Tagged: gut feeling

Healthy Spirituality

The word AWARENESS is not understood. It just becomes another theory to “practice” once in a while. Something like becoming your own police at particular times until this “practice” gets tiresome and our “normal” self takes over.

Perhaps a better way to convey the meaning of awareness is when we feel in balance. Health is part of that. Health is ONE but we divide it in 3 general aspects; physical, mental and emotional.
The physical aspect is the most noticeable. That is what we recognize as being “healthy.”

My friend and chiropractor Mike, discovered how detrimental a diet based on simple sugars could be. Sugar could ruin our health. He wrote a comment in the blog, the other day:
“As an observer you can help others examine how sugar is evil and the start of disease so you stay hooked sick and have to take medicines for life to support the corporate sugar and pharmacy industry.”

Today, I will take up the subject of health which is very “Spiritual.” In fact, wholesome health is the purpose of any worthwhile spirituality.

Ahnanda has discovered that in Life, rejection of something will bring consequences. We cannot understand something if we have previously rejected it.

I wouldn’t label sugar as “evil.” Sugar is sugar. It is said that Life is sweet as sugar… 
When we are out of balance, we will try to compensate what we lack by overdoing something else, thus; unwillingly hurting ourselves, creating disease. We are not aware of that. Let us say that I experience anxiety or that I experience sleepless nights. Compensation could be emotionally achieved by overeating or taking higher amounts of sugar. Over time, this translates into a disease.

Eating is one of the few Life pleasures which hasn’t been condemned by our society. It is a good outlet for many. Emotionally, that is a safe way to enjoy Life, thus any restrictions to food will definitely have a bitter consequence.
“No more sugar from now on” will be a miserable experience for many. The answer is not in that extreme. However, there are exceptions: There may be many individuals who are killing themselves by the ingestion of too much sugar. For them, “no more sugar from now on” could be a Life saver. Observe how the closer we are to one extreme, we will need another extreme solution in the opposite direction to regain balance.

To enjoy Life, is a matter of living in Balance. In harmonious relationship “within” and “without.”
Health (mind, body, emotions) is definitely observable in this balance.

Our minds are usually extremist. As we become acquainted with our “gut feeling” to move in Life (rather than making “thoughtful” decisions) there will be less mind, meaning a greater “sense” of balance.

A glass of Coke may be full of sugar, but if that drink was used as a “reward” when you were a kid, that Coke acquires the importance of “emotional food” when adult; which will be helpful in some low moments in our lives. That is an example of balance.

Emotional needs are as important as physical ones. Priorities will continually change in a healthy balance. That is why they cannot be pinned as: “This is the way,” or “This is evil.”

Our minds are so used to labeling something as “good” and other things as “evil.” That extremist labeling will only reduce our ability to observe.

It is in true observation, where taking sides do not exist. We may be in one side to go to the other side.

You are informed about Sugar. Now experience it, then you will know. No need to proselytize. 🙂


It is not a matter of “choice.”








End of report.

Life and death go together. They are not separate.

Making sense out of the Spiritual “sugarcoat.”

The ego, the “I,” is the source of mental anguish and suffering. Someone may experience physical suffering; it is just another experience unless it is interpreted as everlasting trauma.
As we know, everything in Life changes. That movement happens all by itself. If the mind is attached to a traumatic experience, then it will be re-lived when a trigger appears. 

The trauma is created when there is a rejection to a particular experience.
That is how the “I” separates from Life.

“Spiritual sugarcoating,” is meant to strengthen that “I.” It is meant to support it. There are many ways to do that, but here is a powerful one: It s called CHOICE.
“Choice” is the strongest support. Choice comes from the mind. It is conditioned. If we have 2 paths ahead of us, which one do we take?

If the mind “chooses,” it is for sure the “I” choosing.  Many reasons. Weigh the “Pros.” At that point we say: “I choose.”
If the gut feeling is choosing for us, then there is no choice. That feeling is out of our control. It does not depend on our conditioning, our beliefs, our rehearsed moral standards. There is “no- I” in that.

Have you heard  the Taoist phrase, “Doing nothing doing, to get things done”? It is about a choice-less decision/action. Actually, there is no decision, no thought, no mind.

To learn to listen to our gut feeling implies to step aside from our conditioning. Honesty resides in learning to listen to our gut feeling.

“So what is the “science” behind listening to our gut feeling?”
This is not science. This is Life. To go according to our feelings will make us “feel good.” Do we need any further explanation? Do we need any other reasoning?
To feel is fulfilling in itself.
“But what about if we get a “bad” experience?”
Life is not linear. There is something to learn, ups and downs. Something is needed to be experienced before there is change. To learn to listen to our gut feeling is probably the most important “skill” that we can have in Life.
Because that is our connection with Life. That is what we are meant to DO for Life, for us. It is egoless. That is our mission. Life manifests an action, an activity through us.

If we cannot connect to our “gut feeling,” because we are not sure what it is , then start with the mind. We need to recognize when the mind kicks in, how it interferes with our daily affairs and how we believe that “I am the dictates of the mind.”

That is the only “spiritual practice” that Ahnanda could endorse.

To learn about your own mind by observing it, should be the most precious “spiritual class” that we could ever take, under the setting of the “spiritual retreat” of your own sacred time and space.

Recognize when you are hungry and when the mind tells you that you should eat. Recognize when the mind cuts your enjoyment of looking at a flower, just to throw a thought about your day at the office. Recognize when the “little voice” speaks and how readily we identify with that voice as “Me.”

Observe that as long as we are used to only listen to our mind, we cannot have “choice,” for all there is in the mind… is timeless conditioning, beliefs, taboos, hangups, ideals, learned morality…

“If the “choice” of my mind is not really “my” choice for there is conditioning and the choice of “my gut feeling” is not “my” choice, then where is “my” choice?”

🙂 Nowhere. This ain’t sugarcoat.  

Question on Mind vs. Gut Feeling

How do u know while taking a decision whether it is a gut feeling (heart) or your mind speaking (conditioning)?

Thank you for your question. It is a question that probably most will want to “know.”
First, if you take a “decision,” that is your mind without a doubt. The gut feeling knows without choosing. It is immediate. If you wait around, the mind appears.

Be aware that because I am answering your question with words, you are going to try to understand my words by using your mind. Notice the trap.
The mind could make you believe that “you know” if you follow my words, and you will believe that this is a “gut feeling.”

By asking that honest question, you are demonstrating how hard it is to “Know thyself” when we are trapped in the mind. 

The gut feeling is your internal wisdom. Your action when you listen to it, will be according to your role in Life, which means that you will feel fulfilled by acting on it, regardless of human opinions based on conditioning about favorable outcomes.

The gut feeling is not an emotion. It is not the mind. Both of them are conditioning.

First, we need to learn to observe our inner world. Notice when a stranger comes by you, there is the conditioning, which immediately jumps in “ He is ugly.” “What the heck does he want?” If you are not aware, present to observe this, you will not notice how your feelings get colored by those statements from the mind. To go deeper into your reaction, your conditioning, is to liberate yourself from that trigger.

To learn to observe, you need to be in a “neutral state,” as when a car is in “neutral,” it goes where momentum will take it.
Similarly is with your state of being, in that state you can observe.  Free of judgment, free of opinion, free of past learnings. By becoming aware of our own breathing, focused on it but in a neutral state, we could learn to observe how the mind jumps in during every interaction with others. This is critical.

Notice that when you willfully stop breathing, the mind stops as well. To be aware of that state, means to know no-mind, the neutral state.

I could only give you my experience through words of recognizing the mind. I cannot give you “the answer,” or the “method.”  That is for you to discover.

Once you are familiar with how the mind jumps in, then you will not identify with it, you will know that it is not “you,” but all the conditioning from many past experiences; that is what most believe to be “I.”
This AWARENESS is to know something useful.

If you have not been aware of a gut feeling, my description may be worthless to you. You may feel a sensation in your gut (it could be energy or some feeling) If you are not aware of it, the mind will overwrite that sensation with an “educated choice,” a conditioned statement.

It takes inner observation, which is not a “practice,” but being conscious, awake to our inner world.

I am aware that I may not be answering your question with a “cut and dry” recognition of the mind vs. the gut feeling; but you are asking me “how to breath,” even though you are breathing… I could tell you “inhale air with your nostrils” and that is misleading for breathing happens without the “I” doing anything. If the “I” does it, that is not breathing but just an exercise on breathing. If you become AWARE of breathing, then you will know without any doubts.

Through my answer, you may have discovered the shortcomings of words and teachings, and hopefully you will be AWARE of what is going on in you. That is where the “true” answer resides, our journey is to uncover it. 🙂

Hoping on Hope








This hope is a mental distress, a mental issue.

Let us not confuse hope with a “gut feeling.”


Without the word “strong” the tiger “is.”

In reality, a tiger is neither strong nor weak.