Experiences aren’t things. When they’re not reified, they flow naturally and thus are fresh and innocent.

Hearing is sweet, melodious, and receptive; sensing is effervescent; touching and tasting are sensitive; seeing is relaxed and expansive; feelings like sadness or anger gently roll without roiling.

A separate self, coming after the flow of experience, is a coagulation and an unwarranted claim. It’s a coagulation that’s felt as a contraction, a closing up, a crimping, a shuttering. And it’s a claim that, Atmananda states, seeks to gather in all the functions of the mind. Here is a thief in the night: it comes after the activity and lays claim to all of it.

“I am tired” coagulates and congeals whereas the mere flow of sensing–cold quiverings, the languid movements, the jumpy thoughts–does not.

In and as Wakeful Openness, even “I am tired” is effervescing and thus the momentary contraction is relaxed and released.