Anger snarls in your belly, throbbing and pulsing thoughts of hatred in your head. You lash out, blinded in rage and unconcerned with consequences.

You heart swells with pride, as self righteousness sails aloft in your mind. Your voice goes on overdrive, so sure in its telling of such and nonesuch.

There's no doubt these strong aspects of experience seem big enough to be the totality of your existence. But how does your left big toe integrate into these limited aspects of human expression? What about your right kneecap? Does your chin play any part? How about your eyelashes?

The commonly accepted notion that aspects of our experience emanate from specific locations in the body belies the fact that these aspects are not the totality of our experience. We can sense that our thoughts seem to occur in our heads. But just as the eyeball cannot see itself, WHO or WHAT can sense the location of thoughts? We can sense that pride seems to swell from the heart. But WHO or WHAT is sensing that? We can feel anger and range bubbling up from a knot in our midsections.

Let's just call that WHO or WHAT the observer. The observer knows that you don't think with your big toe. The observer knows that you are not what you think.

The observer is concerned with developing awareness and building innate knowledge or wisdom. The observer is perhaps the one who learns the lesson when we make mistakes. The observer has the power to integrate our whole experience with an attitude of peaceful acceptance. The observer has no agenda other than to watch and learn.

It is from the perspective of the observer that actions of violence and pride begin to look petty and monotonous.

We are maturing as a species, developing the observer's speed and influence in our lives. As we continue to check in more and more with the observer to guide our actions, just as we typically check in with our thoughts and feelings, we will more and more avoid actions that repeat lessons we have already learned. And our actions will reflect the totality of our needs and the needs of others to greater and greater depth.