AS :Do you view consciousness as a series of ascending levels?
GBP: That’s a very Western way of looking at things; it’s a game. It’s that whole thing of achieving things, of having clearly moved along towards success. Which involves competing with other people, which involves a sense of inferiority because you haven’t reached where they are, so you’re being stressed. You can be holy and like the Dalai Lama here, but then a few days later you could be way over here. It’s not a ‘from A to B’—there are infinite parallel possibilities.