Definitions - Function of Awareness

Excerpt from Unknown Workshop*
(*Audience participation is in parentheses--notations in brackets have been added for clarification )

[Dr. Bob begins with the statement…]

Frequently somebody says, "What is the function of I." [awareness function] We looked over on this side of the board at the "I's" of conditioning. That conditioned "I" is always saying that it knows "what is" and therefore "what must be" and etc. And it [thinks it] knows "what is needed" and "what must be."

So over here we put "teaching." The teaching ideas are under "self-remembering" and "self knowing."

We'll put I up here with a line drawn under it which indicates the real I--not all the not I's or the false I's that are generally in the picture. So we'll put the real I and what is it's job. What does it do?

[As an Awareness Function,] it's major job is that it places value, which seems to be the whole job of I. Now X, that Life Principle, that energy power that really is, will do anything that I says is of first value right now. It will do anything that you say is first value, right now. If you said the first value was for you to stand up, what would happen?

(You'd stand up.)

A valuing system is what a "frame of reference" is; and it already has a set of values arranged in it. Frame of reference shall we say is "ready-made values." [In other discussions] we've looked at a value that would come from "What am I?", "Where am I?", "What's going on here?", and "What can I do?" which we said could be being a good guest.

Now we could pretty well make that what to me is a "good guest" which is a set of values--values that I'm considerate, I'm harmless, and I'm making some little contribution. That "set of values" would be set up and act all the time.

We also have our technical frames of reference. So you've learned the value of stepping on an accelerator, pushing a certain button, using a certain calculator.

So shall we say at this moment, the job of I is to determine which "frame of reference" we're going to use? You have a choice of which "frame of reference" you're going to use. If you're going to drive a car, you'll use the "technical frame" of reference related to that automobile. So you go down the road and if there's a traffic jam, you stop, you start; and if the car gets hot, you turn off the air conditioner and various and sundry other things. This all comes from the "technical frame of reference."

If you're using the technical frame of reference and at the same time using the conditioned frame of reference--those two values are hooked--do you find that there is a considerable amount of frustration, aggravations and annoyances can be possible in a day's work. They come along even until this day. There are all sorts of things [conditionings] get in the way.

Now if you were on the other side and used only this "frame of reference"--the teaching frame of reference--and your technical one; one has eliminated all the petty little annoyances and etc. that goes in the day's work. Now you can't do that all at once. It is a practice of whether I have made up my mind to go in this direction, or to [let the "conditioned awareness" take over.]

Before you do anything such as learn to fly an airplane, go to school, etc; you first make up your mind. Now making up the mind is a simple thing to do if we just simply do it. We do it many times a day. When you make up your mind you've turned loose all the power of X--whatever that may be. The power of the universe goes to work for you.

Now most of us don't just generally make up our mind. First we set a condition, quite frequently. A condition like "as soon as so and so condition happens", I will do it. "As soon as" the children are grown I will take up airplane flying. Of course the children aren't always out of your hair until they're 60 years old. They're still around wanting something. They still show up every now and then.

I know a lot of people that say, "I'm going into business." They get some plans for their business but the condition then comes in. I'll do it "when I can raise the funds." That's a "beaut". Instead of just going and doing it. So before I do that, I've established an obstruction.

Now if I'm going to stand up "as soon as I feel that it would be the right thing to do", wonder how long it would be before I stood up?

Now we frequently are going to do something as soon as we can figure out what "the right thing to do" is. Did your mother ever tell you that everything would go fine if you always do the right thing? Mine laid that on me. Then for 20 years I tried to figure out what the "right thing" was--sometimes it was to find out the "best thing" to do.

You cook dinner every night with no problem; but if "important" people are coming to dinner, what happens to you?

(I get uptight.)

You get uptight because then we have to do it the RIGHT way. If it's just the family, anything will go. You never get uptight and it turns out beautiful, right? When these important people come along, we set up an obstruction. So we try to figure out how to do it the RIGHT way. Did you ever take an "important" person flying with you in an airplane?

(No, not yet. They wouldn't go with me.)

Because by the time you got "worked up" as to these important people, you wouldn't even get in the plane yourself.

This is where we place values. I can look at things and you use this set of values [teaching ideas] that there are no "important" people. They are all invited guests here and no guest is more important than the other one. They're all wonderful people; and that I will be harmless to all the guests, and I will make some little insignificant contribution if I feel like it.

Then there is no reason to get all tangled up.

When we make something "important", we have placed [value] from the "conditioned frame of reference"-- a "false" importance to it. We have made it to do the "right thing", the "best thing"; and can you answer what the "best thing" to do is? Can you ever answer what the "right thing" to do is?

[Somewhere Dr. Bob said we would need to know the outcome of any given decision and action two weeks, two months, two years from now. Who could ever know that?]

(The scientific method approach is what is supposed to help decision-makers make decisions.)

Did you ever notice how long it takes them to make a decision? I read this morning in the paper that the decision making process at the Veterans Administration is like all other official organizations; it took very long to make one--years in fact. I don't want to get involved in the scientific method; I just do it by "whim."

(If I were flying an airplane, I might have to make that decision…)

No, she wouldn't make the decision; she already has it in there. You haven't flown an aircraft. I can tell that.

(You don't have time to…..)

You don't have time to make a decision. You have all the little "frame of reference" in there. When that needle goes there, you do this without any decision making. Is that right?

(That's right.)

Now if somebody were going to describe this in a written report; it would say she made a decision, but I know better. The "frame of reference" moved in and took over the proper control for what that needle did, isn't that right? You don't think about it, you have no "decision making" process.

(If she wrecks that airplane, somebody is going to have a………)

Oh yes, they'll analyze it for the next three years and find out why it happened, cause they know why, or think they do at least. And what difference does it make--the plane is already wrecked.

(It will help the next time.)

No, it won't because the same thing won't happen. What it does help is the guy who makes money from the analysis.

So in observing "What's the best thing to do," one starts out with trying to find some answer to the future, which goes back to this one we talked about this morning that "I can know the future." Now when you sit down and try to figure out in your head, "What's the best thing to do," what are you trying to do?

(You're trying to predict the future.)

You're not trying to predict the future; you're trying to know the future without doing the experiment--without living it. Of course, you can never be sure that you have; so you sit with it over and over. This is a tremendous dissipation of energy. There are an awful lot of people that dissipate energy almost continually.

There are a few who are generators of energy. When you're around them you feel kind of picked up because you do pick up a little energy. They are generators of energy. Most all of us know a few of those people because when you're around them you feel "up."

Now these are people who are generators. They are the ones who can make up their mind and they're going to do something and find out how it works; they're not going to figure out ahead of time.