My Rant About Reality

I'm still a little off-frequency today, but doing better.  (Frequency constipated?  Get new astral-tone, the app that puts you back in focus!) I actually experienced about five minutes of sadness yesterday - I think it was more of a pity-party than anything else. You know your spirit team really, really loves it when you start throwing pity-parties.  I can just see the eyes rolling. Really? Five minutes of sadness? Good grief! How good does this guy have to have it?

I kept reminding myself that to not try and figure out a solution, but rather just trust the process.  I remembered a dream again this morning, so my dream-remembering initiative is really going well.  Something I noticed about my dreams is that I don't have a lot of tactile sensation, it's mostly sight and sound.

There was an interesting conversation that developed off of one of my posts about the validating process; essentially it was about where we draw the line between "what is real" and what is "just in our head," with a couple of people issuing a warning about people who do not "live in reality," warning that they would come to psychological harm when their self-deception came crashing down. 

Unless one is experiencing full out-of-body experiences, quality EVP interaction or is a strong medium that can see or hear those on the other side, the rest of us are left with what might be termed "secondary" phenomena, such as signs, feelings, intuition, and thought content that we did not initiate or control. I would argue that such things are only considered "secondary" in terms of how this world validates evidence and knowledge, but that's an argument for another day.

What I want to address here is something meatier; the concept of "reality" itself.  I asked, in that thread, the person making the characterizations and predictions, what "reality" was and how one "lives in reality".  Their only response was "not in my head", which I infer to mean that "living in reality" means living one's life in accordance with things that don't exist solely "in their head".  

That presents a pretty serious challenge, given that all experience - even that which we count as being experiences of an outside world - occur "in our head".  Or, more appropriately, "in our mind".  There is no such thing as an objective experience "out there". Even when our experiences are supposedly independently verified by other people, all of that is still taking place in our mind. 

The mind is where all supposed external stimulation gets changed into what we call our experience of an external world, yet even our concept that such stimulation comes from an external world in the first place depends upon a reality generated within our minds.

“The atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.” ― Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Prize, theoretical physicist

 Observations not only disturb what is to be measured, they produce it." - Pascual Jordan, theoretical physicist

The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment." - Bernard d'Espagnat, theoretical physicist

In the beginning there were only probabilities. The universe could only come into existence if someone observed it. It does not matter that the observers turned up several billion years later. The universe exists because we are aware of it." - Martin Rees, cosmologist and astrophysicist

As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter. — Max Planck Nobel Prize, theoretical physics

According to many, the reality which we perceive as being "outside our head", or mind, cannot exist as such without what is inside our head - our consciousness.  This is not a "new age" concept; this is the conclusion of many top-notch physicists.  If what each of us experiences is in some part created by the nature of our consciousness, by our perception, where then do we draw the line between "living in reality" and "not living in reality"?

It seems to me that to some degree, even here in the physical world, what we experience as "reality" is a collaboration between individual (and group) consciousness/perception and quantum potential.  A lot of afterlife information points to an increased capacity to manipulate experience and matter in the afterlife realms.  Think of a person and you can be with them in an instant; intend a cup of hot tea and it appears on your kitchen counter.  Imagine yourself a different age and you become that age.

Despite these accounts, the afterlife is reported to be "more real" than the common Earth-physical realm we are used to, even though here we cannot simply imagine a thing and make it physically real  - well, at least not most of us, and maybe taking a bit longer to appear, usually making that appearance in some ordinary way.  The discrepancy should be obvious: if reality is about what you do not "imagine" or "wish," how can a place where one can imagine or wish something into physical existence be considered "more real" by comparison?  Wouldn't that world seem less real, more imaginary, more dream-like?  Yet, that is not what is reported.

And, it gets worse for "imagination" detractors from there.  Supposedly, the "higher" we go in these more real planes of afterlife existence, the easier it gets to imagine and "wish" even bigger and more complex and long-lasting things into existence - including whole worlds and perhaps even whole universes!

It seems to me that the bulk of afterlife information available pinpoints the imagination as the most powerful, creative tool in existence, and yet we are often told by supposed authorities on the afterlife to dismiss the imagination as "unreliable" and "deceptive."  They would say we are "deceiving ourselves" if we put stock in something we experience via imagination; yet every new thing that was ever invented or built on Earth began in someone's imagination - often accompanied by a heavy dose of "expert" ridicule.  

Some supposed "experts" would warn us against investing in imagination as "real", yet the bulk of afterlife information and the agreement of many of the greatest physicists to have ever lived that it is the power of the mind and consciousness that actually creates what we experience as reality.

So, you'll pardon me if I'm somewhat skeptical those who dismiss imagination, intention, prayer and affirmation techniques and make claims about the nature of "reality", what it means to "live in reality", and dire warnings of self-deception. If the mind and imagination are powerful tools of creating our experience, it should be encouraged, not dismissed and vilified.

In addition, it seems to me that unless we can let go of the urge to compete with other views of the afterlife and what constitutes "valid" afterlife communication, we will be naturally restricted with regards to what we can create as our consciousness collapses potentials into experience.  In many spiritual and philosophical circles, there is an attribute called "allowing", or "non-resistance".  In my opinion, allowing others their creative right to their own reality-creating structures, with the knowledge that their creations do not detract from or diminish my own in any way, releases me from having to find some kind of "consensus" reality that includes theirs in some way. It also releases me from negative judgment and distraction by drawing comparisons.

As an analogy, I do a lot of work for a nation-wide yogurt company that sells a traditional, 24-hour fermentation, two-ingredient yogurt (culture and milk).  They don't run down the competition, or call them out for "deceptive marketing" (by even using the term "yogurt" on their product); they let the nature of their product sell itself.  If people prefer a product that has virtually no health value and has sweeteners and other additives, then they are welcome to it and there is nothing wrong with that choice.

This seems to me to be a better route; let other people have their reality and focus on manifesting/finding that which resonates with us.