Excerto da tradução em inglês de registro em espanhol de palestra feita no Chile em 1966

My wish this evening is that we might come to feel that a broad vision of human nature is needed to begin real work on oneself.

If we speak of liberation, questions soon arise as to the “why” of my slavery and the “how” of my liberation.

To help us come to a broad vision, all teachings offer the idea of the ladder, although it is not always easily recognized in ancient texts, which are often incomplete or distorted by copyists. The constitution of human beings is not flat but consists of levels, floors. Man does not correspond to just one level of the universe, but to many. It is sometimes said in this teaching that a complete, developed, real human being has his head at the level of the stars and his feet on the earth, and this suggests not only a symbol but an actual ladder, indicating a steep, direct path.

We need to understand that the two natures of man are inscribed upon this ladder: in the upper part of the ladder, the higher nature; in the lower part, the ordinary nature where we live all the time and where the center of gravity of our whole existence is to be found.

Between the two levels there is an interval, an unbridgeable gap. Many ancient texts speak of this interval-for example, in the Old Testament, the struggle between Jacob and the Angel which takes place precisely in the middle of a stream, at a ford. It is worthwhile to consider all the elements of the story: on the higher bank, the older brother, and on the lower bank, the younger brother who comes with his whole family, his herds, his wealth, and who comes in fear. And the struggle, in which a new force appears in the form of an Angel, a messenger of God-the third force.

Consciousness and will, which are preexisting realities, belong to the higher nature. All the illusory manifestations-lying, imagination, mechanicality-correspond to the lower nature, which receives only dim rays of consciousness filtered across the interval.

We find in the Gospels, in the parable of Christ at the well where the Samaritan woman comes to draw water, this idea that the source of life resides in a deeper nature. Interval, well, stream-all symbolic images to make us understand that the water of life must be sought beyond the place we expect to find it.