Number Seventy Two

We are guided by light. The light comes in the form of a thought, a sentence spoken by passing angels.  The light ceaselessly bathes us, but we see it only in rare moments.  Our path, hidden usually by fear or desire, becomes at those times suddenly clear, as if seen in a full moon. But soon the words are gone; the thought disappears. And though the light still shines, we step blindly, knowing only the shadow of pleasure and pain.

Number Seventy One

Every conversation is driven by two things: the desire to be seen and the fear of being seen; the desire to connect against the fear of judgment.

In the life between lives, judgment is just recognition of whether something works.  What we do is either effective, or not; it achieves its purpose, or not.  There is no good/bad, no hierarchy of worth.  Here, judgment is dangerous, dismembering the self; tearing off parts that are called bad and get disowned.

So we are funny or polite.  We hide.  And what's judged in us is thrown away -- the rejected self.  In the quiet between bursts of laughter, between the small remarks, the disease of not belonging grows.

Number Seventy

The alarm sounds and we are afraid.  The alarm says, "run, protect yourself, stay alive."  The alarm rings in the body and the mind to make us zig-zag away from danger.  Avoiding danger is the work of the body.  Seeing danger is the work of the mind.

None of this has anything to do with us.  It is a place we live.  It is a house that will one day not survive the wind and weight of snow.  We are visitors, caught up and amazed by the customs, the way things work here.

This place runs on fear.  Fear creates the illusion of evil.  Fear makes invisible the strands that join us.  And it makes us forget why we came to visit in the first place.

The air raid and the fire alarm, the raised voice before a rejection, the darkness falling on an unfamiliar street  -- it is merely content obscuring meaning.