The Nature of Reality

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The Nature of Reality

Along with the left and right sides of your brain, with their well-defined yet overlapping functions, it’s postulated that a third, more spiritual, brain exists.

Reflecting on the nature of reality can lead to a mighty headache if you don’t know when to stop, but it’s definitely worthwhile to consider what’s real and what you share as you. It could lead you to greater understanding and tolerance of others’ points of view.

Spiritual Reality

As of particles in quantum physics whose form is determined by the observer, you create your reality through your thoughts. The shape your attitudes and perceptions, which affect the way you view yourself and the perceptions that other people form of you. If you view yourself as positive and successful, you create that thought. You previously viewed yourself as Shy and retiring, you might have to work a little bit to break that old pattern of perception. Sometimes your perceptions are different from others. You might be surprised to hear 20 people will see you differently, as each may have a different slant, depending on his or her relationship with you, but this attitude should not affect your own self identity.

See yourself from the whole perspective. Spiritual reality, like some of the realms of quantum physics, is a realm of potentiality, where all possibilities are present in the same moment. Your focus determines what will arise in any situation. When you meditate or practice a form of spiritual discipline, you access the wellspring of life where your ability to develop potential can be trapped more fully. The ultimate spiritual perception is that of unification, where you recognize and know without doubt that all things spring from one source and that you are part of that source. Just as everything contains the stuff of stars, we are each unique and yet part of this whole.

What is reality?

Reality is what you perceive to be the absolute truth in your life – that is, the unchanging, solid basis for all that you see, feel and believe. If you were to receive a major shock that rocks your world (such as discovering as an adult that you were adopted by those whom you had always considered to be your birth parents), your reality would shift and change and you would have to learn how to adapt to a new reality. There are many dramatic events that can create a change in your apparent reality, and there are also illuminating situations in which you have perceptions that enable you to break out of the structure of everyday thought and see life in a very different way.

Acceptance in anchoring your world, what you think of as real may just be an illusion that is fabricated by your mind, or by a prevailing consensus, or by attitudes and thought patterns that derive from life experiences. Everyone agrees on the name of colors, for instance yet some of you might see colors differently than others and still use the same names for them. You shift internal gears to accommodate a given reality – for example, the words on this page look up right, yet the image received at the back of your eye is upside down. In the middle Ages the reality dictated that the sun revolved around the earth, but today the opposite is irrefutably true.

Physics and Reality

The realms of quantum physics are unpredictable, and as the minute basic components of matter behave in unexpected ways you learn more about the nature of physical reality. An example of the peculiar nature of quantum physics is Schrödinger’s cat. In this thought experiment, a cactus put in a sealed room that contains a vial of poison, the file is set to break and poison the cat when an unpredictable quantum event occurs. As there is no way of knowing whether this event has happened, the cat is considered to be both alive and dead simultaneously. Only when the room is open is the reality of the cat’s life or death become fixed. The quantum system is rife with examples of reality acting strangely, and the behavior of light is another classic example. When physicists began conducting experiments to test if light was a particle they found a positive result, but when they performed experiments to see if light was a wave, they also received positive results. It seemed that whatever the scientists tested for they found, it was if their intentions that influenced the results. The problem was resolved by quantum mechanics, which takes into account the unpredictability of reality, Uncertainty.

Reality and perception

Your reality is shaped by your perception of experiences. Perception is what you are currently aware of; your perception can change from moment to moment, depending on your state of mind. You can understand this as subjective and objective reality. Subjective reality is what you see, feel and experience according to what is happening in your life here and now. Your perceptions of reality will inevitably change as a result of your emotions shifting according to your experiences and circumstances and your body altering through hormonal fluctuations that affect your mood. If you are having a rough day and you drop a carton of milk and skillet over the floor, it might be the final straw that leads you to break down in tears. If the same event occurs when you are feeling happy and strong, you would clean up the milk without being particularly upset. The spilled milk is the objective reality – you know without any doubt that it happened. Your reaction is your subjective reality how you were feeling in that moment.

Are you sure you’re objective?

Objective reality is the common consensus of what is undoubtedly, inarguably real. Everyone has the same experience or view. Objective reality tells us that humans cannot fly.  Yet some yogis can levitate and hover above the ground, so even this can be disproved. Objective reality tells us that we cannot walk through walls, and that the world is round. Objectivity should have no doubt.