In recent posts, I have been exploring how aquatic bodywork might affect state of consciousness. This extract from Ken Keyes book The Handbook of Higher Consciousness which has been a bible of sorts for some people offers some interesting watery metaphors.
When you are heavily addicted, your experience of 'self' is solid like a block of ice. When you have succeeded in reprogramming almost all of your addictions into preferences, your 'self' loses it rockness and begins to have the adaptability and clarity of water. When one is operating primarily on preferences, the hardness melts and instead there is a conscious fluidity. In this state, like water, your sense of 'self' is infinitely flexible to accommodate itself to your here-and-now surroundings... For the few intrepid explorers of the mountain of consciousness who wish to go to the top, even preferences must be reprogrammed. [At this level] even the fluid self boundaries disappear. As water evaporates, it becomes a transparent vapor. Similarly, at the highest level of consciousness, the experience of 'self' or 'somebody' disappears, we become 'nobody' - which then lets us be in unitive space with everybody. Ken Keyes, The Handbook of Higher Consciousness, p. 128-129
