Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

The initial step that a person must make in transcendentalism is to come to realize that the perceptions that they're having at this time are not so much created by choice as by a field of attention, a room that we've walked in. In other words, we're very happy, we're bright, we're in a good mood, and we walk into a room that's kind of dirty -- it's got a lot of rubbish around it, the curtains are old, the couch is faded and maybe a lot of unhappy people have been there and we can feel their energy. The room just does not feel perky and happy at all. When we sit in that room over a period of time, we will begin to feel those feelings -- they'll begin to saturate our consciousness and that original happy mood that we had will begin to mutate a little bit, it will begin to transform, transmogrify, and we will begin to absorb some of those feelings, and soon those feelings will take a place in our being. While we might have been very happy or perky, suddenly we'll find ourselves getting a little bit discourage