In the ascending spiral of being, the contemplative saint stands at a point exactly corresponding, on his higher level, to the position of a flower or a bird. Both inhabit eternity; but whereas the flower’s or the bird’s eternity is the everlasting present of mindlessness, of natural processes working themselves out with little or no accompanying consciousness, the saint’s eternity is experienced in union with that pure consciousness, which is the ultimate reality. Between these two worlds lies the human universe of foresight and retrospect, of fear and craving and memory and conditioning, of
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