Sometimes when a mind is introduced to the inside-out understanding, it gets a little indignant.
(Minds don't like the idea that they're being tricked, see?)
So sometimes, very understandably, it attempts to throw the whole understanding out, by insisting that it's complete and utter nonsense.
(Fair cop – some of the stuff I say sometimes can sound a bit off the wall… which is the whole reason the Daily Reminders exist: you've got to find your own way through it, using a metaphor or an angle that makes sense to you.)
For instance, minds sometimes take great offence at this statement:
➤ 100% of our feelings come from (the Principle of) Thought
➤ 0% of our feelings come from our circumstances
It gets all indignant, pouts a bit and complains,
📦🗣️ “Are you gaslighting me – saying I'm making it all up?!”
Which is a bit like the question I got asked in a Q&A session I ran, a while ago. This short video clip from the session lets you know where I land on this one… as well as delivering an important public safety announcement:
😁
This is a completely normal, understandable concern that’s based on our unique interpretations of the word ‘thought’, so let me reassure you that I’m not suggesting you’re ‘making it up’. Of course the things that you experience (like being run over by a car 😫) are real…
AND
…100% of that experience is made of Thought.
Not what you’re thinking about, but the perceptual process itself.
(Ask any neuroscientist and they’ll confirm that we’re not experiencing the world directly. What we’re experiencing is our senses. It’s a real-time, moment-to-moment facsimile of reality: a best guess at what must be ‘out there’ in order for us to be receiving the data we’re receiving.)
That’s what I mean when I say ‘Thought’.
The most liberating aspect of this?
Because experience is made of Thought, there are endless ways a situation can appear (as well you know, from your own experience).
And the way a situation appears is always a reflection of our state of mind in that moment, and nothing else.
We are only ever experiencing our own perceptual thought-system, reflected outwards.
It’s inside-out, not outside-in.
And we don’t need to do anything about that.
We just need to realise it.
✨
Giles
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Giles P Croft