strings: WHEN YOU OBSERVE your own mind you are observing not only the so-called upper levels of the mind but also watching the unconscious; you are seeing what the mind actually does, are you not? That is the only way you can investigate. Do not superimpose what it should do, how it should think or act and so on; that would amount to making mere statements. That is if you say the mind should be this or should not be that, then you stop all investigation and all thinking; or, if you quote some high authority, then you equally stop thinking, don't you? If you (iuote Buddha, Christ or XYZ, there is an end to all pursuit, to all thinking and all investigation. So one has to guard against that. You must put aside all these subtleties of the mind if you would investigate this problem of the self together with me.