The way we understand the world is through thinking. We observe, categorize and reason. All the while chopping the world into little bits through concepts. Those concepts are made up and have arbitrary boundaries (check for yourself).
The universe, the thing we apply the concepts to, is in fact one continuous ‘thing’, kind of like a wave. We can’t fit that one thing into our little brains, so we have to do the aforementioned chopping first. But the universe isn’t actually made up of discrete little blocks. We just make those blocks up and apply them to the universe, with our minds.
We can’t do otherwise, with our minds, because that’s what minds do. That’s what thinking is. But that’s not what or how the universe is. The universe is continuous and interconnected.
Which brings us to an interesting question. If our minds can’t understand, but through chopping into blocks, and the universe is actually continuous, can we somehow experience the universe the way it actually is?
Not with our minds we can’t. Not with language. Not with concepts.
But perhaps we can feel it? Sense it? With the bits below our neck, with our bodies. What if we leave the mind to do its thing for a while, and we bring our attention to the sensations in our bodies. The raw, unlabeled, unconceptualized experiences that we can sense in awareness. What then?
We are very much used to having our attention in our mind and on our thoughts. We think all the time. Our brains chatter incessantly. And often unpleasantly (but that’s beside the point). And so we’re out of touch with our bodies and the sensations that can be experienced there. But we can reconnect. It’s a matter of attention, time and practice (repetition).
And it turns out that the sensations in our bodies let us understand the world more as it is, as a whole. The body doesn’t know language, but it knows more than we can think. And we can feel it. We can then bring that understanding back into our minds, chop it up again and blurt out the results. It will be a bit incoherent and difficult to understand, because it wasn’t arrived at through concepts and it can’t be understood or conveyed well with concepts (obviously). Or at all, if the listener hasn’t at least felt around a bit himself. But there is something there and I suggest you have a little feel yourself.
I’ve been exploring this world of bodily sensations for a while now and there’s insight to be had. And it’s very different from what we’re used to. It’s a holistic way of understanding. And to our minds it seems like magic. And it’s difficult to express. But it’s there and I’m exploring it.
It’s pretty fun actually.