The Book of Not Knowing Quotes

“Whatever we think of as “self” we will protect and maintain. If it’s a conceptual self, and likely it is, then we end up with mind protecting mind. This produces a rather “introverted” self-mind creating thoughts and perceptions in its own image. When self becomes confused with mind, and mind becomes seen as the self, the mind’s self-serving activities end up creating an experience of reality that is entirely self-referential.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you do is for yourself—and there isn’t one. —Wei Wu Wei”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“Knowing” can be useful, but learning not to know creates a powerful openness that is inconceivable until it is experienced.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“Only when we realize that beliefs are not the truth will the door of possibility open so that we can experience what “is” true.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“Continually thinking of oneself as a bum, a mean old man, a strapping youth, a mothering person, a hot business exec, a cute young thing, a man on the go, a rebel, smarter than most, a refined sort, a dark soul, a victim of circumstance, special and unique, and on and on, will cause us to become very attached to these images and roles. We tend to think they are simply assessments of what is so, but they’re not. They are fabrications within one’s mind and they exist to serve some end.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“I might think I’m smarter than everyone else, or a great person. These seem positive and yet, as with believing I’m stupid, I’m likely to feel isolated and separate from others, misunderstood, and underappreciated. I may well become protective of my “status,” which could be the only value I feel I have as a person and the only characteristic through which I can relate to people. I would become less and less willing to look the fool, or risk revealing myself as “normal” or fallible, and so cut myself off from any real and honest interactions or self-expressions. We can see how this will feed upon itself and how the condition could easily become more and more intolerable as it grows.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“We delude ourselves that we want to implant honesty in our children: what we really want is to imbue them with our particular kind of dishonesty, with our culture’s dishonesty. —Sidney Harris”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“We don’t know who discovered water, but we’re certain it wasn’t a fish. —John Culkin”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“Since being without a self is inconceivable and very hard to realize, such freedom remains unknown to virtually everyone. Yet without a self designed for and committed to survival, there is no suffering. To get a handle on this, recall any form of suffering, any distress, worry, upset, fear, misery, stress, longing, or anything else that you suffer, and consider long and hard: if you didn’t care about you persisting in any way, if it didn’t matter to you if you existed or not, got your way or not, or that things turned out in a way consistent with your desires and needs, if you let go of attachment to your self and the survival of your self, would you suffer any of these things? The answer is no. You cannot suffer when there is no self trying to survive. You cannot suffer when you have no drive to persist. The desire to survive, to persist as the self that you are, is the cause of suffering.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“If there were no self, and so no drive to survive, then there would be no suffering. There would be no manipulation, no struggle, no dissatisfaction, no desire, no misrepresentation, no self esteem, no hurt feelings, no worry, etc. There would be no pain, but even if some activity existed fulfilling the role of pain, it would be of little consequence and not a form of suffering. Self-survival is the origin of suffering. Strange as this may sound, “being” and life can take place without a self or the need to survive. It isn’t likely, but it is possible.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“16:31 As a metaphor we could say we are like a mouse running inside its wheel. What keeps us moving is the allure of some tasty cheese—the myth of obtainable “survival-happiness”—just outside the wheel. The “cheese” is only there to get us to run; it is not there for us to obtain. Unfortunately for us, we don’t know that. Since we don’t seem to be closing the gap, we run all the harder chasing this cheese—the promise of happiness. If we didn’t believe we were entitled to the cheese, or we knew we couldn’t ever get the cheese, we’d stop running. But our wheel and our running and what we perceive as our particular needs are a large part of what makes us “this particular one.” In the overall scheme of surviving as a self, it’s imperative that we remain ignorant of what’s true and what’s only an illusion. If we were to grasp this dynamic for what it is, this self we’ve become confused with might cease to persist.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“Remember, mind has no interest in what’s true—its job is to keep you alive while maintaining an identifiable sense of self. To do this, it not only creates and identifies with physical and mental-emotional activities, it also builds on past experience and any previously established conceptual identity. You’re still alive and you’re still you, so mind will naturally protect and promote all the beliefs behind the activities that keep you that way.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“Perhaps one reason we refrain from questioning our own interpretations is that whenever we start to look into how we hold reality, the terrain can start to feel rather slippery. Approaching these matters through our experience rather than just intellectually can greatly simplify our task, but a new challenge arises. The deeper we go in our questioning, the closer we get to confronting the core assumptions that run our lives. Keep in mind that confusion, upset, and other personal resistance are likely to arise as our questioning threatens the very basis of our self image.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“And, if the “programming” (our beliefs) is flawed or the data is incorrect, then false conclusions will show up in place of what’s true. Perceptions will be biased, but will appear to simply reflect reality.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“The mind’s goal is not to get at the truth but to fulfill our needs, and like a computer with very specific programming, the mind’s interpretations are based on what’s already known or believed.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“Once a conceptual identity occupies the place of “self,” this is what we think we are “being.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“Positive or negative, the beliefs we identify with will result in any number of effects that will dominate and shape our lives. In order to be free of these effects, we must free ourselves from our identification with such beliefs. Still, you might respond: “But these so-called ‘beliefs’ are really just assessments, things I’ve actually witnessed in my self. They’re not something I just made up.” Which illustrates my point. We continue to think and act within these patterns—further reinforcing the conviction that they are genuine aspects of ourselves—because we believe they are us. We see them as natural expressions of the way we are, and will defend our right to act them out. Even if we attempt to get free, we’re likely to fall again into being “stupid,” or “superior,” or what have you, since that is what appears to us as true.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“In an example mentioned previously, it’s easy to see that if I believe I’m stupid, then I will probably experience myself as a stupid man dealing with a difficult life. I’ll also likely live with a constant sense of shame as I compare myself to others, and feel extremely limited in what I can do, and this will influence what I will even attempt. I may well cut myself off from learning or entertaining new ways of thinking, since I’ve already accepted that I am incapable. We can imagine the many social and personal consequences that will result from this negative belief, but the same is true with what seem to be positive beliefs.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“Being driven by your beliefs is a very different matter than consciously understanding how it is your beliefs are created and what purpose they serve.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“We discover that the richness of life isn’t all created by people, events, and acquisitions, but by our ability to open up and fully be with whatever is occurring—present in heart, body, mind, and connecting fully with others and with life.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“Our core beliefs simply appear to us as reality.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“Self-survival is the cause of all suffering.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“You are eight years old. It is Sunday evening. You have been granted an extra hour before bed. The family is playing Monopoly. You have been told that you are big enough to join them. You lose. You are losing continuously. Your stomach cramps with fear. Nearly all your possessions are gone. The money pile in front of you is almost gone. Your brothers are snatching all the houses from your streets. The last street is being sold. You have to give in. You have lost. And suddenly you know it is only a game. You jump up with joy and you knock the big lamp over. It falls on the floor and drags the teapot with it. The others are angry with you, but you laugh when you go upstairs. You know you are nothing and know you have nothing. And you know that not-to-be and not-to-have give an immeasurable freedom. —Janwillem van de Wetering”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“The original function of mind is to do a job, the essence of which is to keep you alive and successfully being you.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“When self becomes confused with mind, and mind becomes seen as the self, the mind’s self-serving activities end up creating an experience of reality that is entirely self-referential.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“Whatever we think of as “self” we will protect and maintain. If it’s a conceptual self, and likely it is, then we end up with mind protecting mind.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“when the mind serves “the self” it is actually serving something of its own making—a conceptual self.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“We become attached to our beliefs, to our roles and traits, and also to the strategies needed for maintaining all this. We rarely acknowledge that all our mental, emotional, and perceptual activities are processes, and that they’re there to serve a specific purpose. We’re so busy identifying with mind’s conceptual mechanisms that we lose touch with what’s real. It is not hard to see, then, how self becomes confused with the mind.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“it seems that the conceptual activity that is created to serve the self has become the self.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness

“You don’t get your self mixed up with any other self. Of course, the mind must also protect, maintain, and perpetuate itself—if it gets lost or damaged, it can’t do its job. The mind unceasingly promotes the interests of the one who “possesses” it, and all its mental/emotional activity is calculated to get this one body-mind through every moment of life in the most secure manner it can conceive.”
― Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness