What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness is only
the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of
the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future,
and that there is an urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just
as there is no time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything,
there is never anything to be gained--though the zest of the game is to pretend
there is.

We do not "come into" into this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves," the universe "peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated "egos" inside bags of skin.

The hostile attitude of conquering nature ignores the basic interdependence of all things and events---that the world beyond the skin is actually an extension of our own bodies---and will end in destroying the very environment from which we emerge and upon which our whole life depends.