THE SUPERMARKET PARADOX

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The name of this article is 'The Supermarket Paradox' or 'Reflections on Level 3 of TROM'. Now a
paradox can be loosely defined as anything that conflicts with one's preconceived ideas or
notions. An example of a paradox is a man going to a zoo for the first time and seeing a giraffe
and exclaiming that there's no such animal. 

The giraffe clearly contradicts his ideas, his preconceived ideas, of what an animal ought to look
like. How does this phenomenon of the paradox come about? It comes about when a person's
idea or model they have in their own mind of the way the universe is, is contradicted by the real
universe. And it only happens when they don't know all there is to know about the situation that
is in front of them. 

There Are No Paradoxes 

As a matter of fact, there are no paradoxes in this universe. The whole universe, jogs along on
the laws upon which it is based and upon, with which it's constructed. The universe will not
permit any paradoxes. A thing cannot occur in the universe which is contrary to the laws upon
which the universe is constructed, simply because it violates the laws and therefore cannot exist
in the universe. 

So there are no paradoxes in the universe. But there are an awful lot of beings in the universe
that have ideas and preconceptions about the way the universe ought to be which are at
variance from the way in which the universe actually is. 

Once you grasp that, you see that paradoxes can be rampant. Or to put it another way if a person
understood the laws upon which this universe is constructed he would never be faced with a
paradox. He would simply look at a situation and whatever he saw would be consistent with the
laws of the universe. He would not be struck by this phenomenon of the paradox. 

So a paradox always occurs and only occurs when a person knows less than he could know about
the laws governing the phenomena that are in front of him. Now there's a very common paradox
that a person walks into at Level 3 in TROM. It is so common that I've named it 'The Supermarket
Paradox' and I thought it might be a good idea to say a few words about it to stop people being
puzzled by it. 

The supermarket paradox occurs when a person gets to Level 3 in TROM and this person believes
in such things as memory pictures or mental image pictures. This is how the paradox comes
about. The person at Level 3 is being encouraged by the procedure to examine various incidents,
scenes in their life. And they end up examining these scenes in much greater detail than they've
ever before examined them. And hence they start walking into what I call, the supermarket
paradox. 

The simplest form of the paradox is that a person at Level 3 in TROM picks up a memory scene of
being in a supermarket, shall we say, at the point of where they are taking a packet of Corn Flakes
off the shelf and putting it into their trolley (grocery cart). 

This is the moment in time that they are dealing with, at Level 3 in TROM, at a certain moment in
their therapy session. And this is how the paradox comes about. They examine the scene and
they look around the scene. There are the cornflakes. They just put the Corn Flakes into the
trolley. And they look around the supermarket and they become aware of the various bits and
pieces in the supermarket. And they become aware of their body in the supermarket. They
become aware of their head in the supermarket. And there they stop. There they walk into a
paradox. Or, I could say more precisely, they could very easily walk into a paradox at this point if
they happen to believe that their memory scenes, memory pictures, are being generated by
something in their brain or some part or some mechanism in their brain. 

Because they will now find that they're looking at the scene and in the scene they're looking at
their body and their brain is in their body. How can their brain make a picture of the supermarket
and in the supermarket is their body and in their body is their brain, and in the brain there is the
machine or the device that is taking the picture or making the recording? But the device must be
making a recording of itself. 

Because you look into the scene, look into the supermarket, there's the body in the supermarket
and there in the body is the brain. So inside the brain would be the device. How can this be? How
can a device in the brain be recording itself? So you say, "OK it records itself." 

Alright, well that only worsens the situation, because if this device records itself, then it must
also be making a recording of recording itself. And if it makes a recording of recording itself, it
must make a recording of recording itself recording itself. And so on in infinite regression, in
infinite series. 

So the situation has now got worse. You don't get out of it that way. It worsens the situation
we're now into a completely ridiculous situation. Now we're up against the paradox. The paradox
is essentially that, "How can the picture of the supermarket be a figment of the brain when the
brain is in the supermarket and is a part of the recording." That is essentially the paradox. Then,
of course, is the added difficulty of: "How come all this vast space in this vast supermarket all
gets into one tiny brain while this tiny brain is in the supermarket?" 

Again a paradox. So we're not only in the supermarket paradox once we start on them we see a
whole series of paradoxes. Well I'm only naming some of the most obvious ones. So we look
around the supermarket and we see the body standing there taking the Corn Flakes off the shelf
or putting the cornflakes into the trolley. 

And there's the body and there's the back of the head of the body. And... Wait a minute! How can
the brain take a memory picture of the back of the head of the body when the brain is inside the
body and its only visual output is through the eyes and the eyes are at the front of the head?
How can it make a recording of the hair at the back of the head? But there it is, you're in the
supermarket, you're looking at the back of your body and you're looking at your hair. No way!
Paradox! 

Oh, I could go on, you see. So you say, "OK, enough of that... we'll drop that". This is not a
memory recording made by the brain. This is a mental image picture which has something to do
with the human spirit. This has got nothing to do with the body. That's why I can see the body in
the scene. It's because it's made by me as a human spirit. Fine – fine – fine. OK. 

So when you're in the supermarket taking the Corn Flakes off the shelf and putting them into your
trolley you are occupying the viewpoint of your body. So presumably any recording made by you
as a human spirit at that moment in time would have been made from that viewpoint. Right? 

Then how come, in recall, it's very easy for anyone to recall that same scene from six foot behind
the body? Or two foot above the body. Or three foot to the left of the body. How come?
Paradox! 

So you say, "OK no problem there. There's the memory picture – we make the memory picture
and we simply move the picture right, to the left, and up and down. So we can get various
viewpoints in the picture. The whole thing is just an illusion." Fine, fine, fine. 

So you solved that paradox you think? So you look out around the supermarket and you look out
through the wall of the supermarket. And there's a green fence and on top of the green fence...
but, wait a minute, wait a minute you've never been outside that supermarket and seen this
green fence with your body's eyes. 

And at the time of the incident you had no awareness of this green fence. So if you had no
awareness of this green fence at the time of the incident, how come you've got a mental
recording of this green fence? And there it is, you go back to that moment to the incident and
you look across at the wall of the supermarket and you look through the wall. 

No doubt, there is the green fence. And you look past the green fence and there is a truck
parked and there are the wheels on the truck; on the other side of the truck there is a garden
fence; and on the other side of that garden fence there is someone's back garden; and in the
garden there's a lawn an etcetera, etcetera. 

The further you look, you just see more and more universe. More and more town. Just exactly
what you'd expect to find if you were there looking through your eyes. Paradox! Oh, you say "I'm
a spiritual being and I have a machine that makes copies of the whole universe, moment by
moment in time. And I'm completely unaware of it. I don't know it's happening. The picture is
always available to me. At any time I can refer to these pictures and each picture is a complete
picture of the whole universe." 

Well now that's quite a machine. All right, let us suppose there is such a machine. Now if there
were such a machine it would show up sometime in therapy. Yet there are no reports of such
machines ever showing up in therapy. And worse is to come. 

If such a machine existed and you created a copy of such a machine and continue to make copies
of such a machine, and each copy, by your own postulate, was able to make pictures of the
universe  and  do  exactly  what  the  original  machine  did.  Eventually  you  will  take  over  the
automaticity of the original machine and the original machine would start to falter and start to
break down. And something would happen, start happening, to your memory pictures. But
nothing happens. 

You can create such a machine and play with it, and do every known process* with this machine.
You can create it; un-create it; move it around; chop it up; bring it together; make it produce
pictures; have it stop; start it; change it; paint it green; do what you like with it. 

*By a "process" he means a series of commands used in therapy.

You get back to the supermarket. You get exactly the same phenomena as before you played
around with the machine. You haven't changed the machine in the slightest. Now, it's very
difficult to conceive of such a machine under those circumstances. Very difficult to conceive the
machine; but it's your machine that you used to take pictures, moment by moment, of the whole
universe. 

That you have so little control over that you can't do anything about it by your own creativity in
present time. Now that in itself is a paradox. Now there is a far, far simpler solution to all of
these paradoxes. It's a very simple solution and it solves all of them. 

That what you're viewing in the supermarket is not a picture of the supermarket; it is not a
figment of the brain; it is not something produced by a machine in the brain; it is not something
which is produced by a machine in your psyche as a spiritual being. What you're looking at is the
actual supermarket at that moment in time as a spiritual being. 

In other words: You are looking at that moment in time as a spiritual being. Now this explains the
whole phenomena. There are no mysteries now, this is why you can look through the wall of the
supermarket and see the green fence, and why you can see the truck. Why you can see the
wheels on the truck and the fence behind the truck. And the person's backyard with the lawn in
it. This is why you can see all these things. 

When you engage in "Timebreaking" (the simultaneous viewing of the past and present) you aren't just looking at some mental image picture of the past. You are viewing the actual past.

Because you're simply looking through states of that moment of time in the physical universe.
You are looking at the real universe at that moment in time as a spiritual being. There's a whole
universe there for you to view. Now once you grasp that the paradox ends. 

You junk the mental image picture theory, that you've got a machine that makes pictures. Exit
one imaginary machine, it never did exist. You've now got rid of it. No need for it – no need to
keep this piece of useless bric-a-brac in your mind. The machine never did exist so you dump it. 

Exit this idea that you've got something in your brain that makes all these wonderful pictures.
No such thing, nothing in there. Nothing in there that makes pictures. Nope, it's just you. Just a
spiritual being who can look at the "then" scenes and who can look at the "now" scenes, and if
the "then" scenes seem a little less real than the "now" scenes it's only because he's made them
so. 

And that ends the supermarket paradox once and for all. And it ends all supermarket paradoxes
of that type, all paradoxes of that type, which you can call supermarket paradoxes. On that
subject your ideas are now completely consistent with the way things are. And so you do not
suffer paradoxes any more on the subjects of memories, memory pictures, memory scenes and
so on. 

Once you grasp the truth of it the paradoxes go and everything you look at and understand
along these lines is quite consistent with the way the universe is. You no longer get the puzzles
of the supermarket paradox. 

Now I hope this article, in conjunction with the theoretical material on this subject given in
TROM, will assist you to resolve these various paradoxes. Thank you very much. 

End of tape 

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