Subjective Reality - how I see it

[Rosie]

Every conscious thing, whether a bug, animal, or human, is essentially one being. There is no separation. It is not a new concept, as Buddhists have described the idea of “one-ness” for centuries. I often wonder why more people have not adopted this belief, and I have come to the conclusion, that it is simply too obvious.

Some people argue that bugs and other lower beings are not aware, because they can’t think like we do. Thinking is a product of the brain, and since awareness is beyond the brain, then thinking is not required for awareness to exist. Do bugs not run away when they see something threatening? Do they not react to someone touching them? The only prerequisite of being aware, is that you are aware of something. It could be something auditory, visual, physical, or spiritual - it doesn’t matter what it is. Awareness, is not something distinctly human.

How can I logically determine my identity? Assuming that my true identity is eternal, I will have to eliminate anything that is not. I know that matter doesn’t survive forever - and everything in the physical world that has beginning also has an end. That eliminates my brain, because it is made of matter, and is thus finite. Then I must eliminate my ego, because it is merely a manifestation of my brain. What is left? I don’t have thoughts anymore, I don’t have a personality, and all that is left is awareness. My true identity must be timeless, pure, awareness. The definition of awareness is constant. It does not change depending on who you are referring to. We are all aware in the same way.

So, if we identify with awareness, and agree that everyone is aware, and everyone experiences the same awareness, then saying I am aware is equivalent to saying that “we are all one being“. The brain is the veil that conceals the true nature of our existence. The brain is what separates us.

There are seven billion aware humans on the planet, and trillions of aware creatures. Millions of these aware creatures die each day, and millions are born each day. From this we can come to one of two conclusions. 1. Awareness is in endless supply. 2. Awareness simply is. Conclusion number one implies that awareness is easily created and easily destroyed. Conclusion number two suggests that it cannot be created or destroyed.

How do we experience pure awareness for ourself? We can’t actually desert our brains, so we will have to rely on a technique that the Buddhists call “meditation”. In doing so, we can temporarily quiet the mind, and restrain the ego. The personality disappears, and all that is left is pure awareness.


It's hard to put in to words, but I finally think I understand what Steve means by subjective reality! Let me know if what I have said is even remotely coherent.

[Dive Bomb]

I believe it is very coherent. I think the difficult part about understanding these concepts of reality is comprehending something beyond the ego since that's what most of us have only experienced.

It's hard to picture my identity suriving without being who I am in the real world. That's just in my experience, it may be easier for others.

I think your explanation of awareness was well thought out. To be aware, I guess you don't need an ego or external identity.

[Euragios]

Originally Posted by Dive Bomb

I believe it is very coherent. I think the difficult part about understanding these concepts of reality is comprehending something beyond the ego since that's what most of us have only experienced.

It's hard to picture my identity suriving without being who I am in the real world. That's just in my experience, it may be easier for others.

I think your explanation of awareness was well thought out. To be aware, I guess you don't need an ego or external identity.

Our ego is just a manifestation of our thoughts, just as Rosie said. That being said, I don't think awareness needs an ego. I see our ego as a second "me"; you have this world, the here and now, as buddhist call it, and you have your thoughts and feelings. But I don't think those come from the here and now, they come from your ego, at least your ego lives those thoughts and feelings. Yóu don't. You only exist in the here and now. I think you are aware when you know you are, and you know your place in the here and now.

You state you find it hard to picture that your identity survives without your ego. That makes sence, according to my views of reality: ones identity dictates our thoughts and actions. Our values, our feelings, our opinions.. this describes our identity. And those values, feelings, opinions, you name it, they dictate what we do. Concluding, for me, they are part of our ego. Not of our real being in the here and now.

But I guess that's my view of reality, and I haven't really thought about it for hours and hours yet

[Uplift]

Yeh, its coherent to me. I feel that oneness comes down to beingness, presence. All, whether or not it has awareness as we understand it through our mind, or not, has beingness, presence, a continual, unchanging unaffected source. Say I am alive like this, that has beingness. When I'm bones in the ground, beingness. When the bones become dirt, worms whatever, beingness. A void, whatever, has beingness. It is left when everything else is subtracted, it is present when every thing else exists. A fly dung can be, and so can a planet, and a galaxy. Beingness is all encompassing. It can be nothing, all and everything in between. I feel that some point of beingness encourages us to enjoy and reflect on the abilities and potential of beingness, but not to get so caught up, or carried away that we forget our truth and get lost in the creation.

[Max Power]

Originally Posted by Rosie

Every conscious thing, whether a bug, animal, or human, is essentially one being. There is no separation. It is not a new concept, as Buddhists have described the idea of “one-ness” for centuries. I often wonder why more people have not adopted this belief, and I have come to the conclusion, that it is simply too obvious.

Some people argue that bugs and other lower beings are not aware, because they can’t think like we do. Thinking is a product of the brain, and since awareness is beyond the brain, then thinking is not required for awareness to exist. Do bugs not run away when they see something threatening? Do they not react to someone touching them? The only prerequisite of being aware, is that you are aware of something. It could be something auditory, visual, physical, or spiritual - it doesn’t matter what it is. Awareness, is not something distinctly human.

How can I logically determine my identity? Assuming that my true identity is eternal, I will have to eliminate anything that is not. I know that matter doesn’t survive forever - and everything in the physical world that has beginning also has an end. That eliminates my brain, because it is made of matter, and is thus finite. Then I must eliminate my ego, because it is merely a manifestation of my brain. What is left? I don’t have thoughts anymore, I don’t have a personality, and all that is left is awareness. My true identity must be timeless, pure, awareness. The definition of awareness is constant. It does not change depending on who you are referring to. We are all aware in the same way.

So, if we identify with awareness, and agree that everyone is aware, and everyone experiences the same awareness, then saying I am aware is equivalent to saying that “we are all one being“. The brain is the veil that conceals the true nature of our existence. The brain is what separates us.

There are seven billion aware humans on the planet, and trillions of aware creatures. Millions of these aware creatures die each day, and millions are born each day. From this we can come to one of two conclusions. 1. Awareness is in endless supply. 2. Awareness simply is. Conclusion number one implies that awareness is easily created and easily destroyed. Conclusion number two suggests that it cannot be created or destroyed.

How do we experience pure awareness for ourself? We can’t actually desert our brains, so we will have to rely on a technique that the Buddhists call “meditation”. In doing so, we can temporarily quiet the mind, and restrain the ego. The personality disappears, and all that is left is pure awareness.


It's hard to put in to words, but I finally think I understand what Steve means by subjective reality! Let me know if what I have said is even remotely coherent.

What you're describing is not SR or at least not the version I subscribe to. There is nothing outside of awareness, so there is not and can never be 7 billion people on the planet.

Why? Because you can never fit them all into awareness.

Animals, insects and people are not conscious, they are not the energy being, they do not share any consciousness.

In SR there is only one energy being and everything in awareness exists inside that.

Steve has outlined this very clearly, but recently changed his outlook or at least adapted his definition.

SR is very empowering because you never have to be concerned with anything that is outside awareness, for it doesn't exist.

Max

[cdn2wheeler]

Originally Posted by Max Power

SR is very empowering because you never have to be concerned with anything that is outside awareness, for it doesn't exist.

Sounds very nice and esoteric, but in reality it's simply not true.

It's like the old saw, "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it..." etc. etc.

Well, whether we're there or not, the tree falls, it makes a sound, it kicks up some dust and leaves go flying everywhere.

Now, how you perceive that event is dependent upon your own circumstances. A logger may say, "Great! One less tree I have to cut down!" Someone whose car just got smushed by the fallen timber might say, "Oh crap, a tree just smushed my car." A person who owns the land where the tree is might say, "Excellent. That tree was dying anyway and now I don't have to pay to have it removed" or they might say, "Too bad. I liked that old tree."

The reality is, however, that the tree fell. Full stop. Inside or outside of our awareness isn't relevant.

[Jennihul]

I think there is a middle ground between subjective and objective reality that can still include the "one-ness" concept AND account for individuals sharing that one-ness.

It's a more comforting world to me and a less Matrix-y, science fictiony concept than SR.

Everything is still "the one." But 'the one' is vast, diverse and includes beings, consciousness, rocks, trees, dirt, bugs, humans, evil, good, planets, galaxies and universes and whatever contains universes as well as tangible and intangible objects. It includes war, peace, love, hate, light, darkness.

We can still be we. But we grow closer toward our penultimate goal by living in a way that is closer to the one-ness we are.

The original sin was accepting that we are separate from that one-ness and choosing to live as though that were true.

Jennifer

[Rosie]

Thanks guys

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by cdn2wheeler

It's like the old saw, "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it..." etc. etc.

Well, whether we're there or not, the tree falls, it makes a sound, it kicks up some dust and leaves go flying everywhere.

Albert Einstein's point was actually an earnest one Point is - you can't prove that the tree did make a sound, when no one is there to observe it.

Your common sense tells you that the tree MUST have made a sound - a contrary result defies everything you've EVER known about reality

However, everything you've EVER known about reality is as a result of what you've actually observed about it.

And if you were not there to make the relevant observations, then ....

[Rahzad]

Originally Posted by Jennihul

I think there is a middle ground between subjective and objective reality that can still include the "one-ness" concept AND account for individuals sharing that one-ness.

It's a more comforting world to me and a less Matrix-y, science fictiony concept than SR.

Everything is still "the one." But 'the one' is vast, diverse and includes beings, consciousness, rocks, trees, dirt, bugs, humans, evil, good, planets, galaxies and universes and whatever contains universes as well as tangible and intangible objects. It includes war, peace, love, hate, light, darkness.

We can still be we. But we grow closer toward our penultimate goal by living in a way that is closer to the one-ness we are.

The original sin was accepting that we are separate from that one-ness and choosing to live as though that were true.

Jennifer

Very wise points! I'd like to add..

God is the source energy, we're part of the source energy. Christ is part of the source energy vibrating at an astoundingly high level compared to us. Angels are part of the source energy, vibrating in the multiple thousands of calibration. Etc. But to say "I am god, I am source energy, I am the only thing there is." is giving the big middle finger to god, christ, and everything in between you and the true source energy. What better way to screw yourself out of enlightenment eh?

[ticktockclok]

Originally Posted by Rahzad

Very wise points! I'd like to add..

God is the source energy, we're part of the source energy. Christ is part of the source energy vibrating at an astoundingly high level compared to us. Angels are part of the source energy, vibrating in the multiple thousands of calibration. Etc. But to say "I am god, I am source energy, I am the only thing there is." is giving the big middle finger to god, christ, and everything in between you and the true source energy. What better way to screw yourself out of enlightenment eh?

You are "God" in subjective reality. Not you as in your ego, i.e. John Smith, but consciousness. There is no God or Christ or angels that are higher than you. So yes, believing in subjective reality is giving the middle finger to all of them.

[Rosie]

A lot of religions state that we as people will continue on after death, but our egos did not exists before we were born, so they must not exist after. They can't be eternal, because they had a beginning.

[torilink]

Originally Posted by ticktockclok

You are "God" in subjective reality. Not you as in your ego, i.e. John Smith, but consciousness. There is no God or Christ or angels that are higher than you. So yes, believing in subjective reality is giving the middle finger to all of them.

Yes, in SR, the true self (consciousness) is God, which is my higher self - not my ego personality.

I become christ by overcoming the illusion of the world I see, me (ego) aligning with the higher self. I overcome the world by withdrawing my belief in the reality of illusions, and stop worshiping idols. I become christ the savior by sacrificing the illusions of the outer reality (the past) and my egoic "human" perceptions and being resurrected into the NOW and into the conscious creator I AM.

Thus have I overcome the world.

[Cantando]

Subjective reality (in my view) is your experience, the totality of your beingness, awareness and your interpretation of that.
We project our consciousness and it is reflected back to us. We study and analyze the feedback and from there create our choices, decisions and beliefs. That gives each of us our own personal reality.

Each of us has a unique identity, a unique experience and a unique perspective.

There are levels of awareness.
If you were aware of only what you interpreted through your sense of hearing, for example, then that would be your subjective reality. You would hear other people talking but you would not know that they were separate people like you. You would just be interpreting voices in your mind. No matter how much those voices pleaded with you to try to understand that there are others with you, you would just continue to consider the voices as your creations, and if they started to irritate you, you would just stop listening.

If you were a fantastically evolved spiritual entity, then perhaps you could be aware as Source/All-that-Is, in which case, your subjective reality would be the only one, as it would encompass everything and you would be simultaneously totally cognizant of of everything: past, present and future. How many hard-core believers in subjective reality reading this post are at that level?

[Euragios]

Originally Posted by Cantando

past, present and future

The past and the future don't exist

[Cantando]

Originally Posted by Euragios

The past and the future don't exist

Depends on what level of awareness you are on. Whatever your experience is, whether you label it illusion or reality, doesn't matter. You are still experiencing it.

[Rahzad]

Originally Posted by Cantando

If you were a fantastically evolved spiritual entity, then perhaps you could be aware as Source/All-that-Is, in which case, your subjective reality would be the only one, as it would encompass everything and you would be simultaneously totally cognizant of of everything: past, present and future. How many hard-core believers in subjective reality reading this post are at that level?

None, because that would require true enlightenment, and that facet can't be reached with a belief that is absent of the "Source", IE God. One of the foundations of enlightenment is "Love", the love of all things, all people, all of creation. Say you see a homeless guy on the street, in radical-SR you'd say it was an illusion, so "Who Cares", but the reality is, you should see that as another version of you, and shower that homeless person in love. Thus creating more love to be given back to yourself. I think this is where SR starts to fall apart pretty quickly.

[Max Power]

Originally Posted by Rahzad

Say you see a homeless guy on the street, in radical-SR you'd say it was an illusion, so "Who Cares", but the reality is, you should see that as another version of you, and shower that homeless person in love. Thus creating more love to be given back to yourself. I think this is where SR starts to fall apart pretty quickly.

The more I think about SR, the more I see it's fundamental flaw.

Fear

If consciousness, god, the one energy being is the only show in town, then creating something that requires compassion may envoke a response, based on fear of not resonding for fear that self did not create it. So you create something to experience the sensation of the response, but you only need to do that once, then it's not required.

That is why love feels good, but you don't have it 24/7 it becomes plain and ordinary.

SR implies consciousness is everything, but the connection is implied not sound or trustworthy. Like container theory, I considered that the energy being is the container and is everything inside, but it's not, it is the energy being forming part of itself into form, but it is not the form.

The form is output, the energy being is the ultimate self(fish) being, simply creating to experience then casting off creation. This sounds egotistical and uncompassionate, but peace, love and compassion, while wonderous sensations for the energy being to sense through the observer are no more required than pain and suffering.

SR is not the best definition.

Max

[Euragios]

Originally Posted by Cantando

Depends on what level of awareness you are on. Whatever your experience is, whether you label it illusion or reality, doesn't matter. You are still experiencing it.

Agreed. But still, they only exist in your head. Not in your world.

[Cantando]

Originally Posted by Euragios

Agreed. But still, they only exist in your head. Not in your world.

It could be argued that the past, present and all future probabilities all co-exist simultaneously, in the Eternal Now (whether you have a head or not!).

You may be focusing on your body, in this life, on this particular day, reading this post, but other aspects of your consciousness may be focused on different lives, in different bodies, which from your current perspective, appear to be in the past or in the future.

[Euragios]

Originally Posted by Cantando

It could be argued that the past, present and all future probabilities all co-exist simultaneously, in the Eternal Now (whether you have a head or not!).

You may be focusing on your body, in this life, on this particular day, reading this post, but other aspects of your consciousness may be focused on different lives, in different bodies, which from your current perspective, appear to be in the past or in the future.

They exist in your head.. when you think of the future, it is in your head. When you think of the past, it is in your head. I don't like the idea of humans living in multiple bodies, as you state. It just doesn't make sense.. then there should be more 'yous'. So you would have more than one identity. Or you are a clone of yourself Don't know whether you mean it this way or not, though.

[Cantando]

Originally Posted by Euragios

They exist in your head..

But you said they don't exist.
I'm not quite sure why you are taking one fairly mundane phrase from my previous post and questioning it so much. Did you actually get the gist of what I was trying to get across?

I said:

"If you were a fantastically evolved spiritual entity, then perhaps you could be aware as Source/All-that-Is, in which case, your subjective reality would be the only one, as it would encompass everything and you would be simultaneously totally cognizant of of everything: past, present and future."

Let's read "past, present and future" as in the usual, everyday meaning.
If there is only one subjective reality, you would be aware of everything as God/Source might be, i.e. omniscient, and that would include being aware of all things that have happened, are happening and will/may happen.
Or, am I misunderstanding something crucial about what SR is? Maybe I am. If so, perhaps you can enlighten me.

If you prefer to continue discussing the meaning of past, present and future, perhaps you can start a new thread about it.

[torilink]

Originally Posted by Max Power

The more I think about SR, the more I see it's fundamental flaw.

Fear

If consciousness, god, the one energy being is the only show in town, then creating something that requires compassion may envoke a response, based on fear of not resonding for fear that self did not create it. So you create something to experience the sensation of the response, but you only need to do that once, then it's not required.

That is why love feels good, but you don't have it 24/7 it becomes plain and ordinary.

SR implies consciousness is everything, but the connection is implied not sound or trustworthy. Like container theory, I considered that the energy being is the container and is everything inside, but it's not, it is the energy being forming part of itself into form, but it is not the form.

The form is output, the energy being is the ultimate self(fish) being, simply creating to experience then casting off creation. This sounds egotistical and uncompassionate, but peace, love and compassion, while wonderous sensations for the energy being to sense through the observer are no more required than pain and suffering.

SR is not the best definition.

Max

A never ending cycle of consciousness consuming itself through experiences.

[Euragios]

Originally Posted by Cantando

But you said they don't exist.
I'm not quite sure why you are taking one fairly mundane phrase from my previous post and questioning it so much. Did you actually get the gist of what I was trying to get across?

I said:

"If you were a fantastically evolved spiritual entity, then perhaps you could be aware as Source/All-that-Is, in which case, your subjective reality would be the only one, as it would encompass everything and you would be simultaneously totally cognizant of of everything: past, present and future."

Let's read "past, present and future" as in the usual, everyday meaning.
If there is only one subjective reality, you would be aware of everything as God/Source might be, i.e. omniscient, and that would include being aware of all things that have happened, are happening and will/may happen.
Or, am I misunderstanding something crucial about what SR is? Maybe I am. If so, perhaps you can enlighten me.

If you prefer to continue discussing the meaning of past, present and future, perhaps you can start a new thread about it.

Perhaps I misinterpreted your post a bit. I'll look into it and if I want to discuss it further, I will start a new thread.

[mysterygal]

I think we could argue about this for a month and not get anywhere.