Fellow students frequently ask why there is not more written material on the Teaching of self-knowing and self-observation around the world as long as it’s supposed to have been in existence for ages upon ages. Possibly it is and only due to being conditioned we have never noticed it. For the time being we’re going to discuss a few points of reference works which do indicate that self-knowing has been taught for ages upon ages. Were going to read from a very commonly known book. It starts off; “Then He called the crowd to him again and said to them: Hear me all of you and understand.” Not just hear but understand also. “There is nothing outside of man that entering into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a man, these are what defile a man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” In other words, did you hear or did you merely hear some words. By hearing means inner comprehension. I without the conditioning hears. If it goes through the conditioning one doesn’t hear.

It continues, “And when He had entered the house away from the crowd his disciples began to ask him about the parable and he said to them: Are you also then without understanding? Do you not realize that nothing from outside by entering a man can defile him for it does not enter his heart,” his awareness, “but his belly and passes out into the drain. Thus he declared all foods clean.” And he said, “The things that come out of a man are what defile a man; for from within out of the heart of man” the conditioned area of men, the awareness that has been conditioned and taken over by the basic idea that the whole purpose of living is to gain pleasure and escape pain on all levels and the way to get it is to complain, stick up for rights, please, do as one is told by authorities, put on a different front, and to blame, is all trying to what, gratify the four dual basic urges. All of this makes up the heart of man.

He said, “The things that come out of a man are what defile a man for from within, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, adulteries, immorality, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, shamelessness, jealousies, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All of these evil things come from within and defile a man.” Why do they defile a man, because X operates upon them as being true if I is identified with all these bits of conditioning. Now how could one know that they were within a person unless he was observing self? It is implied by HEAR AND UNDERSTAND that one would inspect what is within self, what the self is made up of.

Let’s look at all the things that he said come out of the self: evil thoughts, thoughts of revenge, thoughts of having accounts due one, thoughts of vanity, thoughts of defense of that false picture of self, thoughts of all sorts of things. After all thoughts of revenge would lead to murder if carried to its ultimate, it’s getting even.

ADULTERIES: Adulteries, which is to gain a pleasure, is to adulterate things instead of seeing them in their purity not only from the standpoint of interpersonal relationships between people but to adulterate ideas, to adulterate the Teaching. To convert it, twist it around and to say it has nothing to do with the inner state of man but only has to do with his outward behavior would be to adulterate the Teaching. To change agape into being tolerant, to change being washed of all these things that man would be washed of if he observes them into merely being dipped through some water would be to adulterate.

IMMORALITY: Immorality possibly has nothing to do with one’s particular behavior with others. Let us see what immorality might mean. If I do not know how to control another person, and, of course, I don’t, would that be because I was moral or simply because I do not know how to control him? That couldn’t be considered moral. If I know how to control a person and do control him could that be considered moral or would it merely be cunning? But if I know how to control another person and don’t because I don’t feel that I have dominion over another man but only over the self and things lower than man, that might be considered to be moral.

JEALOUSY: Wanting the attention that someone else is getting or feeling or the approval that someone else is getting. It is feeling entitled to, stick up for one’s rights. It is the four dual basic urges in action with A running the show. Complain to get my way, being pitiful, making the person feel bad, come wait on me, stick up for my rights and blame somebody for having run off with the objects that so aided my comforts and pleasures and gave me attention and approval. Now they’re given to someone else.

BLASPHEMY: Using that which is holy for an unholy purpose. If one takes the Teaching and uses it to control people, to put threats on them to make them obey it could be called blasphemy.

PRIDE: Defending the false picture of self, the self as being so fully conscious when it is not, when it is going along in a state of sleep, I identifying with all the Not-l’s, and there is purely reaction. Then when someone calls it to account then there is the defense, “I did it for a certain purpose. I did it because of certain reason. I wanted to see how you would react, to see what was going on while I was free to do it etc.” Pride defends the false idea that one was conscious when one was not. One was in a dream state of knowing what ought to be and reacting accordingly from these things that arise from within the heart or the awareness of man that is conditioned.

FOOLISHNESS: Is anything that isn’t paying attention. Whenever one is not paying attention is considered foolishness in the Teaching of all things. Foolishness is taking a false idea and accepting it as true. Living by beliefs without checking out the beliefs because someone said, “This belief, if you follow it, will give pleasure and comfort in the future or if you don’t follow it will bring about pain.”

So is there any doubt that 2000 years ago self-knowing was being taught, that the picture of man was laid out, out of the heart of man? Instead of calling it the awareness it was called the heart. It’s still the heart, the vital area of man. Is there any doubt that it was there being taught at that time and has it been adulterated down through the ages, left out and said this only has to do with outward foods — you can eat anything you want to now and don’t have to leave off all the prohibited foods.

You see the things were called foods and prohibited were because they represented conditioning or unconsciousness. They weren’t fully aware, and on the using as the symbol, they had perverted the symbol. Somebody said you had to see within, what is really within man, what arises from within the person so that they can see what is going on within. When we begin to be aware that the heart or the awareness factor of man is fully conditioned and that I has been lying there asleep, and even though I has awakened and now and then and is able to observe that self, that from it comes all manner of things that defile the human being.

DEFILE: The word defile comes from an old word meaning trampled underfoot. Therefore it was the idea that was defiled; it was trampled under foot. Most of us feel we are trampled down, that we are controlled by all kinds of forces that we attributed to come from without. We indulge in great amounts of self-pity, we come up with hate, with revenge, we feel that we are victimized, and, of course, there are plenty of forces that attempt to tell us that we are the victims of all manner of circumstances. Man is told to look to his political ideology or to his other various organizations to be protected from being victimized. He is told there are enemies in the open that they are outside, that they are controlling him, and that these must be overcome by force and by power.

How many times have you ever been told look within and you will find that which defiles you? It comes out of the conditioned area of man, everything that’s in conditioning tramples man, the real living being, underfoot. It defiles him, tramples him, renders him incapable of performing and lets the conditioning mechanically operate and destroy the human being, and in the meantime he suffers many agonies. This has been taught for thousands of years, if it was taught, but very few heard it. The Great Teacher said, “Hear and understand.” We don’t understand unless we apply something. We could hear something over and over but until I begin to apply it, in no way could it be said to be understood because only by experiencing it, by discovering it for self and seeing can one say that one understands. So hear that all things that tramples one under, defiles him, causes him difficulty, comes from within.

If that is the case we will have to look and see where it is within, is that correct? We would not find it in the muscles or bloodstream, saliva, the heart pumping away the physical organ; we would find it in the mind, in the area of beliefs, in the awareness function of man. If we begin to look there by self-observation, by separating I the observer, the awareness function, by awakening it, by beginning to observe this we will see without any doubt where that which causes all the trouble in an individual’s existence comes from. We will see what defiles him or tramples him under, makes him sick, makes him in conflict with his fellow man, in conflict within. We’ll see that all of that is on the basic ideas of the four dual basic urges, that the whole purpose of living, which is a false idea but it’s there, solid and one can observe it. That the whole purpose of living is to gain pleasure and escape pain, to gain attention, avoid being ignored or rejected, to gain approval and es