Diagram 021

Re Talk: 72

       At the ordinary level, all people feel that Life is in conflict with them personally.  It is as if you and this demon Life are on a roller coaster, sitting side by side in the little car, with just enough room for both of you.  Imagine this thing -- the "Not-I" totality of uncontrollable forces -- sitting there.  You live with the feeling that all it's got to do is lean toward you and sneer and the roller coaster goes faster, or raise and eyebrow and the curves get more acute.  You constantly feel as if the roller coaster is about to fly off the track.

     This is a fair description of how everyone feels; that I am trapped here with this huge creature. Sometimes it may ignore me for a little while and I get to take a breath.  But the bar is strapped across us, and it constantly just looks my way and grins, and suddenly -- I didn't believe a roller coaster could go this fast!

     No amount of dreams or reading of mystical books is going to change the radical nature of the feeling that you are trapped with this thing on a dangerous roller coaster.  Consider the sensation of sitting beside a great blob of an enemy that's scaring the hell out of you:  the blob's in control; where it goes you are carried and you can't seem to slow down, jump off, or even reason with it.  That feeling is not psychological.  It is related to the weak spot -- to where you were injected into Life.  Of course, you know where it's all going to end, but between here and there you can see no escape.

     As long as a person is in that position, life is a frightening blur.  It is the physical -- not psychological -- sensation that, "I am trapped and there is no way out this side of death."  So if you are ordinary, you are constantly in the condition of resisting Life.  You disagree with it.  You don't understand it.  It is felt to be an oppressive enemy.  Life is a constant process of resistance until an ordinary person hits that final place along the track known as "grave city" and suddenly realizes, "I am about to die like a dog and I have no idea what happened."

     But can you conceive of riding with this thing and enjoying it?  Can you picture another scenario wherein you are sitting there with Life and when it smiles, you smile, and there is nothing it can do?  It is literally your helpless ally.  Instead of being carried by it, when it leans your way, you just lean with it.  It goes faster and you go, "Whee!"  Once you get to that point, it's as if Life has a slight sense of humor.  It leers and you learn to leer back.  When it takes you around a dangerous curve you can, at least non-verbally, go, "I like that!  Can you do it again?"  And the reality of Life itself becomes a living, teaching experience.  But you cannot learn -- you cannot enjoy the ride -- as long as you are sitting there with the feeling that you're being carried and there is no way out. jC Talk 72