Volume 4, Issue 1, page 4

that will go. Eyes become wider as they
see more. And man waking, perhaps sleeping,
never ceases talking to himself.
"Why don't they feed me?"
"Why do they pat me?"
"Why do I hurt so in the middle?"
"Why is there so much noise?"
"Why is it so quiet?"
"Why is the world so dark?"
"Wby is the world'so still?"
Can a small child think of all these
things and shape them into thoughts the
child is aware of? Of course, Man the Babe
needs no knowledge whatever of words to ask
the above questions, as he talks to himself, nor to answer them -as he sort of
grows into, or sidles into them. Even when
very young he asks himself questions without knowing that he asks, answers without
knowing the answers or that he makes answer; and, it is to be feared, as he grows
in age and intelligence, he loses more and
more of wisdom because he listens less and
less to his converse with himself, within
himself.

Man identifies himself when he is uer
young. As what? That brief question may no
be answered in many lifetimes, but to study
the answer, which with the question is in
everything man asks of or talks about as he
talks to himself, becomes almost the whole
of the life of man -- tho he ignore it all
his life!
Man's world is, first, his mother. Then
it becomes his cradle, or his playpen, or
his bed -- all small things, but man's world
then. The mother is never detached from the
growing world, for a cry -- her name is "mama!" -- will always bring her, murmuring,
crooning, with ready hand for the disturbed
head, the aching belly, the burning feet.

The cradle grows. The bed grows. The
playpen grows. It becomes a floor, and
chairs, a room, a carpet, a table, the lower parts of human legs, with feet. The
feet are different. Sometimes they are
bare, like the babe's, but much, much bigger; sometimes they are shod in what he
knows are colors before he knows the words.
His eyes see, and tell. So thoughts came
before words, and habitually race faster
than words can catch and shape them.

Toys, and different kinds of chairs;
tables, and dishes, and different kinds of
food, and more people sitting here, and
there, and yonder, on chairs, with some of
them unseen, because the table hides them.
Does man-child think such things before he
knows the words? Of course, but what manchild thinks before he has words cannot be
put into words. But as he thinks, after his
fashion, he talks to himself. His "talk" is
a gurgle. His "talk" is a humming. His
"talk" is mostly bubbles. But it is talk,
and he needs none others with him. He talks
to himself, forming the habit of a lifetime. But he quickly ceases to talk aloud
to himself -- which is a pity, perhaps -- because other men, everyone of whom talks to
himself, think, or say aloud:
"How very strange he is! He talks to
himself!"
Man talks to himself, thru, around, over
and under, the things he deliberately says
to himself. He thinks of "teacher" and concentrates on "teacher", while thru his mind
run pictures and words related to teacher,
many words and many pictures in succession,
until he has quickly lost "teacher" if he
doesn't concentrate. "Teacher" suggests
books, and schoolhouses, and classrooms,
and recesses, and lunches, and cries of
anger, fear, or delight, of games, and
races, and the gym, even while the man
thinks "teacher" and strives to think only
"teacher".

Man talks to himself, saying:
"I am I!"
*Who am I?"
"What is I?"
"What's my name?"
"What does my name mean?"
"Is my name me?"
"Who do I think I am?"
"Do I think?"
"What is thought?"
"Is thought thtng?"
"Is thought material?"
"Is thought invisible?"
"Whence comes thought?"
"Do I originate thought? Does thought
come from somewhere else to me?"
"Does thought pass through me, faster
than, but like, a bullet thru the brain?"
"What is a brain?"
"What is mind?"
"Does the brain operate mind, or is it
operated by mind?"
Man, having a name, usually likes his
own. He goes thru life saying it to himself. He tells his name to others when they
ask, or when they don't. He signs his name.
He prints it, writes it, speaks it that others may hear it and repeat it back to him,
that he may hear it again. And always he
says it to himself.

Is the name the man? Is the name the
body? Is the name the "I"? Is the man the
body? Is the man-body the "I"?
Man constantly talks to himself about
his surroundings. That which surrounds him
the most tightly, so that it is a kind of
prison, is his body, his self, the center
which he considers, which asks and tries to
answer all the questions, which sees, hears,
touches, tastes, smells, and seeks thereby
to know. How big is "I"? How small is "I"?
Man could not cease from asking questions if he willed. He is a will creature,
with the power of choice, but he cannot
choose to cease asking questions, for the
instant he did a question would eventuate:
"Why?" He can seem to cease to answer questions by refusing to know that he tries to
answer them, by ignoring the questions, and
ignoring the answers which immediately pose
themselves beside each question ever asked,
so that seeing-hearing man must always have
the answer, else the question itself would
not be posed.
"Be still," says Holy Writ, "and know
that I am God."
Man stills. Man shuts out hearing, and
seeing, a n d feeling, and tasting, and
smelling; he controls himself, he concentrates, meditates, contemplates. Even as he
does, he asks himself:
"How am I still? What do I know? What is
God? What is concentration? Meditation?
Contemplation?"
Man is taught, rigidly, to control his
thoughts; but if he does, may he not miss
some illumination, born only of random
4 The ABERREE ARIL, IV61