Order

WW: It might be interesting to look further into the attraction we have toward self-image. What do you think the attraction could be to move toward an idea that’s constant instead of dynamic? Order. Humans seek order. Don’t you get a sense of order when you have a constant image of self? What’s in it for us, this search for order? Aren’t we trying to gain something or avoid something? Aren’t we always trying to satisfy that basic urge? What is it that disturbs us enough to crave order? What are we trying to fix with order? We have a near constant drive to gain and avoid. Order is on the gain side of this picture, what is on the avoid side?

PARTICPANT: Disorder or chaos would be the antithesis.

WW: Correct! We want to find consistency and order because our experience is chaos. Look at how many questions can be answered by something as simple as looking at our picture of man, the drive to gain the good and avoid the bad. We have the sense of chaos, so we want order.

This is as so many of those things we’ve looked at that work in reverse for us. It’s conflict right from the get-go. We see our view of “what is”—chaos, then we project an image of order onto our screen and we then have the stress of duality. We have just bred more chaos! We seek methods with which to fix it, and the methods bring chaos. It’s an unending cycle.

Have you ever been around or seen anyone who has been labeled as an obsessive compulsive? The drive to order has only made things worse for them. They are obsessed with order, to the point of severe levels that require medication to get through life. The strange thing is, their lives are a mess! They develop idiosyncrasies about order. Certain things must be done in a certain ritualistic order. Objects must be placed in an exact position. I have a friend who stacks certain magazines in certain places and he uses a metal ruler to measure the distance from the edge of the magazines to the edge of the table to make them square. He then uses the edge of the ruler to stack the magazines so that each magazine lines up perfectly with the one beneath it. Everything in his yard, garage, and house are perfectly ordered.

If you need his work skills, you’ll be going to the right guy because he carries the obsession to his work. The trouble is, his obsession with order is exoteric in design. It’s an exoteric, patched up fix for serious internal chaos. The exoteric drive to order only makes things worse for him because his exoteric drive consumes all of his discretionary energy. It also disguises the inner disorder.

Although his case is extreme, we seem to have an attraction to order and see no need to examine the nature of chaos. That examination is what we’ve been doing this weekend. The picture of man that we have drawn is a picture of chaos.

PARTICIPANT: Isn’t there some way to get your friend to see what his real problem is?

WW: No. It’s a bit of a sorry situation. His interest is only to the exoteric values. It would take someone way ahead of me to do him right. He’s just not a candidate, but then few are. Like anyone else, he’s not a candidate because he doesn’t want to be. He prefers the values that he has always used.

Speaking of values, let’s see if we can find a different order: esoteric order. We needn’t go on some trek to find order. Rather than force order into existence by some sort of method of the self, order is what remains when chaos has ended. We see or feel chaos that may be nothing more than a lack of understanding, and then we turn to some type of method—the methods that we have examined in several ways this weekend—that produce only more chaos. When we understand the self and understand resistance, chaos ceases to be and we’re left with order. Perhaps a person may even see that order existed all along and that it simply went unrecognized. Questions?

PARTICIPANT: You’re saying that it’s a waste of time to look for order?

WW: Again, it’s another idea that we work from the wrong side. It’s like looking for inner peace. You can’t find peace within or without. No amount of effort will produce it, except for possibly some fleeting, short-term result during concentration or a mantra-induced hypnosis. If you are really to find peace, you need to examine the duality and nature of self. Contrary to the common idea, peace cannot be manufactured. Peace is what remains when the turmoil ceases. It’s really so simple; I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people to see. In the world of international conflict, peace is what remains when war ceases. Peace does not come without sacrifice and courage, it comes from a serious mind with a vital interest in understanding duality. To find order, examine chaos.

You’ve surely noticed that I spend almost all of our discussion time talking about what doesn’t work. We talk about the ways in which we’ve missed the mark. We could carry on and on about peace, love, and harmony but it would be nothing but drivel. It’s best to be wary of those who carry on about peace, love, and harmony. There are no free lunches. Study duality and chaos. Understand duality and chaos. When the turmoil and chaos cease, you are left with peace and order. When dysfunction ceases, function is what remains.

PARTICIPANT: You often bring up the subject of duality. I see what you mean, I understand what you’re saying, but I haven’t felt that I’ve been in conflict that much.

WW: We become desensitized. The struggle of duality is a way of life for humans. Have you ever gone into a quiet room where someone has an old fashioned, ticking clock? At first you may wonder how a person can live with that constant ticking, but you will eventually become desensitized to it. Suddenly, you hear the clock ticking and realize that you haven’t been hearing it. We hear conflicting ideas from others, adopt conflicting ideas, manufacture conflicting ideas, and then go on, totally unaware of the duality, unaware of the stress we’re making for ourselves. At the very best, it’s a low level, constant, background noise—background stress.

I recently spoke with someone who’s studying theoretical physics. He believes, as many in theoretical physics, that the future is fixed. He also believes another idea of theoretical physics, of infinitely divergent universes, based on fortuitous splits in events. It looks to me that he believes in two ideas that are not compatible with one another. Even those with the highest intellect live with the same picture of man and with the failure to see duality of ideologies. It’s in the fibers of our being. We can’t see the forest through the trees.

I suppose duality is my pet subject. I find it everywhere I go and in virtually everyone I meet. I can find it in a sentence, hear it in a tone of voice, see it in a face.Another comment?