Jan

A Reality of Spirit

Article by nickO | Filed Under Articles, Spirituality, truth

Understanding Our Reality

Reality with a big “R” is what I mean to represent the Truth that exists regardless of what we may believe or currently know. Reality with a little “r” is what I mean to represent our current definitions of it, and our current beliefs about it. One of the greatest struggles that seems to be playing itself out in the minds and lives of human beings today is the struggle between our desire to live within our self-defined realities, which we are comfortable with, and our genuine desire to pursue Reality, where we are faced to confront and challenge what we believe to be true. Truth with a big “T” versus truth with a little “t” I use in the same way.

One of the greatest needs that we as individuals and as a society have is the need for meaning and purpose. The idea that our existence holds no ultimate purpose or meaning, and that we will eventually return to the oblivion and nothingness from whence we came, is in direct conflict with the very essence of our being, and the very essence of who and what we are. This understanding of our reality has not come from genuine study or knowledge of Reality, but from assumptions we have made due to common experiences resulting from our common perceptions of Reality. In order to truly state the Truth concerning the nature of Reality, we must find the gaps in our knowledge base that we have filled with assumptions, or ego-defined realities, and replace them with knowledge gained from direct experience of that Truth.

Foundation

Our most immediate experience of existence comes in the form of our awareness, or our consciousness of being. What our awareness becomes aware of become/are the perceptions we use to begin to define who we are and what this Reality is. The so-called empirical or rational methods of understanding our reality that make up most of mainstream scientific thinking today can never lead one to understand/experience the more ultimate Truths concerning Reality. They are however, very helpful for defining our reality within the boundaries of certain parameters. The most common parameters that we use to define our reality, and those that form the basis for mainstream scientific thought, are our physical perceptions, or the information that is passed to us through our five senses. However, what we experience through the use of our five senses is a perception of Reality, and is not the more ultimate Truth concerning that which appears before us. When we make the mistake of assuming that what we perceive is Truth, we begin to impose upon to Reality our own ego-defined realities, and in so doing cut ourselves off from the Truth we were originally seeking.

The very substance that forms the basis for our understanding of the physical, or any other reality, energy, cannot be truly understood through any faculty of observation, save for indirectly. What mainstream scientific thinking has done is to give name to the relative forms and interactions that energy can be observed in. The very “stuff” itself cannot truly be described except in these relative terms. What energy is, rather than in what form/interaction with itself it appears, is a necessary question to ask when in pursuit of Reality. What it is is not possible to directly describe. However, even though we may lack the ability to ultimately define energy, we are it, and it is well within our ability to experience what is beyond the ability of words to describe, or rationality/intellect to fully define/comprehend. This same concept can be illustrated in our understanding and experience of love. People have been making songs, writing about, and trying to explain the feeling of love for thousands of years, but no one has yet come to one ultimate definition of it! Even when someone explains it to you, you can only truly understand if you have shared the experience, because it is through its direct experience that it reveals its greater Truth. It is the same with the Reality that is, as opposed to the reality we have defined/created for ourselves. The Truth that it holds is revealed through direct experience of it.

Attempting to define Reality through the use of observation is not a “bad” thing, but simply the beginning of the journey of understanding the Self, which is to say, the Reality of who we are and what this existence is. However, it becomes a negative thing when it is influenced by our selfish impulse, or our desire to create and live within a reality of our own definition as opposed to allowing ourselves to become aware of what is.

Faith

From our assumptions concerning the truth about what we perceive, we build the conceptual framework for our reality. The idea that our existence is by chance and ultimately meaningless, can only form within an ego-defined reality, which is to say, it can only from out of ignorance of the Truth nature of that which appears before us. But how are we supposed to get to Reality, if what we commonly understand about it is the result of a perception of it, rather than knowledge of what it is? Opening ourselves up to experience the Truth of Reality for ourselves, is about rising to higher and higher levels of awareness, or consciousness. It is through higher levels of perception/awareness/consciousness that Truth can be experienced and understood, rather than through defining our realities within the confines of a relative perception. However, in order to see how our awareness, which is our ability to perceive itself, affects our understanding and conceptualization of our reality, which in turn affects what we perceive, we need to understand how it is that attempting to define our reality within the context of an ego-illusion cuts us off from Truth and Reality.

Our ego-illusions are those conceptualizations of Reality that we have developed as a result of our lack of knowledge about what is, and our ignorance of the distinction between perception and Reality. Essentially, they are assumptions that we make, out of ignorance, about what is true and what is not true about who we are and what this Reality is. Our beliefs concerning the nature of Reality play a huge role in determining what experiences we allow into our conscious awareness. Believing something should never be held as a goal unto itself, because doing so effectively ceases your pursuit of Truth, as you say to yourself “I have found the ultimate”. Our ego-defined realities are like beliefs that we hold as goals unto themselves—we stop our pursuit of Truth because we believe we have found it, which may or may not be true. However, depending on what you believe it can facilitate your pursuit of something.

This is why, in scientific terms, a theory is not said to prove something as true but rather to support the belief that it is true, regardless of how much evidence there is. Depending on what we believe about our reality we develop particular conceptualizations of it, and these conceptualizations are the filters through which we train our minds to perceive accordingly, which then results in a particular experience/awareness. In order to truly understand/experience Reality, as opposed to our current ego-defined reality, we have to overcome a barrier in our ability to do so. We have to overcome the limitations of an understanding of Reality formed within the context of an ego-illusion—we must overcome the limitations of our own perceptions. It is in overcoming the limitations of perception that allows the direct experience/understanding of Truth into one’s awareness.

Mainstream science as it exists today cannot truly understand Reality save for within the boundaries of certain parameters. This is where true spirituality, or an examination and exploration of one’s own experience of consciousness/being, comes in to bridge the gap. You might say that typical mainstream science is the science of observation, and that spirituality is the science of participation, which crosses a barrier that pure observation does not have the ability to overcome. We are energy, the indefinable “stuff” that makes up Reality, and our experience of ourselves takes place in our consciousness. Our experience of consciousness itself is our connection to the Reality of who and what we are, what energy is, as well as what this Reality is. All genuine spiritual practice is designed to help one transcend her/his understanding and experience of her/himself and Reality as something purely physical. Rising to higher levels of consciousness/awareness overcomes the physical perception by allowing back into your perception those parts of yourself and Reality that we have trained ourselves not to be aware of—the Truth that we have forgotten.

The ideological battle taking place between mainstream scientific thinking and institutionalized religion does not to me represent a battle between those seeking Reality and those living in their own reality. I don’t believe that either side of the argument can truly overcome the other, because both contain a seed of Truth. The scientific side the argument is something like, “But how can you deny the Reality that is right in front of you, free of bias and regardless of what you believe?” The religious side the argument is something like, “But how can you deny this experience that I cannot explain?” Each side of the argument, in an attempt to defeat the other, has almost lost its ability to understand Truth by ignoring the knowledge gained from the spiritual component of our being, although both contain some measure of this knowledge/experience. Both sides have fallen victim to “religious” thinking, which is to say, a way of thinking that seeks to hold on to what is familiar to it, and in so doing cuts itself off from Truth. The Truth that can be found in all religious teaching, that exists as/in the experiential component of the teachings, has for the most part been lost to dogmatic ways of thinking. The Truth that scientific ways of thinking has the ability to lead one to has for the most part been lost as the intrusions of our own ego skew the very essence of what it means to examine Reality. In both cases, although the respective bodies of knowledge the two disciplines draw from are different, superficial appearances and ego-defined realities have taken the place of Truth.

Knowledge

Spirituality, or the self-exploration of one’s own experience of being/consciousness, must be allowed back into the equation if we are ever to understand the Truth about what this Reality is, or what our place is in it. Our experience of ourselves and this Reality as something physical is the result of a perception, and it is not the Truth concerning the Reality of who or what we are.

How does spirituality bridge the gap between reality and Reality, just what does spirituality entail, and how does that lead to any new knowledge, understanding, or experience? What spiritual practice is, is any practice which helps to open you up to higher levels of awareness and consciousness, which is to say, any practice that helps dispel the ego-defined realities we allow to dictate our behavior, which then allows an awareness/knowledge of Truth back into our experience of consciousness. One of the most important components of any spiritual practice is the struggle to transform one’s selfish impulses into selfless impulses. It is our selfishness that keeps us confined to an understanding of Reality that is based in illusion rather than Truth, because all selfish actions have their underlying basis in ignorance. We are usually selfish because at some level we are afraid of something, and we are afraid because we are ignorant of Truth. I believe that the source of much of our fear comes from our anxiety about dealing with deeper questions concerning whether or not there is meaning in our existence, or whether or not we truly have a purpose for existing. We quest for pleasure and/or power to help distract ourselves from having to deal with these questions, which rise up in us during periods of silence. But once again, the notion that our existence has no meaning or purpose has not come from the study of Reality, but from the assumptions we have made as a result of our common perception of it. The notion that the physicality we perceive is an “illusion” does not mean that our perception of it does not constitute a genuine experience, but rather that it is not the more ultimate Truth concerning the nature of who/what we are or what this Reality is. Just like any magic trick, if we did not know it was an illusion we would accept it as real, even though there is more going on behind the scenes than we would be aware of.

Truly seeking and discovering Reality breaks down our conceptualizations of Reality that are the result of ego-based assumptions. Spiritual practice, which overcomes the limitations of an understanding of Reality gained from pure observation, breaks the cycle of creating and living within an understanding of Reality that is ego-based. When our conceptualizations begin to change, we allow new experiences back into our experience of being, or our consciousness. When we engage in spiritual practice, we allow the Truth concerning the nature of this Reality into our knowledge/understanding/experience of it. Truth can only be gained, and Reality can only be truly understood, through direct experience.

If the Creator exists, then it must be through an examination of Reality that knowledge/awareness/experience of It comes. So it is. What is important to remember is that our understanding of our reality as something physical is based in our perception of it as such. Knowledge of the Creator must come from an understanding of Reality that has transcended the limitations of perception. Spiritual practice helps one to do just that.

Tags: reality, science, Spirituality