longer be ensnared in pains and pleasures. The ego is then understood
to be no more than an actor's mask for the true Self.
Few people have ever reached this level of detachment. Humanity
lives for the most part in grey actions, with mixed results, but nurtures
an ethical resolve gradually to shift from grey to white. What impedes
this self-reforming process is that we have little awareness, let alone
control, of the waves of thought that arise in the depths of the uncon
scious. Few of us possess the clarity and dexterity to catch the currents
that arise from ingrained habits and conditioned reflexes. Yet if we un
derstood the complex role of memory, we are more likely to use it skill
fully and act with greater awareness and freedom.Memory: Liberation or Bondage
When Pavlov rang his bell for the dogs at mealtimes, the dogs salivated
because the bell hit a "bell equals mealtime" mechanism in them asso
ciating with and triggering memory. The bell triggered the "time to
eat" response, and salivation occurred instantly. The dogs didn't say,
"Wait a minute, this is a secondary wave. This is only a bell." It is very
difficult for us to pick up the secondary wave rising from the uncon
scious toward the surface. We are caught up in the action that it pro
vokes, both like salivation, at a physical and sensorial level or the level
of doing something (salivating is an action). We're caught up in the
consequence before we can interrupt it.
For example, sex or violence in films acts like this on us. Even if
we dislike or disapprove of them at a conscious level, they create sec
ondary waves from unconscious sexual or aggression sandbanks that
muddy the waters of consciousness. Only someone who is completely
free of causality is beyond the dangers of pollution. The advertising
business is largely based on the trick of triggering a response in the cus
tomer's unconscious mind. Our consciousness increasingly becomes
what we feed it.