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Sages are made into heroes after they die. Who makes their way to them while they are a living force in the presence? Few!
Better to slumber and protect those precious beliefs, rather than to awaken into THIS vivid presence and lose all those morbid sufferings?

"How long will you sleep O sluggard; When will you arise out of your sleep?
So shall your poverty come, as 'one that traveleth' - and your want, as an armed man.
Yet a little sleep, a little folding of the hands to sleep" from the Bible

You think you have plenty of time to 'get it right'. Your slumber is in dreams. Your poverty is a dead past that weighs heavy in your mind. You sacrifice the freedom of an open mind with its direct cognition - for a bunch of useless beliefs and a selfish attitude.
Your appetite is a bottomless pit of relishing refuse. The armed man with his sickle will startle you with his arrival in your passive slumber - and your potentiality will be seemingly wasted in the drama of life. Your uniform of spiritual garb will be of no use to you and your beads will fall to the ground.
Your true nature will be uncovered. Naked awareness!
Why wait for a rude awakening?
Is there a choice? Can you take an active part in this? Will it make a difference.
Freedom is here now. 'Who' can't see THIS?
The dreamer can't see anything.
Wake up to the immediacy of your own living presence.
If there is a choice, sure that would be it.


Email about the book and many may relate to it well:
Hi Gilbert,
Thanks for asking about how the book is going.
I have been reading and contemplating it slowly; now I've gone through about half of it.
I've been "seeking" for about four years now.
Most books and articles I read quickly, then move on to another.
Although each book helps, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that we spend lots of time and energy trying to square everything we read, rather than noticing what we are doing.
I'm really, really tired of this pattern of reading, then moving on, reading, then moving on. Each time I start a new book, I think, "Maybe this is the one!"
Now, I'm finally beginning to see more clearly than ever that my mind, my beliefs, are actually my focus, not the books. Your writing is remarkably clear, and it is "clarifying" as well. I feel it is kind of like those "magic" drawings, where what it really going on (the "hidden" message) can suddenly become clear if you shift your focus to see things in a new way. My mind wants desperately to grasp the "first instant," but it is most illusive.
When the mind relaxes, a kind of clarity emerges.
During these times (such as on walks, or during quiet contemplation), a funny, kind of "excited" feeling takes over, as if I'm alert, anticipating but not knowing what could happen in every coming moment or at the next turn of the path.
Just behind this excitement is a subtle, lingering fear - that what "could happen" next might somehow hurt me!
What I've noticed, more and more, is how my mind is endlessly spinning its stories (quite obsessively, really), when I'm doing things that require very little concentration (such as doing house painting, driving, etc.).
It is funny, actually, and very humbling.
The stories and self-talk just go on and on and on.
Over the past few years, I've felt compelled to confront, head on, virtually every kind of activity that I am/was afraid of. Most of this has centered around the fear of expressing myself in certain situations, especially when emotions tend to run high.
This has led to hospice work, facilitating grief support groups, taking singing lessons, joining a choir, etc. While all this seems to have led to a more confident "me," it has also supported a belief that I must "purify" myself of all my fears and hang-ups, before "I" am permitted to "awaken."
Although there is merit in cleaning out all the "dusty corners" (your phrase, I believe), it seems that the need for "purification" is just another of the many stories that keep direct awareness at bay.
Your book gives me a pointer that I didn't have before, and I am grateful for that.
Regards, - M.

Reply: M, the mind can never grasp the first instant because it is in time and it only appears within the first instant. All the mind can do is open to its own vastness which is equal to That.
How can can a drop of water encompass the ocean?
Only by dissolving into the ocean does it become the ocean. Any resistence is futile and amounts to a momentary surface tension. It's all water, water!
The individual has no separateness at all. Even its personalized concepts arise from the One.

I will reply to the rest in general and not specifically aimed at Mark:

The light by which you see and know is IT. There is no power in words or images.
The arrangement of words in an unconventional manner may point the attention back to its source as long as there is no fixation on any particular 'objective' point in the reader.
The true nature of the mind is clear and empty and this must be tasted.
A very different view is then activated, in a manner of speaking.
The clear empty space of knowing is where the natural stateless state abides.
It has no boundaries and no specific location. Wherever the body wanders in the world, awareness is there, not carried by the body because the body is simply an instrument of cognition for awareness to register its own presence which is boundless.
There are no enlightened persons! This news is too shocking for most seekers.
Their gurus appear to play a game with them and they are fixated on their guru as a god. This projected adoration is the very fabricated boundary in mind that seemingly prevents the realization of their own completeness. What a joke it is and how many stupifying beliefs are bound up in this self-centred activity. I know of only ONE so-called teacher who does not play these games.
That is Bob Adamson.
So, seekers beware! You will lose your precious erroneous beliefs if you get to close to what he is expounding just like I did. Freedom seems to be quite a scary thing for most la-de-da seekers. So, hang onto your beads and pray that the message slips by or you might find all your favourite sufferings vanishing altogether. Now wouldn't that be a shame?
Cheers - Gilbert.