For a person with the inborn attraction to the idea of, waking-up from man’s routine state of mind, once they discover some professed method for doing so, it becomes the most serious thing in their life, (in a way that only those with that special hunger can appreciate). But the initial, apparently well-deserved seriousness of the undertaking can gradually distort your perception to such a degree that you eventually sit unknowingly in the mud at the terminus of a dead end street, motor running, tires spinning, but getting nowhere. It is a bone piercing frustration singular to the few.
If the truth were publicly said, the majority of people drawn to the idea of achieving a more explanatory state of mind, never receive for their efforts much more than frustration. They usually will either conclude that there is no one now alive who knows how to do it and can teach them, or will just progressively lose active interest. Though able when the occasion demands, to verbally profess contrarily, such people can never totally forget their attraction to the matter, and their past involvement. It often becomes an acrid verbal hobby for them. From their frustration, they become bitter and sarcastic about the whole idea of another state of extraordinary understanding, and yet can never completely let it go.
There are people who display a seriousness about this endeavor that is striking. They will give up family, fame and fortune to live in remote, oppressive physical conditions with little semblance of a normal human existence, for the opportunity of one day experiencing that special, dreamed-of inner realization. And for every one person who so physically subjects their self, there are a thousand who do so mentally, via: reading books, attending lectures, discussing the matter with others, and endless thinking about it in the privacy of their own head.
If you have that inborn desire to the fever pitch, there is nothing you will ever think about that compares thereto in seriousness. Not health, wealth, reputation, education, death – nothing. You do not plan it, and you do not sit down and rationally compare this burning interest with life’s other offerings – you simply cannot help it. It is just the way you are in your head, and you often wonder if you are the only SANE person in the world with the interest.
For a long time, to say that the idea and goal of breaking loose from the present activity taking place automatically in your head is serious – is really an understatement; it is seriousness personified.
J.