I would like establish our enquiry into the nature of action on the basis of the underlying principles of the reality paradigm that we´ve all been conditioned to share.The paradigm of which I speak, or the operational context of our thinking, is the scientific method.   So we will look at action in the light of the assumptions of science in an attempt to eradicate from the process all wishful thinking, assumption, prejudice, fantasy.

It seems to me that science is an attempt to find out how things really are.   It´s an attempt to find out how things really work so that you can clarify what they really are and right at the heart of this process is what is known as a fact. So from the point of view of the kinds of actions that we are dealing with in our daily life, it´s a fact that we are all in the dome and it´s a fact that nobody else, other than us, is present in the dome.   But why you are present in the dome is another matter.   How you got to be present in the dome is also another matter.   That you became present in the dome is a fact.   Which means there can be to the honest onlooker no doubt at all that the people who are in the dome are in the dome and that the people who are not in the dome are not in the dome.   In other words there is no room for speculation.   Arum is in the dome or he is not in the dome. Your mother is not in the dome, or she is in the dome. So this is a certain class of knowing which we are calling a fact.   So in assessing or finding out who is present or outside the dome absolutely no conjecture is required.   Absolutely no wishful thinking is required.

When the scientific methods first started to get a hold on people´s consciousness it created a lot of disturbance: because up until then people´s consciousness was based on belief, not knowledge.   For example that the earth was the centre of the universe.   So obviously it was a bit disturbing for the Pope to find out that it wasn´t. So he had to put the frighteners on people who said that it wasn't. In the same way as the scientific method has created a set of assumptions about knowing how things are, the church had done likewise beforehand. Then this was torn apart by the likes of Gallileo, Newton and other scientists.

In the last century, the certainty of the way things supposedly are started to become a little shakey again. The clarity and certainty of classical physics began to be revealed to have shortcomings.   Now this didn´t mean that sometimes gravity goes upwards.   This doesn´t mean that to some actions there are not equal and opposite reactions.   The shakiness of classical physics doesn´t mean that classical physics sometimes operates and sometimes doesn´t.   It means that it operates within a limited arena only.   Now, that arena happens to be the one in which we live our lives, the one in which we consciously operate, the one in which we experience.   But what was discovered in the last century was that if you go deeper and deeper and deeper into the structure of the way things are, if you go deeper and deeper and deeper into the structure of matter, the laws of classical physics no longer apply down there.   But they still apply to that which is expressing what´s going on down there.  

So for example, if you interract this piece of wood with other objects it interacts according to the laws of classical physics and it will always do that.   In other words if it is projected hard against a more fragile object that more fragile object will break. But if this piece of wood is approached with a huge magnification of sensory perception through instruments and is looked at not in terms of its interaction with other objects but just in terms of its internal structure, then when you get to a certain depth of magnification the laws of classical physics are not operating. Now this persepctive has come from the quest that began in Greece: what is the basic aspect or particle of matter?   Of what is this wooden object fundamentally consist?   What is this object, that if I throw it up, it will come down, and if thrown up with a certain spin a certain part of it will come down first.   Which, due to the forces defined in the laws of physics, will always be so.  

This enquiry as to what is the fundamental particle of matter was an enquiry that began by isolating or categorising objects in a particular way: by distinction, by difference. This process was applied both extarnally to identify objects relative to each other, and internally to find out what objects were made of.   But once the level of the atom had been reached things started to get a little hazy. The notion of certainty, on which the concept of a fact rests, became very ucertain. What was discovered was that the laws determining the relationship between atomic particles, one to another, are totally different from the laws governing the relationship between that which they make up, objects, one to another.

In other words when you get to a certain level of perception of the structure of matter, things do not work the way you are used to them working and the way you assume they must always work.   So for example, if Kim had made two of these, and if it were possible to make two sticks identical in size, shape, weight and appearance, they would never be identical because no matter where they were they would be occupying different coordinates of space and that would make them different.   No matter that they are internally or inherently the same, they are in a different place and that´s a difference and through that you can distinguish between them: the left one and the right one.   Or the top one and the bottom one, etcetera.

So you could say that the most fundamental aspect of an object, in order to distinguish it, or create its identity is not its appearance, its shape or its form, but its location; where it is in space.   And of course an object can change its location in space, it can have its location changed if it´s a stick, or even if it´s a branch the wind can move it.   When an object changes its location in space that´s a function of time.   It doesn´t happen instantaneously.   Movement through space requires time.   So you could say the time factor and the space factor are the fundamental attributes or characteristics of identifying an object.   And you need them both.   It´s no good knowing where your watch was yesterday.   It doesn´t help.   You have to know where it is now.   So time and space are of paramount importance to the nature of objects and this object is made up of millions and millions of atoms, each one of which has to be in exactly the same time and space and relationship to the others that it is in order for this object to be the object that it is. Which means that the fundmanetal qualities, the fundamental characteristics of any object, whether it be a stick or an atom, which must be known are: where it is in time and where it is in space.   Because two which appear to be identically the same can never be in the same space at the same time.

So you could say the space factor and the time factor help you to identify the object, which then, in any given moment is a very particular location in space. It is not just in that location, it is that location, for that moment. The location in time and the location in space going inexorably together. This is how we live our lives, even if we dont realise it. There is no space without the time factor, there is no time without the space factor. But when you go down to the level of sub atomic particle, Heizenberg´s uncertainty principle states that you can only know the time or space location of an elementary particle: you can never ever know both.   In other words if you can locate the particle you can not say accurately in what way it is behaving or moving.   You can´t say what its relationship to time is.   That´s called the particle aspect of the so called elementary particle.   Or if you are able to identify its time based function, its momentum or its amplitude then it´s a wave.   And a wave doesn´t have a specific location.   A particle has specific location but no momentum. A wave has momentum but no location. Any locatable particle is not moving: and as soon as it moves it is no longer a particle; you can no longer say where it is.   It is very hard for our common sense mind to understand how that can be. So down deep space and time can never be united, whereas at the surface they can never be separated. In other words, absolute certainty about subatomic objects is somewhat limited: to say the least.

But if you go down and you see this particle?

Well, what do you mean you can see this particle?   Because you don´t really see these things, you see their impact, their presence.   So you can see a wave in water.   What is wave?   It´s just impact in water, but in the same way when you are looking at a nuclear particle and you see it as a wave then you are just seeing this wave.   But you are not seeing it with your eyes.   It is being registered as the instrument. And if momentum or amplitude, the time factors, are perceptible, then location and size, the the space factors are not.

So if that particle were to move ...

It wouldn´t be a particle, then.   It would be a wave.   But then if it was then to be identified in another place, the identification of location equals particle.   Momentum identification equals wave, location identification equals particle and they can never be perceieved together but obviously they are both functioning together.   But they can never be perceived together. So when you can say for a fact this particle is here, anything you can say about its momentum is conjecture. Likewise when you can describe with certainty its behaviour, its location becomes uncertain.   So this is why it´s called the uncertainty principle.

And they are not necessarily different things?
 
No they are not at all.   So the understanding is that everything is a wave and a particle at the same time but you can never perceive both.   You can only have a limited knowledge when you get down to that level.   But also, the fact is, you can only have a limited knowledge at this level.   All kim knows about this stick she knows very well because she made this stick, but all you know is what it looks like.   I know what it feels like also.   Kim knows so much more than that.   But still it´s limited.  

What does conjecture mean?

It´s a possibility or a maybe, or a perhaps. It is not a fact. So what this means to quantum physicists, is that when they are drinking a cup of tea they are relating to the cup tea externally, pragmatically, according to the laws of classical physics. They are aware of an object moving through space towards their opening lips.   But at the same time they probaly have an amused awareness that that of which this cup is made can not be said to be doing that. So that means that it´s possible to be aware that there is more than one thing happening at once.   That more than one perspective which appear to conflict with each other are nevertheless each valid depending on where you are looking from.   Or how you are looking.  

So in other words you can´t really say that this cup is not solid from the point of view of classical physics but you can´t say that it is solid from the point of view of quantum physics.   So what is it?   The answer is both or neither but if you say neither then that is a bit foolish because you have to relate to it somehow, especially if it´s being thrown at you.   You can´t say it´s neither and let it hit you.   You relate to its solidity and then you catch it.   If you say both that remains only an abstraction. As far as action is concerned, you have to say one or the other, depending on the arena of your action.

But the cup relative to your eyes and to your hands and to your arms, your whole body, relative to your perception is that same cup.   You are picking it up and you are bringing it up to your mouth. That is one cup moving and you´re experiencing that and so are lots of people in the room.   And so if you were to take that deeper to as far as you possibly could, with an atom or whatever that you could actually record with whatever instrument, why can you not say that that same thing is that thing and is moving through space?

Well you can but if you wanted to be precise, definitive, you´d also have to say something else: that at that level of magnification all that´s moving through space is oscilating quanta of energy. These quanta are in relationship to each other in such a way that they are perceptible as a cup but the nature of this quantum relationship is that there is hardly anything there except empty space.
That space which we see as being filled by an object has actually got hardly anything in it that can actually be quantified.   It might be one millionth of one percent. So it´s a pulsating throbbing mass of space that is being irrradiated by a few quanta of energy in such a way that is so consistent that we can relate to a solid object.

So with the atom it is not so much that it is not moving but that it isn´t what it appears to be but something is moving.

Something is being moved through space by your hand yes.   According to our ongoing daily experience it has to be a solid object.   Otherwise we won´t grip it properly.   So we have to and can act as if it is solid, because we have that same quality.   It is solid from our point of view but a physicist could say that technically, from the point of view of quantam fact, it is not solid.   So from the point of view of the deepest scientific fact, which is what we all carry round as the arbiter of truth there is nothing solid here.   What Heizenberg and all of his colleagues are implicitly asking us to bear in mind is that the fact of solidity is an appearance; an appearance determined by the nature of the perceptual mechanism.   There is something actually there from the point of view of scientific fact but it is not really a thing because it is just oscillating quanta of energy arranged in a particular configuration relative to each other.

If a nuclear scientist can´t free himself from the classical paradigm of ordinary perception he is not going to be able to function as a quantum physicist, he is not going to be able to function freely at the deepest level of matter.   If he can´t let go of the quantum perspective when he goes home to his wife, he is going to end up divorced.   You have to be able to function in both.   And it´s completely arbitrary to say one perspective is more true than the other.   Some quantum physicists would like to say that their perspective is more true and they´d have their argument.   But I might argue that this perspective of solidity is more true because this is where we live.   So it´s a foolish argument. They are both valid.   But what makes them valid needs to be understood; their context and their applicability is what gives them their validity, not an external authority that says this is true and that is false.  

So there is something almost identical going on relative to our experience of action. We operate from a classical understanding of action: but this classical understanding of action is underpinned by a quantum reality of action.   To uncover the quantum reality of action is not to dismiss the classical reality of action.   They are not separate at all.   They are two sides of the same coin.   And just as a scientist is trying to find out what matter really is, a yogi is trying to find out what life really is.   It is not just matter but life as a whole.   So what´s the difference between the yogis looking and the scientist´s? The scientist is trying to find out what matter really is.    The yogi is trying to find out what consciousness really is.   What is really going on when you perceive something?   What is really going on when you think something?   What is really going on when you feel something?   What is really going on behind all your actions?   You think things, you feel things, you want things, you believe things.
 
And it´s very clear so often that you take an action on the basis of having made a choice between a few options. Having considered those options, you make your choice. You decide what to do on the basis of that choice and you do it.   Now even if this could be said to be happening unconsciously, to be happening intuitively, it could still be said to be happening in this way: consideration, choice, selection, decision, action.   In the sense that at any given moment there are hypothically many options, but only one of them is ever taken.   So that selection can be called decision, even if it´s an unconscious selection, even if it´s on the basis of habit. There is a selection from the hypothtetically infinite possibility to the one and only actuality. So a lot of our actions don´t have conscious decisions but they have a selection element in them, in the choosing between options.

But just as when a physicist will openly and honestly check solidity out by applying the available magnification, so the yogi does the same thing relative to action.   He will examine as deeply as possible each of the elements in decision making: "I", "have", "made", "a", "decision", "to act": it doesn´t really matter which one you take.   You can take any one of those words and check them out exhausativley. See how they stand up to relentless scrutiny.

But if you are thorough you are going to have to do it to all of them; if you want to be really sure what´s going on you are going to have to investigate all of them.   You´re going to have to examine the nature of the subject, you´re going to have to examine the nature of the object as well as the nature of the action.   So you are going to have to make an examination of object, subject and action in order to investigate actions because actions appear to be taken by the subject of the action and applied to an object.  

If you do make this investigation it no longer is possible to say, from that deeper perspective, that any particular object or action caused any other.   You are only able to say that the field of causation of any action is constituted of every other action and every other object in existence, past and present.    The implications of this are many but one of the implications of this is we are not in control of our actions.   This notion can be disturbing but the disturbing aspect of this notion is assuming that if it is true that we are not in control of our actions, it must be untrue that we are.   But it´s not.   From a certain perspective we are in control of our actions, and from a certain perspective we are not.   So it´s the wave particle uncertainty principle manifesting all the time, but relative to personal action.   And just as you could say matter will not unlock its secrets if you don´t go down to the quantum level, action will not unlock its secrets if you don´t go down to the quantum level.   But just as if you don´t come back from the quantum level of matter to the classical function, if you can´t come back from the quantum level of the investigation of action to the classical level, you sit around doing sweet fuck all thinking that there´s nothing to be done.   In other words you can´t act, you get frozen into, "well I´m not capable of making decisions and therefore I mustn´t make decisions".   This is simply swapping one side of a dualism for another. It is certainly not wisdom.

So it would be foolish for me to say that I didn´t make an unconscious decision to fill up my cup, to say it so strongly that I would be trying to disabuse anybody of that perspective to such a degree that they might think that they are going mad.   That would be foolish.   But nor would I permit anybody to try to force me to think that I really did make a decision.   I would just say "yeah, it appears that I did make a decision".

Well you did make a decision but you weren´t in control of the decision you made.

Okay, you can put it like that but then the question is what does 'you' refer to?   When you say 'you did do it but you were not in control'.   Okay, but then what is Godfrey?   Is Godfrey a separate entity with volition?  

No, but you are the instrument.

Exactly. But the classical assumption is that Godfrey is a separate entity with volition and this assumption is manifest when anybody ever says "Godfrey shouldn´t have done that.   Godfrey shouldn´t have said that.   Godfrey could be a better yoga teacher if he didn't swear ". So the classical assumption is that Godfrey has volition.   And that assumption has to be operated on for social interaction to not be total anarchy.   So if I throw this stick at you and it breaks your skull you have to take me to the police station.   You know, you might like to take Joel but you´re going to have to take me because he is going to be able to get off and it´s a waste of time.
you´re not in control of those decisions that you are making so your character dictates the decisions that you are making so you are making those decisions and you are in control of those decisions in order to satisfy your character but you are not in control of that which demands that you make those decisions.

So how far back do you go?   I mean you can put the line anywhere and all I´m really saying is why put the line anywhere?   Or put it wherever it´s most effective to put it in the moment. If I come into your dome and slap you,   if you believe I have the freedom to not do it you will hold it against me. If you too much identify with the classical understanding of action, and if I do that too many times then you are going to hate me.   And then you are going to resent that you´ve put yourself into my life, my power, when im such a hostile bastard. You are fixing the line on the classical surface.   But if you fix a line on the quantam level, then you think, "well there´s no point in telling Godfrey not to because he´s not responsible for his actions", that´s also foolish.   Because you don´t know what the actual mechnanism is that is controlling my actions and it could be that all that´s required for me not to do that is a threat or some other kind of feedback.
 
If you fix the line permanently it´s not going to work. Thats dualism. If you move the line all the time according to the applicability of the pragmatic situation, then thats ok.   So the idea is to allow the line to become fluid which means you don´t hold to any concept: neither of in control, nor not in control.   You simply use the concept in the moment that helps. So if there´s somebody around in your life who you don´t like what that means is they are constantly producing actions that you don´t like.   And it´s the actions that you don´t like and, especially if you are English, you tend to keep your mouth shut and so the actions continue.   But if you just relate to what is actually happening, the actions, and their instrument, then you can say, "you know it´s really not a good idea to do those actions around me". Then maybe they´ll stop and then all of a sudden that person is no longer a person that you don´t particularly like.   And then you discover that other actions come out of them and they are fucking brilliant.   And this of course starts to undermine the classical notion of a person, as a separate entity with volition and fixed characteristics of action.   

So in other words if you don´t attribute an action to its instrument you relate just to the the action. At the same time you relate to the instrument of the action just as the instrument of the action, not as the action, nor as its cause.   Then you are relating to what is actually there, actions and objects. But you are no longer endorsing speculative concepts, which can only be dualistically determined, never absolutely: such as volition. Then you are living a life that´s quite different from the norm, and you don´t blame. Now that doesn´t mean you don´t avoid or you don´t confront, or you don´t attack, but it simply means that within those conditioned responses you don´t blame.   And there is one person you can not avoid and that´s yourself, and so, most significantly, eventually, you don´t blame yourself for anything.

So the classical perspective and the quantum perspective, are just a matter of perspective.   So why make a fuss about whether they are right or wrong?   Why try to say this is true and this is not true when they are just a matter of perspective, or a matter of opinion?   So what works is what works for you from moment to moment.   Its not hard to understand that the possibility of things working better are increased the more options you have.   So if you only have one of those two options available then it´s limited.   And this happens to a lot of people when they become exposed to the quantum analysis of action.   They end up thinking there´s nothing to be done: so they try not to do anything.   But only in their limited imaginations, because of course, they are still doing things.   They are still scratching their head, you know, flicking the fluff off their trousers, they are still eating. And underlying all of these, conscious or unconscoious decisions, choices, selections are taking place.  

They are using the quantum analysis of action as an excuse not to make the big decisions that they used to find so difficult to take and they are waiting for somebody else to take those decisions.   Which, of course, they can´t help doing.   That´s the inevitable impact of hearing this for a certain conditioning of mind: but it´s the impact on a mind that hasn´t really heard.   And oppositely there is another kind of mind that doesn´t really listen, just projects out of its own belief system.   And says, "no, I am in control of my life".

So it´s not that you´re not really in control of your life.   Nor is it that you really are in control of your life. For the deep question is, Ramana Maharshis question, who is the you that is claiming the life that is being lived?   From where you function you´d better assume that you are.   But from the depths of your internal silences, you can admit that you are not. Then you are going to relax.   And you are going to sometimes make decisions, and you are going to sometimes let decisions be made. Recognising that these two processes have equal validity. Then when you make a decision and it turns out bad you are not going to get your knickers in a twist.

So when you are making this separation, this either or, between quantum and classical perspective, or personal volition and destiny, this is called dualism.   This is at the very root of the dualism of right and wrong, good and bad. In which one is supposed to be better than the other.   So when you think I must kill the classical perspective with the quantum perspective this is a sickness that´s called dualism. It is a fundamental sickness in which I say "Debbie is over there.   I can´t control everything she does.   I had better kill her just in case she does something I don´t like and because she is a woman and I know that women are dangerous".   You know you might think that´s foolish but Hitler did that.   In his own way   Slightly different angle but it´s exactly what he did.   And when people don´t do that there can be no holocaust, there can be no war, there can be no conflict in that area.

Godfrey, are you trying to control?   Dont you attempt at controlling outer circumstances.
 
Oh yeah, absolutely.   For sure.   I mean what´s coming to live in Ibiza but an attempt to try and control external circumstances and get away from the weather?   This is where we operate. We operate as objects being affected by other objects and part of our responsiveness to other objects is to see what influence we can bring to bear upon them in order to bring about a change of circumstances which we would find favourable.   But that´s the classical viewpoint.   But from the quantum viewpoint its the power of the whole universe opeating through this instrument that allows the movement from London to Ibiza to happen.   So what I´ve been saying is it´s fine to try to control external circumstances, it´s absolutely fine.   You´re bound to.   The point is to allow that wanting to to happen in such a way that the failure of external circumstances to respond to your intention doesn´t upset and disatissfy you. If the thrust of the matrix is not permitting it.   Fine, maybe I can find another desire that coincides with the thrust of the matrix and then everything will be cool".

Going with the flow.

Going with the flow.   Right.   But your wanting something that´s not going with the flow is part of the flow.   And so is it if you resist going with the flow, thats part of it too.   The river is flowing downstream and you get these eddies. You are the eddy getting stuck, but the flow of the river is still flowing and all of a sudden the eddy becomes part of the flow again.   So the eddy is still part of the flow but the eddy doesn´t feel like it.   The eddy is getting stuck.   That   pebble is still down there.   Why hasn´t it gone?   So that´s what happens to you but it´s still part of the flow. You are just not flowing for a moment, but the flow is still flowing.
 
Would you agree that one of the great problems with classical physics that there is only one particular perspective and therefore it is true and so the allowance that there is an alternative perspective let alone, perspectives beyond that is antithetical to our original understanding of classical physics?

Well, let´s say to the implications that we take from it.   Because even within classical physics there are different perspectives.   You could see an elephant from the front or the back and that´s a different perspective but it´s still an elephant so that perspective is still the same; the basic fact is the same.  

What about chance?   You were talking about being in control of your actions.   If you change that by an external force using a dice or something to determine what you want to do, like the choreographer Merce Cunningham when he choreographed he would use the chance method by throwing a dice so they would be different every night.   Where does that come into it?

Well, it´s not anything different.   You know when he throws the dice and it comes up six we call that chance because we are unable to predict that it will come up six but if you say that it could have come up five, it´s conjecture.   It´s not a fact.   The fact is that you can have, relative to the rolling of the dice, six possibilities. But another fact is that only one is going to come up, and once it has you cant say anything about the other five that isnt pure fantasy. Hypothetically it could have come out one, two, three, four, five. Fine, but it didn´t. The way that a dice rolls, or how a dice ends up, depends on how it starts.   If it had a different face when it started with exactly the same throw it would have produced a different number so you could say the chance, the so called chance is a function of where the dice was sitting when you picked it up.   You could also say it´s a function of how free his wrist was.   Which could have been a function of how much moisture there was in the air.   Which could have been etc etec etc ...and all of a sudden no longer chance.   All of a sudden it´s determined.   All of a sudden, when you look deeply you see it had to be that way because the forces and factors of the whole uniververse were leaning in to that statistical possibility of six options to force one.   But we can´t predict it so it looks like chance.   So we think that our ignorance is the nature of the universe.   That´s called arrogance.   On the other hand it´s called fucking stupid.  

I just missed the last bit.   What´s fucking stupid?

Well it´s stupid to attribute to the universe your own qualities and your own attributes.   Because then the universe can only be as intelligent as you.   And what happens if you are not as intelligent as Einstein and you have to say that Einstein is more intelligent than the whole universe?   It can´t be can it.   It´s just a tiny part of the universe.  

I   don´t understand your point.

The point is that it´s not a question of having to say I´m not in control of my life, nor to say I am in control of my life.   The point is just to see that volition is a reality from a certain perspective and is not a reality from another perspective.   The perspective within which it is a reality gives you a stability and a cohesion to interact effectively with people socially.   But the other aspect allows you to be happy within that interaction no matter what that interaction is.   Whereas if you only have the classical, volitional perspective you are only happy in this interaction if it turns out the way you want it to.   Which it never always does.   So the only way you can be happy is to marry the quantum and the classical perspective and see actually that the quantum one is the underlying one but the classical one is the operative one: and that you must and you will continue to operate there and you must allow everybody else to operate there.  

Is there a yogic definition though of what you just said rather than talking about physics?   The marrying of what shiva and shakti is it?   Or something?

The yoga sutras as a whole, or any self standing part.   To "surrender the projections of the mind and the true nature of the self manifests" means when you surrender the classical perspective then the quantum one arises.   And then at the end, when you´ve got it all really really clear then you live in freedom which means shivshakti or "consciousness energy has been established as the true nature of the self": which means that both sides of what was a dualism, but is now a duality, are seen to be expressions of the same thing.   Shivshakti , Durga Shiva , the same thing and in the living from that understanding is the freedom of which yoga speaks.   But not the living from the concept.   If you just live from the concept then you tend to go into what I call the dualism of non duality where "all is equal.   nothing to be done.   chill out man.   i know i just smashed it up, but what does it matter?   it´s all god.   chill out man.   what´s the matter?   why are you so uptight just because i killed your wife?   it´s just the flow of the matrix man.".   You know that happens.   It happens to us sometimes and its irritating, it happens even more and then it´s very annoying, it happens all the time and you want blood!

I´m really interested in what you said about chance being or luck for instance, there is no such thing is what you are saying.

Well luck is just a conventional term that´s applied to how it looks to us.   So it exists in that sense.

Yeah.   But you said something about it´s our own stupidity or ignorance that we think that it´s luck but actually it´s a force of ...

Well because we are unable to analyse to the depths required we can´t see the factors and forces that contribute to that action so we call it chance or luck......

It´s kind of like; I like the feeling of saying oh it´s just luck in the sense that, and it´s kind of ironic because for me saying, oh it was meant to be, feels a lot more big headed.

"It was meant to be" is a big headed attitude?   Yeah, well that´s cool.   Say whatever you like.   Say whatever you feel comfortable with, but what I´m saying is don´t be too attached to what you say because the next moment you might not be able to hold it up and then you might get upset and try to fight with what´s happening because you want to be right, because you want it always to be like this. We all have our beliefs, preferences, ideals, desires; we have them.   You can´t fight it.   But these are all operating in the classical paradigm of instruments liking actions and objects with which they are identified.   What I´m really saying is if you hold your desires and concepts and preferences very very lightly then if one of them collapses in your face you go, "oh, huh", and then move easily on to the next one.   Rather than going to war with yourself or somebody else or God or reality because your desires are not fulfilled or because your decision making faculty turns out to have been not very effective today or whatever it is.  

So it´s not about getting rid of desires and concepts and preferences, but it´s just to loosen your relationship to them so that it´s not an imprisoning relationship so that it becomes more light and playful. I don´t like "it was meant to, it was supposed to" also because it implies all kinds of things that I don´t like either. Like some kind of overriding will or plan, which smells too much of anthropomorphism to me, and is not really necessary. I just say "it had to be", to me that has slightly different implications. I totally sympathize if you don´t feel comfortable with a particular turn of phrase, then, so what?   Don´t use it.   But don´t think that you have to get annoyed with somebody who does because they´re wrong.   I mean you can if you want, if you have to.   It´s sometimes fun to get annoyed with people! And anyway if you do, you cant help it can you?

What I can´t get my head round still, is I do feel that somepeople are luckier than others.

Well some people are in more comfortable lives.   But is it really luck.   You could say,   if you look more closely, that they have just been endowed with more favourable capacity or   circumstances. We call it luck because we don´t really understand why it should be like that.   But there isn´t a why to the universe and its unfolding, thats anthropomorphism again. But we would prefer it if everything was more even. I agree it´s not fair that you should have more luck than most people, but you do.   You have the good luck to live where you live, to do what you do, to be surrounded by the people that you are surrounded with and it´s not fair.   You know compared to somebody who can´t get out of Brixton where you´ve come from.   Can´t get out, it´s not fair, but it´s not luck either really, but you can call it luck.   Comiserate with your friends and say, "yeah, it´s bad luck" and that´s the way it is.   You don´t have to resent me because I am living in Ibiza.   But you can say, yes bad luck.   There´s no point in saying, " i'm jealous", it´s not going to help anything.   But if you are, of course, you cant help it, can you?

canam ibiza 2003