Showerpress

There’s a video on YouTube which I enjoy. I wanted a written copy of what is said in that video, and so made this transcript:

Let us suppose that I am the patient and you are the students and doctors. I suffer from what you would call a delusion that I’m God. Therefore, you might want to ask me questions. I’m perfectly willing to submit to your examination and your treatment, and invite you to help yourselves.

When did you become god?
Now.

Will you marry me?
No. [prolonged, unanimous, growing laughter]

Do you sleep on your stomach or your back?
Sleeping is like politics. One sleeps on the right side, and when you’re tired of that you sleep on the left. When you’re tired of that you sleep on your back, and when you’re tired of that you sleep on your stomach. And it is thus that the world goes round. [amused, approving applause]

If you were God now what were you yesterday?
Now.

How did you become God?
You don’t become God.

Am I also God?
Yes.

Are we then the same person?
No. Remember three persons but one God [laughs].

Could you tell us a little about Satan?
Yes, although the matter is a little esoteric. I told you all about it in the book of Job, where you will see that in the court of heaven Satan is the district attorney. He is not, as Christians imagine, the enemy of heaven and mankind. Satan is merely the person who sees the bad side of things and carries out the dirty work. He saw Job and wondered whether Job really was as great a guy as he seemed to be, and suggested that God should appoint a committee of investigation to find out. The committee did its work very thoroughly, but the case went against Satan because it was proved in the end that Job was an honorable man. Now you notice that although we pay the salary of the district attorney, whenever there’s a great criminal case before the public eye people begin to take the side of the underdog. The prosecutor always has less public sympathy than the defendant (except in political trials). On the right hand of God – and you know that the defense is always on the right hand of the judge in court – is our only mediator and advocate, which is a phrase referring to Jesus Christ our Lord. So there is the defense, and there is the prosecution. It is the function of Satan to be the prosecutor. There is a good deal more to it than that, because before all this started – lies in a stage play – there was an arrangement in the green room, in which certain things were understood but that are only to be revealed when the curtain goes down at the end of the play.

Is Job God too?
Yes, but he doesn’t know it.

Why do you hide from the sight of so many?
Why do you hide? It’s for the same reason you’re hiding!

Does man have free will?
Man has free will to the extent that he knows who he is. Not otherwise.

Where does he get free will from?
Where I got it from. [laughs]

Does woman have free will too?
Yes. To the extent that she knows who she is, yes.

So, you are no more or less God than the rest of us?
That is correct, I am no more God than any of you.

So you only have the power of knowing who you are?
Well, that is saying quite a bit. Yes.

What is not God?
There is nothing that is not God.

How do you learn who you are?
It’s like waking up from a dream. After a while one’s experience begins to have what I would call a “haven’t we been here before?” feeling. Going round and round and round…and then you begin wondering: “where am I going?” And to answer that question you have to try and find out what you want. So I went into that very thoroughly. What do I want to happen? Of course, as soon as you ask yourself that you begin to fantasize. Our amazing technology is an expression of human desire for power, for what we want to achieve. So I simply set myself to thinking through how far we could go. I soon found myself at a great push-button place where I had a fantastic mechanism, with buttons available for every conceivable thing I could wish! I spent quite a bit of time playing with those. You know, you go “going” like that and here is Cleopatra. And so on – you know press this button; symphonic music in – ahh…4 channel sound, 16 channel sound – anything! All possible pleasures are available. And when you’re like everybody’s dream of the sultan in the palace, you suddenly notice there’s a button labeled “surprise”. You push that. And here we are.

Is boredom a problem?
Yes boredom is of course the problem. Boredom is the other side of creativity. The energy of creation – that is the Yang. The Yin side of that energy is called boredom. Everything is of course fundamentally Yang and Yin. If you understand that you really don’t need to understand anything else.

If we are all supposed to love each other, love will cease to exist because there is no hate to contrast it.
Correct, but that’s not a teaching it’s a kōan. A kōan is a Japanese word for a spiritual problem, used in Zen Buddhism, such as ‘what is the sound of one hand?’ And these problems are given to those who ask questions concerning their spiritual development. And sometimes, as St. Paul pointed out, commandments are given not in the expectation that they will be obeyed, but in the expectation that they will reveal something to those who hear them. That was St. Paul’s comment on the whole Mosaic law.

Is there a heaven, is there a purgatory, is there a hell?
The hereafter is of course now, because if you examine it closely there is no-when else than now. And if you want to make hell of it, you can make hell of it – if you want to make a heaven of it, you can make a heaven of it – purgatory, purgatory. It’s all here. Always was, always will be.

What is death?
Death is an undulation in consciousness. How would you know you’re alive unless you’d once been dead?

Why were material possessions unnecessary for Jesus – yet necessary for you?
It wasn’t unnecessary for him to have material possessions. They said of St. John The Baptist that he was an aesthetic – but of Jesus, this man consorts with gluttoners and wine bibbers and comes eating and drinking. When the Lady Mary poured precious ointment on his feet and anointed him, they said the same thing that the members of the vestry say to the ministers today – why this great expense? Couldn’t it all have been sold for much less money and given to the poor?

…but this is a problem…
It is a problem, sure. You see in many ways when you get down to these very deep ethical problems, where there sure is no easy decision one way or the other, you must look at the problem from the point of view of an artist. Which way of doing this is in some sense greater? It may be better to go off with a bang than with a wimper.”