To start our second week we may review just a little bit of what we have discovered in one week’s work. We’ve been doing the work of keeping a few little notes as to what has been going on in certain areas of one’s existence. Some of the things that you have probably discovered is that you have no rights as much as one has always believed that one has from all the teachings of one’s environment. From the environment we have also been conditioned to believe, as a fundamental thing, that every human has free agency or free choice. But if we have observed we found that we may have intended to be peaceful all day, that was our choice, but something happened and we found that self was in quite a turmoil. One may have decided not to lose ones temper, that was ones choice, but somewhere during the week something happened and the old mechanical adaptation took place and one found one was angry – some Not-I taken in. So we may have discovered that at this moment we have no free agency or no free choice. One may have discovered that self is not one but it is really multiple. We have been taught to believe that we are one, that we can choose what we do, that we are 100% in charge and that if we did wrong it was because we knew better but went on and did wrong anyway, with due thought, consideration and total free agency or free choice.

However, if one has done the work of last week we may have discovered already that these ideas are not true, that we have believed something to be true that was not true. And we may have begun to see that that expression of vanity, which we defined as having a false picture of self, just may be about correct and that there is a certain amount of vanity in me and that there was quite an effort to defend it. We will continue to do the work of last week. This week we will add on some more material that will give it deeper meaning, make it easier, and will definitely give greater insight into it.

This week we are going to make a drawing, maybe two or three drawings. Take a sheet of paper and draw a large “V”. About a third of the way up draw a line across the “V,” and about two thirds of the way up from the bottom draw another line across the “V”. From the point of the “V” draw an arrow going out of it. What we are starting to do is draw a picture of man as he is designed. We’re going to study man as a unit not his physiology one time, his psychology another time, his biology another time and his spirit another time. We are going to put it all together. So now we have our “V” closed at the bottom, open at the top with two lines across it.

We will label these four things. In the closed portion at the bottom put PHYSICAL BODY. This represents the physical body. Label the middle portion the AWARENESS. That is the awareness function of the human being. Above the second line above the area labeled awareness put an X in the space, that no matter how far you extend those two lines that would still be X. It is the unlimited aspect of mind. The awareness is limited and the physical body is limited.  From a circle drawn around this (the V) which represents, and label, the ENVIRONMENT, draw a line from the environment into the awareness. Draw another line from the physical body into the awareness.  Put two arrows on the lines coming into the awareness, one from the environment and one from the physical body.  Both of these will be labeled.  On the one coming from the environment, write impression on it.  One the one coming from the body, write sensations.  All of them really are sensations because they do go through the body to get to the impressions, but certain ideologies we formed from the environment without necessarily having a sense of it first.  There are impressions and sensations constantly impinging upon the awareness.

Now the awareness has two basic functions:  It decides what is true and what is valuable.  Write these down, “True” and “Valuable.”  That information goes from awareness to X.  Draw an arrow from awareness to X.  The awareness evaluates any impression or sensation as being true or being false.  Now you may have experienced at some time or other having some irritation to the nervous system and have a feeling of ants or insects crawling on the body.  You could look and see that it was not true, so one wouldn’t use insecticides or start picking ants off oneself.  One has had many sensations that one interpreted as not being true.  There are many impressions that come into one that one says, “That is not true.”  We might look out and see a rainbow and it looks very much like it’s a permanent structure when one first looks at it.  But one knows and interprets it as being an optical illusion due to the breaking up of sunrays in a prism action and water vapor, and one knows that it is not a permanent structure.  We may see the moon come up over a mountain or hill and it looks like the moon is lying on the hill or on the mountain.  The senses say it is but we interpret that that is not the truth.  Then we put value on every conceivable thing that one experiences.  If you value that it is going to gain pleasure or comfort or value it as something that would produce pain, one begins to act upon it because one has given the impression to X.

Now X always does the appropriate thing for the information it receives from awareness. Draw a line with an arrow from X to the physical body. X always does the appropriate thing for the information it received and then the appropriate function, of course, takes place into the environment and that cycle is completed. Impression comes into awareness. Awareness has the chores or the attribute or the function of interpreting every sensation, every impression as to its validity of truth and to its value. That is what goes to X. X is the life principal which no one can define. We do know that if it, X, is not present the living form ceases to exist. The body begins to rapidly disintegrate and no function or adaptation takes place. While X is present, if a very hot object should strike the skin there is a sensation which one knows as burn and probably interprets as being painful and dangerous and values getting away from it and X gets away from it and adapts; it will make a blister. If the same hot object is put on a physical structure that X does not inhabit it will start cooking it but it will not form a blister; there is no adaptation. At a later date we will take up some further study on the nature and the way X operates. In the meantime lets leave it without further theories or ideologies. We will try to observe what it does but we will not attribute any attributes other than it always does the appropriate thing for the information received.

Lets draw another “V” very similar to the one we have just drawn. We’ll label this one differently to give us a parallel, something we can understand by a parallel in our everyday existence. Instead of the Physical Body, lets put “Troops.” In Awareness lets put “Intelligence Corps,” and instead of X lets put “Wise General.”

The Intelligence Corps receives information from the environment and from the Troops. The IntelligenceCorps is well aware of what is going on in the Troops, morale, scuttlebutt etc. It is also aware of what is going on in the environment. It does not tell the Wise General what to do but it does relate what it considers to be true as it sees it, the Intelligence Corps, and that it also puts value or priorities on the information. If it feels that it is totally immaterial, puts no value on it, it is not reported. If it is valued it is reported immediately and the Wise General, of course, gives the orders down through his chain of command and the Troops carry out his orders and this aids in the survival and the advancement or the purpose of this organism called an army. It has a general; it has all his lines of command. He depends for his information on the intelligence corps. The function, of course, is to advance and su