’t be filled, in other words. Everything is about ‘filling the hole’.  Deficit motivation is an addiction (it is – we might say – the archetypal form of addiction – we’re ‘chasing the dragon’ and – as every addict knows – the more we chase the dragon the more we feed the deficit that drives us to chase so desperately. To say that this is ‘not a good situation’ is a laughable understatement, therefore; there is no worse situation than this – this is the ultimate form of suffering and yet we stick with it. We stick with it (and keep on ‘doubling down’ with our efforts) because we simply cannot bring ourselves to see what fools we are; if we could see this (if we could see that there’s no winning here) then we would be free, we’d be released from the bondage we’re in, but we’re too ‘invested in the game’ to do that. Playing the game has cost us our ‘integrity’ and without that integrity we have no choice but to keep on chasing illusions – even as these illusions keep on giving us less and less satisfaction (in accordance with the Law of Diminishing Returns). The upshot is that we end up ‘selling our souls’ and receiving nothing but mockery in return. The system operates on the basis of ‘never give a sucker an even break’ – first it abuses us – but says it doesn’t – and then, when everything has been finally extracted out of us (leaving us just dried out husks) – it mocks us for being such ridiculous suckers…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image credit – “Ich Kult”, by Anna Franke