From feeling to knowing: the ascent of love

Barry opens with the ascent from feeling into knowing: a traumatic but essential passage where love ceases to breed doubt or fear. From knowing, one may descend into feeling at will; from ordinary feeling, one cannot ascend past the residue of uncertainty. He then answers a child's letter on the Big Bang by insisting that happenings require a witness; without someone to see, there is only theory. To 'Why do we exist?', he replies simply: to enjoy life by being free of unhappiness in oneself.

He turns to sophistication as the loss of innocent seeing, and to the perennial question of female masters by declaring woman the art of art—the living medium man tries to replicate in museum matter. In another letter, he returns rupees and titles, refusing to give what the seeker already is. Purusha, he says, is not the European 'Self'; all knowledge is ignorance before being. Be still and know nothing—then all that is needed is known.

Finally, he makes bliss practical: stillness after lovemaking is the octave above pleasure. Contain the afterglow; avoid the waste of talk; let the power draw one into renewing sleep. The quintessence of life is deep, dreamless sleep—carried awake as mindfulness, or mind fullness, a continuous refreshment beyond thought.

Outline – From feeling to knowing
, The big bang theory, 
Why do we exist? 
Simon's yellow belt
, Sophistication
, Female masters, 
The art of art, Self/Purusha, 
Krishnamurti, 
Bliss, 
The power of lovemaking, 
Mindfulness