To create a happier world, we must first understand how reality works.
We then come to understand our power and the ability we have to change our own lives and the world we live in for the better.
So let us start there.
Background
Loosely defined, reality is all of creation. It includes what we can perceive with our senses and our conscious awareness, as well as everything that extends beyond this.
There are two elements to reality, based on how we perceive it (but as we will see further on, there is no such distinction in truth and both terms describe the same thing): they are the physical and the non-physical.
We could use other labels such as ‘the seen and the unseen’ or ‘the hardware and the software’ to clarify this difference. From these, we understand that the former is ‘hard’ and ‘solid’, while the latter is ‘soft’ and ‘fluid.’
Physical reality is the reality we’re most comfortable with. It’s the one we perceive with our five senses and mainly regard as ‘reality.’ This reality is slow-moving, dense and therefore slow to change.
Non-physical reality includes everything else. It is fast-moving, fluid and therefore quick to change.
It includes the mental: our thoughts, feelings, emotions, ideas, beliefs, attitudes and everything non-physical which makes up our inner world.
It also includes other non-physical phenomena that extend beyond our inner world into the outer world and cosmos.
These include forces and forms of energy that we’re unable to perceive directly through our senses, such as magnetism, gravity, electro-magnetic radiation (such as ultra-violet radiation etc.); other dimensions; dark matter, dark energy and so on.
These also include forces and phenomena that modern empirical science is yet unaware of or incapable of measuring with the instruments currently available to us (remember: not very long ago, science wasn’t aware of the existence of x-rays).
I will use the terms ‘metaphysical’, ‘spiritual’ and ‘the Divine’ to refer to all of these phenomena. This is a matter of personal convenience (as these are the terms I’ve come to associate with such phenomena). But they might be the most suitable, given what we’re dealing with here.
A Simplified Version of Reality
Physical reality is said to be formed of matter. Matter is said to be made up of atoms. Atoms, in turn, are made up of sub-atomic particles such as protons and electrons. These, in turn, are made up of smaller parts such as quarks and bosuns… until we get to fuzzy packets of energy that are flickering in a vacuum.
Here’s where I’ll have to part ways with science (One, because I am not sure where science goes from here and two, because I suspect science hasn’t fully caught up with what spirituality has taught throughout the ages. No disrespect intended. Just stating my honest position on the matter.).
My understanding (from reading authors such as Lynn McTaggart) is that this vacuum is not ’empty.’ It is an ocean of consciousness (and potential energy).
I also believe that these packets of energy are consciousness, slowed down and concentrated.
Consciousness creates everything and so, it can create energy and energy can create atoms and forces beyond.
While we’re on the subject, how does an atom know whether it will accept or repel an electron? Maybe it’s because it possesses a basic form of ‘consciousness’! : )
This could be why native American and other cultures regarded everything (including inanimate items such as rocks) as being conscious.
To simplify and tie it all together, this is how I’ve come to understand it:
Reality = Consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is the lowest common denominator and the most basic building block of all creation and existence.
We are consciousness, perceiving a conscious universe.
But our power is not limited to perception alone.
We can (and do) influence what we are perceiving. And we also have the power to create new things that never existed before.
The One Consciousness
Spiritual traditions teach that there is only one Consciousness and that each of us is having the illusion of being a distinct point of awareness within this Consciousness.
We are the waves in the ocean that have forgotten that we are the ocean.
We are the thing that is creating the thing that it is perceiving.
We are all of the ‘its,’ although we perceive these things as being separate from each other and from us.
And our perception of the thing we are perceiving influences the very thing that we are perceiving.
If you replace the word consciousness with ‘God’ or ‘Spirit’ it might help you grasp the idea more clearly.
You are Spirit having a physical experience in a conscious, Spiritual universe.
You are an aspect of God-consciousness having a physical experience in a Divine universe.
Same Thing in Different States
Consciousness is to reality as hydrogen and oxygen are to steam, water and ice.
The same thing that exists as an etheric, nebulous, gas can solidify into a flowing liquid, which can further solidify into rigid physical form.
It’s the same thing existing in different states. And so it is with consciousness.
It can be pure awareness, thought, intention, energy and ultimately, physical matter.
Inner World, Outer World
Ultimately, our outer world is a projection of our inner world, which is why so many spiritual and metaphysical teachers have taught that our inner reality creates our outer reality.
This makes it very clear that the best place to start changing our outer reality is by changing our inner reality–our state of consciousness, our thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and feelings.
Everything is Connected
Since we, and all of creation, are part of the One Consciousness, we are all connected to each other and everything else. And so, we are constantly affecting all of creation in every moment, with our thoughts, feelings and emotions.
The Juicy Part
There are three things that every human being needs to understand, which will help them to see reality correctly, so they will understand their power to properly influence it, both at an individual and collective level:
- The unseen/non-physical part of reality is the larger part of reality by far. From my understanding, the non-physical makes up to 99% of physical reality.
- Physical reality is composed of non-physical reality. Not only does the non-physical feed into and influence the physical, it also forms the building blocks from which the physical is made.
- To change our outer world, we must first change our inner world.
Point 3 is the kicker.
When most of us want to change our (physical) reality, we engage with it exclusively at the physical level.
We put 99% of our time, energy and effort hoping to affect the 1% of reality that is physical.
Not only is it inefficient (the word exhausting comes to mind), but if we don’t change the consciousness aspect (our thinking), the changes/results will not even last.
Think of all the lottery winners who go broke soon after winning, or of someone who loses a lot of weight only to put it back on later.
Their outer world changed but there inner world didn’t. So they couldn’t sustain their new state.
We almost never address or engage with the 99% of reality that is non-physical. And so we struggle and fail.
We need to change this around. We have to evolve from our Human 1.0 mentality of struggle to the Human 2.0 state of ease that we’re all so very capable of.
I need to change. You need to change. We all need to change.
Because we can achieve so much more and with far less effort when we do so.
And since we’re all connected, when we change, we also change everything else.
That’s evolution. That’s Human 2.0.
In coming posts, I will share the ways in which I believe we can work on the non-physical side of things, to get better results–and faster!
Disclaimer: This is such a huge topic and tackling it is daunting to say the least, but my aim here was to present a simple model that we can work with, which is based on my limited understanding.
I hope you still found it helpful.
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