9 – “To be human is precisely to have that extra circuit of consciousness which enables us to know that we know, and thus to take an attitude towards all that we experience. The mistake we have made–and this, if anything, is the fall of man–is to suppose that that extra circuit, that ability to take an attitude toward the rest of life as a whole, is the same as actually standing aside and being separate from what we see. We seem to feel that the thing which knows that it knows is one’s essential self, that–in other words–our personal identity is entirely on the side of the commentator. We forget, because we learn to ignore so subtly, the larger orgasmic fact that self-consciousness is simple a subordinate part and an instrument of our whole being…”
19 – “What happens with your stream of experience if you realize that no one is in control of it? If you see that it is just going along of itself, unpushed and unpulled? … You can get the feel of it by breathing without doing anything to help your breath along. Let the breath out, and then let it come back by itself, when it feels like it. And then out again when it wants to go out. Keep this up until you are completely comfortable with letting it go its own way, and you will notice that the rhythm slows down without the least effort–and at the same time becomes a little stronger. This happens because you are now ‘with’ the breath and no longer ‘outside’ it as controller. Something similar happens when you let thoughts, feelings, and all other experiences follow their own course. They are doing this anyhow and you can’t really make it otherwise, so if some contrary tension arises see that it, too, is happening of itself–and watch to see what it wants to do. Just watch the stream going along, nothing more. If you find yourself asking who is watching and why, take it as simply another wiggle of the stream.”
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