WHAT IS REALLY REALITY?

Our understanding of reality is always up for discussion. You could even say that, in some sense, everyone is incorrect - not because what we see is necessarily false, but because we are defining reality from a partial truth. We cannot see the whole of reality while looking through our lens that is constantly trying to define it.

Imagine all of reality as one humongous pie. We take one slice from it and say, “This is my reality.” But that is only reality from where we are standing within it. After all, it is nowhere near the whole of it. So much so that two people in the same situation can and often do experience two very different realities. Neither are wrong or right (though they will usually claim otherwise).

The whole reality pie contains limitless possibilities: all that we call good and bad, pleasant and painful, wanted and unwanted. What we experience is part of reality whether we like the experience or not. The difficulty begins when we look through our subjective lens and judge what should or should not be there.

I don't like this. They are wrong. I want that. This is not fair. This is good. And "that" is bad.

Most of us have clarified our own little slice of reality and live entirely within it. Issues arise when we determine that everyone else should be living to the ideals of which we’ve attached our identities. Much of our suffering stems from expectations and from refusing to acknowledge the rest of the pie – which is the WHOLE reality - that is immeasurable and unlimited.

Take love for example. One may define their experience of love as one enjoys a delectable dessert. Another says it is the adoration of their child. Someone else relates it to a fulfilling relationship. But also true is, love doesn't always feel good, and that doesn't mean love is absent. It may be every bit as present in grief, loss, or uncertainty as it is in joy, beauty and ease.

The catch is the lens through which we interpret what is happening. Because we live so much of our lives intellectually, we continually define reality from the portion we can see rather than recognizing how much of the whole remains beyond our perception.

When one recognizes it may be time to broaden their perspective and tolerance for everyone’s everything, another doorway is revealed:

Who am I when I am no longer cling to who I have believed myself to be within that reality? If you’ve aligned yourself with parameters that qualify who you are, what you do, how you are of value, you are being offered a moment to consider how much your definitions retain your identity. That is the slice of reality pie you’ve served yourself. Yet reality itself is vastly larger than any thought, word, belief or definition that could be placed around it.

The Snow Globe

Another way to imagine this is as a snow globe. Picture yourself as the little figure sitting quietly in the center of the globe. If no one shakes it, everything is still. The snow settles. From that stillness, you can see the entire scene inside the globe, and you can even see through the glass to what exists beyond it.

In this serene, still state, you can easily recognize where you are.

But shake the globe, and suddenly everything becomes cloudy. Snow is moving everywhere. Your vision becomes limited to whatever is swirling immediately in front of you. You can no longer see clearly beyond the glass.

Our lives can become very much like that shaken snow globe.

We have wants. We have desires. We have responsibilities. We have places to go and things to accomplish. Unforeseen problems arise. Our minds are continually moving, evaluating, planning, remembering, anticipating and defining. The globe rarely stops shaking.

And when the snow is constantly swirling, we lose our ability to see beyond what is directly in front of us. We see the immediate problem, thought, emotion, desire or circumstance rather than the larger reality surrounding it. But in all of that movement is something much simpler.

We are simply the formless awareness sitting in the middle of the circle.

Call it consciousness Or awareness. You might call it the original spark of love.

When the movement settles and we become still enough, we can see through the glass again. We can witness what is happening without immediately needing to define it, control it or make it mean something about who we are. Life will keep happening, no doubt!

Ideally, the goal then becomes less about escaping the snow globe and more about learning how to remain still within it.

How still can I become?

How often can I recognize when the snow is swirling?

What practices initially help me return to that place?

Do I need silence? Meditation? Music? Nature? Or just a moment?

Can I eventually move through my daily life with open eyes, naturally interacting with the world, while maintaining the awareness that sees beyond the immediate blinding swirls? p.s. the answer is "yes".

My intention behind spiritual practice is: not withdrawing from life, but learning to walk through life with eyes that can see beyond the blizzard in the globe.

Life can still move, be it rhythmically or erratically. We simply stop mistaking what is swirling immediately in front of us for the whole entirety of reality. The goal isn't to stop the snow from moving; it's to stop believing the snow is all there is.

Do not align yourself with an identity but align yourself with the experience that the Expression that you are is here to have. That means being willing to surrender and ask “What is life experiencing through me right now?” as opposed to “What is happening to me?”

How Do We Live This?

All of this leaves us with a practical question: How can I actually live this way? It is a simple idea that begins with the question: Was I love in the world today?

Who did you love? Did they know it? Did they feel it? Was the love you offered actually authentic? With no expectations or reciprocation offered?

As you ask yourself those questions, you begin recognizing that deeper spark within you: the part beneath the identities, definitions, expectations and intellectual analysis. When you become more familiar with that place, some of the other noise begins to fall away.

Another way of thinking about this is through the spiritual gaze.

The Spiritual Gaze

The spiritual gaze looks at life from the recognition of what we are beneath all of our accumulated lenses. Instead of immediately engaging through our conditioning, fears, expectations and preferences, we honestly attempt to look at it from the authentic self (some traditions call this the Higher Self, Higher Consciousness, Inner Being, Inner Wisdom, Witness Consciousness, Atman, Oversoul, God Self, and many other names depending on culture and tradition).

If one already accepts that their very existence is comprised of multiple layers, this will be simple to comprehend. It is the difference between asking the intellect to analyze everything and becoming quiet enough to recognize what feels true moving through you.

Even something as ordinary as choosing what to eat can illustrate this. Standing between the pizza and the salad, we can analyze nutritional theories, rules and everything we've been told we should do. Or we can become quiet for a moment and notice what the body and deeper awareness are actually communicating to us, through us.

The practice, then, isn't about hyper analyzing every decision. It's about learning to return to that place of stillness.

Can you sit in a space of love for a few minutes?

Can you temporarily unzip the costume of who you believe you are?

Can you remove the lens that has reduced reality in to your particular slice of the circle?

Can you allow the snow in your globe to settle long enough to see beyond it?

And once you've experienced this - even briefly - you cannot go back to believing otherwise again. Not really. So then, the question becomes: How often are you willing to return to this higher essence that is also you? Do you believe yourself to be worthy of that peaceful knowing that awaits you?

Perhaps it's in meditation or your flow zone of choice. Perhaps it's while you're working or when you are talking with someone you love. It might arise while standing in line at the grocery store. Or perhaps your real spiritual practice appears when someone leaves the cap off the toothpaste and you can feel yourself about to lose your patience.

Can you remember love then?

Those seemingly insignificant moments is where the practice becomes real.

Life continually presents opportunities to choose which place within ourselves we will respond from. We simply move so quickly that we often don't recognize them. We become caught in the swirling snow - the task, the irritation, the judgment, the fear, the thing that needs to happen next - and temporarily forget the awareness sitting quietly beneath it all.

Really, we don't need another elaborate recipe telling us exactly how to wake up, move through our day and go to bed spiritually “correct.” We only need to ask one question:

At the end of the day, look into the mirror and ask, “Was I love in the world today?”

Sometimes the answer will be yes. Sometimes we'll recognize a moment when we missed it. And that's okay. Tomorrow gives us another opportunity. Another person, another irritation. Another conversation, another choice. Endless opportunities for as long as we are breathing.

Another chance to allow the snow to settle, see beyond our little slice of reality, and remember what is beneath the costume.

Were you love in the world today?

When someone has temporarily forgotten the love within themselves, one of the most meaningful things we can do is allow them to encounter it through us.

I will try to be the love in which they do not recognize within themselves.

Sometimes another person remembers something about themselves because of what they encounter in us. And that is how we can walk one another home again.

Contact

janice@revealalchemizeheal.com
903.821.6683