If you were an all-powerful, all-knowing consciousness, you could never know sadness, loss, anxiety, surprise, or the excitement of not knowing what will happen next. An all-knowing consciousness could not enjoy jokes or cry at tragedies. By playing the game, consciousness delights in every experience possible, and the only way to do that is for it to lose itself in us. In the same way that a glass of water is exponentially more satisfying after a five-mile hike in the desert, the experience of ...
Jun 11, 2022•8 min
I made a quite funny and interesting observation about the change of your spreaking rhythm over time. I listen backwards to your podcast while driving from the day on I found it, and I also listen to the daily actual one. So now I am in Oktober 2020. I listened to the new one and immediately after I took the old one on where I left it and there I heard how your speaking rhythm has immensily changed. In the old on you had a lot more abruptness and acceleration, like rushing and doing sudden chang...
Jun 10, 2022•11 min
I am suffering severe depression and anxiety at the moment. Nothing helps and I cannot pull myselfout of it. I sleep 18 - 20 hours a day and am still tired when awake. I find it hard to wash. I don’t want to exist like this anymore. I’m on a lot of medication from my Psychiatrist and I tried therapy which didn’t help as i was too I’ll to engage. I know what you speak of touches me, it feels like truth.
Jun 09, 2022•21 min
The other part of the question is: is the shift happening in our programmed mind or is it something deeper? Some people describe a shift which seems like an experience of the formless. What is really shifting? I love that you show the logic in this because that is very helpful for me. At the same time I wonder if the shift is also of a formless happening which can be difficult to put into words. Sometimes it has been powerful for me to have a deeper understanding of the formless, and then it see...
Jun 08, 2022•10 min
Lately you have been speaking in podcasts and webinars about understanding the selfing and the separate self and how all suffering is because we do not understand that there is no I controlling, choosing and doing. This is really starting to make sense for me and I understand why you want to make this point clear. You have mentioned words like: hopeless, no other way, impossible, no genuine rest, sickness etc to describe what happens when we do not see/understand this. And the thing is; at least...
Jun 07, 2022•11 min
I am currently on your Rest course and a member of your community. I have been listening to you for about 2 years now and really love your work and descriptions of the reality of human life. I came to find you from being in Nicola Birds ALPOM community for about 5 years. I am find that although my body mind understands you perfectly, this understanding has not drop into reality. When i first found Nicola Bird it was at a time when my husband had died of cancer and then 3 months later my brother ...
Jun 06, 2022•15 min
Thank you so much for your response to my question about generational domestic abuse. (May 27th) I'm listening to it again and again. I think I'm beginning to see more of what you're pointing to. After I separated from my children's dad, I went as "no contact" as was possible, but even the tiny bit of communication we had was fraught with fear from my side and anger from his. I spent so much time attempting to forgive and release him and myself and yet it was only when I had a beautiful moment o...
Jun 05, 2022•11 min
Can you talk a bit more about how experiencing emotions is not the same thing as suffering? If we take grief as an example - it would seem that the system learns grief as a way to support the body's need for resources. We aren't expecting grief to go away once it's learned that there's no self. So when does grief transition into suffering?
Jun 04, 2022•10 min
I've listened to your podcast on "What do you mean by feel the feelings that arise". Can you give any pointers on how to do this when you're in the middle of situations where it seems like this isn't possible. For example, I've been trying to go deep into the body when I have panic, or panic attacks at work. This results in a sort of confusion as to what I'm doing at work as the focus isn't on the task at hand and I'm kind of out of it in terms of the job flow. Do we just do the best we can? I'm...
Jun 03, 2022•12 min
I wonder if you can speak a bit about readiness you often mention in the context of being ready for this sort of conversations? It looks like the system presettles itself so the experiences arised in the body can be felt, questioned, looked at and it doesn't look so frightening anymore.
Jun 02, 2022•11 min
I hope you are keeping well... I love all your work and pointings to who we truly are..it's been so helpful.... I wanted to ask you what is it like for you living from a place of openness and surrender... What does it feel like to let life live you? I know you said it wasn't always like that for you, especially around speaking up at meetings and the anxious feelings that arose from being in certain situations.. How has life changed for you? Do you still experience your conditioning and learned b...
Jun 01, 2022•13 min
I heard another non-dual teacher mention the intense friction that we experience when our thoughts and feelings clash. The statement really resonated but I haven't got a clue why. Could you have a go at speaking to this?
May 31, 2022•8 min
I was recently triggered by a conversation with a friend and 'I' have been unable to let it go since. I am meeting up with her again. 'I' want to put it all behind me, move on, whilst at the same time wanting her to see where she is wrong, how hurt I was, in short I want to control the whole situation! I know that 'all' I have to do is notice everything that is going on, bringing awareness to it, without having to do anything to 'fix' it. But how do I sit with something that is so thought based?...
May 29, 2022•16 min
REST by Alex Sooting-Kim Pang. The Sunday Book Listener question I've been listening to the book Rest more today and it is bringing up a question. I wonder if you would consider it for the podcast? The book seems to suggest that our ideas about creativity are wrong and that what is really needed is a slow pace to life and space for play in order to allow the subconscious to do what it does best; that contrary to the dogma that we should work harder, creative genius is a product of this more rest...
May 29, 2022•13 min
The notion of a separate organism is clearly an abstraction, as is also its boundary. Underlying all this is unbroken wholeness even though our civilization has developed in such a way as to strongly emphasize the separation into parts. David Bohm
May 28, 2022•7 min
I recently became aware of how deeply domestic abuse is rooted in my family. As I'm reading See what you made me do. 7 years ago I left a marriage of 22 years of crazy abuse, and now I'm watching the cycle repeat itself with my eldest son and his wife. I don't know what to do. She is very much in the place of protecting him and justifying the abuse. I have tried to broach it before but if I bring it up with her she will most probably tell him and it will backfire and hurt her more. It will also ...
May 27, 2022•17 min
All this talk in the REST course of sitting with discomfort and feeling what is asking to be felt has made me realize that I really haven’t a clue how exactly to do this. From my earliest childhood I remember my emotions were problematic for my mother who often told me, “Don’t be like that.” I could see my emotions were frequently in turn annoying or too needy or overwhelming or terrifying for her to deal with. My father, while kind, was mostly emotionally absent in my life. Having no real role ...
May 26, 2022•8 min
I‘m wondering about something.. over the next two months there are many different projects coming up, that need preparation. It seemed to me that it should be possible to handle everthing and to be prepared well.. but now I‘m sick and my body is in so much pain that it feels like I can‘t do the work that should get done.. In my mind it looks like, the only way out of it would be if one of the projects would be moved to a later date.. it looks so real but what makes me suspicios about it is that ...
May 25, 2022•10 min
I loved todays blog on mental health and the accompanying podcast (19th May). I understand that we cannot control our thinking, but what about changing/choosing the thoughts we focus on? I seems to me that “I” do do have some control over that or am I imagining that? https://claredimond.com/loneliness-mental-health/
May 24, 2022•13 min
I always find “no doer” confronting but I did feel resonance with the very end of the talk that even self inquiry might be doomed until the doer is made more transparent. As you know, I struggle with the Witness as I find that term to be nihilistic. An entity or process that just observes is passive with no power. The truth is I rarely see this logic that you say is so obvious. I am aware that motor functions occur before the conscious mind is even aware, yet the artificial intelligence movement...
May 23, 2022•15 min
Humankind by Rutger Bregman. The Sunday Book
May 22, 2022•5 min
No-self Accountability - words of the week
May 21, 2022•14 min
Today’s ‘how should I listen’ podcast finds me excited. Excited enough to return to exploring what is true. Yet what does that truly mean? The Work of Byron Katie starts with questioning ‘is it true?’ I get that. It’s crystal clear. Please can you dive deep into what exactly you mean by “Just listening to see what’s true. That’s all.” …And how exactly do I/we do this? Thank you. 💎🙏🏼💙...
May 20, 2022•10 min
'YOU need to change YOUR thinking!' This is something we hear and read quite often. What is true in it, if anything?
May 19, 2022•12 min
Can you clarify the difference in terminology between the 3 principles and nonduality/advaita, by use of a metaphor (for example the ocean and the waves, or the movie and the screen)?
May 18, 2022•7 min
I am on my second round of Home and really getting something from it slowly and surely. It’s like so many little YES moments. Little snippets of truth that i recognise as such. But … I’m having traditional therapy for the first time and really enjoying it. Is there benefit, alongside this, for the ‘I’ to examine the avator self to examine the conditioning to bring it into the light ? I find it interesting to see the links my brain has made and why but does this drag me more into the brambles and...
May 17, 2022•6 min
You asked me what was driving the need to understand - for the mind to understand what you were sharing. It stopped me in my tracks because up until this point I had understood that the tension I perceived was being created from the mind trying to grasp something it can never grasp, was the indicator to let go. What you pointed to was that it was no problem that the mind wanted to understand but it was the underlying reason for needing to understand. And it came to me this morning. I need to und...
May 16, 2022•11 min
Think Again by Adam Grant. The Sunday Book
May 15, 2022•7 min
'Trojan Horse' words of the week
May 14, 2022•12 min
I have a question about conditioning. If I understand correctly, we are all like robots acting according to whatever programs were learned along the way until we come to learn more about who we really are. Then gradually (or all at once those lucky ducks!) the navigation system shifts out of this programming and more and more life is lived as LIfe, Love or the space of awareness etc. My question is that when the conditioning is seen, but doesn't fall away and is not serving the body mind, is it ...
May 13, 2022•11 min
