' Life reaching out '...

AH: That fact, that the ego no longer has that kind of blind security in its own autonomy, leads to this long drawn-out process.

ANTHONY: Yes. You have to remember that even if no books were ever written, and there were no gurus, no teachers, no sages, no texts available, no companions to talk to, this still operates. It's a natural process. It operates regardless of whether you have flags flying, books written, or not. This is what I mean when I speak about life reaching out through experience to understand itself. And this is independent even of the cultural mores of the environment. This is a natural process. An apple or a pear on a tree ripens naturally. You don't have to go there and read to it about the genesis of the process of its growth, budding, and maturation! [laughter] It just happens. And the pear has no notion that it's Norwegian or Finnish or American, or anything like that.

AH: Some of the mystical experiences that I've read about use the expression "I am not" rather than "I am a grander self." It seems that the notion of a grander self is the conclusion of the philosophic work.

ANTHONY: Yes, it's a very long drawn-out path. But the important thing to understand is that this is a process that's going on in nature. You can be born on an island with nobody to talk to. Everybody would be carrying a stone weighing two hundred pounds and you wouldn't be carrying any.


-Anthony Damiani from Living Wisdom