The Tao and water are synonymous according to the teachings of Lao-tzu. You are water; water is you. Think about the first nine months of your life after conception: You lived in, and were nourished by, amniotic fluid, which is truly unconditional love flowing into you . . . flowing as you. You are now 75 percent water (and your brain is 85 percent), and the rest is simply muscled water.

One of the discoveries we made at Centerpointe many years ago – one that has resulted in such a powerful program yielding such amazing results – is that creating the alpha, theta, and delta brain wave patterns of deep meditation could be made progressively more powerful by gradually lowering what is called the carrier frequency used to deliver these frequencies to the brain.

What is doubly interesting about this discovery is a parallel explanation of how evolution happens that comes from an ancient Buddhist/Hindu/Taoist perspective, explaining why lowering the carrier frequency in our modern, high-tech method is so powerful.

The awake person is not at odds with the world. He is a part of it, but not attached to the outcome. Like Jesus, he is “in the world but not of it.” He watches as it all goes by, but he is also a participant. He knows most people are caught in the world but unaware of being caught, so he is compassionate, and does what he can to help others with their suffering. To him, the world is a play, and life is like playing a part in that play. He knows it’s just a role, but he plays it to the hilt, and enjoys every moment. But he also realizes that the script is just a script, and from the highest perspective it doesn’t matter what part has been written for him. He exerts a certain amount of control over his part, but ultimately has only limited influence over what is, because his effort is just one of an infinite number of other efforts, all with their own ends in mind.

The experience of consciousness is entirely subjective. The joy of meeting someone you love, the sadness of losing a close friend, the richness of a vivid dream, the serenity of a walk through a garden on a spring day, the total absorption of a deep meditative state—these things and others like them constitute the reality of human experience. And all of these experiences—from the most mundane to the most elevated—have a certain coherence and, at the same time, a high degree of privacy, which means that they always exist from a particular point of view.