StevePavlina.com Podcast #016 – The True Nature of Reality
September 3rd, 2006 by Steve Pavlina
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StevePavlina.com Personal Development for Smart People podcast #16: The True Nature of Reality
This is my longest podcast to date (about 68 minutes). I decided this was a good time to bring together the concepts of intention-manifestation, the Law of Attraction, and subjective reality to explain how they relate to each other. While I’ve written multiple articles on each of these topics individually, until now I’ve never presented an integrated philosophy of how they interact.
This podcast aims to answer these questions:
- What kind of reality do you actually live in? What are its capabilities?
- Do people, places, and objects still exist when you aren’t perceiving them?
- What are the fundamental principles upon which you can build an accurate model of reality?
- What assumptions have you made about reality that are totally unprovable and may in fact be wrong?
- What are the limitations of the Law of Attraction, why do they arise, and how do you work around them?
- How can you manifest more of what you want and less of what you don’t want?
- If you’re stuck in an unhappy situation right now, why are you stuck, and how do you change it?
- What is the mechanism by which intentions manifest? Why don’t they manifest instantly?
- Why might subjective reality be a more accurate model than objective reality?
- What are the practical consequences of a subjective belief system?
If you want to improve your ability to manifest your desires, I think you’ll gain a lot from this podcast. It’s long but also very thorough. It offers a way of looking at reality that’s probably more empowering and potentially more accurate than your current perspective.
As with all of the ideas you’ll find here, my goal isn’t to convince you of anything. My goal is to challenge you to consciously decide what’s true for you and why.
Enjoy the podcast…
Pavlina-016-The-True-Nature-of-Reality.mp3
(Time = 1:07:45, Size = 31.0MB)
Visit the audio section to play this podcast directly through your web browser and to view the entire podcast collection.


September 4th, 2006 at 1:19 am
[...] Dziś ukazał się szesnasty podcast, którego autorem jest Steve Pavlina. Tym razem Steve rozważa naturę rzeczywistości oraz prawo przyciągania i robi to tak jak zawsze: stara się znaleźć logikę we wszystkim o czym mówi i zawsze bazuje na swoich własnych doświadczeniach. Trzeba przyznać, że podjął naprawdę trudny temat, który budzi tak samo dużo emocji i kontrowersji jak przekonania na temat Boga. Steve oczywiście jak zwykle potrząśnie posadami systemu wierzeń wielu osób. Podcast jest w języku angielskim oczywiście i trwa ponad godzinę. [...]
September 4th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
[...] I have a Genius! list, which I want to share. Steve Pavlina is top of the list, you should listen to his latest podcast (over an hour long, mind; well worth it): The True Nature of Reality. [...]
September 8th, 2006 at 12:58 am
[...] Who needs them when you have Steve Pavlina’s theories on the nature of reality. [...]
September 8th, 2006 at 9:05 am
[...] Steve’s podcast, “The True Nature of Reality” is awesome!! He explains the connection between subjective reality and the law of attraction in a way that will bring you closer to fully understanding this belief system. I say it brings you closer, because the whole thing is so complex and difficult to grasp that I don’t think anyone could fully understand it in one hour. If you want to learn more about what this is all about, you should check out “The Secret,” “What The Bleep do We Know?” and of course, Steve’s Pavlina’s podcast, “The True Nature of Reality.“ [...]
September 9th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
[...] An interesting problem that Steve Pavlina brings up in his Podcast #016 is the problem of why intentions do not manifest instantly. I’ve been told by several people that “it gives you time to make sure that the intention is what you really want before it happens to you.” My beef with that is how will you KNOW you do or do not want something before you experience it? Steve’s reasoning as to the time buffer appeals to me more, and also ties in to something I learned from Terry McBride in a workshop he did here in Albuquereue last year. [...]
September 11th, 2006 at 6:12 am
[...] Steve Pavlina is the man. His most recent podcast, The True Nature of Reality is a phenomenal audio presentation of a more accurate perception of reality, the law of attraction, and intention/manifestation. If you have an hour or so to listen to his presentation, I do believe you will experience a shift in awareness. [...]
September 11th, 2006 at 11:10 am
[...] I’d like to take a couple of posts to talk about Steve Pavlina’s recent remarkable podcast on subjective reality. Steve tries to explain the Law of Attraction — that is, the observation that your reality strongly reflects your thoughts — by proposing that everything you observe is caused by your own consciousness. In fact, nothing exists outside of yourself. This is a pretty serious break from the belief systems of most folks, and I began to wonder if there were some other way to explain the Law of Attraction — to explain it in a fairly rigerous way, as he tries to do — without accepting the idea that all of reality is simply a reflection of your own personal consciousness. Subjective reality, in Steve’s terms, is consistent, makes few assumptions, and is impossible to refute — but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true. There may be other ways to explain the Law consistently, and I want to explore one of them in this series. In this first post, I’ll talk about some of the stranger consequences of Steve’s conception. [...]
September 14th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
[...] I was lucky enough to have really good experiences at school. Not perfect, of course, but I emerged well-adjusted, though naive. Life has done much to dispel the naivety and transform my almost-mindless optimism in to a more intelligently persistent positive outlook. For example, my optimism now has a basis in intellectual, reasoned theories, like Steve Pavlina’s ideas about the true nature of reality (subjective reality & consciousness manifestation). [...]
September 30th, 2006 at 5:07 am
[...] The True Nature of Reality by Steve Pavlina [...]
October 2nd, 2006 at 11:48 am
[...] As I’ve been integrating “infinite possibilities” into my life, I have noticed that there are two parts to this process: A preparatory and the execution. When I lock and load the intention (focus/feel on the desired effect in the NOW for ten minutes everyday), within a matter of days of beginning (sometimes minutes) I get conformation that the intention is already being fulfilled. Here is an example from my life of that confirmation. In focusing on what I desire most in what I consider my “professional life” (work, employment, ect.), I intended four things: credibility, more freedom, more money and joy at my job. I imagined having those four things as a result of whatever “the universe” supplies. This initial intention is what I call the “preparatory command” followed by a receipt or acknowledgement from the universe (Steve Pavlina talks about the receipt in his podcast, “the true nature of reality.” http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/09/stevepavlinacom-podcast-016-the-true-nature-of-reality/. [...]
October 5th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
[...] StevePavlina.com Podcast #016 – The True Nature of Reality [...]
October 24th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
[...] Complete notes here….. [...]
November 12th, 2006 at 6:55 am
[...] The True Nature of Reality Podcast (Can also be heard online) [...]
November 18th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
[...] Steve Pavlina, in his 16th podcast entitled The True Nature of Reality, describes a central, critical, yet all too often forgotten viewpoint on life. Science, whether you’re talking about the exact sciences, the social sciences, or what have you, are all based on an assumption that that there is some objective reality, or that the universe follows specific, unchangeable rules. But, he argues, how can we know this? How can you really know that there is any existence of anything outside of what you directly experience? You know that text exists here, because you can see it, right here on the screen or on paper or what have you – you know it’s there because it is within your direct awareness, your direct experience. But how do you know, when you look away, when you turn from it, that it actually still exists? [...]
November 20th, 2006 at 11:39 am
[...] I Am That By Lyman Reed One of my favorite books on creating wealth using the principle of the Law of Attraction is David Cameron’s “A Happy Pocket Full of Money.” (aff) It’s been a few months since I first read it, but there is one principle, one phrase which has stuck with me, and continues to pop up in my daily life. And it really seems to gel with the ideas of ho’oponopono and subjective reality. [...]
December 19th, 2006 at 12:31 am
[...] Personal development and self-growth: Intention manifestation (Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill or Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires by Esther Hicks), A different view of reality (StevePavlina.com Podcast #016 – The True Nature of Reality) and Abundance model versus Scarcity model (Deepak Chopra, etc) [...]
January 28th, 2007 at 7:45 am
[...] I’ve heard similar ideas expressed before, like the question “If a tree falls in the forest…” and I always thought the question was stupid. But the concept finally sunk in when I listened to this podcast from Steve Pavlina. When I first listened to this podcast, I realized just how little we really know about reality and it made me queasy. It produced a vertigo and loneliness that I can’t describe except to say it wasn’t like the loneliness you feel when your girlfriend dumps you, it was more like the feeling that you might be all alone in the universe. [...]
April 11th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
[...] There’s an interesting story behind this podcast. I originally recorded it on August 13, 2006, so this would have been podcast #16 if I’d posted it back then. Somehow every time I sat down to edit and post it, I’d get interrupted by something that would pull me away from the computer. The pattern became so ridiculous that even a couple weeks later, I still hadn’t been able to edit it yet. I began wondering if I wasn’t supposed to post it for some reason. With some frustration I put it on the back burner and went on to record and post other podcasts instead, experiencing no trouble with those. The podcast that became #16 was The True Nature of Reality, one of the most popular podcasts I’ve recorded (and also one of the longest). [...]
April 16th, 2007 at 12:06 am
[...] The following post was heavily inspired by "Podcast 016 – The true nature of reality". [...]
April 19th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
[...] I first learned about this model from Steve Pavlina in his great podcast “The True Nature of Reality“. The reason it resonated with me so much was because I too had been questioning the ‘reticular activating system’ theory as a means of explaining certain events in my life, and the Law of Attraction in general. On top of this, here was a guy who also was trying to answer the biggest question I have ever had and still have, which is “Why is my consciousness attached to this one particular body? Why am ‘I’ ‘me’?” He then delved deeper than this. [...]
September 4th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
[...] I find that when I am reminded of how the world works and what the true nature of reality is, I am energized and ready to commit myself to my goal. That, or I stop thinking about it and go dance for awhile in front of the mirror, or go for a bike ride, or read some blogs that resonate with me; flip through blog stats, that sort of thing. [...]
November 28th, 2007 at 6:04 am
[...] A podcast that has a great exploration of Subjective Reality from the other side of the fence comes from Steve Pavlina, which he calls The True Nature of Reality, in which Steve argues for the idea that there is only one consciousness – and it’s yours. [...]
February 11th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
[...] When you get a chance, do listen to Steve’s podcast on “The True Nature of Reality.” Filed under: Religion & Spirituality | Tags: consiousness [...]
March 7th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
[...] And then tonight I listened to Steve Pavlina’s podcast on Subjective Reality and its relation to the Law of Attraction. It’s much like what I’ve been led to: [...]
April 1st, 2008 at 1:55 am
[...] exploring how visualisation really works this is one simple experiment you can start doing today. Steve Pavlina has convinced me that we do in fact life in a subjective universe where our consciousness when seen [...]