Answer:
As long as we aren’t lastingly established in pre-sensory perception, the original belief continues to function permanently in an underlying way. It continues generating the mirage that I exist as an entity that was born one day and will die another. When I act and when I think, I do so with the idea in the back of my mind that I’m supplied with an identity that distinguishes itself from everything I perceive-me/identity perceiving the other and everything that surrounds me. As the principal structuring element of identity, original belief acts as a filter that places itself between pre-sensorial and sensorial perception. Let’s start with the presupposition that this way of sensorially perceiving the separation between the perceiver and the perceived isn’t the only way. If I commit myself to wanting to discover a way of perceiving that doesn’t engender separation anymore, I’ll have to become aware first of all of how my “mind” creates this separation. To do this, it’s indispensable for me to examine it as often as possible, and particularly in situations that are conflictual or emotionally difficult.

How do I react:

• when I realize someone’s pulled one over on me?
• when I realize someone else is being aggressive with me?
• when there’s more than one problem in the day?
• when I learn that someone I’m close to is gravely ill or has just died?
• when one day I find out that my companion has been cheating on me for the last three years?

What are the fears and apprehensions that I repress in order to avoid feeling them? This observation of my emotional reactions highlights little by little a perpetual, underlying unease, the great unease of all the unease we’ve ever felt, that comes from original belief. Becoming aware of original belief means going towards this unease whenever it appears and exposing it to the light of day, rather than wanting to avoid it, without feeling sorry for ourselves.

Response:
Effectively. This kind of personal work only has meaning when it’s integrated into the search for the absolute. The search for happiness isn’t at the same logical level as the search for the absolute. Looking for happiness is one of the characteristics of the identity in quest… of avoiding unpleasantness. Confronting ourselves with our original belief isn’t an encounter with temporary unhappiness, but with the unhappiness of separation. As long as we’re seeking happiness, we deprive ourselves of the wonders of life in each instant.

A:
It’s original belief that’s the source of all judgments. It’s the key constituent of our separating identity. Identity develops itself by distinguishing our opinions and judgments from those of others, and by affirming our own beliefs and convictions. The phrase “run up against” as it’s normally used actually describes inner states of mind, or events judged to be “against” us.

A:
Judgment attempts to validate, to ratify and to maintain; absence of judgment notices and observes, while remaining at a distance.

A:
We stop looking for them. As long as original belief functions, we’re restricted to looking for pleasures to compensate for and repress the inconveniences and the annoyances produced by our own judgment.

A:
The mental act of judgment and the mental act of evaluation aren’t on the same logical level. In functional life, we regularly evaluate the different aspects of a situation to then be able to make decisions that we “judge” to be the most adapted to the context–we “judge” through the use of the evaluation of/by criteria. It’s a question of good common sense. A judgment (in the sense that I gave to this word a moment ago) is a fixed opinion, unmoving, an affirmative verdict I pass on myself, on someone else, on a situation, or a combination thereof. It instigates the idea, “It’s true, therefore it follows that… ” (accompanied by the mental attitude: “I believe that my thoughts are real.”) An evaluation is more prudent, “If this is true, then it would follow that… ” (with the mental attitude: “I have thoughts, and I use them.”) A judgment is a confirmation by which I imprison myself, contrary to an evaluation which retains a hypothetical character, and which is necessary in the organization of everyday life.

A:
It takes an awful lot of personal work to become aware of all the ramifications of original belief, because most judgments take place at the unconscious level.

A:
What is annoyed? Think of an annoyance you’ve recently experienced.

R:
Dennis takes the subway every morning to get to work. Most of the time he has to remain standing because there aren’t any empty seats left. One morning, Dennis is thinking about a dream he had the night before, when some guy violently shoves him from behind. Dennis can feel his adrenaline go shooting up. Thinking, “This guy is out of his mind!” he turns around, and sees it was a blind man who had lost his balance.

A:
Each of us has to find our own representations. When we slow down our thoughts, they become visual, auditory and kinesthetic representations. At the visual level, original belief can appear as nightmarish images; at the auditory level, it appears most often as reproaches in inner dialogues; at the kinesthetic level it takes the form of a disagreeable feeling that resembles what we call a “guilty conscience”. We mustn’t confuse this with the feeling of guilt, which is characterized by a refusal to assume responsibility in ourselves for the repercussions we experience from an event or the person who instigates the event. Among the principal representations of original belief we find the judgments we pass on the things that happen to us. Deep down inside we represent this through a particularly distressing kinesthetic feeling expressed as, “I’m a zero,” or “I’m worthless,” or “Nobody loves me,” or “I’m completely abandoned.” These expressions bring us back to a dimension which is beyond painful inner states; they reflect the hidden psychical reality which is present in everybody’s life, and independent of the level of a person’s social success.

A:
All the old traditions recommend retreats and meditation exercises. When we isolate ourselves, we are confronted with ourselves. The ultimate objective of this withdrawal is to experiment with a dimension that puts an end to automatic, mockingly defiant thoughts. Meditating will expose the nature of what’s not quite right in us, what I call original belief. For me, practicing meditation only makes sense when I conceive of it as a discipline that prepares my nervous system to confront the apparent reality of separation, instead of running away from it. It’s impossible to live the dimension of pre-sensory perception without being able to remain upright in the almost unbearable feeling of extreme solitude. As long as I’m not yet capable of this, the feeling of solitude will be experienced as real. When I become capable, this same feeling will mutate into a perception which recognizes itself in everything-the torment will cease. The feeling of solitude doesn’t disappear, but it’s no longer felt as isolation or separation.

A:
Yes. The idea that existing phenomenon have a beginning and an end comes from perceiving them as distinct from one another. Perceiving them as distinct is not at all wrong, they are of course also distinct, but being distinct isn’t what characterizes them at the essential level. By placing my attention on the common denominator of everything that exists, nature, human inventions, the differences between people, as well as the apparent beginning and end of all these phenomena, I perceive that the beginning and the end of something or someone, myself included, are epiphenomena of my own perception and my own conception of existence. From the point of view of pre-sensory perception, the importance of a beginning and an end fades.

A:
Except for the instinctive fears that we also find in animals, most of the fears that humans experience hide a humility that a person has not known how to take on. We can distinguish two kinds of fear:
(1) First of all, the fear (for the identity) of questioning and reevaluating ourselves. This fear originates from the same source as the fear of physically dying. Intellectually, we know we can die at any moment. As long as we continue to forget this reality, we produce all kinds of sub-fears. Not repressing them becomes possible only after personal work on ourselves has rendered the nervous system capable of facing the reality of our own physical death at each instant. Even though original belief can’t do anything about death, it manages to convince its owner (without his or her knowing it) of the opposite. In addition to that, every time we’re confronted with the ramifications of original belief, we run the risk of encountering a fear. This fear isn’t just a mental invention based on representations. It acts as a buffer against the shock of confronting original belief. It’s very enriching to study the mechanisms of fear (as NLP proposes to do), to dis-associate ourselves from the fear at the very moment it arises (especially when a fear seems particularly justified to me), and to learn not to believe in it anymore.
(2) A completely different kind of fear is that which comes from our intimate values, and which is called in German “Ehrfurcht”. “Ehr” can be translated to reverence/awe and “Furcht” means to apprehend the reevaluation of our identity because there is a premonition of being submerged by something (de) vast (ating). Ehrfurcht’s “fear” knows that I overvalue the role that my identity plays. It’s a real “fear” that isn’t based on representations and that is accompanied by an unforced, natural humility. It’s accompanied by a profound emotion of reverence for all creation around me and to which I belong.

A:
The nightmares of childhood can be seen as being directly linked to the establishment of original belief in the nervous system. Without them, the human organism wouldn’t be able to assimilate the incoming restrictions from the surrounding world, and a child wouldn’t be able to develop his/her identity. When identity is well established, nightmares occur to reestablish the psychical balance after the unexpected coming of a dramatic event for which a person hasn’t yet been able to find an adequate reaction. As a general rule, personal work to become detached from original belief also triggers nightmares, of which the principal characteristic is the absence of distressing emotions.

A:
The question about problems, bad luck, illness, and so on, is one of the main questions that we ask ourselves in order to understand the enigma of life. All religions offer models that try to explain these phenomena. We can penetrate these mysteries neither with the intellect nor with the heart. Work on original belief requires us to affirm, to assume responsibility for, to live the entirety of a life.

A:
Original belief is a dead end street.

Réponse:
First, we have to look for the way out with an overlapping impossibility of turning back, just until we are utterly exhausted. At some point, with a little bit of luck, an atomic bomb will fall and blow up the guy who created the dead end street.

A:
A telescoping with self.

A:
The existential destiny of an individual is located outside of the standards that society offers us. When we are in contact with essential value, we express this destiny. In this sense, it is the only “sure value” which is immutable because it’s disconnected from the values and rules that are necessary for social life. All societies offer us an ethical code that, at the very least, is based on the rules of good and bad. Empirically, we can observe that everywhere there are people who express the two extremes, most of them being somewhere in between the two, depending on the circumstances. What is defined as good or bad varies from one culture to another. Let’s start from the presupposition that throughout all cultures, in each human being, there’s an innate code which is independent of cultural values, and which acts sometimes more, sometimes less, as a reference concerning our behavior towards others, ourselves, and our environment. I call this innate code “intimate values”. Intimate values come directly from the pre-sensory perception with which we were born. They carry the memory of all the phenomena originating from the same source and they are all linked to one another. However, contrary to pre-sensory perception, they are very rarely completely forgotten. We have to forget pre-sensory perception during the construction of original belief in order to acquire an identity that will help us to forge the necessary tools for life in society. Original belief is manifested in functional life through self-interest–my interest versus the interest of the other or of nature. This conflict is lessened by intimate values. Furthermore, among most human beings, they function as a “call-to-order” that prevents people from directing their entire identity into self-interest. We could establish a “scale of corruption”–the more I pursue self-interest as an adult, the more I’m forced to repress intimate values. (Capitalism is the economic system that corresponds the most to the often conflicting encounter between self-interests, where everyone is trying to accumulate power and money at the expense of the other. Economists call this “competition”. At the functional level, we have to play the game of self-interest as long as we live in this kind of society.) The more I repress intimate values, the further I get from my true nature that in a natural way respects all other creatures and all creation. In other words, the more I decide to let myself be corrupt, (the more I follow my self-interest), the more I reinforce my separation with existence. At the same time, each time I act like this, I validate of going counter to my intimates values. Sometimes this can go all the way to committing crimes. I can also try to make the decision to follow the ethical rules that my intimate values indicate to me. Just the same, no one has ever lived a life without breaking the rules of intimate values, or a life without conflicts with ourselves or with others. Why? Because as long as original belief acts, we’re obliged to express our self-interest, whether we want to or not. At the same time, if we want to rediscover our origins, we can’t disregard our intimate values. It’s even thanks to their presence that we can sense the possibility of liberation. Taking intimate values into consideration in our actions should be experienced as a conscious and voluntary act that comes from no ideology and looks for no profit or gain. Only this way of proceeding within ourselves is the guarantee that it’s not self-interest acting on its own account. At the same time we become capable of considering the self-interest of the other as being just as legitimate as our own. So it isn’t a question of going against self-interest, neither in myself, nor in the other, but rather of taking into consideration our intimate values in our actions, to feel the common nature of everything that exists. Some people call that “loving”.

A:
At some point in our lives, we’re all confronted with the way we’ve been living up until now. People who have been through dramatic experiences and have foreseen physical death frequently bear witness to a sudden awareness of the relativity of their ethical values as they had experienced them up until that point, to such a degree they say they feel they never really lived until then. Some make peace with those around them when they know they’re going to die. Why? Physical death is also the end of identity. When identity is confronted with physical death, it knows that its personal ambitions are going to cease. Personal ambitions are generally influenced by self-interest. The more I base things on the values of self-interest, the more I automatically have to go against the self-interest of someone else or nature. Essential value isn’t influenced by all that. It only reveals itself to the person who has learned not to give in to the temptation to hang on to his/her self-interest. This is, however, only a preparatory condition. To incarnate our essential value, it’s absolutely necessary to leave dualistic, good/bad thought behind, to change logical levels. The good/bad dichotomy is situated at the functional logical level, while essential value is at the existential logical level. By confronting ourselves with our original belief we authorize ourselves to feel humility in the sense of feeling our weakness, our vulnerability. All our thoughts that the misfortunes of life were someone else’s fault or due to circumstances no longer hold water. In the deepest part of our being comes humility, due to an elating humiliation that consumes our self-interest. This attitude is manifested by a kind of modesty, a natural and unforced simplicity which no longer judges in terms of good/bad, and which just is. Essential value can only express itself in a lasting way when original belief has ceased to act.

A:
Hermits who have chosen total solitude as a way of life are rare. Either they are looking for their original belief, or they’ve found it and savoring solitude is a voluntary choice. The simplicity that I’m talking about is an attitude which we live peacefully within the intimacy of our being, and is entirely independent of outer circumstances. It isn’t in contradiction with the external behavior that I adopt when I’m negotiating a rebate on my new car. Most of our social activities take on a playful aspect. A few of the conditions for accessing this tranquility of mind include the voluntary renunciation of conviction-thoughts such as: society owes me… , so-and-so owes me… , and so on.

A:
“Doing” refers to the functional logical level, “being” refers to the existential logical level. We have to distinguish between “being” conscientious and “doing” conscientiously. A person who is conscientious makes use of a particular kind of attention that allows him/her to do things conscientiously. This attention is directed to the action itself, before aiming at the result of the action or the result of the result of the action. This attention carries within it the foresight that all phenomena are interconnected. When we’re conscientious about what we do, we also know that we’re collaborating with the unnamable in us–we are parts of a whole. All throughout the history of humanity being conscientious has been considered an honorable value. This doesn’t come primarily from the fact that we appreciate quality. Being conscientious in our creations as well as in our relationships is a requirement in the quest for the essential.

A:
I don’t recommend self-observation because generally it’s the “I” who observes itself. In addition to that, it’s easier to be attentive when we pay attention to the suggestions of our intimate values. When we compel ourselves to be linked with the purity and innocence that is our state of being and which we find among all children, intimate values express themselves naturally, above and beyond all ethical codes. Ingenuity surpasses intellect, which prefers complexity. We only have to remember it in our hearts.

A:
In these kinds of situations, if we forget that our self-interest is just as present and legitimate as that of the other, then we become hypocrites in spite of ourselves. Intimate values emerge from the unnamable and when attention is focused on them, my self-interest as well as the self-interest of the other are side issues. It isn’t a question of considering intimate values as being more admissible than self-interest, but of revealing the ingenuity of self-interest.

A:
When there are no expectations, we’re forced to confront ourselves with our self.

A:
The answer depends on the point of view I take. In the reality of the person who lives pre-sensory perception this difference doesn’t exist, because pre-sensory perception is by definition non-discriminating perception–it doesn’t discern phenomena. Sensorial perception doesn’t stop functioning when we access pre-sensory perception. The two always coexist. However, once I have rediscovered pre-sensory perception I know (and this isn’t intellectual knowing) that at each moment, everything that I perceive sensorially is only an extension of pre-sensory perception. I can also answer your question starting from sensorial perception. I see, I hear, I feel, I taste, and I smell. If I trace back through the logical levels, becoming less and less specific, and taking my senses less and less into consideration, I will necessarily come to the origins of perception. As if I were playing a little brain game, I can ask myself the question, “what makes me perceive with the senses?” Of course, I won’t stop at the typical kinds of responses, which are only models, such as: “it’s the auditory nerve which is stimulated,” and so on. To obtain an answer that will satisfy me, I have to drop all the explanations given by science, and refer resolutely to myself, with the attitude of a scientist seeking his/her own origins, excluding everything I’ve heard or read about this subject, and excluding everything I repeat in inner dialogue as well as everything that I’ve memorized. As if my past had never existed. After that, I will succeed in being present in what I call immediate-sensorial perception–me perceiving. I continue to abstract: “what is this immediate-sensorial perception?” After a while, I’ll manage to conclude–the “me perceiving” becomes “perceiving”. The “I” has provisionally disappeared. All that remains is pure and nonseparating perception (between me and all that surrounds me). So, at the furthest level of abstraction, the “I” that perceives disappears temporarily. All that’s left is pre-sensory perception. While remaining in this pre-sensory perception, I go back, becoming more concrete, more specific. I reappear, I perceive with my senses. If I manage to remain in pre-sensory perception, I’ve “won”–what reappears is no longer the “I” that thinks it’s the center of the universe, it’s a transformed “I” that likes playing its executive role without pretension. Furthermore, it now participates in an active and creative way in the development of personal destiny. Here’s a schema that describes this process:

Pre-sensory perception less specific
————|————————————————————————-|—————————
Immediate-sensorial perception |
| |
Sensorial perception more specific

To sum things up, we can say the difference between pre-sensory perception and sensorial perception only exists when I place myself from the beginning in sensorial perception that, although it emanates from pre-sensory perception, acts as a filter that veils the access to it. This question can also be answered with a Zen story:
Disciple: What is the way of truth?
Master: Can you hear the flowing of the river?
Disciple: Yes.
Master: If so, that is the way.

A:
First of all, it isn’t a phenomenon and it isn’t representable. On the other hand, it’s everywhere. If we take the presupposition that everything that exists is energy, it’s this energy. However, this energy doesn’t exist in a “pure state”, it always manifests itself through existing and perceivable phenomena.

A:
They’re miracles today. Tomorrow they’ll be normal. And tomorrow there will be other miracles that don’t yet exist today. From the point of view of pre-sensory perception, there’s no real question concerning unexplainable phenomena. As long as the “I” takes itself for something it’s not, it needs explanations. To this end, it creates models and beliefs while forgetting at the same time that no explanation can be definitively satisfying. Miracles lose their attraction when we become the miracle of all miracles that is creation, that is life.

A:
Most of the time when we talk about clairvoyance, we presume that it involves Madame X who’s going to predict what’s going to happen in the future of Mr. Y. The faculty of anticipation that I’m talking about goes hand-in-hand with pre-sensory perception; it’s a sub-phenomena of the abolition of original belief. We can in no way acquire it through any kind of apprenticeship or learning, and it is neither innate nor a gift. When we no longer live under the influence of original belief, we perceive much more clearly with our senses, and the evaluations we have of situations encountered are obscured neither by preconceived notions nor our self-interest. We’re therefore capable of observing and considering even more parameters. The more information I have about a given situation, the more I can anticipate its development. This occurs in an inner state of permanent expectation, without clinging (clinging/holding on = belief) to a particular development.

A:
These phenomena are there as long as original belief acts. Each appearance of these tormenting inner states brings us back to original belief, to separating identity, and becomes the occasion for personal work. A person who lives in pre-sensory perception can’t be afraid in the way with which we’re typically familiar. S/he’s conscious that at every moment illness, accidents, financial ruin, death, and mourning are a part of life and anything can happen. On the other hand, identity needs to repress these “negative” thoughts, it finds the confrontation with these subjects threatening and dangerous. Nevertheless, even in the most outrageous and humiliating situations, the “solution” can only take place at the pre-sensorial level, which doesn’t judge events.

A:
There isn’t any. Time also acts as a filter. It’s a model that allows us to structure our functional life. From Einstein we know that our model of time isn’t universal. But even Einstein’s discoveries concerning the relativity of time are only models themselves that have enlarged the understanding of time for some. Pre-sensory perception is located outside of time, in the absolute, it doesn’t even refer to the infinite, or eternity. At the same time, it’s present in all we perceive, and also in the models of time.

A:
Yes. The faculty of memorization and time belong to “I’s” references at the functional level. The correct functioning of what I call “internal memory” is based to a large degree on the correct functioning of personal motivation. In psychotherapy, it’s a well-known fact that a good memory depends on the satisfaction we find in our activities, among other things. Failure, bankruptcy, illness, and so on, can thwart motivation and might impair the faculty of memorization. Going to the extreme, in observing people who have Alzheimer’s disease, we can, in fact, notice from the exterior that something comparable to a dissolution in identity has taken place. Apparently, memory is directly linked with identity. To access pre-sensory perception we have to be ready to temporarily lose the faculty of memorization.

A:
Obviously. The greater part of memory is supported by the personal motivation of identity. When the identity crumbles, the faculty of memorization crumbles at the same time. It becomes a bit of a miracle to be able to continue functional life during a certain time. Little by little we get used to it; a new way of remembering events and people settles in, that I call “external memory”. It no longer depends on personal motivation, which has ceased to exist. In pre-sensory perception I know I’m connected to everything around me–I perceive the development of events as a process in perpetual motion to which I belong. I’m aware that I permanently perceive in an underlying way the entirety of different contexts as well as the links that are between them. External memory is the memory of the interconnection of these contexts down to their slightest detail.
The needs of the current context automatically bring out what I need to know to be able to respond.

A:
Yes-no-yes-no.

A:
Yes-no-yes-no.

A:
Cohabitation between the existential logical level of pre-sensory perception and the functional logical level of sensorial perception occurs harmoniously. We can’t aspire to pre-sensory perception as long as we believe it’s dichotomous to functional life. Since we’re no longer subjected to inner states, everyday life is enriched at all levels.

A:
They don’t disappear, but the importance I attribute to them diminishes. Depending on the projects I have in mind, I produce stimulating or demotivating inner states, and it’s the “I” that judges them as such. A person living in pre-sensory perception pays hardly any more attention to his/her inner states. S/he notices them without according a particular importance to them.

A:
As long as “I” believes itself to be the bellybutton of existence, it’s better for it to find itself in pleasant, inner states. A person who has accessed pre-sensory perception establishes him/herself in his/her being in temporarily losing all motivation to act. Little by little s/he learns to respond to the demands of the surrounding social life without there being any personal motivation. S/he falls into agreement and often in love with the diverse contexts in which s/he circulates. The different inner states (feeling good, feeling bad, etc.) are reduced to the inner state from whence they came – “being”. “Being” is the common denominator of all inner states. Here, personal motivation no longer acts, but rather natural motivation, which is at the origin of all that evolves and takes into consideration the interconnection of all that exists.

A:
The social strategies that are ingrained within us and necessary to functional life such as personal motivation, the faculty of memorization, as well as beliefs and judgments, have produced in our nervous system an effect of dependence comparable to drug addiction, right from the very beginning of our arrival on this planet. We frequently feel pre-sensory perception brushing by lightly, mostly without realizing it. If we want to consciously live it, in a permanent way, we will become aware of nervous manifestations similar to the withdrawal symptoms of an addict without drugs. Since our early childhood, we’ve become used to living with social strategies to be able to participate in social life, but if we go beyond necessity by maintaining an attachment to these strategies, we will deprive ourselves of contact with our origins. The process of liberation is a continual struggle against the intoxicating effect of social strategies that are the constituent elements of our separating identity (and not a struggle against these strategies themselves). Generally, physical discomfort is a part of this process.

A:
Pre-sensory perception may only be recognized within ourselves.

A:
The way daily life goes on is never the same from one instant to the next. Each day is different, each moment is a new moment, never lived before.

A:
We have to distinguish between “doing” and “being”. What I do in my life isn’t what my life is. In my actions, I can succeed or fail and I can observe a linearity in time. At the level of being, I am before all else, and this “I am” is outside of time and outside of linearity. When I act knowing that I am, my acts leave no traces in me. It’s identity that produces the illusion of a linearity in life. The model of linearity is surely a very practical model for managing the succession of activities in everyday life, but it’s completely inept if we want to experience within ourselves the nature of our existence. Only immersion in all that’s unknown and unknowable can take us behind the scenes of life, which emerge from the undefined and the indefinable, of a creation not yet born. Pre-sensory perception is perfectly synchronized with non-linearity, while at the same time it brings to light the correlation between phenomena. The linearity with which we construct our defined and knowable models is a specificity born from pre-sensory perception.

A:
Normally we recognize ourselves by what we do, by our actions (notably those that put us in a good light), and especially by our emotional reactions in relation to events and people. This recognition isn’t a permanent “state of being”, it pops up more or less often to then disappear once again. It’s subject to the fluctuations of life which are about as predictable as the weather. The recognition of self in pre-sensory perception is a recognition that’s present all the time in all circumstances, and depends on nothing. Not only do I know who I am and what I am, I know that I am at one with my me in an ultimate intimacy.

A:
Nothing.
An immeasurable perceptive richness.
A normality that couldn’t be more insignificant. A simplicity of heart.
A gratitude towards existence. A freshness in each instant. Innocence.
Nothing.