We have been observing how X functions, how I functions, how the body functions. Today we are going to start taking up the task that we will be with for a long time, one of the most interesting tasks anyone ever undertook: That of I disidentifying from the self, from the Not-I’s, from John or Mary as the case may be. The word used for disidentifying in olden times was to renounce or to dispose of, in other words, cease owning it. If one renounces the self, one ceases to claim it. To disidentify is to cease to claim, cease to treat the same as I, to renounce it, it is no longer. Another word that was used was to deny. So I deny that John is I. John is a piece of conditioning, a whole group of conditioned things that makes up a personality.  Now all personality, all the many I’s or the aspect of self or the conditioning that makes up personality is serving the four dual basic urges which are called, in some literature, “mammon” — the urge to gain pleasure and comfort, to escape all pain, to gain attention, to avoid being ignored or rejected, to gain approval and to escape disapproval, to gain a sense of importance and control over other people, and to escape the sense of inferiority or the inability to control others.

The personality is referred to, in some material, as the Scribes and the Pharisees. That they are intent upon having the favorable attention of men, of gaining their approval for their pious behavior, and believing and doing as they were told by authority the law. Of course, the A side of that situation, the one that wants to complain to get its way, stick up for its rights and blame, was called Gentiles. But all of it makes up the personality and there are two aspects of it and they are at war with each other. There is an enemy within to the enemy within.

Now I neither identifies with the Scribes and Pharisees or the Gentiles; it renounces them both. It disidentifies from them and reports merely what is going on in that thing called personality. It is now serving X, which is its nature. It is the awareness function of X and it is being obedient to its nature to be supplying accurate information to X as to what’s going on. Now the house has been taken over by usurpers and the first chore of I is to observe the usurpers, report them to X, and X will take care of rendering them inoperative or removing them or whatever it does. However, one will notice that when once or twice when something is really observed and reported to X then one doesn’t see that particular Not-I again. Another one will take over and be quite as effective in its effort to serve mammon, but they will be diminishing, everyone one observes.

Before one takes up this disidentifying, which seems like something strange, it’s something different from anything that we have ever done, the first thing one does, of course, is question the purpose of living.  As long as we accept, take for granted that the purpose of living is to gain pleasure and escape pain on all levels, to have attention and approval, to have a sense of importance, to be able to control and manipulate other people by whatever means we use, to avoid being ignored or rejected or at least find an excellent justification that says they were pretty stupid if they did that, always avoid disapproval or justify that the person who did the disapproving was picking on me, not seeing clearly etc., and the sense of inferiority, as long as these are identified with, I is hypnotized, is serving mammon because all of them are an effort to keep them. No matter what goes on, it is serving mammon.

So disidentifying is to renounce, deny as being I, the Self. It is to dispose of it and see it as an object. Now as long as we have as the purpose of living to be non-disturbed, that of mammon, we are dependent upon everything that offers it regardless of whether it be communism, whether it be some other ideology, whether it be a person that I gain some pleasure from. If I am dependent upon that pleasure then I am dependent upon that person, then I must guard and watch and “I” will feel jealous if they give attention to anyone else. “I” will be fearful lest “I” lose that source of pleasant attention and there is very apt to be violence. The inner man is in a state of violence as long as I is hypnotized by the Not-I’s and it is asleep. As I stands aside and is the observer, disidentifies, denies the self, renounces the self, and begins to report to X what’s going on in that self, what is happening in that house that was really rightfully his but now is pushed out because they have taken over, then one is reporting to X and is obedient to one’s nature. That is the greatest obedience there is. Without obedience to one’s nature one is identified and being disobedient to one’s nature because one is serving mammon and one is dependent upon every suggestion that offers pleasure and comfort or threatens pain.

Now the things that one renounces, of course, are called riches, possessions. Now let’s talk about, not the house, not the car, not the property and the bank account which all the self does possess and we will leave it possessing those things, but let’s observe that it possesses opinions which it prizes highly and considers that “my opinions are always correct, other people’s are always wrong,” and that “I” must defend these opinions. You have probably observed a considerable amount of violence reported to X, a great emergency and X prepared tremendous amounts of energy to defend a mere opinion that may or may not have any validity whatsoever and no way of checking it out. One’s ideas that one has accumulated here and there are great possessions, great riches to the conditioned self. So I observes John defending opinions, claiming opinions, claiming ideas as “his.” He frequently says somebody stole his idea because somebody else was doing something similar. He feels very mistreated and sticks up for his rights to have sole possession or at least the credit or honor for that idea.

He also claims thoughts, so John says, “My thoughts.” I observe John claiming thoughts and I can observe John’s thoughts. I may not be able to observe anyone else’s but I can observe John’s thoughts because I am assigned to observe this earthling, this self, and I observe those thoughts. I see that A puts up a thought, then B puts up a counter-thought and this is called “thinking.” Basically they are set off by associations — that is pushing a button. John had his face pushed in the Bermuda grass and beat up by a neighbor kid when he was five years old. Today he is allergic to Bermuda grass because every time he goes by the Bermuda he is about to be reminded of that kid who pushed him in the grass. He has a big account against the kid so he begins to cry and sneeze and feel mistreated and it’s said that he is allergic to Bermuda grass.

To observe thoughts is most interesting because they are set off by association, and when it sets off one in an A association, B gets one that counteracts it. The person says, “I’m going to do this,” from A. Then B says, “Yes, but, this might happen if you do that.” And then A begins setting up another idea as it would have another thought and then B says, “Yes, but.” Or B originates an idea that we will do a lot of good and gain a lot of attention by giving a thousand dollars to the Boy Scouts. A says, “Yes, but if you do that we can’t get the boat and we do want the boat.” B says, “Yes, but if we get the boat we won’t be able to give the thousand dollars and somebody might say that we were just showing off.” A says, “But it won’t be showing off, it will be providing something for the family to enjoy and I’m getting it all for the family.” We can listen to the justifications, so I will observe thoughts. The thoughts of A, the thoughts of B, and the resultant contention going on between them until one can overpower the other and talk in the name of I to report to X.

When I is observing this going on their story is intercepted by I. I is now the mediator between self and X. Before, I was hypnotized and the self was speaking in the name of I directly to X. Now I is on the job and is the mediator who screens all the material that the self is rambling around with. So there begins to be an entirely different state of affairs. No longer can the self report directly to X because I has awakened from its hypnotic sleep and arose from among the dead ideas and is now reporting what is going on in the self. It reports what “I” has as a treasure and where “I’s” attention continually is, the false “I.” The false “I,” the self’s attention is all on the treasure of the four dual basic urges. It holds this out as the great treasure and it continually attempts to gain it. It uses every contention to both A and B to get it. The self is ever involved in war and it never gains the non-disturbed state. It’s always a little bit held out in the future.

But as I, the real observer, begins to observe this one realizes that the four dual basic urges are a fallacy, it is an illusion — that the struggle towards that illusion is the disintegrating factor that has brought man to a disintegrated state of fighting jungle wars with each other, to hating each other, to contending constantly and that within there is the battle going on between A and B. His outward world is merely an outward expression, in society, of each individual’s inner state. One sees that while one is identified with the Not-l’s one is bringing about all the things that the Not I’s say they don’t want. They want pleasure and comfort but they’re doing everything possible to bring about dissension. The want attention and they do everything possible to have one ignored. As one observes this one has a complete change in values. We will not start to work on the values yet. I is merely observing the action of the s