Whew! What a day, what a day, what a day… Hey, is it only Monday???
None of it was real.
I got a lot done today, and am kicking back with a manhattan and reminiscing about this thing we call “the world,” “reality,” the shared dream of our existence.
Yeah, it only takes one or two of these manhattens to turn me towards the philosophical.
You remember in that movie, “The Wizard of Oz,” how Dorothy gets home? With the help of all her friends she just clicks her heels and says again and again…
“There’s no place like home.”
Thing is, there really is no place like home, and yet we’ve all made some sort of “home” for ourselves here in space and time. In fact the WORLD is not a “place” in space and time. It exists in MIND. It is an idea, built up out of stories made of words; an imaginary realm. Each of us has our own unique perception of reality; no two are alike. All are unique. Together each of our unique perceptions of reality form the fabric of “culture” – made of BELIEFS.
Whatever we “believe” to be real is real to us. Absolutely real. We believe so many different things; it is a miracle we get along at all.
And yet each one of us contributes our own unique vision – our set of beliefs – to the whole we call “reality,” and in so doing we link mind with mind, joining with others to form the soul and substance of what we believe is real.
We join minds and experience a shared reality that provides a suitable place for us to live and have our being. In concert with others, we forge reality. We are forging reality moment by moment. As we live and breathe, we all together sustain ourselves and the illusion of the world “out there.”
But don’t kid yourself; the “world” is illusion, through and through. Perceptions of light happening in MIND. Grand works of imagination. Perceptions, thoughts, feelings, meaning, and all the narrative we believe our “brain” is reciting to us, that tells the story of our unique reality. Each one of us is doing this. Every one of us is doing this together. And together we are constructing and fortifying and verifying the REAL we think is there outside of MIND. Yet that’s the thing — it all happens in MIND… there is no other “place” in time and space.
So what, then, is truly real? Ah such an interesting question. All-that-is in each moment here and now: this moment is the only thing.
These moments — yours and mine? They mesh so neatly that even if we disagree about what is real, we’ll agree on the basic assumptions. This room is real. This chair is real. This sky is real. The moonlight slanting in the window is real. This manhattan is real. This blog is real. These words on the web page are real, aren’t they? Why is that? Why do we believe all that?
Because we are one MIND.
Tags: Mind, perception, Philosophy, reality
