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To continue living mechanically, we have
the support of seven billion other human
beings. But to live in the present, there is
not much support at all. We need a new
education, which cannot be communicated
through the mind or through our emotions.
This new education is communicated by
taste. Taste is direct and offers the possibility
of freedom from our conditioning.
If you pay attention, you’ll find out that
no matter what you look at, before you
can really see it, there’s a word. Before
you can see a tree, the word “tree”
appears in your mind. Before you can see
the sky, the word “sky” is there. Before
you can see your friend, their name
comes. When you see a stranger, before
you can actually see them, you’ve already
associated them with something from
your past. That’s your conditioning. It
pervades every aspect of your life. That’s
why we all live in the past and future. To
become present means freeing yourself
from this conditioning.
(p29)
What does it mean to come to the body?
Before you come to the body you are
imagining yourself. That person you
imagine yourself to be lives inside your
head, in thoughts. You can’t come to the
body unless you come out of the mind,
out of thoughts. When you’re with the
body, you’ve taken a huge step toward
becoming present. You can’t be present in
thoughts, because thoughts are always in
the past or future.
When your mind is where your body is,
you are a step closer to who you really
are.
Practicing bringing the mind to the body
helps give you more possibility to receive
Conscious energy, instead of mechanical
energy. When Conscious energy is present,
you know it, because it has a taste.
Mechanical energy has no taste. That’s
why we ordinarily live without tasting
life. But with Conscious energy, life has
taste. Friendship has taste. Sunlight has
taste. The body has taste. Everything you
experience has taste. Instead of living in
the world of imaginary existence, which
has no taste, you enter into the taste of
real existence.
(p 40)
The universe has no beginning and no
end. The pit becomes the tree, and the
tree, a pit. Beginning and end are one.
Truth can’t be fit into a mold. It’s beyond
formulation, beyond concepts and
knowledge.
Your own existence is not dependent on
your thoughts and sensations, not dependent
on your body. In the moment
you actually taste that you are not your
thoughts, feelings, or sensations, you are
free from birth and death. You see that it’s
just the process of Existence, necessary
for the relative to find its place within the
Absolute. When you see the unity of the
relative and the Absolute, you understand
that everything is exactly as it should be,
everything is perfect as it is. There’s a part
of you that can relate to it and understand
it, because you are that unity.
We may be far from realizing it, but there
is always a step toward reality we can take
to come to is-ness. Coming to the breath
and body is a good first step.
(p 50)
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