There are many different modes that we need to be able to be in in order to traverse this path. We need to be empathetic towards others. We need to be able to feel others. We need to be able to feel within us what other people feel. We need to feel the pain of others. We need to feel the joy of others. We also have to be able to feel the extent of our own joy and pain, and we need to be able to moderate them. We need to understand that there has to be a balance in who we are and that we can’t get too high and we can’t get too low. The problem with being very high in joy is that that can easily flip to the other side because each side carries the other side with it. And if you get into an overwhelming joyous state, that can sometimes just as easily flip into an overwhelming sad state because of the high pitch that you’re at. And that high pitch can sort of get you out of control.
But there are other things that we have to be able to do also. We are in the path where we are in the world but try not to be of it all at the same time. We’re not in the path of the recluse. We’re in the path of the ones involved in the world. However, we also need to know that we have to close ourself off from the world sometimes. So, just as we’re in the path that’s in the world, we have to incorporate into our path times when we totally shut the world out so that the effect of all that streams through us, we actively say to it, “You have no input in my being. You have no power over me.”
