3. Sadhakatamam Karanam.
The most direct means to the accomplishment of the desired potential.
In the beginning or when we are very young the most direct means to the accomplishment of the desired potential does not exist or exists in a very limited form based on whatever we have learned so far. As our learning grows we begin to process information faster and more effectively. In time we reach a natural barrier or limit to this ability to process information. This limit occurs because at some point we find that it is not just about processing information but from where that processing takes place. There are two possibilities as to how information may be processed. For most in this period of evolution it will seem impossible to escape the first possibility. To understand these two possibilities it is important to look at the whole thing as a process. It is not that anyone is making a mistake it is just that each individual is looking at the world from a very particular place. This place is what I call the ego. Each of us views the world from this ego which has virtually not changed at all since it was formed. Any change that has occurred in the ego is probably for the worse. In terms of evolution it could be said that the ego is in a very early stage of development. This is not apparent to the individual who feels that what they are is more or less the finished product. Because this early stage of development is based on memory and what we assume to be knowable information we form a preference for what we already know regardless of whether what we know works or not. What we know is deemed safe just because it is in our memory bank regardless of how it got there. What this means is that we trust and act from what is in our memory and seem not to be too concerned as to how that memory or information was obtained. The end result of this is suffering which can be seen as simply the inability to process information effectively because of this preference to trust what we know. In terms of evolution this suffering will continue until it dawns on us to question where the information we are so trusting of came from in the first place. It is only at this point that the evolutionary process can proceed to its next stage of development. The next stage of development begins when we question not only where and how information is obtained but what information actually is. In the first stage information is seen as ‘knowable’. It is assumed that this form of information is real and true and that a word or a belief is also real and true. With this knowable information we begin to take words and beliefs very seriously, we can be hurt by someones use of words and hurt also if words are used to challenge our beliefs. This is the single cause of most problems in the world that words and beliefs are taken far too seriously. This is why I say that the ego has not changed much at all since it was formed many thousands of years ago. This problem of taking words and beliefs too seriously has a more important side effect which is that so long as words and beliefs are taken too seriously we are blocked from reaching the second stage of this evolutionary process. So long as our attention is focused on what is not true the truth will be impossible to see. Truth will be rejected in favour of our preference for what we assume we already know. The second stage of the evolutionary process can only begin when words and beliefs begin to lose the absolute meaning we give them. Once we are able to accept that this way of looking at the world ourselves and others may be untrue a process is begun in which all words and beliefs begin to lose their validity. The end of this process is what I refer to as a collapse of all beliefs in that beliefs are no longer taken to be absolute, real, or true. They are no longer taken seriously. At the point of collapse what I call consciousness is seen to be what we and everyone else truly are. Words and beliefs are not lost they are now filtered through consciousness. Through this filter all beliefs are seen for what they are and beliefs are found to be useful or not useful. The desired potential therefore is that which will facilitate the accomplishment of this transition from ego to consciousness and what proceeds from there.