And I began to shift gears slightly. I began, even, to be seen as someone who was rebelling against the teachings of my Essene elders. For I began to move away from striving for God, from striving for perfection, and began to cultivate within myself the process of allowing. I discovered that if I looked upon my perceptions, my feelings, my behavior, exactly as they were, without overshadowing them with my own interpretations — if I could teach myself to embrace things with innocence — veils began to be dissolved from my mind. For when I was nine years old, I had already learned to be fearful of thinking, or speaking, or acting, in a way that was not in conformity to the prevailing wisdom of that time, even within the Essene community, which had already become rather rigidified. There was already much dogma. And dogma always leads to bickering.