Perhaps you are a tight rope walker. Perhaps you can picture what that is like. A famous example is the Frenchman who walked between the twin towers on a high rope.
My purpose in this picture is to help others understand what Jan Cox means when he speaks of "effort." He said to people who asked if they were doing it right -- that is self-observing, or one of the many names he called this ancient mystical discipline -- he said to the questioner-- if you have to ask you are not, because it always requires effort.
The strider in the sky, must maintain a kind of balance and proportion. His thoughts cannot drift off. If he makes a mistake, he could be a wad on the sidewalk below.
Those who seek a view known to but few in history, those people practise this self-observing as much as possible, The city small below, the empty sky, this is all possible, But it is requires the mental currency of effort. If we or our fellow seekers, slip on a cerebral tightrope, we fall into imagination. No harm is apparent, at first.
And that may be one difference between the physical and the mental. Some mistakes have the very same cost. The only difference is that the mental tight rope walker can, with patience and consistency, improve his performance, and, the view.
