Reality

… a preliminary rough draft …


What is reality? How do we experience it? Can we know what it is, as it truly, nakedly is?

Reality is all this about us, including us. It’s our existence, both materially and immaterially, our physical environment, our relationships, our thoughts, our deeds, our past, present, and future. It’s all, it’s everything we know or ever will know, and even that which we never will or can know, in its entirety.

Wow.

How can we ever “know” all that? In even formulating that question, scores of others are raised as well: what does it mean to “know”? And what are “we”, materially and immaterially? What’s physical? What are thoughts and thinking? What is time? I could go on but I won’t.

This is just a sketch to see what kind of an outline I can come up with. Hundreds and hundreds of books and thousands and thousands of pages have been written by men hundreds and thousands of times smarter than me, so what can I possibly contribute? Just my own understanding, perhaps. For what it’s worth, I do believe that “true” reality (what is truth, eh?) can be known, or experienced, or at least the “truest” form of reality it is possible for a human being to know or experience. More about that later.

For the purpose of this post I assume words to mean their face value, their common meaning as understood by the average man. I reserve this right even though I fully understand that most nouns and verbs, when used in philosophic debate, do not correlate to this common understanding, and that can completely twist and perhaps destroy any outline or opinions I construct here.

Let’s think of underlying reality as something misty, gray, undifferentiated, undefinable to the average human mind, completely alien to our normal experience. To make sense of this “mist,” we view it through a lens and it condenses into something we can understand and relate to. What is this “lens”? Basically, it’s our Self plus an Orientation we choose (or have chosen for us).

Without digressing too much, our “Self” here simply means us: our personality, our outlook, our experiences, thoughts, and deeds right up to this current moment. Certainly a Self who grew up under the cruel dominion of a physically and mentally abusive parent will choose different Orientations in which to experience reality than a person who was raised in a nurturing environment with every need provided for.

What is an “Orientation”? It’s the way you choose (consciously or unconsciously, habitually or with decision) to interpret the undifferentiated mist. We don’t have the capacity to view it as it truly, nakedly is, so the mind (your Self) must view it from some sort of position (your Orientation).

There are many, many types of Orientations, and each reaches varying layers of true reality. I view it as a funnel, with superficial, habitual orientations around the top edge of the funnel. We have a choice to pursue deeper orientations. Sometimes tragic events force us to. True reality lies through the bottom of the funnel. Another image, perhaps a bit more nobler, is that of a cloud-enshrouded mountain. On the surrounding plains lie the superficial orientations, but there are others you can investigate, each at different levels, different heights up the mountainside. True reality lies above the clouds, on the mountain’s summit.

Regardless of the image that appeals best to you, different orientations have different degrees of effectiveness revealing true reality. What about the superficial ones already mentioned? The most superficial is the one adopted by the man who has no interest in reality. Indeed, he has little interest in any things requiring hard thought. His only task is to survive another day. It’s almost a non-orientation. It’s our most basic default orientation, hard-wired into our DNA. You need a full belly and a roof over your head before you ponder the mysteries of reality.

Then there’s herdspeak. This is the “crowd.” The voice of the crowd or the voice of the mob. What your friends say, your family says, your coworkers say. Then, before you realize it, it’s what you say. Commonly it’s a cynical orientation, a negative view of reality. Often it’s major pronouncements on “the way of the world” by men who are actually uninformed, ill-informed, or downright ignorant. This, too, can easily become a kind of default orientation, many times the unfortunate result of pure habit. We’d be best to shed this orientation, the sooner the better.

Another orientation is that which we get from the media: television, movies, newspapers, websites and blogs. This is a dangerous orientation to adhere to, however, as the main purpose of the majority of the media is not to inform and educate, but to make a profit. They make a profit by making you come to accept them as necessary and essential in your life. The best way they do that is to keep your interest, and the best way to do that is to keep you scared. Not the only way, mind you, but the best way. Whether or not this orientation is higher up the mountain is debatable. It does its job lensing reality for you. The best tack to take is to supplement this orientation with others.

Political discourse is a similar orientation. Many view their party affiliation as a core part of their identity. At its best, political discourse can elevate the citizenry and produce well-rounded men; at it’s worse it can descend into virulent nationalism and produce war and terror. The main purpose of all political discourse is, however, not to elevate the citizenry, nor create war, but to obtain power. The ends of power can be many, but the attainment of power is the true goal of political discourse. So, like an orientation derived from media, an orientation derived from political discourse is one to be careful about; its place on the mountainside too can be at any height. Best to supplement this orientation with others.

A deeper or higher orientation can be the religious one. There are many, many different types of religious orientations: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Atheism, New Age/Old Age/pantheism, as well as scores of lesser-known belief systems and cults. I would place “Nature” in this category of orientation, too. Each has its “truths”, its philosophical underpinnings, its metaphysics and descriptions of realities. I believe they are higher up the mountain for the simple fact of their longevity: some have been around for thousands of years and have flourished and survived persecutions for much of that time. The idea that each of these orientations explains a facet of true reality appeals to me; the image of looking at the center of a diamond from various angles seems representative of this idea.

Many get their orientation of reality from Science-with-a-capital-S, particularly from the quantum revolution of a century ago. Indeed this is where I first read about the shadowy, undifferentiated mist of reality. If you follow the tenets of quantum mechanics to their ultimate results, you can discover some really weird consequences. One of which is that we create our own reality. To what degree is debatable. There’s a wide spectrum of views towards reality that sprout from this orientation, depending on how completely you wish to adopt them. The most vocal and extreme of late seems to be that of atheistic materialism of Darwinism.

It appears to me that your view of reality, your experience and knowledge of it, depends upon who you are and the scheme you wish to utilize. Self plus Orientation. But that yields only a copy or a representation of that undefinable, gray mistiness we’re calling here true reality. Can it be possible to attain a direct experience of this deepest reality?

Yes and no. Einstein has been quoted stating to the effect that “no problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” I think the principle is the same here in dealing with the experience of “truer” reality. To pierce the veil, to see with clear eyes, to make our Orientation transparent, requires a higher consciousness. The ordinary, normal, average, common human mind does not have this capability, so it must be raised. The only type of man able to do this, to my knowledge, is the mystic. And the only systematized mysticism I am aware of is Zen Buddhism. Have you ever read the words of “enlightened” Zen masters? Quite confusing, baffling even, to our unenlightened minds, but perhaps that is a glimpse of what seeing true reality is most like. Indescribable.

That’s my thesis, and I’m sticking to it!