kentonwhitman.com

Let’s look at three lists of things, and assess their level of reality.

List One:

Trolls

Dragons

Faeries

List Two:

Me

Money

The Sensation of Movement and the Passing of Time

List Three:

Chakras

Higher Self

Kundalini Experiences

For most of us, each list represents a distinct category of realities.

List One represents things that most of us consider fantasies. These realities exist only in our heads. They may be ‘real’ in the sense that thought-forms or emotions are real, but we can probably agree that they don’t exist as external realities.

List Two represents things that we consider much more ‘real’. Me is something that I have a constant sense of, and I am pretty sure I couldn’t function without it. Money is about as concrete a reality as we can imagine, and most of us structure our entire lives around the acquisition and spending of it (not to mention that money serves as an essential component in the evolution of society as a whole). And the realties of motion and the passing of time are so obvious that anyone who challenges them must clearly be mad.

List Three items are special, in that many intelligent people consider them to be actual realities while other equally intelligent people consider them to be rubbish, more fit for List One.

Spiritual Realities

Many people who visit this site are concerned with their spiritual health. As we venture down the spiritual path, we realize that our views of reality might have to shift around a little to encompass our new experiences. List One items we’ll probably still dismiss as pure fantasy, while List Two items will still be approached as realities that we have to deal with the best we can. But List Three items become a cause of great concern. Many people on spiritual paths are talking about all sorts of things that fit this category. Auras, principles of Feng Shui, Reincarnation and the idea of Intention/Manifestation are just a few. This list can get overwhelming, because it presents all sorts of new rules and recommendations for how we should live our lives. It leads us to ask an important question.

Are these things real? Should I be basing my life decisions on these things? Are they realities like List Two, or just fantasies like List One?

To answer this question, we can spend years of our lives trying to sort things out. Every spiritual idea and tradition has its proponents who assert that their particular focus is the most important. Depending on who we listen to and how our personal experiences unfold, we can find ourselves on a spiritual merry-go-round, with each new method promising the ultimate key to happiness, enlightenment, health, and spiritual growth.

Why can’t there be a concise guide that explains all these things clearly and tells us if they’re real or not?

What’s Real?

When we are struggling to sort through confusing issues like this, there is usually a clear and simple answer underlying the confusion. Finding this answer isn’t about trying to evaluate each thing for its level of reality. It’s about getting in touch with the essence of the issue. Just what are we asking when we ask if something is ‘real’?

Sit with this question for a while. Ask if a rainbow is real. An emotion. The fantasy of a dragon in your head. A rock. Are you real? Is a country real? The Urban Monk, in a recent post, takes a clear look at the reality of the school he once attended. If you look at this honestly, you’ll soon find that it’s a pretty slippery issue. The question of what is ‘real’ could be debated forever. At some point we have to settle on some sort of definition. While all definitions will be flawed, what we’re probably asking in regards to chakras, reincarnation, karma, and such is this– do these things have an actual affect on our lives?

Is It Important to Pay Attention to the Idea of Chakras?

Is it important to pay attention to faeries? Most of us would say ‘no’. Yet, throughout history there have been cultures that considered faeries to be very real. If the faeries weren’t appeased, you could suffer real physiological effects. If you put out butter for the faeries and the butter wasn’t gone the next morning, you might become very distressed – and that stress could affect the unfolding of your entire day. In short, the ‘reality’ of the faeries isn’t that important. It’s our belief in faeries that creates real-life effects for us.If we look at items from List Two, we see the same thing. Our belief in money has created a culture in which we gain many benefits, but we’re also willing to kill other humans for the sake of dollars. Our sense of ‘me’ seems necessary if we want to function, and yet enough examination will show us the immense amount of trouble this ‘me’ sense creates for us.

When it comes to chakras or other spiritual ideas, the situation is no different. We can argue forever about their ‘reality’, or we can simply see that a belief in these things gives us certain benefits and certain liabilities.

In short, there are a host of beliefs available to you in this world. As you move through life, the beliefs you harbor will have a profound effect on how your life unfolds. Lists One, Two, and Three are really no different, except in the number of people who hold the listed beliefs in consensus. None of these things can be said to have a real, objective reality (unless we choose to believe they do). But the sheer power of our belief in them gives them ‘reality’. The magic of the world is that we can look at a small piece of paper currency and realize that it is just a piece of paper that we imbue with meaning, but the next day we can experience stress, anger, and frustration simply because of our conviction that the money is ‘real’ enough for us to suffer over.

Do We Need Any Beliefs?

Although it’s difficult for us to believe, our lives can take on a new and marvelous incarnation if we discover the true nature of belief.

Without exception:

Belief is created when we impose our conditioned thinking upon our pure awareness.

We can function with belief, but belief is not necessary for us to function in this world. Indeed, the greatest benefit we can reap from beliefs is that they hold the power to undo other beliefs. But this, of course, is simply a circle wherein we are starting fires and then working to put them out.

Without belief, our lives unfold in perfect simplicity. The world unfolds, and you unfold within it. Nothing more is needed, and nothing more will add to your experience of life.

With belief, our lives become complex puzzles where we find ourselves in a constant state of chronic conflict and confusion.

Understanding Belief

I’ll repeat that italicized sentence above, because it is so important.

Belief is created when we impose our conditioned thinking upon our pure awareness.

We engage in belief simply by doing our best to avoid the evidence of our awareness, and instead to focus on our thoughts and ideas about how the world should be. If we wish to see what is behind our beliefs, we must simply turn our awareness upon them.

Take the belief of linear time. Right now we might hold this belief to be utterly true (it’s something we can feel, after all), but as we examine it, it will begin to fall apart. If we carefully examine our ideas of past, of future, and of cause/effect, we’ll soon discover just how much imagination is required to keep these ideas viable. When the belief is observed completely, our sensation of time passing is replaced by a sensation of being fully immersed in the timeless now. We don’t lose the ability to function within the framework of linear time – we just see it as it is and are no longer consumed by the feeling of time slipping continually past us.

Though we’re not often told this, the truth is that the choice is ours. We can choose to engage in a whole array of beliefs or we can choose to let awareness show us the complete picture. There is no punishment or reward for either choice. It is simply a matter of how we’d like to dance with life.

Explore posts in the same categories: Understanding Dualism

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 4:05 am and is filed under Understanding Dualism. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be queued for moderation and posted as quickly as possible.