“You're assuming,' said Dr. Robert, 'that the brain producesconsciousness. I'm assuming that it transmits consciousness. And myexplanation is no more farfetched than yours. How on earth can a set ofevents belonging to one order be experienced as a set of events belongingto an entirely different and incommensurable order? Nobody has thefaintest idea. All one can do is to accept the facts and concoct hypotheses.And one hypothesis is just about as good, philosophically speaking, asanother. You say that the moksha-medicine does something to the silentareas of the brain which causes them to produce a set of subjective eventsto which people have given the name 'mystical experience.' I say that themoksha-medicine does something to the silent areas of the brain whichopens some kind of neurological sluice and so allows a larger volume ofMind with a large 'M' to flow into your mind with a small 'm.' You can'tdemonstrate the truth of your hypothesis, and I can't demonstrate the truthof mine. And even if you could prove that I'm wrong, would it make anypractical difference?”

“The heart has its order, the mind has its own, which uses principles and demonstrations. The heart has a different one. We do not prove that we ought to be loved by setting out in order the causes of love; that would be absurd.”

“Here's a practice idea for right now. Choose one of those sets of phrases. ... Plan on taking some time to say those words over and over, as you would an ardent prayer. Set some time aside for this. (Fifteen minutes would be a good start.) Then sit comfortably. Later on, you can say these phrases walking about or doing chores or even riding your bike--but for now, just sit. That way you can look at the words."Say each phrase as if you expect it will feel different in your mind--they are slightly different wishes--and feel how each of them echoes in your mind and body. [pp. 72-73]”

“There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one's idea for thirty-five years; there's something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps the most important of your ideas.”

“He said sometimes when you're young you have to think about things, because you're forming your value-sets and you keep coming up with Data Insufficient and finding holes in your programs. So you keep trying to do a fix on your sets. And the more powerful your mind is and the more intense your concentration is, the worse damage you can do to yourself, which is why, Justin says, Alphas always have trouble and some of them go way off and out-there, and why almost all Alphas are eccentric. But he says the best thing you can do if you're too bright for your own good is what the Testers do, be aware where you got which idea, keep a tab on everything, know how your ideas link up with each other and with your deep-sets and value-sets, so when you're forty or fifty or a hundred forty and you find something that doesn't work, you can still find all the threads and pull them.But that's not real easy unless you know what your value-sets are, and most CITs don't. CITs have a trouble with not wanting to know that kind of thing. Because some of them are real eetee once you get to thinking about how they link. Especially about sex and ego-nets.Justin says inflexibility is a trap and most Alpha types are inward-turned because they process so fast they're gone and thinking before a Gamma gets a sentence out. Then they get in the habit of thinking they thought of everything, but they don't remember everything stems from input. You may have a new idea, but it stems from input somebody gave you, and that could be wrong or your senses could have been lying to you. He says it can be an equipment-quality problem or a program-quality problem, but once an Alpha takes a falsehood for true, it's a personal problem.”

“But I'll add, that there is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one's idea for thirty-five years; there's something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps the most important of your ideas”