February 22, 1984
In this book, we do want our readers to
look at body and mind in a different fashion.
Do not think of the mind as a purely mental
entity, and of the body as a purely physical one. Instead, think of both mind and body as
continuing, interweaving processes that are mental and physical at once. Your thoughts actually are quite as physical
as your body is, and your body is quite as nonphysical as it seems to you your
thoughts are. You are actually a
vital force, existing as a part of your environment, and yet apart from your
environment at the same time.
It is obvious that you impress a room with
your characteristics as you furnish it, but you also mark what seems to be
empty space in the same fashion – that is, you turn empty space into the living
matter of your body without ever realizing that you do so. Your health and the daily weather interact
with each other. This happens on a
personal and mass basis. I admit that
some of this material quite contradicts your usual ideas, but the health of
your body is intimately related not only to the state of world health, but to
the physical climate as well.
You do not “catch” a drought. You do not catch a cold, either. In a fashion a drought is partially caused by
the emotional states of the people who experience it – yet a drought is not a
disease. It is part of a process. It is a necessary portion of the
larger process of the world’s physical stability. As unfortunate as a drought might seem, it is
in its way responsible for the balanced portion of moisture of the entire
planet’s surface. In the same way,
diseases in their fashion are also often parts of larger processes whose
greater purpose is the body’s overall balance and strength.
You cannot see the wind directly – you see only
its effects. The same applies to your thoughts.
They possess power as the wind does, but
you only see the effects of their actions.
March 10, 1984
In any case, magic is everywhere in the operation
of your body, and in the operation of the world.
My definition of magic is this: Magic is nature
unimpeded, or magic is life unimpeded. It is true that your thoughts and emotions and
beliefs form the reality that you experience – but it is also true that this creative
construction is, in a manner of speaking, magically formed. That is, the construction of your body and construction
of a world are produced with the greatest combination of order and spontaneity –
an order and spontaneity that seems hidden rather than apparent.
You think, for example, without consciously
knowing how you do so, and you speak long sentences without consciously being aware
at the beginning of the sentence what the conclusion will be.
You think, for example, without consciously
knowing how you do so, and you speak long sentences without consciously being aware
at the beginning of the sentence what the conclusion will be.
This does not mean that you must forever reman
in ignorance, but it does mean that there are different kinds of knowledge, and
that all of your information does not come by reasoning alone. You grew from a fetus into an adult, for instance,
so obviously, some part of you does know how to perform such an amazing activity
as the growth and care of the physical body. The reasoning mind alone, however, cannot by itself
grow even the smallest cell, or activate the life of even one molecule, yet the
growth and maintenance of the body is constant.
The same hidden ability that promotes your body’s
health and vitality also fulfills and preserves the world in general. All of this is done playfully, and yet emerges
with the greatest display of order and design.
When you become too serious you overwork your
intellect and tire your body, for then it seems that your entire life depends upon
the reasoning of your intellect alone. Instead,
of course, your intellectual abilities are supported and promoted by that inner
mixture of spontaneity and order that so magically combine to form both your reality
and the reality of the world.
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