Understanding ourselves and how our minds work is the doorway to wisdom. Our happiness depends on it. It is not part of our education, so we have to discover it for ourselves.
The book Understanding me, Understanding You, makes it easy for everyone to understand themselves clearly, by observing their thoughts and feelings and then exploring their origin. Each of us can discover that richness of understanding that can transform our lives for the better. We can then cope better with the challenges that life throws at us, and the stress that follows. Because our minds work in similar ways, understanding ourselves helps us to understand others, and that brings harmony to our relationships, which is essential for a happy life.
The aim of this book is to explore the many hidden ways in which our mind works, behind the screen of our awareness, directing our thoughts and actions. The 26 chapters explore inner landscapes that are common to all human beings: like the art of listening, the mechanism of comparison, our conditioning and how it impacts our life, the nature of fear and desire and how they influence our behaviour, our many psychological needs and how they affect our relationships, the human struggle to find love, our many beliefs which bring us comfort but also divide us, our loneliness, our habits which can become addictions, our images of ourselves and how we try to defend them, our sorrow which blocks out the sun from our lives, and so on.
The beauty of this approach is that it needs no authority, no belief system or philosophy, but just the ability to observe the way our minds work. That brings its own wisdom.
As part of this exploration we can then begin to ask questions which we rarely ask. Questions like: ‘Do we live with intelligence, or just respond to our past influences’, or ‘Can we find harmony in our relationships’, or ‘Can loneliness be dissolved’, or ‘Why do we have so many hidden psychological needs and can we take responsibility for them’, or ‘How can we find love in our lives’, or ‘Why do we want more and more and are never satisfied’, and so on.
Since most problems begin in the human mind, the solutions to them must also begin there.
The book is part of the non-profit Human Enquiry Project, which aims to spread wisdom, which follows when we understand ourselves and how our minds work. It will lead to a better world.
The website humanenquiry.com accompanies the book and has videos, mind-maps, blogs and questions for self-enquiry.
Genre: SELF-HELP / GeneralThe book has been published 6 weeks ago, and promotional efforts are ongoing.
The goal is to get it into education everywhere, so young people are taught not only about the world around them, but also about themselves and how their minds work.
Dear Reader,
We all come to ask questions of the life we live for different reasons. Questions like: How can we be happy? What is the purpose of life? Why is the world in such a mess? Is it possible to live without fear, sorrow and conflict? Why do we feel lonely? How can we find love? Why are we constantly dissatisfied? Some of us have a natural curiosity; others are drawn to ask questions because they have experienced conflict or sorrow. Yet, even though we have these questions, many of us do not know how to begin to address them, or where to turn for answers. Many of us think that we are not capable of finding the answers ourselves, or it is too complicated, or as my niece said, “I don’t do philosophy.” The answers to these and many of life’s questions may not lie “out there” but in ourselves. The key is understanding ourselves.
I would like to invite you to join me on a journey of understanding ourselves as we actually are. All human beings share the same consciousness, and thought operates in us in similar ways, so we can explore it together. It really is quite simple. Each of us can ask these questions and discover the truth, by just looking at ourselves more deeply. All we need is the ability to see clearly, ask penetrating questions, and accept what we find. I use the word ‘truth’ here in the most ordinary way, as in observing the fact of something, like the earth is round and revolves around the sun. Or that our brains compare all the time. Or that we all have psychological needs which demand to be met. I attach no religious meaning to the word ‘truth’. I have discovered that in observing the day-to-day truth of how our mind works and understanding how thought operates – which is our consciousness – extraordinary insights are possible, and that leads to a more harmonious and joyful life.
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Italian
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Translated by Carmine Albanese
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Portuguese
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Translated by Rachel Chiganer
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Spanish
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Translated by Alejandro Flores
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