Throughout this book, apart from my own thoughts, I have quoted words of several great Masters, and now, although I do not consider him one, I want to mention John Lennon, from whose words, if not from his example, I got something. If nothing else, he was a spokesman for his generation, and wisdom can be found in some of his songs. In Strawberry Fields Forever, for example, he sang: "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see". Yes, it seems easier to live when we are ignorant and feel no sense of responsibility, to just let ourselves be carried along by the stream, not knowing, and maybe not caring much, where it is taking us. But when our eyes are open, and we become aware of how we share this Earth with countless others, a sense of responsibility dawns, and we can no longer live negligently or carelessly; living then becomes harder than previously, because we now have a sense of direction in life.

     I am not such a starry-eyed idealist as to think that the conditions in his utopian song, Imagine, can ever become realities, but I do think that, individually, we can work towards some of them, pulling down artificial barriers that have been erected in our minds by others since before we could think and reason for ourselves; it is possible to overcome the false information that we were impregnated with as children; we can discover what is true!

Imagine there’s no Heaven—
It’s easy if you try—
No Hell below us—
Above us only sky;
Imagine all the people
Living for today ...

Imagine there’s no country—
It isn’t hard to do—
Nothing to kill or die for—
And no religion, too;
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace ...

Imagine no possessions—
I wonder if you can?
No need for greed or hunger—
A brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world ...

You may say that I’m a dreamer,
But I’m not the only one;
I hope someday you’ll join us,
And the World will be as One.

John Lennon.