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The Map
45
As long as we keep ignoring these moments of awakening. they will continue to be fleeting and only leave a vague memory.
Yet once we start to focus on these insights as they arise, they soon lose their transitory character. They first expand to several seconds, then to minutes.
Eventually we exceed the maximum time we can stay in this first phase and automatically advance to PHASE 2. This usually happens three to six months after we began directing_ attention towards these flashes of awakening.
STAGE 4 - PHASE 2 - Getting Used to Clarity In this second phase all cravings, dreads, preoccupations and prejudices that trapped us on lower stages gradually cease to engage our attention. As we stop refueling these yearnings with energy and attention, - they consequently stop influencing us. This automatically lengthens the periods during which we are free from the hypnotic envelope that dulls us on STAGE 1.
Sporadic Setbacks Yet some desires and dreads still linger on within us. Once they activate, they pull us down to STAGE 1. We thus lose our newfound clarity from time to time.
We then easily forget the clarity of STAGE 4 or think it irrelevant, and get fully entangled in ceaseless action and overwhelming emotions again. This entanglement may last for long periods.
Yet we have the power to shorten or to prevent this renewed preoccupation. As we get pulled back to STAGE 1, we now begin to perceive the strange indecision and ambivalence of