More Subjective Reality Q&A

The questions on Subjective Reality keep rolling in, so here’s a bit more Q&A on this topic. These questions will cover my personal experience with this belief system.

What is your personal experience with the subjective reality belief system?

I started learning about it in early 2005 while I was reading about consciousness. One day I was having lunch in my backyard and watching some birds. I tried to imagine what it would be like to perceive the world through the lens of non-localized consciousness. Just then I felt my sense of consciousness expand. I instantly understood that the wall in front of me was just as much “me” as my physical body was. My consciousness was no longer localized — suddenly it was everywhere. I had an intense surge of positive emotion, but it was so overwhelming that it knocked me out of that state, so the whole experience only lasted a few seconds. It was like the first time I had a lucid dream — I got so excited that I immediately fell out of the dream state. And no… I don’t smoke, do drugs, or anything of that nature.

It was an amazingly transformative experience for me. It was a feeling of total oneness with everything… not just a feeling, but a deep sense of knowing.

That experience gave me a glimpse of what it might be like to experience what mystics refer to as God-consciousness. It was something totally outside my previous experience. But it gave me a reference point to move towards — from that point on, I wanted to make that state of being my default. It felt like being in heaven. However, it was such a different paradigm that I had to unravel and rebuild my whole understanding of reality. I’m still going through that process today and have made a lot of progress. Just in the past couple weeks I had a quantum leap forward. I’m generally able to hold the edge of this state about 80-90% of the time, and whenever I get knocked out of it, I’m always able to return. I wake up each morning feeling this way. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s a state of being which makes me feel totally connected to everyone and everything.

I would rather feel this way for the rest of my life and be homeless than not feel this way and have billions of dollars in the bank. No amount of money, material success, or goal achievement in the physical universe could possibly come close.

So are you saying you believe the whole world centers around you?

No, not in the sense this question is likely being asked. The part of this mindset that people seem to have difficulty understanding is the de-localization of consciousness. With an objective reality model, you think of yourself (“you”) as an individual human being. With subjective reality you identify with all of conscious creation. So you don’t perceive the world as being centered around you in the sense of “you” being your body or your mind. Consciousness is equally present everywhere, and that’s what you identify with. So your sense of Self expands to be an all-encompassing field instead of a particular point that can be localized within time and space.

Other words you could use for consciousness are Source and God. So instead of seeing the world as centered around your body, you see it as centered around this Source of all creation, centered around God. Then you expand your sense of individualized consciousness into a feeling of oneness with that Source/God. So you stop thinking of yourself as this individual human being. This is the most challenging part because it requires letting go of fear and attachment to the fate of the body you think is you. If you knew that you were so much more than your body, you wouldn’t be so fearful of what might happen to it or its possessions.

So if you feel this way, then why do any work at all?

Essentially, you don’t do anything aside from put out intentions and then watch them manifest. Your body’s role is to be a vehicle for manifesting. It’s as if your body no longer has free will because your consciousness is no longer centered there. You cease to identify with your body. Your free will comes from your connection to higher consciousness and your ability to create and hold intentions.

Imagine you put out some intentions while in a state of God-consciousness. Partly you’ll see changes in the physical universe occurring, but you’ll also witness your physical body taking actions to carry out those intentions. The body and its actions become things you observe rather than things you identify with.

So if you put out an intention, you might observe your physical body doing writing or other work… almost on autopilot. But even as you watch the body perform these actions, you don’t identify with it. That body is not the real you — it is simply a vehicle for manifesting in the physical universe.

As your body works from this state of being, you feel nothing but joy. So there’s no tedium to the work. It feels wonderful. Rather than trying to find pleasure in your work, you bring pleasure to it. As your intentions flow outward from your consciousness, they animate your body into joyful action.

What happens to your relationships when you think this way? Don’t you feel lonely?

There is a feeling of being deeply connected to everything and everyone. Loneliness isn’t present at all — it’s just the opposite of that. Relationships deepen and become more intimate, and shallow acquaintances are replaced with true friendship.

This morning while I was out for a walk, I saw a homeless man going through trash cans in a shopping center. With an objective belief system, I would have avoided him or passed by him without making eye contact. But instead I felt totally connected to him. I knew in my heart that he was not separate from me. He was me. I didn’t just think this way intellectually — I felt it with a deep sense of inner knowing. I knew what Jesus meant when he said, “Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you do unto me.” So I walked up to the man with an open heart, smiled at him, gave him some money, and told him I wished him well. He looked at me with gratitude and thanked me. I didn’t connect with him because I thought it would make me feel good. I did it because while I’m in this state of consciousness, compassion is my natural way of connecting with the world.

This type of compassion is unconditional. It doesn’t matter what race, religion, sexual preference, or lifestyle people have. It doesn’t matter if people behave hurtfully towards you. You are connected to everyone. No one is undeserving of compassion.

I want to be able to hold this state more consistently. I still tend to oscillate around it. I’m not sure that’s necessarily a bad thing though. I feel like I can basically control the expansion or contraction of my consciousness when I really want to, so perhaps it doesn’t have to remain in the expansive state around the clock.

What other effects have you noticed from a subjective belief system?

Even when viewed from an objective standpoint, life has gotten better across the board. My wife and I are closer than we’ve ever been. Our love for each other has grown much more unconditional. Every day we talk about how excited we are to be doing what we do. She’s even getting up early regularly (often around 5:30) because she’s too excited about the coming day to stay in bed, and she used to love sleeping in.

Our financial situation has improved a lot over the past year — my wife and I each saw dramatic increases in our income. It’s almost like money is conspiring to come to us now. Almost every time we check the mail, there are new checks arriving from one source or another. Our income is well beyond our expenses and keeps getting better. It’s ironic that the less we need or care about money, the more it flows to us. We enjoy a tremendous sense of abundance and gratitude, so perhaps that is attracting money into our lives. As we acquire more financial abundance, it just gives us more resources to use in fulfilling our purpose.

We feel totally supported. Whenever we need help with something, help soon arrives. Synchronicities are everywhere, leading us effortlessly wherever we want to go. It’s like our lives are totally on track now, flowing in the direction they were always meant to go.

Have you noticed any negative effects?

The only effect I could possibly label negative in any way would be the rapid pace of expansion. Sometimes things are moving so quickly that it’s hard to keep up. But in those situations, I just intend for things to slow down a little and let me catch my breath. I do more meditation and take a day all to myself. Then when I’m ready, I put out the intention for things to speed up again, and they do. Right now I’m enjoying the rapid pace.

If a subjective belief system was less accurate than an objective one, then I should be less capable of functioning in the world. That would be a reasonable expectation, wouldn’t it? I should be experiencing some sort of cognitive dissonance, whereby my mental model of reality becomes so skewed from actual reality that I can’t function as well. But of course the exact opposite has occurred. I function much better. Even from an objective standpoint, life has gotten much easier.

Having experienced both perspectives for myself, I find subjective reality to be a more accurate model of the “real” universe than objective reality. But I woudn’t expect anyone to agree with me unless they’ve actually experienced both sides for themselves. There’s no way to really understand subjective reality while staring at it through an objective lens, and vice versa. At best these words can only serve as a pointer to the experience, not an accurate depiction of the experience itself.

What does subjective reality have to do with psychic development?

I found my development in these areas to be parallel. Perhaps the most crucial change of the subjective mindset was that I developed much better conscious control over my thoughts. That became critical because if reality is created by thought, then I can’t allow myself the luxury of a negative thought, lest I create more of what I don’t want. I practiced for many hours to improve my ability to control my thoughts. I chose the thoughts I wanted to hold, and then I tried to hold them in my mind. I watched for negative thoughts and quickly kicked them out and replaced them with positive ones. That practice has been paying off.

The ability to control your thoughts is very beneficial for psychic development. For one, you need to develop a strong belief in your abilities, or they simply won’t manifest. If your mind keeps filling with doubts, you won’t get very far psychically. If you can control your thoughts, you can stay focused and receptive when you need to. You can quiet your mind and tune into six-sensory perceptions without getting distracted or doubting what you’re seeing. If you ever encounter negative entities, you can keep fear at bay and handle them intelligently.

Also, psychic development provides further validation of subjective reality. If you’ve never had psychic experiences and suddenly start having some really amazing ones after putting out the intention to do so, you’ll begin to realize just how much power your thoughts have over your reality. And when you start having shared psychic experiences with others, it provides even more validation. If at some point you revert to denying that psychic experiences are real, you’ll notice they diminish and then vanish from your life. Soon you’ll come to understand that your thoughts are the switch that turn psychic manifestation on and off.

It’s certainly possible to explore psychic development without a subjective belief system, but I found that the more I embraced subjective reality, the richer my psychic experiences became.