Free Illusions by Richard Bach

my ears. Finally I put my wallet on the grass, walked into the liquid water and cleaned myself the traditional wet way.
                 "I know there's a better way to get clean than this. "
                 "There's a faster way, yes."
                 "Don't tell me, of course. Just sit there and laugh and let me figure it all out for myself."
                 "OK "
                 I finally had to walk squishing back to the Fleet and change clothes, hanging the wet stuff on the flying wires to dry.
                 "Richard, don't forget what you did today. It is easy to forget our times of knowing, to think they've been dreams or old miracles, one time. Nothing good is a miracle, nothing lovely is a dream. "
                 "The world is a dream, you say, and it's lovely, sometimes. Sunset. Clouds. Sky."
                 "No. The image is a dream. The beauty is real. Can you see the difference ?"
                 I nodded, almost understanding. Later I sneaked a look in the handbook.
      
                 The world
          is your exercise-book, the pages
                  on which you do your sums.
                           It is not reality,
      although you can express reality
         there if you wish.
                             You are also
              free to write nonsense,
                   or lies, or to tear
                  the pages.
     
             
    12
     
      The original sin is to
        limit the Is.
             Don't.
     
                  It was an easy warm afternoon between rain-showers, sidewalks wet on our way out of town.
                 "You can walk through walls, can't you, Don ?"
                 "No "
                 "When you say no to something I know is yes, that means you don't like the way I said the question."
                 "We certainly are observant, aren't we ?" he said.
                 "Is the problem with walk or with walls ?"
                 "Yes, and worse. Your question presumes that I exist in one limited place-time and move to another place-time. Today I'm not in the mood to accept your presumptions about me. "
                 I frowned. He knew what I was asking. Why didn't he just answer me straight and let me get on to finding out how he does these things ?
                 "That's my little way of helping you be precise in your thinking," he said mildly.
                 "OK. You can make it appear that you can walk through walls, if you want. Is that a better question?"
                 "Yes. Better. But if you want to be precise..."
                 "Don't tell me. I know how to say what I mean. Here is my question. How is it possible that you can move the illusion of a limited sense of identity,   expressed in this belief of a space-time continuum as your 'body,' through   the illusion of material restriction that is called a 'wall'?"
                 "Well done!" he said. "When you ask the question properly it answers itself, doesn't it:"
                 "No, the question hasn't answered itself. How do you walk through walls?"
                 "RICHARD! You had it nearly right and then blew it all to pieces! I cannot walk through walls . . . when you say that, you're assuming things I don't assume at all, and if I do assume them, the answer is, 'l can't. "'
                 "But it's so hard to put everything so precisely, Don. Don't you know what I mean?"
                 "So just because something is hard, you don't try to do it; Walking was hard at first, but you practiced at it and now you make it look easy."
                 I sighed. "Yeah. OK. Forget the question. "
                 "I'll forget it. My question is, can