There is an insight I'd like to discuss with you guys! I've been contemplating Emotion recently. Not individual emotions, but the entire domain: What is Emotion? What is the stuff it is made of? Does it have a connection with the body? I was influenced by this idea from somatic psychology that emotions show up in the body, and so, I took them to be more real than thoughts. I took this idea literally. I thought: "Hmm, the body is an object, and if emotions show up in the body, then they must be as real as the objects. Maybe that's how the movement of the hormones feels!" Suddenly, it occurred to me that emotions are a type of thought! They are nowhere - not in the walls of the room, nor does my stomach suddenly change colour when I get angry or happy. They seem to influence the body, but so do verbal thoughts. Just like verbal thoughts are viewed as happening in the head, emotions are viewed as happening in different areas of the body. That connection is a belief! So, there are different types of thought: inner voice, remembering, staging a scene, creating images, knowing how a door works, and... emotion! I'm curious about your feedback on my contemplation. Is there anything I'm not seeing?

Hey folks! I want to share a recent insight. I was listening to the latest episode of The Consciousness Podcast when it struck me what alignment with what's true really entails. 1. Simply being - not being a self. 2. Living knowing, that the past and the future don't exist. 3. Calling a belief a belief when it comes up. 4. Saying "I don't know" when I don't know. Living from these discoveries is such a shift! I find that in my experience, 3 and 4 are relatively easy to act from, but 1 and 2 take practice. But I'm making progress! Regarding 1, I didn't get upset today when my husband blamed me for something. There was no suppression - simply no upset. It was so easy to move on. I joked he might as well take revenge on me someday, and we laughed together. That story didn't get to stay with me as a 'psychological episode', unlike before, when I believed I was a person, and my feelings mattered! 😅 Regarding 2, I noticed I tend to feel quite tense if an important meeting is planned in the future. So now, when there's a meeting, I notice how I create 'tense' by imagining the context of future and reacting to my thoughts in a way that produces tension. So nice to see all of this is happening in the now. Just need a bit more experience with this, and then I'll get settled in it. Thanks to everyone who read this. Are there any truths you are learning to align with? Hope to see everyone someday soon! (future ah!.. 😋 Unescapable!)

So here is some logic for ya. I was confused by language and lack of clarity about 'direct experience'. This is what I got: Direct experience is always there, and is not affected by how we call it. Our labeling or interpreting is just a small portion of what the (total) experience is. We can notice that experiencing anything can only take place "now". We can also notice that what we call an object is an experience (the thing directly without having thought about it). When we notice the feeling (the undeniability of it), we can notice it cannot be pinned down, or we cannot exactly know what it is. Stopping 'right there' with the experience (like " ok I feel it") is a kind of labeling it, and its not actuality, or reality. Stopping is not true. Actuality is in fact unstopable. It is " one", not separate, Is it? So noticing that the experience, the feeling cannot be known or understood, and noticing it changing and it at the same time being in a "field of experience" we can "get" that this is just what is, infinity; it has no end, and no beginning. We can actually call it whatever we want, it is unnameable and always this. cheers!

Hi everyone, Has anyone else ever noticed a sort of thing going on in their experience where you do a lot of things, decide to live your life in a certain way and engage in things, but somewhere in there, underneath, you can't help feeling like there's something you're mising? Like right under your nose influencing all of that behavior? I feel like I've got a lot of that going on right now, and like, being wrapped up in everything that this idea tells me to do causes me suffering and leaves me separate from a deeper connection with what's true. I'm starting to have some separation from it, and am beginning to question it, and am just wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences?

Just finished listening to this on Audible, I also have the book. Unsurprisingly it’s difficult to find words to describe it. It felt like Peter was reading my mind as he wrote, knowing what mischief my mind and self were likely to be up to as I listened and calling them out. When I finally got to the end I fell quiet and felt peaceful, if a bit beaten up. How do you follow that? I asked myself - I still have one - working in progress. The answer was loud and clear - ‘The Book of Not Knowing’ start all over again. Looking forward to listening to it for the umpteenth time with new ears and a better grasp. What a privilege to have Peter’s work in our lives. Thank you.