expression is emblematic of the basic awakening of the real self and its
hidden potential.
In Taoist terms, the first goal of the Way is to restore the original God-
given spirit and become a self-realized human being. In Buddhist terms, a
realized human being is someone conscious of the original mind, or the real
self, as it is in its spontaneous natural state, independent of environmental
conditioning.
This original spirit is also called the celestial mind, or the natural mind.
A mode of awareness subtler and more direct than thought or imagination,
it is central to the blossoming of the mind.
The Secret of the Golden Flower is devoted to the recovery and refinement
of the original spirit.
This manual contains a number of helpful meditation techniques, but its
central method is deeper than a form of meditation. Using neither idea nor
image, it is a process of getting right to the root source of awareness itself.
The aim of this exercise is to free the mind from arbitrary and unnecessary
limitations imposed upon it by habitual fixation on its own contents. With
this liberation, Taoists say, the conscious individual becomes a "partner of
creation" rather than a prisoner of creation.
The experience of the blossoming of the golden flower is likened to light
in the sky, a sky of awareness vaster than images, thoughts, and feelings, an
