The screen lights up. The credits appear, along with the sound of music, and the action commences. Imperceptibly our awareness turns from "reality" and we begin to identify with the characters in the movie. Their fears become our fears, their triumphs become ours. We now "become" the characters in the movie.
When we go to a live stage show, the same thing happens. At first we notice that the props are props and the actors are actors. As the action unfolds we perceive the energy inherent in the props and actors differently. Slowly we "become" the story. The props "become" real. The characters "become" our acquaintances, people we've known all our lives. Our life, our "reality", changes from that of a theater-goer to the "reality" of the characters in the play.
In "real" life we do exactly the same thing. At first our thoughts are just that- thoughts, then imperceptibly our thoughts "become" reality. Our disappointments, our ecstasies, our sorrows, our problems, all come from our image-ings of what is "out there" - the "play" of life. We use the energy of ordinary events and people for our "play".
We get so engrossed in our play that we forget that it originated in our thoughts. We feel as if what is happening is beyond our control. Just like it is in the movies! We forget that we can get up and leave any time we wish. We believe we are "stuck" in our problems. We do not realize that none of THIS is any more real than what we see on the screen is real.
There are moving patterns of light on the screen making it appear to us that figures are there- walking, talking, dancing, fighting and loving. But the figures are not real. They are a product of our image-ination. We construct the figures from the configuration of light patterns projected upon the screen.
All "reality" is a product of our imagination. We construct events and objects from energy patterns that we perceive. It's all pure illusion, and since it is illusion, it can be ignored, changed or enjoyed- whatever we wish. We can change the play from drama to comedy. We can make it a moral play or a frivolous farce. We can change the characters, the plot and the set. We can change what it "means". We can change reality.
We all have a name, reason, thought or idea for every object, event or abstraction that "exists". These names, reasons and ideas that we attach to objects, events and abstractions become substitutes for these same objects, events and abstractions. We then respond to the substitutions AS IF they were the original- the reality.
Our minds are linearly oriented and therefore cannot focus on reality and the substitution for that reality at the same time. If we take the substitution for the real, then we cannot "see" reality no matter how hard we try, even though it is right there waiting for our response if we but could see it.
Suppose that we perceive one kind of energy doing some kind of energy to another kind of energy, and we decide that what we are "seeing" is two children wrestling in the street. This becomes our reality simply by naming the objects and the event. We "see" two children playing.
Suppose that we then hear angry voices coming from the two children, and we decide that when we thought they were playing, we were mistaken. The two really are fighting. What we "saw" before was not real. Where before we could only "see" them playing, now we can only "see" them fighting. We cannot "see" them playing, no matter how hard we try. We can never "see" them playing and fighting at the same time. Whatever reality we have at any one time is all there is. New perceptions are possible only when we can let go of the old.
Suppose that we now find that the two children are neither playing nor fighting, but instead, are working. They are very good actors who are being filmed by a camera we didn't see. We would then see that we had not been seeing reality at all, but NOW we are! On and on, always caught by what we BELIEVE to be reality rather than seeing reality itself.
Each moment, reality is what it IS, and it is changeless within each moment. Around this changeless reality our perceptions of that reality may change, becoming the new substitution. This is what was happening in our example.
Our perception may go back and forth in time to other perceptions of reality and change there also, creating new substitutions for those realities. A "reality" changed in the past affects our present "reality". The manner in which we "see' a past experience now, creates a substitution for that reality in the present. The way we remember an experience with a dog in the past affects the "reality" of dogs now.
Dogs, trees, pain, sorrow, embarrassment, anything we can name is a substitution FOR reality. What we believe to be reality is not. Real reality is beyond conception, beyond words.
Real reality can only be observed or experienced when all judgments, opinions and beliefs have been transcended. ALL belief systems must be transcended if we are to live in reality.
More of this chapter in next issue!