If people who love literature did not feel that there was more to it than there is, literature would not be loved. Same with music, morality, politics, religion, reputation, and every other thing that exists in the lives of men, and which does not exist in their lives physically. They are one and all treated by man as though there is more to them than there is – that they have a significance beyond even that which to them men verbally attribute – which is all they have from beginning to end anyway. But this normally un-admitted additional weight given thereto is the key pickle that keeps the barrel rolling. A child does not just say that they saw, “a ghost” – it is always a ghost, “twenty feet tall, with eight eyes and a hundred arms.”
A man whose consciousness consists of naught but the thoughts life normally provides to everyone, cannot be made to see what is herein being noted – it is simply not possible. He can interpret it as being an attack on some specific area of man’s cultural world, with which his thoughts may mechanically agree or disagree. If he hears it as an assault on religion, he/his thoughts may say: “I do not believe in God either,” or “The comments are wrong. There is a God.” But it makes no difference whether your individually provided thoughts approve or disapprove of any feature of the second, mental reality – all that matters is that your thoughts are in-the-game; that your thoughts take the matter seriously – that it is serious whether a man believes there is a God, or does not believe. Your position in the question is not important, just as long as your thoughts treat it as worthy of having one.
From the goal of developing clear sight, if you play the game you lose. It does not matter which team you are on. If you play – you lose. If you let your consciousness, chase after the same balls as everyone else’s – you lose yours, (your potential potent ones).
If your consciousness is restricted to thoughts which take the question of whether God exists or not, or whether there is Life after death, or whether Good will eventually triumph over evil; truth over falsehood, Sociology over Psychology, Socialism over Democracy, Impressionism over Abstract Expressionism, et roll on, you are forced to treat the questions as though there is more to them than there is – but there is nothing to them. They are words; sounds with accompanying, personal mental images.
J.