If I Only had 4 Tongues, I Could Explain It Better

I am tackling again in this dispatch the role of Consciousness in human life.

Years ago, at a workshop in Sydney, I suddenly heard my teacher Marjorie Barstow saying:

"If I Only had 4 Tongues, I Could Explain It Better"

As usual, Marj managed to encapsulate complexity into an amusing metaphor; a metaphor that graphically captured the essence of our challenge in consciously managing co-ordination. If that's what we're even doing…

You see - I write long sentences like that one, and Marj just makes you laugh.

SORRY!

Let's try again. 4 tongues? Whatever does Marj mean…?

Let's pivot over to the Tibetan Buddhists.

They teach a lot about mind. In fact, most of my working knowledge is referenced to their teachings. One fact that startled me, once upon a time long ago:

"In one second, a person will have 64 different thoughts."

One of Jeremy's Lamas, he forgot who.

PARDON ME?

(I mean, how did they get to SIXTY-FOUR for Chr##st's sake!?)

But then: Gurdjieff taught much the same thing.

Not 64 thoughts a second specifically, but simply that thinking travels many times faster than speech, even the internalized variety. However…

*** SIDE BAR ***

Don't muddle this up with neuroscience please!

Tibetan Buddhists are quite clear about this point:

Consciousness is NOT a material phenonomen.

Therefore, trying to measure thought by the speed a charge propagates itself along a nerve fibre is, irrelevant. I can refer you to a 1,000+ page tome if want to know more.

I think a working theory of the non-material nature of consciousness is THE primary challenge for 21st century science. Last century scientists analysed the material world and got the atomic bomb out of it; now they can analyse the non-material world and… ?

Well, first comes the question, does it even exist? And if so, how does it exist?

Anyway, back to conventional reality…

*** END SIDE BAR ***

Have a look at a recent list of my spoonerisms:

swiggle
humbility
frenatic
frizzing

My spell checker is going crazy.

A spoonerism is an indicator of the speed of thought. Yes, you are actually flashing through multiple concepts each time you express one word - so often a combination of those words pops out.

Where does this leave us in "making conscious plans"? Reader John Wynhausen inspired this dispatch with his comment on Facebook:

"In my mind plan has more of a time element and direction more of a space..."

He was writing in reference to my previous dispatch on all the different kinds of "plans" we have at BodyChance to help students with their work.

Why don't you try making a plan?

Here's mine now:

I am asking for my coordination so that I can creatively think so that I can type my thoughts so that I can share my ideas with a wide audience of individuals who want to explore Alexander's discovery in different ways.

It's what FM sometimes defined as primary and secondary directions going on all together, one after the other.

And it happens in a second, because I can fit 64 thoughts in that second. Here's a longer version:

I [huge numbers of subset plans] am asking [subsets] for my coordination [head-spinal complex subset plans] so that I can creatively think [many subset plans here] so that I can type [with HUGE bunch of subset plans going on here] my thoughts so that I can share my ideas [subsets] with a wide audience [subsets] of individuals [subsets] who want to explore [subsets] Alexander's discovery [subsets] in different ways [subsets].

Musicians get this. It's like the discipline of playing music.

I remember Nelly Ben-Or once telling a piano player:

"You can't play every individual note in a trill. You just play ONE trill, then another, then another, all in succession."

Within each "trill" is a subset. Within each subset, another subset. Deep practice. Consciousness is having the job of reorganising the vast machinery of the Self/brain into new patterns of succession.

I'm going to launch my deeper teaching service next week, with a special introductory price for the people who took time to register and read about it.

ThinkingBody Online

Picture credit: Pixabay