A Unique Form of Literature

The techniques of these esoteric traditions are often thought to involve deliberately exotic and mysterious training, such as the use of special, mysterious magic words in meditation. However, the essence of meditation is the focusing of awareness on a single, unchanging source of stimulation. It is the attitude, not the specific form, that is prim... See more

The Man Who Walked on Water

A conventionally minded dervish, from an austerely pious school, was walking one day along a river bank. He was absorbed in concentration on moralistic and scholastic problems, for this was the form which Sufi teaching had taken in the community to which he belonged. He equated emotional religion with the search for ulti... See more

The two major types of psychology have each predominantly investigated one mode of human consciousness. Modern science is primarily verbal-logical; esoteric traditions have specialized in the tacit holistic mode, one largely inaccessible to language and reason.

On the biological level, two cerebral hemispheres of the cortex are specialized for different modes of information processing. The left hemisphere operates primarily in the verbal, sequential mode; the right hemisphere primarily in a spatial and simultaneous mode. This right hemisphere mode is often devalued by the dominant, verbal intellect.

Never Know When It Might Come in Useful

Nasrudin sometimes took people for trips in his boat. One day a fussy pedagogue hired him to ferry him across a very wide river.

As soon as they were afloat, the scholar asked whether it was going to be rough.

“Don’t ask me nothing about it,” said Nasrudin.

“Have you never studied grammar?”

“No,” said the Mul... See more

the linear, cumulative mode of gathering knowledge is again contrasted with a holistic and tacit mode which can appear only when consciousness is organized differently.

“The Ants and the Pen.”

An ant one day strayed across a piece of paper and saw a pen writing in fine, black strokes.

“How wonderful this is!” said the ant. “This remarkable thing, with a life of its own, makes squiggles on this beautiful surface, to such an extent and with such energy that it is equal to the efforts of all the ants in the world. And... See more

Some stories can serve as templates for consciousness, patterns frozen so that we can observe ourselves

Reflection can mean both “to think about” and “to mirror.” Often an action caught in a story forms a pattern which is also present on another level of consciousness