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 can 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 may say, I regret now that this thing is going to come to an end. But when it’s come to an end nobody would either regret or be happy about it. That will be that. So, in a way, you can say, Well, this feeling of sorrow that I have—that is going to come to an end—is really rather irrelevant, because let me look at the thing from the other direction. Supposing it would never 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. And then maybe happy again, but then, after that, miserable. And this is never, never going to stop; I just can’t 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’ll start again. Of course, when it starts again it will feel like it does now, which is that it never happened before. So you are always in the same place, just like you feel now.

Let’s suppose that the Hindus are right, that the universe lasts for 4,320,000 years, and then it vanishes, and then it starts and it 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 mokṣa, ‘liberation,’ or nirvāṇa, 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 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 found you. Never again shall you build it. And the Buddhists thought that one over. That’s crazy, we found a way out of saṃsāra, 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 nirvāṇa is release from birth and death, then they are opposed. And so, nirvāṇa and birth & death go together, and they will have to imply one another. So you are only really released if you see that; if you see that nirvāṇa and birth & death are the same thing.

Now, I’ve got 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 with 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 place to be in. This is the human shape. Something that’s 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, whereas 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. And we think that 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 the 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 ministers 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 is a left and a right. Or a top and a bottom.