Most people assume that the real world is outside, that the way to live life is by contact an external reality, by seeking input, mental or physical, from without.

"Most of us have never considered severing outwards contacts in order to see what happens inside. We would rather explore the far side of the moon or the bottom of the ocean than the hidden depths within ourselves. But in fact the universe exists for each of us only when we experience it with body and mind. It is never elsewhere, it is always here and now. By exploring the here-and-now of ourselves we can explore the world. Unless we investigate the world within we can never know reality – we will only know our beliefs about it, or our intellectual conceptions of it. By observing ourselves, however, we can come to know reality directly and can learn to deal with it in a positive, creative way," says William Hart, the author of The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation.