What Is Real?
Are we living in a mirror? (And was Larry McMurtry wrong?) Bubble Blabber #1
Bubble Blabber: Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5
I once read some non-fiction writing by Larry McMurtry. He was writing about the Lakota people and was giving his opinion on why their “primitive” ways led to their being overthrown by the White People. He talked about their obvious technological inferiority as well as their lack of a domineering hierarchical power structure and the subsequent lack of cohesive organization. The White Man was obviously more advanced in logic and reasoning (and I’ll add, more trapped within the left half of the brain). He then went on to suggest in a rather derogatory fashion that their inferiority was also linked to their “primitive” spirituality.
Really?
He correctly noted that the Lakota believed that the physical world is NOT the real world; that it is merely a mirror reflection of the real world — the real world being the unseen, formless, non-physical world. McMurtry presented this as a fallacy in relation to the White Man’s superior view of the physical world as the one and only real world and “man’s” reasoning and logic and intellect as the culminating power to experience that one and only real world. He then went on to surmise that perhaps the Lakota’s inferior spirituality arose from having lived on the Great Plains for so many hundreds of years; an endlessly flat land with not much to look at and therefore conducive to producing mirages.
I put the book down and laughed. It was a sad laugh. I really wanted to cry.
The nice thing about reading that is that it so clearly pointed out the very rigid box of perception so many people are trapped within. It showed the perceptual limits we must go beyond. Being written from within that box, it did not show the incredible possibilities for transformation available once we break out of that box. Perhaps I will try to do that. In my opinion, we can learn a lot from the Lakota.
I invite everyone to momentarily step out of that rigid box of perception…. just for fun. Think of it as a game. Imagine the “real” physical 3-D world as simply being a reflection of a different “real” world. Imagine the real world to be the unseen, non-physical, formless world. Imagine that as being the real world and imagine the physical 3-D world as merely being a reflection of the non-physical world. Can you see and feel that?
We are born into a seemingly physical world and we are conditioned from birth to believe that it is the real world and everything else that is not physical is not real. We are taught repeatedly that if something cannot be quantified, if it cannot be perceived by our senses and interpreted by the left side of our brain that it is not real. If science cannot prove it, it is not real. If it cannot be weighed, measured, touched and photographed then it is not real.
What if everything that we’ve been taught that is real is really an illusion and everything that we cannot perceive with our senses and the scientific reasoning left half of our brain is actually what is real? How can we even begin to entertain such a notion when we have been taught throughout our lives to only believe that which is physical? How can a gigantic boulder sitting in the middle of the room, with all its weight and obvious reality be an illusion and something that we cannot see, measure or quantify in any scientific way be seen as real? It seems so backwards.
Isn’t that the nature of mirrors? Everything is reversed in a mirror. Have we been somehow led to believe that what we see in the mirror is real and what we cannot see is not?
Of course, we cannot see what we are except in a mirror. Is that what this physical reality is all about? A chance to see who we are? Is this reality a mirror?
But did we get lost in that mirror image? Can we no longer FEEL who we are and instead see the mirror image as our identity? Have we stepped into the mirror and in the process stepped out of who we are? Do we have it all backwards?
Can you see it from both sides?
Perhaps our 3-D physical world is not as physical and dense at it appears. Science is even starting to validate this for us. Let us look at the tiny atom. It has electrons and protons and stuff but between that stuff is a whole lot of empty space. Atoms aren’t very solid at all. They are mostly empty space and if physical objects are made of atoms then they consist of a whole lot of empty space.
That space seems empty because there is nothing in it that we can quantify. We can’t see anything so how can there be anything in that space? That is how we react to the unseen, formless, non-physical reality which the Lakota called the real world which our physical world was mirroring. We see nothing. But could that seemingly empty space contain something? If so, what could it be?
Could it be consciousness? Could it be unconditional love perhaps?
Imagine the unseen, formless, non-physical world to be an infinite field of unlimited consciousness and unconditional love. In that emptiness is All That Is. Every possibility that could possibly exist, exists un-manifested in that infinite field of consciousness. So how can any of that consciousness manifest and therefore become aware of itself? What do we do when we want to know what we look like? We look in a mirror. So that consciousness must construct a mirror in which to look in and see what the consciousness looks like manifested. To create a seemingly physical mirror out of formless consciousness there are two main ingredients needed…. time and space.
In the infinite field of unlimited consciousness and unconditional love there is no time. Everything is simultaneous. Since it is formless, there is no space. The field exists everywhere and nowhere. So by creating the illusion of time and space a holographic reality can be created that appears physical. As waves of consciousness pass through this hologram they are turned into particles which gives that consciousness a temporary physical appearance. In this way consciousness gets to see itself. It’s a way of looking in the mirror.
So we could say that we are unlimited consciousness and unconditional love looking at itself in the mirror. We are a temporary illusory physical manifestation of All That Is. We have stepped into the mirror and are playing with the infinite field of creative possibilities. The problem is that we got stuck in the mirror and felt suddenly separate from the unlimited consciousness and unconditional love that we are a reflection of. We felt cut off and as our focus closed down within the mirror we lost awareness of the unseen real world and we started thinking that what was in the mirror was the only real world. This separation, this feeling of being cut off, is the root of all suffering.
As we evolved within the framework of illusory time we have been able to fully experience the manifestation of consciousness and the illusion of separation was utterly crucial for this to happen. It seemed terrible because of all the suffering it caused but that suffering is what drove the evolution onward through that illusory time, leading to a point where the awareness of the consciousness that we are, remembered and realized that it is merely a reflection of All That Is. That it is All That Is.
Humankind has been on a seemingly long arduous path of evolution and awakening. We are finally getting close to a point where that original separation is healed as our awareness expands beyond it, reconnecting to that which we are a reflection of. We have always had a deep inner knowing of that connection (called one-ness) but we could not fully experience it and realize it until we had first gone through the entire process of separation. So that “real world” of unseen, formless, non-physical unlimited consciousness and unlimited unconditional love has always seemed separate, beyond our grasp. Spiritual systems arose through time that tried to explain that unseen world but it was always explained as separate and greater than us. To make it seem real we gave it human features. We called it God and gave God a penis as well as human emotions such as anger and vengeance. While this sparked that deep knowing a little bit, it only helped to further maintain the illusion of separation.
Then came all the new age spiritual systems that talked of creating our own reality through our thoughts and emotions and intentions. This has helped to move us further along the evolutionary trajectory but, for the most part, these systems are still talking about creating our realities WITHIN THE MIRROR. We can use our thoughts to rearrange our reality within the mirror all day long. It can be fun and empowering but it does not fully heal the separation and re-establish our connection with the “real” unseen world that, according to the Lakota, we are merely a reflection of.
There is a more advanced form of creating one’s own reality that is the next evolutionary step on our path through illusory time. And that is called…. surrender. You may ask how in the bloody hell can we create anything by surrendering. Well, I’m glad you asked because that is what I will attempt to explain in subsequent posts. I wish there was a better word than surrender. The Lakota probably had a good word for it but I don’t speak much Lakota. Sadly, the word is heaped with negative connotations and we must get beyond all that to learn how surrender can lead to a whole new way of creating our reality…. how surrender brings together the seen and unseen worlds and in the process heals the affliction of separation. That is when creating your own reality takes on a whole new meaning. Everything else will seem like silly child’s play.
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