Esteemed Reader

Smaller than small. Greater than great. In the heart of all creatures That resides, seen only by one who is free from desires and from grief.
Sitting still she walks far. Lying down she goes everywhere; bodiless within bodies; changeless among changes.
How can one who is not tranquil or subdued understand That through mere knowledge?
How can the ordinary person conceive that Being for whom both priest and warrior are as food, and death, a condiment?
—from the Katha Upanishad
Some say time is a line. Others believe it to be circular. Some insist the world is material while others are adamant that it is spiritual. Some subscribe to the philosophy of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” while their opponents insist on turning the other cheek. Is there a middle way or are we damned to being strung between opposites like eternal victims of The Rack?
I posit that there is a resolution to these endless conflicts. It consists in not believing anything. When I hold nothing so dear that it can’t be loosed in an instant, I achieve the sublime center. Here the ineffable is perceived, without dialectic or explanation.
Balanced on the edge of the razor of presence, I am not swayed to the left or right. I see that time is neither linear nor circular. Rather, it is a living process in which past and future are the extremities of an eternal body. I see that the world is all matter and all spirit. There is no difference. And I see that sometimes I must act and sometimes yield; not one or the other as a rule.
Fixed at the center of the circle, I transcend limitation, and gain a “view of points” instead of being affixed to one or another “point of view.” Disagreeing with no one, I am free to see what is. Reacting to nothing, I can freely respond, and be just in thought, feeling and action.
A man or woman who is ever buffeted by desires, who has no fixed abode of being,will never know peace. This spot of inner equanimity is that for which I strive. Arriving there ourselves, we recognize the life-principle that animates all things, from the stone to the Bodhisattva. And I suggest that this search is the only endeavor worth our striving.
—Jason Stern

Jason Stern will present a lecture, The Enterprise of Freedom, as part of the Taste of Discovery Lecture Series, at the Discovery Institute, 64 Plains Road, New Paltz, on Sunday, November 12, 1 p.m. For more information call (845) 255-5548, or visit www.discoveryinstitute.org.