Audible Version
Music: Salvation in the Stars
Artist: The Intangible
Reality, as we perceive it, is a projection of our brain. This distinction is fundamental for what I’m about to describe here, you need to understand this at its core to be able to assimilate the rest of this section.
The mind is something that we cannot fully understand, nor are we intended to with our limited body and structure, because the mind is limitless and our brain is not. Scientists have tried in many ways, as it’s always the case, to comprehend and explain what is the mind and where is it generated, but they fail over and over again. It’s the same as with infinity, nobody can fathom what it is, yet it exists. Keep that in mind 😉
However, our brain does project reality, some people call it constructivism given that we are constantly constructing what we perceive as our surroundings, sense of self, awareness, and so on. This is all done at a subjective level, meaning that as we acquire knowledge from our experiences and they become memories, we associate them with the present and create a personal view of how the world is at a given time.
In other words, who we think we are and the environment around us, including people, behaviors, actions, moments, sensations, and reality at a conscious level, is an individual construction based on past experiences and understandings. So, we are responsible for the perception of our own reality, no one else.
The story you believe
When we tell a story to someone, whether that be a family event, a work-related issue, an emotional moment, or anything else that we have experienced, we are stating it from our point of view. This is a common and accepted notion of how subjective our experiences are, you’ve heard things like “history is written by the victors” or at a more mundane level “you are telling your version of the story”.
We can’t help but do this, after all we are the main protagonists of the reality we live, and this view can’t be challenged by others who didn’t experienced the event. Except when someone else is involved and they tell the story from their perspective, then we are in a pickle because we may find conflicting information with your version.
Fair enough, this is nothing new and most rational people know that this is simply the paradigm by which we base our lives on, and there’s nothing else to do here, at best we can consider other people’s points of view on a specific matter, and maybe change ours by understanding that there are other vantage points better than ours, and voila! Learning occurs.
But of course, I want to bring you deeper into this illusion you call your reality.
The first stop I want to make is no longer in the exterior projection you make when describing your reality, that is what you express in the outside about yourself and the events in your life, the story you tell others. Let’s talk about the story you tell yourself about you and your daily awareness of self.
Just like you do with other people, you do it with yourself, you sit in meditation and analyze who you are or even a situation you just lived. If we extrapolate the external idea that a story’s reality depends on the observer, how can you be sure that your own perception of self is telling you the truth of who you are or what actually happened in a given moment that you were involved?
Say for example that something happened at work or in your personal life, you leave the scene convinced that your conviction is right and that the version you came up with is truthfully what just occurred. I invite you to take a step back now and apply the subjectivity of your train of thought, is there something there that you may have constructed to feel better about it? Is there anything that can be challenged by another point of view different than yours?
I’m sure there is, why? Because the brain is always preoccupied with generating a quick relief that can make you move on from the moment as fast as possible, it’s a survival mechanism at its core, your brain’s function is to preserve its host, i.e. you. This is normal though, there’s nothing wrong with you per se, that’s simply how your body works: basic reactions to stimuli for survival.
However, it’s our mind’s job to process it for a better understanding and here is where we all fail because of bad conditioning, remember that the mind is limitless and your use of it is crucial for growth and raising your consciousness as a human being. This is the moment where you apply the idea that no story told is ever totally true, it’s only the fabrication of the observer. This means that you should probably assimilate the event as a simple occurrence in your life and not judge it with your preconceived notions, this leads to greater knowledge and perhaps a new lesson for your perception.
Let’s go a little bit deeper though.
The identity of self
In Hindi there is Maya, the illusion, and it’s often used to refer to the deception humans believe in when interacting with the reality of the world. It’s a hard concept to process because we are densely invested in the material dimension of our existence, but the fact remains that our belief of self is always flawed.
Following my previous thread on how we are never right when we tell a story, even to ourselves, you can rest assure that anything you believe you are should and must be questioned. In other words, you are not who you think you are. To say otherwise is to claim that your current conception of self is final and unchangeable, and I’m absolutely certain that over the years you have changed your identity numerous times, this is the natural course of life in humans.
I’ve mentioned this in a different way when I talked about the duality of perception, but this time I am going into a much more profound introspection by delving into how you identify yourself and where you fail to be true to your own being.
Most of the things you have created around your identity have been from external sources that have nothing to do with your inner self, a great deal of it has been influenced by your culture and society and they have the power of creating the illusion called Maya. The easiest to recognize are your titles.
Starting with your name, while a very useful way to give someone else a quick word by which you will be identified, it does not describe who you are. This is how the practicality of the brain for processing works, it would be impossible to explain everything about you when meeting someone (it would be very weird too), so you resort to simplifying it with your name. And think about it, you never tell yourself your name, it even sounds strange to think about it.
In the same way, if you have a career already, does the title describe who you are in the field? Definitely not, otherwise you would be the same as any other person with the same position as you. As a student you are different from your peers, as a daughter or son, as a friend… you get the point.
This is also applied to your accomplishments in the external world, the validations you get from others, the brands you are imprinted by institutions, the material things you possess, so forth and so on. All of those things do not describe who you truly are in isolation, and it leaves you to question who are you really when you strip away all those archetypes.
The real sense of self
To find what makes you internally requires some meditation into the things that make you feel whole and harmonious. For the most part, and very ironically, it becomes hard to rediscover those things that bring you real joy without external authentication. This is because we have all been imposed ideals and dogmas that submerged us in the illusion of Self.
It’s like you have been covered in layers upon layers of sheets of things that don’t belong to you, but are useful to live in the illusion we call modern life and cultural behavior.
When you look inside, and question if something is really part of yourself, see if the answer brings you joy without necessarily having to validate it with an outside source. A good way to do this, if you can reconnect with the feelings, is to go back to your childhood and remember what made you feel happy and out of this world.
Another interesting way I’ve found is recognizing if it feeds your ego as opposed to your soul, the true nature of your being. It takes courage to admit that something that you believe you are is actually a part of your ego, and this is nothing to be ashamed of, in fact once you can realize and determine a layer that doesn’t belong to you, you feel a release of energy that lightens your feeling of Self.
None of the things that are part of your ego makes you feel happy, while they make you cope with reality as you know it, in the bottom of your heart you feel its weight and discomfort to depend on them, all to get the validations you believe you deserve. This can very well be related to your social status, your possessions, your titles, awards, and the rest of abstract constructs that are being used to value someone’s worth.
Take the time and explore anything by asking the question and answer cycle. For example, if looking “good” in the mirror makes you feel happy, why does that evoke happiness? Because you look attractive you may say, well why does looking attractive makes you happy? So other people can be impressed by your looks you may answer. Fair enough, but why is it that impressing people makes you happy then? And on you go.
This will inevitably lead you to a fundamental reason by which your expression of self is being generated. You may end up in a very egotistical foundation where “looking good” has been an illusion created by your environment to fit in the circles where you belong. Or you may arrive at a basic inspiration of taking care of your body for health and performance reasons, taking care of your body may be primarily to improve the functioning of it as a whole.
I work in the fitness industry and I can attest that the majority are doing it for clearly external influences. I don’t even need to psychoanalyze them to realize this. Surgeries, steroids, synthetic supplements, body part development, laboratory procedures, and other approaches are very common, unarguably detrimental to one’s health, and they all follow an egoic path to self-worth.
The same goes with behaviors, and this can get tricky to navigate but the end result is the same. Are those attitudes you are so fond of calling your personality part of you or a reaction to the constant stimuli you have received and/or continue to receive from your environment, and allow you to fit better in it without necessarily being fulfilling?
I can say that anecdotally the hardest part is to be brutally honest with oneself, the resistance the egoic mind puts on against your higher self is arduous when a challenge is presented. It’s very hard to acknowledge something as foreign that you have held dear for so long as part of you, but if done right, it’s like ripping off a band-aid sitting there for years: painful but followed by a great relief.
With practice, you begin to identify sensations while exploring internally these behaviors or materialistic possessions, these emotions are the best to detect if something is making you feel happy or miserable while doing it or having it.
There was a point in my life when driving a Benz and having a middle-class suburban house was a great accomplishment. I started coming to the realization, way before I started even working in the expansion of my consciousness, that having this was very unfulfilling to the core of my soul, I’ve never been one to boast my belongings or material possessions, and while I never did, I was living that life of advanced status in society. The mere feeling of it was distorting my own personality.
I had become an exemplar model of the imperialist world, the capitalist spawn of a first world country that only incentivizes more people into climbing this illusory ladder of happiness. All at the cost of time with my family and enslaving working behavior. I was buying my position in the social strata with energy and time, for a lesser sense of self.
Opening your consciousness
Every one of us is dealing with external influences that create this false identity we use to engage in society, at work, with friends, family, groups, institutions, temples, culture, or whatever other establishment you may belong to.
Sometimes it will feel like you are losing your place within those social sets, but the honest introspection you decide to go through should tell you if you belong in them or not. Almost always those who live in these social circles that don’t resonate with them, do it despite the dissatisfaction they feel, and only for the feeling of belonging to something.
This is perhaps the painful part, but delaying it will only worsen the release. Many of us don’t know the joy that awaits us when abandoning patterns that don’t go well with us, and replacing them for something we enjoy investing time and effort on.
I’ve had many clients who are dealing with long term or even permanent physical issues, for exposing their bodies to different processes and procedures to accomplish a specific goal, with the idea of becoming something they somehow are convinced need to be. They disrespected their bodies.
Others are dealing with cultural behaviors that are set by their doctrines and belief systems and don’t resonate with their hearts, and in the hopes to please their families they commit to a life of preestablished patterns against their sense of love and free will. They disrespected their minds.
In some cases, I’ve seen people go in a downward spiral in their beliefs for several reasons ranging from philosophical to a fundamental anger against life and its outcomes. The saddest example I’ve known in this case is myself. I disrespected my spirit.
On an individual level, these are reasons to start developing an expansion in your consciousness that will prevent you from hurting the body-mind-spirit complex you are made of.
The near future is holding an event that will require you to be freed from all these Matrix generated illusions of self. As always, it’s my humble expectation to delineate my understandings on how this unfolds and ways to prepare yourself for a liberated feeling of your inner child and the powerful human you are meant to be.