The Nature of Reality

Reality is a word that I can hardly understand any longer in its singular form. There is no such thing as a singular realty really. Each person has their own perception of their very own reality, at any given moment in time. (some experience even more than one reality at any given moment). This becomes confusing very quickly and I have only my own experiences and this language which is based on polarity to express it with. If I really dove into my own reality and would try to express it as accurately as possible, I'd probably would look very goofy, gesticulating and uttering unconnected words and hoping that whoever I was expressing it for would just "get" it anyways. Yes, it's that hard. Words alone have a really hard time grasping the essence of one's reality, and so does the logical mind. There is so much more involved than thought. The individual experience one's reality ranges form the various perceptions through the 5 senses, sometimes extra-sensory perceptions (meaning sensory perceptions of the "extra - outside of the 5 senses" kind) to the emotions that this causes, to the trained beliefs which are mainly thought forms to the innermost sensations that cannot be expressed logically anymore - you know that's when the gesticulating begins.

To sum it up, for each experience we have:
1. Sensory input
2. Thoughts
3. Emotions
4. Sensations

I've been asking myself: "How can I ever hope to understand this?" The easiest way for me is by becoming an unprejudiced observer. That notion also comes from my profession as a homeopath and is borrowed from Dr. Samuel Hahnemann. (Hi Sam, how's it going?) To be an unprejudiced observer means to just observe what IS. Without judging it, without any preconceived idea, belief, notion of that which is observed. That's way easier said than done, but it is possible to train such a thing, by trying very hard every day, every chance you get and feel drawn to it - to just observe. To let the impressions of the observation be what they are - impressions, without arriving to any logical conclusions about them.

At the base of this seemingly impossible task lies the humbling admission that everything I perceive, even those things that I try to just observe without prejudice, seep through a filter, my own lens so to speak, through which I look out at the world. Every human being has such a lens, such a filter. It is dense and distorts the perceptions, or it is a bit looser and allows for more clearer views of what's going on - I have the suspicion that this lens through which we view and experience the world is here to stay. That means that I'm not drawn to the idea to make the lens go away. I see it as part of how we experience our own realities - and furthermore how we can consciously create our realities that we experience.

(Be patient, that's for a later post ....I know I will talk about conscious co-creation down the line...it's in there in my head...)

Anyways, we got this lens and it is coated with our individual beliefs and experiences and through this lens we keep experiencing similar realities day in and day out. This in turn reinforces our beliefs and experiences and renews the coating on the lens ... and so on ...you get the drift!....

I mentioned that I do not believe that making the lens go away is where it's at - Instead, observing oneself and knowing what the lens is all about, what the coating is all about is more likely to be productive in ways of "enlightenment" (which  means nothing more than to achieve greater awareness and that we certainly can do by observing our own reality).
I thus have taken to observing pretty much everything that I experience and I have noticed certain recurring themes, trends so to speak. Some are crass and blatant - others more subtle. Some are easily traced to that one experience in elementary school for example, others tag right into the indoctrination received at Sunday school... I am certain each person has their own little bag of things they carry along (memories, remarkable incidents, indoctrinations, repetitive "talking to's" etc.). Those are the causative factors for the coating on one's lens.

It is a first step to learn to recognize the coating, link it to a likely causative event/moment and then be aware of it, for when the next reaction to a specific situation is just one more repetition (how boring really!) of how you felt when you were 10 yrs old. If it keeps happening and you observe yourself reacting with the same emotions/behaviors each time, then it is probably time to do something about it, unless you enjoy reacting as a 10 yr old would every time your reality presents you with yet another opportunity to clean your lens. For that it does - over and over and over again, we experience certain things that trigger a certain reaction. The situation which triggers us is very seldom the cause of our irritation - it is but the Universe's unending patience (yeah they got no linear time, so it's easy to be patient!) and grace to give us again and again the opportunities needed to clear the problem. (and then, since we've done such a good job, to go on to the next irritant.)

The reality around us is not only our creation, but also our mirror. Through observation of the individual reality (just a fancy word for "your very own experience of everyday life") we do look into a mirror and can begin to see the coating (quirks, idiosyncracies) of our lens - first a bit muddled but I promise it does get clearer the more one applies the simple principles I'm trying to explain.