Here’s the central idea. Reality is all in your imagination and it will be whatever you believe it is going to be.
Because we are surrounded by and have been exposed to the opinions and perceptions of lots of other people, our own imagined reality will likely be similar in most ways to everyone else. Noted Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Carl Jung called it the collective unconscious. Jung believed that members of the same species shared certain instincts and archetypes that were programmed into our bio-computer basic operating system. These ideas then affected how we perceived the reality of the world as we added information to the data in the form of memories we would accumulate over a lifetime. The data we accumulate in our early years combined with any basic programming we may have been born with provides the information that allows us to create a “character” who we accept as who we are.
Depending on what we were exposed to in the time since we were born uur beliefs about reality will be different from anyone else – our combination of experiences is unique and therefore our belief about what reality is will be unique. Someone who grows up in an abundant and loving environment will have a very different set of beliefs about reality than someone who grows up in a war and misery filled place on the planet. In either case, their bio-computer brain is simply building a belief in the world of their experience. How they perceive reality will have a big effect on their choices and beliefs about how their future will unfold. Since all beliefs are self-fulfilling prophesies, unless one does something to alter their beliefs, the course of their life will simply follow the same pattern unless some outside force shifts their perspective allowing them to see things in a new way.
Those who accept that the perceptions they have formed are the only way to look at the world, basically go through life like sleep walkers or what can be referred to as being on auto-pilot. They are letting their bio-computer brain totally control their path. As with all computers everything they believe and expect is based on past experience. Therefore anything that their past experience and the appearances of the moment do not indicate as “possible” will not ever be a part of their reality unless at some other level of their being they change their mind.
We have been talking about what Jung referred to as “the collective unconscious”. We would like you to consider that beyond that “self” created by the programming of your basic operating system there is a YOU that is pure consciousness with none of the perceived limitations established by your basic operating system. We would also like you to consider that your consciousness has a direct link to what quantum physics refers to as the “Unified Field”. To continue our computer model we have been using, your “local” consciousness has a direct connection to a unified field that we can call the “cloud”. Like an electronic computer connected to the internet, you have access to virtually unlimited information and possibilities. All the information you need to get anything you want is available to you as long as you have a decent connection to the Unified Field. How do you improve your connection? You are always connected but if it is just the collective unconscious part of you all you are going to get is whatever news and information you have signed up for by default.
When a stranger asked the great spiritual teacher Buddha what made him seem so different from other people he simply said, “I am awake”. To improve your connection to what is really a field of unlimited possibilities you must “wake up” and stop relying on your basic operating system’s auto pilot.
This is not usually an easy thing to do because we have spent years creating this character we believe ourselves to be, playing a part in a story we have imagined into being. It is all very real, it’s just that this is only because we have decided to choose it as our reality. Therein lies the “Paradox of Reality”. As real as it is, it is only real because we have decided it is real. If we choose to look at something in a new way, we will change reality. The point is, when your conscious mind takes the helm you can plot a course to anywhere you want to go creating whatever reality you want for yourself. The reason why people usually think of the path to this realization – which is often referred to as enlightenment – as long and difficult is because your basic operating system has been running the show for so long, it is going to tell you that all this talk about unlimited realities is pure illusion or some kind of religious delusion. So the paradox of reality is that it is real only so long as we believe it is real and when we alter our thinking we can totally change what is real.
There’s your challenge. How can you get on the yellow brick road to enlightenment? I don’t want to get anyone discouraged because I am sure you have had many moments of insight and clarity. Possibly even an experience where for a short time you had an overwhelming sense of oneness with all – combined with a profound sense of peace or joy. Those are the moments when you have established a very direct connection with the unified field. In attempts to label it, people have referred to this field as God or the Source or the Force. The labels are unimportant. The truth of the matter is that it is there and that the energy that is you is a unique and individual part of that field just as each cell in your body is a part of the physical you. In fact, the part of you focused in and animating your physical body is really only a communication link for you with the physical world that you have helped create.
This is a very BIG and even crazy idea for your rather limited bio-computer perception of self to accept. Most of the time your basic operating system perceives itself to be living in a rather hostile environment where its main function is to try and protect you so you stay alive and out of trouble while trying to enjoy yourself. The fact that you can take full control over the design of your personal reality is a very foreign concept. It is also challenging because this means that you are fully responsible for everything that happens in your life. Whatever happens is because you have believed it into being and that is far too much responsibility for your bio-computer brain to accept since it has nothing to work with but past and current experience. If it has not already experienced something it cannot believe in the reality of it. It takes seeing to believing in anything.
And here we are back at the paradox of reality because in reality, you have to believe it before you will see it and yet most people are quite certain that if you can’t see it, you shouldn’t believe in it. That is how the rational mind has been programmed to work.
We had a huge burst of creativity and a shift in how people envisioned reality in the 1960’s during the 20th century. More than ever before people began to insist on their right to determine what kind of life they lived. From civil rights to a sexual revolution people large numbers of people began to resist being told what to do and how to act. Mind-altering substances were a part of this transformation as they opened up new experiences of consciousness and forced many to question the predominant view of reality. It is very clear that psychoactive substances like LSD and marijuana were part of the reason we began to have a paradigm shift in our culture. These substances demonstrated very dramatically for many that reality was very subjective. One minute you could perceive the world one way and moments later you could perceive things in entirely different ways. It was like pulling back a curtain and revealing a greater truth.
If you are going to believe you can take control of shaping your own reality it is key that you realize reality is not a fixed thing separate from your perception of it. You are in fact always shaping your personal reality. The question is again whether you are just running on auto-pilot or are you learning to intentionally pick your experiences.
This brings us to a most important tool on your path to enlightenment. Meditation.
In the next edition of this Designer of Reality series we will try a meditation that will help link the three levels of consciousness we have been discussing.
Sat… Chit… Ananda. Until then, may PositiVibes fill your days and nights with fun and adventure as you open up to being all of who you are. Listen to the podcast version at www.DesignerOfReality.com