Tufti the Priestess. Live Stroll Through a Movie

Gradually, your attention got used to sticking to one screen or the other without resting in the middle. Eventually, you stopped controlling your attention entirely, so it does not obey you; it floats about of its own accord and you are constantly falling into a non-conscious state.

In this state, you are incapable of taking effective action. You may be deceived, hurt, frightened, robbed, even beaten, and still, you cannot respond adequately. You are constantly struggling with emotional complexes; you depend on external circumstances and chase after good luck.

You know who chases after good luck? Losers. That’s what you are – losers – because the level of your effectiveness in a non-conscious state is no more than 5-10%.

It’s ok, don’t cry, my little ones, everything can be put right, and I’ll tell you how.

A Stroll Through a Dream

In the last lesson, my dear ones, you learned that…

• Sleep is a condition in which your attention is immersed in a screen.

• You can sleep or not sleep in a dream as in waking reality.

• To wake up, you must bring your attention to the awareness centre.

Your awareness centre is an observation point, from which you can see where your attention is directed in any one moment and what it is focusing on. At the same time, you see what you are doing and what is going on around you.

Now, wake up and ask yourself: Where am I? What am I doing? Where is my attention? Right now, you have just woken up and found yourself at the awareness point. Here I am, and this is the reality that surrounds me. I am aware. I can see myself and I can see reality.

This is an unfamiliar state for you, my precious ones. You only get occasional glimpses of it. The rest of the time, you are transfixed by either the inner or the outer screen. Now, try and hold the state of awareness for at least for an hour and see what happens. You’ll find it will be interesting.

It is best to do this in the morning after you have slept well and are feeling bright and happy. It is not worth trying it when you are in a bad mood: it won’t work.

So, get into the observation point telling yourself: I see myself and I see reality. Set yourself the intention, ‘today I am going to stroll through a waking dream’. Then go for a walk, wherever you like, to work or to university, in this state of clarity.

For the best effect, go to a place where nobody knows you, on a walk to a shopping centre or an entertainment centre. This will be a free walk through a dream.

When you are immersed in either one of the screens, you are not yourself. You aren’t in control either of yourself or the situation. The opposite is true in fact: any situation can turn into a dream and control you.

And what happens when you become self-aware? You free yourself, and from this moment on, your dreaming, whether asleep or in waking, it doesn’t matter which, becomes conscious. You are in control of yourself, and most importantly, you acquire the capacity to control the situation around you, but more on that later. For now, try just going for a walk and observing what you see.

For example, you turn on your awareness and go into a shop. Say hello, walk about, look around, maybe ask a question and observe the reaction of the shop assistants. Just don’t fall asleep. Before you speak, be sure to direct your attention to the centre: I see myself and I see reality.

You’ll find that people will look at you with a certain curiosity and for some reason be especially responsive and well-disposed towards you, in a way they were not before. What has changed?

Unlike you, the people around you are still asleep. Their attention is occupied, and they are involved in their everyday scenarios, like in a film. Their thoughts are unclear and their actions non-conscious. You could say, they live as if they were characters in a film.

You, unlike the others around you, have woken up in the dream as if you had stepped from the screen down into the cinema hall. At any moment, you can leave, return to the movie, and walk around freely among the other characters, regardless of the narrative.

When you are in this state, you may come across to others as a little otherworldly. They vaguely sense that there is something odd about you, but cannot say what exactly. Don’t worry, they’re not aware that they are treating you with a certain friendliness and curiosity. And you don’t let on that you know something they don’t.

Do you know where their friendliness towards you comes from, especially in those who don’t know you? To them, you are like a firefly in a land of shadows. When you are in a state of conscious awareness, your energy flows differently. It can’t be seen physically, but it can be felt subconsciously.

Just by walking through a waking dream, at the very least you will attract the attention and good-will of those around you. You can make new friends and spend the time in pleasant conversation. But that is just the start. Be smart. Learn to drive reality. If you don’t drive yourselves mad first! Hey! Ok, ok, don’t worry, my little ones.

First Entry into Reality

Well, my dears, if you have already walked through a waking dream, you should now be clear that the comparison of reality to a motion picture is no simple allegory. You really were there, as a living character, while the other participants continued to move around as if they were sleeping and following some kind of external script.

The comparison may not seem wholly fitting, after all, we all understand that people sleep in bed at night, and during the day operate more or less consciously.

However, you saw for yourself how negligible this proportion of “more or less” is when you noticed your own attention constantly falling into either the internal or the external screen. You undoubtedly saw this and now know how it happens.

From now on, whenever you go for a walk in the dream, you will catch yourself continually falling back into the screen and drifting off to sleep again. Something distracted you, caught your attention, or you started thinking about something and… and that’s it! You cease to exist as an aware human being; you can’t even call your soul your own.

So who owns it? Who are you taking orders from?

You are being directed by an external script, woven into a motion picture, in which you are now one of the characters.

I shall gradually explain what all this means, all in good time. For now, you must be clear about one simple thing. Both in sleeping and in waking, you are in a film being carried along in the flow of the script. You can’t call your soul your own because your attention is not your own.

The moment you wake up and take control of your attention, the script will lose its hold on you. Of course, you have to go to work and attend classes as usual and fulfil your day to day obligations, but not as strictly as when you are directed by the script.

Unlike the other characters around you who are sleeping, you see yourself, you see reality and you can consciously control your will, which you haven’t been doing before now. This is your first step into a new level of self-mastery and mastering of your reality. You have woken up from ordinary sleep many times, but you have not yet tried reaching a higher level, right?

In an ordinary dream, you are helpless, even if you are aware that you are dreaming. You are inside a film and completely gripped by the story because your attention is immersed in the screen. But unlike the other characters, you are capable of dragging your attention up another level, i.e. waking up in the dream and even going two levels higher, and waking up in reality.

The characters in a dream can’t do this. How are they different to waking people? They have no self-awareness; they have no sense of personal identity; they have no personal will; they are not free to act as they see fit; they are subject to the script. They have no soul. They are simply templates – mannequins.

When you learn to wake up in the dream, try the following experiment. Ask a dream mannequin this question: “Who are you?” They will try and avoid the question or will tell you what their role in the script is. But they won’t say, “I am myself”. They don’t have their own ‘Self’.

In the same way, you could ask the mannequin, “Do you know that I am sleeping now and am seeing you in a dream?” This question will throw them, too, because they have never fallen asleep and never woken up. The dream mannequin lives in a film just like a fictional character, once shot on a film roll.

The only difference is that a normal film is shot by normal people, whereas the film rolls of dreams are stored in the Eternity archive. They have always been there and always will be, for as long as this Universe exists.

Living people have a soul, will, and self-perception. They can say, “I am myself”, although that is all they can say about themselves. Living people are aware of themselves, but their self-awareness, as you have seen for yourself, sleeps, and their will is used rarely, when they need to mobilise themselves to take some kind of action.

And what’s more, the will is used only within the context of the current frame, but we’ll talk about this a little later. I have already done you a great honour, spending so much time with you, my little fit-for-nothings. Make the most of this moment, admire me, praise me, flatter me – I am Tufti, your High Priestess!

Tracking Your Attention

And so, my dear ones, let’s repeat what we’ve covered so far.

• In your usual state of consciousness, you are characters in a film.

• If your attention is not your own, your soul is not your own.

• You are directed by an external script, which wires you into the film.

I use these terms so that it will be more accessible for you, because in sleeping and waking life, you do pretty much the same thing: you watch the film and take part in it as a character with a set role, without the right to spontaneous behaviour.

If you still doubt that your actions are bound rather than autonomous, look at your attention – where was it just now? To whom did it belong? Not to you, do you see? Then to whom and for what?

To the very same script. You, or rather, your Self is your attention. If you do not control yourself, the script directs you, whether when you are sleeping, or in waking life; it’s the same either way. A dream is the same as reality and reality is the same as a dream. Let’s say that life is a waking dream, and an ordinary dream is a sleeping dream.

A dream can be conscious or non-conscious. In the unconscious dream, you are as stupid and helpless as little bunnies. But take control of your attention, and you come alive in the film, acquiring the ability to act wilfully, as you see fit.