1 result for (book:notp AND session:764 AND stemmed:focus)
[... 16 paragraphs ...]
You might feel as if you are crossing your wires, so to speak, or stretching vaguely sensed psychic muscles. The purpose is not so much the perfect execution of such exercises as it is to involve you in a different mode of experience and of awareness that comes into being as you perform in the ways suggested. You have been taught not to mix, say, waking and dreaming conditions, not to daydream. You have been taught to focus all of your attention clearly, ambitiously, energetically in a particular way — so daydreaming, or mixing and matching modes of consciousness, appears passive in a derogatory fashion, or nonactive, or idle. (Louder:) “The devil finds work for idle hands” — an old Christian dictum.
[... 5 paragraphs ...]
The idea, then, is not to annihilate normal consciousness, but quite literally to expand it by bringing into its focus other levels of reality that it can indeed intrinsically perceive and utilize.
[... 8 paragraphs ...]
(10:58.) Sometime as you walk down a street, pretend that you are seeing the same scene from the sky in an airplane, yourself included. On another occasion, as you sit inside your house imagine that you are outside on the lawn or street. All of these exercises should be followed by a return to the present: You focus your attention outward in the present moment as clearly as possible, letting the sounds and sights of the physical situation come into your attention.
[... 14 paragraphs ...]