So let's go on then into our visualization, our imagination.
 Use your imagination for all it's worth to think yourself into the fact that this whole
 sense of importance, of vitality, of aliveness, of being is simply a sudden experience which
 was nothing before it started and will be nothing after it's over.
 That is the simplest possible thing you could believe in.
 It requires no intellectual effort, nothing.
 Supposing that's the way it is.
 Now I repeat, what's your inside feeling about that?
 Supposing let's say you feel sorry.
 For whom is this sorrow?
 Who when it's all over will there be to feel sorry?
 You really say, I regret now that this thing is going to come to an end.
 But when it's come to an end, nobody will either regret or be happy about it.
 That will be there.
 So in a way you can say, well this feeling of sorrow that I have that it's going to
 come to an end is really rather irrelevant because let me look at the thing from the
 other direction.
 Supposing it never would come to an end.
 In other words, here is this alternation of joy and sorrow and however happy I am today
 I'm always going to feel miserable later on.
 Then maybe happy again but then after that miserable and this is never, never going to
 stop.
 I'm going to get rid of the damn thing.
 Well that's pretty depressing isn't it?
 I mean when you think it through.
 So you say, well let's make a compromise between these two possibilities.
 One is that this compromise is in other words that it will disappear altogether but then
 it will start again.
 Because when it starts again it will feel like it does now, which is that it never happened
 before.
 So you're always in the same place just like you feel now.
 Let's supposing that the Hindus are right, that the universe lasts for 4,320,000 years
 and then it vanishes and then it starts and runs for another 4,320,000 years and then
 it vanishes and it does it again and it does it and does it and does it and does it and
 there is no end to this.
 But fortunately because of the forgettery every 4,320,000 years it doesn't become a
 totally insufferable bore.
 There is this blank space, this trough between the crests of the waves.
 You see?
 Now the Hindus thought about that and they got tired and they thought about the possibility
 of moksha, liberation or nirvana from the everlasting cycle of appearing and disappearing.
 But then when they thought that through, the Buddhists for example, having really said
 now we've got the trick, as the Buddha said after his enlightenment, now I've found
 you out, you who build the house.
 I'm going to take the house apart, the roof beam is brought down, desire is the builder
 of the house, see I've found you, never again shall you build it.
 And the Buddhists thought that one over.
 They said, crazy, we found a way out of samsara, the wheel of birth and death.
 And somebody one day said, but isn't that rather selfish?
 You get yourself out, what about all the other people?
 Don't you have any feeling of compassion?
 Oh yes, they said, of course.
 We forgot that, didn't we?
 Let's come back again and help all these people out.
 Then they got very sophisticated about it and they said, look, if nirvana is released
 from birth and death, then they're opposed.
 And so nirvana and birth and death go together and they will have to imply one another.
 So you're only really released if you see that, if you see that nirvana and birth and
 death are the same thing.
 Now I'm going to pull a fast one on you.
 So every time an incarnation occurs, it feels like this one.
 See, it might be quite different.
 We might be reincarnated in another universe as beings of an altogether different shape.
 See, not at all like human beings.
 But because we were used to it, we would feel that that was the human shape.
 We would say, well, that's natural.
 Obviously, obviously, that's the way things are.
 So naturally, if you appeared in the form of a spider, you would look around at other
 spiders and say, well, yes, of course, this is a natural shape to be in.
 This is the human shape.
 Something that is not us looks at us and thinks we look perfectly terrible.
 I mean, imagine how you look to a fish.
 Clumsy, cumbersome, stupid-looking thing.
 Because a fish is so elegant and graceful and can slide through the water so beautifully.
 The human beings can't even swim properly.
 So don't you see that in every world that comes into being, or could come into being,
 it seems just like it seems now.
 And every species that you could belong to would seem like this one.
 It would have its up end of what is highly intelligent and its low end of what is not
 so intelligent.
 You would be aware of superior forces and inferior forces.
 Otherwise, you wouldn't have the idea of mastering a situation unless there were situations you
 couldn't master.
 Now we are not aware of species, of beings above us, unless you cultivate those forms
 of psychic awareness where you think you're in touch with angels or something of that
 sort.
 But the things that appear to be above us are great natural processes.
 Only we think they're rather stupid.
 Only very tough.
 Too strong for us.
 Earthquakes, the elements.
 Also some little ones.
 See the virus is a very troublesome being.
 And this is where a human being really finds himself at his wits' end in dealing with molecular
 biology.
 So you know, if the monsters don't get you, the minsters will.
 The insects, you see.
 But at any rate, whatever level you're on, it always appears to be the same one.
 Now we, therefore, naturally, don't we, we feel we're in the middle.
 We feel, for example, with the telescope that there is a world greater than us that is infinitely
 greater.
 We feel with the microscope there's a world below us that's infinitely smaller.
 And we seem to stand in the middle.
 Of course you seem to stand in the middle.
 Every creature stands in the middle.
 Because if you stand on a boat in the middle of the ocean and you turn around through an
 angle of 360 degrees, you will see the same distance in every direction.
 That's because you see.
 And your sensitivity to sight or the intensity of light is the same in every direction.
 So you're in the middle.
 You're always in the middle.
 Where else would you be?
 In other words, anything that perceives anywhere is always in the middle.
 Anything that grows anywhere is always in the middle.
 It's betwixt and between.
 And the middle always has, therefore, extremes.
 It has extremes in space.
 As far west and as far east as you can think.
 As far on and as far back.
 And there's always a beginning and there's always an end.
 Just as there's a left and a right.
 Or a top and a bottom.
 Also.
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