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The Changeless Beneath the Changes 3 you will not get direct contact with the cool water. In the same way, if you want to enjoy the freshness of life, you must shed your coverings. Words, concepts, beliefs, crystallized thoughts act as coverings. Puncture them and you will see how hollow and insubstantial they are. Remove them and you will see yourself.
So the initiates are taught that they are deluded by outside things. They are given symbolic things to watch. For example, at dusk, the master and student may go out and sit and meditate. When it is monsoon season, there are clouds in many colors. Sometimes there is a rainbow. The master might tell the student, "See the beauty. Experience these colors. Notice in each cloud a shape. Be in tune with nature. Forget everything else. Then close your eyes.”
The student becomes attuned to the colors and the shapes of the clouds at dusk. Then he closes his eyes and brings the picture of this to his mental eye. Over and over, he opens his eyes, watches the changing scene of nature, closes his eyes, and meditates.
After two hours, everything becomes dark. Then the teacher asks, "What do you see?”.
The student answers, “I see nothing. Everything has
gone."
Then the teacher asks, “Where have they gone—the beauty, the shapes, the clouds, the colors?".
The student remains in silence, pondering. And yet there is an answer. The beauty, the rainbow, have gone and yet they have not gone. They are there in a way. This is the point of meditation: everything is still there in the universe.
The teacher tells the student, “Nothing has gone. Everything is there. But because of the rotation of the
