<aside> 💡 Buckle in, friend—this is the most theory-heavy section of this entire course.

Be patient and allow your first exposure to these ideas to go somewhat over your head.

Post questions on the Discord, and bring deeper ones to our call on Friday.

</aside>

The image above may remind you of a famous pyramid from psychology: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

If you're not familiar with Maslow, don't worry—all you need to know is that my pyramid is essentially a 180-degree flip on Maslow’s (which places biology at the bottom and “self actualization” at the top).

In my pyramid, biology is at the top. But why?

Placing biology at the base of the pyramid makes the physical organism primary and everything else about your experience (emotions, psychology etc.) dependent on that foundation.

There are two problems with this—

1. Science has yet to discover a shred of evidence that awareness is generated by your physical organism
2. There's no basis for that assumption in your direct experience

And yet we're all taught to assume that this is so: to believe that the brain generates awareness.

Now, I'm not going to act like some kind of prophet and tell you that the opposite is true. I'm only going to encourage you to look to something else for evidence of how things are: your direct experience.

In your direct experience, does awareness appear within your body? Or does your body appear within awareness?

That question is so important, I'm going to write it again...

In your direct experience, does awareness appear within your body? Or does your body appear within awareness?

Hundreds of millions of practitioners have contemplated questions like this one for years of their lives. But last week I gave you the shortcut in the form of the introduction to natural wellbeing.

A Thought Experiment

Consider your left elbow.

Were you considering it a moment ago? Probably not.