Consider any feeling such as fear, sadness, or anger. It certainly seems as if this feeling is animated by its own internal, inherent power. Is it?

Examine the following questions by staying only with your experience of this feeling: “Does this experience shine by its own light? Does the fear manifest, while illumining, itself? Can the sadness ‘turn to the side’ and comment on itself, on some other experience, or on me, the witness?” No to all questions.

In fact, this experience, like all other objective appearances, is shining by some other light. That light is borrowed–from what?

This experience is shining by the borrowed light that I have bestowed upon it. That is, it’s shining by my light, the light of consciousness.

Thus, it is understood that all objective experiences are “dumb” (in the old-fashioned sense of the word) or insentient. All require the light of consciousness in order to appear.

Accordingly, when this is understood, all cease to appear to have “a grip” or “a hold” on me, the consciousness with which they are illumined and in whose light they are known.

This, indeed, is a taste of freedom.