We effortlessly get mis-educated. Perhaps it starts with the simple fact that we see the world upside down with these "water lamps." Through some incredible genetic gift or with the great power of mental magic we are able to turn this mass of sensory input over and pretend that we see it all right side up. Wow. How would you like to be the scientist who is trying to explain what is happening? Let me see; somehow light waves of different lengths come off objects that appear in our view and interact with the apparatus of the eye and travel through the optic nerve to the brain where the "seen" is interpreted and set correctly into the grid of everything external. Or is it external? No, wait, that question is too metaphysical.

Well as Atlan says, "we, as a society, have replaced education with training." One is no longer required, or even encouraged, to think about your surroundings, whether those be immediate, or worldly, or universal. Education has been replaced by training! That is scary, insightful, and very profound. Think upon it! As you think about it the importance of this simple insight grows and grows. What we imagine the world to be, how we expect to be interacted with [on their initiative], how we interact with others [on our initiative], who the 'trained' imagine themselves to be, and how we interact with the world we live in are all greatly affected.

Atlan offers us the following dialogue (which he offered to George Carlin). It is brilliant, and I recommend several readings.

"One day God spoke to me, and said, 'You should forgive me!'"

I replied, "God? Is that you?"

"Yep!"

"Forgive you, God? But.I thought it was the other way around?"

"Well we will get to that! For now you should forgive me."

"How is it that I would ever dare to think you have offended me?"

"Well don't you?"

"No. Absolutely not! Of course not!"

"Liar!!"

"hmmmph.Liar? Help me understand that?"

"All right. I have made a predatory universe where everything is eating everything else, including your friends.Don't you have trouble with that?"

"Wellllllll.I have thought about it."

"I'm sure you have! And so, therefore, you should forgive me!"

"Oh I don't know, God. I still can't admit that you have offended me."

"Okay then, how about death? Here I am with all eternity and yet I have only given you these few trips around your sun? Don't you think that is incredibly stingy? Don't you think you would have been more generous if you had the chance?"

"Well.perhaps. I have thought about it."

"Yes, I am sure you have. Now you should forgive me."

"Now just a minute, God! Just one minute! Now that you have pointed out to me what a perfect right I have to be offended by what you've done, how can you expect me to just forgive you?"

"Now we're having honesty! I like that! So let me help you with that. You know what the love of God is, don't you?"

"Well, no.not exactly. I have heard a lot of opinions."

"Okay, I will help you with that! I have made the universe in such a way that all sentient beings are capable of experiencing ecstasy, particularly in that moment of transition called death. And, as Siddhartha pointed out, there are NO nonsentient beings."

"What??? Are you saying that every being is capable of ecstasy?"

"Yes."

"Beings.okay.but not things, right?"

"There are no things."

"What? Everything is capable of ecstasy, even plastic?"

"Yes, at some level."

"That's wonderful! I guess.although it is too much for me. I can't handle that."

"Yes, well now I think you should forgive me!"

"But I am still offended.and confused as well."

"Let me help you put it together. It's that death thing isn't it? You are really, really mad about that, aren't you? Well let me tell you it is all an illusion. You know one of the problems us eternal beings (if you want to consider us in the plural) have is that we don't know how to make anything that doesn't last forever, we're stuck with that."

"Hmmmmm."

"What's a matter, u think I am lying?"

"Well, no, God.you are saying that everything lives forever?"

"The forms do change. Death is just a dimensional change. But you are still there!"

"OH! Wait a minute, I see! Everything is forever and everything is capable of ecstasy?"

"Yes."

"And you don't have to earn it?"

"Of course not. And don't let any know-it-alls tell you otherwise!"

"Whoa! Oh, God, I forgive you!"

"Well good! Now that you have had the goodness to forgive me I am going to awaken within you a power that already resides within you.to forgive yourself!"

And I am all better now!

PS: What follows is a Waterman footnote.

A Dennis quote is, "Dieing is easy. It is being born that takes forty years to get over." This quote also requires a little explanation once you turn your awareness away from the usual programming of society. People, in general, dread the unknown. They dread the moment when this house of personality stops generating noise. That, most surely, will mean that they are dead. Does it not? Well no, but that is not the core topic here. The death of THIS body is usually ecstatic. It often comes as relief from suffering. It is usually effortless. It often opens the doorway to incredible experiences that are mysteriously locked away from our everyday knowledge. The knowledge of this journey does exist and is readily available but how many actually use it?

In contrast, let us think about birth. We are pushed and pulled and, at last, violently expelled from our warm friendly cave, out into a predatory universe where we must fight, not always successfully, for our very survival. No wonder it takes years to accept, integrate, and hopefully move beyond, this experience.