So, exploring a number of paths over a number of years, one day I listened to Glenn Gould play Bach and found myself on a path which is gentle enough for even a soul as timid as mine, undemanding enough for a mind as undisciplined as mine, embracing enough for a heart as errant and recalcitrant as mine.

To go back to the sight metaphor: I found a way to use old lenses for tired eyes, slowly corrective appliances for eyes blinded by the bright wonders of science and technology.

I came to this way not because I wanted to scourge the body, cleanse the earth of both our best and worst products, or accuse and condemn any who do not share my own version of two-dimensional reality. Not to criticize religions, not to found yet another. My only goal was, and is, to see better, and then become that which I learn to see.

An important goal, obviously, and hardly new. All I have done is take some tools from the past—lenses, please—and suggest a method of using them to our own beneficial ends.

Lenses, because they help you to see more, and more clearly. Not suddenly, not overwhelmingly, but slowly, gently. They may not lead you to paradise; but they will surely help you see better a way out of misery.

You don’t have to give up anything: no discarding of BMW’s, no shredding of credit cards, no erasure of your hard drive, no flight to the forest and a primitive life.

Too easy? Yes, too easy, in much the same way that death is too easy.

But also not easy at all. Because any benefits which may accrue from this method are slow, slow, slow in coming. As I said, no instant riches, no instant enlightenment.

Which leads us perhaps to a clue. You would think that life would be easy, and death hard. The fact that we perceive life as hard, and death as easy is an indication of distorted vision. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Fence-sitting? Wishy-washy? No. The simplistic matrix of two-dimensional vision—science, logic, reason—lets us believe that everything can be reduced to stateable explanations. Your own expanding vision will show you what a limited, truly irrational, unreasonable vision of the world that is.

All paths of wisdom lead eventually to the experience of that which cannot be stated, the apprehension of that which cannot be spoken. Attempts to speak it quickly become absurd exercises in trying to cover an infinite number of bases.

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