And so the process of immediately giving back began in 1994 with the formal initiation of the writings found here and on my web site: www.panenthiesm.com
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Analogy:
The Appalachian Mountains, East side, West side and Cumberland Gap represent an analogy regarding the fourth way to finding one’s self, to approaching the fourth way towards mastering one’s self.
In the fifteen hundreds the Appalachian Mountains acted as a monumental barrier separating the East coast from the Western portion of North America.
It wasn’t until the discovery of the Cumberland Gap that the process of reaching the West became less difficult. Until the discovery of the Cumberland Gap individuals trying to access the Western portion of North America could spend their entire lives attempting to cross the mountains and still never accomplish the journey.
With the discovery of the Cumberland Gap the journey became less arduous and the success rate of reaching the West leaped upward.
The mountains represent the silence for those attempting to find one’s true essence, attempting to answer haunting questions such as: Is this all there is? Why do I exist? Why does suffering exist? Is there such a thing as a ‘soul’?
The east side of the mountains represents Reality one: the corporeal, the physical.
The west side of the mountains represents Reality two: the non-corporeal, the non-physical, the Divine.
The Cumberland Gap leading through the Appalachian Mountains represents the path a few individuals have taken to cross into the silence, represents the ‘region’ into which one can step in order to observe, from afar, both the physical, corporal and observe the divine.
The path of the individuals who have stepped into the silence can be shared with the few individuals who sincerely wish to reach the other side of the mountains, who wish to find their true essence, who wish to work.
This book is for the few. The masses have no desire to make the journey just as the masses had no desire to make the journey to reach the west.
For those yearning to find answers, the choice remains no different than the choice facing those wishing to make the journey from the east to the west once the Cumberland Gap had been discovered and marked.
One could and can choose to attempt to make the journey on one’s own, paying no heed to those who have made the journey, or one can choose to take advantage of the frontiersmen who came before them and follow the path of those who successfully made the journey.
In time the journey from east to west became common place and non-unique.
So it will be for the fourth way. Presently the more common techniques are the way of fakir, the yogi and the monk.
There is also a fourth way. The fourth way has existed for thousands of years but is less well known.
The knowledge and understanding as to the fruits of one’s labor and energy exerted to make the journey are fully explored in Chapters 7, 8 and 9.
All four journeys are long, difficult, filled with hardship and seldom successful.
The fourth way allows one to make the journey without forgoing life’s more conventional journeys, without forgoing one’s responsibilities in this life, without forgoing one’s responsibilities for traveling in World one, for traveling within the physical world.