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Seduced By Imaginary Worlds
I never found the teacher. I did come to understand my loneliness and futility were the result of a mistaken perception that I was a separate being. I realized I was not the center of the universe and so I could never make sense of life in terms of my own little drama. Instead I had to give myself a larger life.
…I realized “God” was not a magical being who was hiding from me, but one symbol of an experience of something deeper and more mysterious. I realized the “word” is not so much a book as the creative principles that gave birth to art, science and religion. I realized every being I meet is like an angel from the “source.” The sacred was not hiding far away in some hidden supernatural realm but was fully available in my ordinary moments whenever I was fully present.
What I found was not one teacher, but more like ten thousand fireflies each giving just enough illumination to take the next step. I am grateful to know a depth of being that does not have to be begged or bribed. I am glad to be taught by insects and trees instead of by dead saints and philosophers.
— Jim Rigby
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“To know that you are a prisoner of your mind, that you live in an imaginary world of your own creation is the dawn of wisdom. To want nothing of it, to be ready to abandon it entirely, is earnestness.”