Our reality is a felt and lived experience- then, we use intellect and language to formulate concepts trying to communicate it. The meaning of whatever we convey in words, comes from our direct feeling and actual raw experience of reality.

Language has inherent limitations, but we depend on it to express and communicate. Without even realizing, we allow words to direct and shape our views of  self and reality, as we navigate duality through language . But because of its limitations, we often miss or overlook the truth.

Join me in an exploration of our direct raw felt experience- before the concepts of intellect and the words of language interfere, to alter the true meaning of reality. For this, we will closely examine our feelings when we use a pair of commonly used words, ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, in the context of our self.

These two words denote relative locations of objects in space. If we carefully observe how we feel about our sense of ‘self’ in the context of these terms- do we not feel that we are inside, relative to everything else, which is outside of us?

We may not know who or what we are, but we feel that our inner self is always located inside, relative to everything else. Our real self, whatever it may be- is our innermost feeling of being. The centre core of ‘wherever’ we are, is felt as our deepest inside.

By carefully observing the feelings directly associated with the words and concepts we use, we can examine our actual raw experience of truth, hidden behind these terms.

The material world external to our physical body is obviously felt to be outside of us. But the felt sensations of our body and everything else that we encounter in our experience, every perception, physical or psychological, is also felt outside of where we really are (inside).

We identify with our body as self, without realizing that the body is outside of our innermost feeling of being! Observing the sensations of our body- we can easily notice, that they are felt outside relative to our witnessing inner core.

Also, easily overlooked is the fact, that our mind, the realm of thoughts- is outside of our inner self. A simple experience of witnessing our thoughts and mental projections can demonstrate, that we always look from inside– at the contents of our body and mind- which are outside (relative to our centre/inner core/ the self, who is looking).

All of our experiences are felt through the body-mind. Our physical sensations, pain, thoughts, memories, emotions are all contents of the body-mind. In our direct experience, they are always felt outside, relative to our innermost feeling of self.

It is obvious that whatever is seemingly inside our body-mind, is still always felt outside of our deepest inner self!

But we assume that both, our mind and our self, are inside the body, leading us to erroneously identify our self with the body-mind. We tacitly believe this is who/what/where we are!

In our direct experience, it is obvious, we are neither our body nor mind, these are merely sensations and perceptions experienced outside or external to us- while we are felt inside, as our innermost self. But we identify with these, as our self!

In reality, there is no inside or outside, neither self nor non-self. These are arbitrary conceptual boundaries assigned to words in duality. The truth transcends all these distinctions.

But, in this manifested world of duality- the actual experience of our real self is the innermost feeling of being. Everything else is relatively outside of this core.

What is the significance or relevance of this understanding?

Most of our problems in life, concern the body-mind-world. Now, when we realize that our inner being is distinct from our body-mind and the world, there is a gap recognized between our deepest inner self and everything else.

Everything that is outside, is not an integral part of our innermost being! Things outside constantly change, but our inner being, remains constant and stable.

This clear insight reveals that our innermost self always remains completely free, from anything occurring outside it. So, whatever happens around us- cannot disturb us, unless we actively allow it to, from ignorance of this truth!

This helps us to consciously detach, from all that we have falsely identified with, releasing all the suffering which does not belong to our deepest inner self.

With this clarity derived from our direct felt experience, we can now, consciously let go of our worries and relax in the calm purity of our inner sanctuary. What is outside of us, cannot bother us. Inside ‘this-here-now’, of our innermost being, nothing from outside can disturb our peace. We are always safe and free, if we can just return within!