JUMPING INTO THE WAKING STATE

You don’t necessarily have to climb into the waking state. Sometimes you can jump. That’s one of the reasons I’ve made all this music.

Normally, the human biological machine maintains a remarkably continuous state. Thought follows thought, emotion follows emotion, association follows association. Yesterday pours into today and five minutes ago pours into now. It all seems continuous.

Music is Sound!

The music hits something. A phrase. A rhythm. A voice. A chord change. Maybe something you can’t even identify. And for an instant—you’re somewhere else.

Not geographically. The room is still the room. Your body is still sitting there. But the viewpoint has changed. There has been a tiny break in the ordinary stream of identification. The machinery continues, but for a moment you aren’t quite where you were before.

That’s the jump.

The important thing is not to immediately explain it. The moment you say, Oh, I see what happened. This reminds me of… the associative machinery has already rushed in and begun rebuilding the ordinary state.

Never mind. Keep listening. Another jump may be coming. And another. And another.

That’s why repetition matters. You aren’t necessarily listening again to hear something new in the song. You’re giving yourself another opportunity to be present when the jump occurs.

At first you may notice only afterward: Something happened just then. Later you may catch the transition itself. There was the sleeping state, then—CLICK. For one instant, something else. Eventually you may even recognize the peculiar instant before the jump.

Now the music has become something more than entertainment. It has become a waking-state environment.

Don’t force anything. Don’t concentrate until your forehead hurts. Don’t manufacture a mystical experience.

Listen. Be attentive.

And when the door unexpectedly opens—go through.

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Here’s the Bardo bus! Jump aboard!

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