Consciousness: An Infinite Origami-Designer

In this post I would like to use another metaphor to convey the revolutionary message that what we are and the reality we live into is literally made out of the same "substance", Consciousness, that is deceiving itself to be someone living in a world made out of many different objects in order to participate in its own creation by taking multiple points of view.

Picture Credit: Faris Mohammed from Unplashed

"People neglect the real nature

of the illusory world"

- Rupert Spira -

This post (and actually the entire blog) comes from my personal desire to convey personal realizations that have changed my life and that I believe might be beneficial for everyone interested in changing its life. My desire is to accomplish such a goal in the most direct and clear way possible, a way that might not help you out in grasping directly what I am talking about but that can raise within you the sufficient curiosity to make you take these ideas plausible enough to get you taking real steps towards doing the Work. Real transformation comes from direct experience, not by intellectual understanding: these ideas and concepts have to become literally your reality.

I have recently commented on Youtube a video that was covering metaphysical topics about the reality we live into exposing my own vision of the world and what, in my personal opinion, is going on in this precise moment. What I was claiming is that what we think we are and what we think the world is, it is a misinterpretation constructed by the mind that is interpreting reality for its own self-interested. I kept saying that myself and all the objects existing out there (stars, pencils, sun, moon, ocean, mountains and so on) are not physical individual entities made out of different substances but rather Consciousness deceiving itself to be a specific point of view to be able to participate in its own creation.

You are not a human having consciousness, you are Consciousness having a human experience lost in your own illusion and creation.

Of course mind, that is what is creating our sense of self right now, will never accept this scenario to be realistic because it implies that its existence is illusory. Therefore, through logic and rationality, mind will always come up with different (more rational) solutions to negate and dismiss this possibility. The belief to be a real and objective entity must be always present to keep the illusion alive.

Few hours later I got an answer from a guy that was showing its fascination about this possible model but that was also really skeptical about "your absolute confidence in which you speak", using his words. He continues saying "I don't see how pure consciousness without any additional properties would be able to create anything. Likewise, I don't see how something can arise out of nothing. There would need to be an underlying mechanism or structure that already exists". He concluded saying " How can a consciousness ever be sure that there isn't something outside of it, manipulating it in a certain way, rather than the consciousness being all powerful and being the sole creator of its reality"

All these points are extremely well put and they show his genuine interest in understanding the metaphysical aspect of our reality. I found myself asking those questions. They represent mandatory paradoxes that need to be faced by whoever is interested in getting a deeper understanding of the nature of reality, something that however cannot be answered through the mind.

Mind is an extremely useful tool to deal with the illusory world where we behave as if we are individuals living in a world made out of physical objects. It comes really handy for survival purposed when we need to discern between safety foods and poisoned ones but mind should be left aside when we want to tackle existential questions. It is simply not its territory and its curriculum does not fit this job at all.

The only way we can answer to questions like "How is possible that something came out of nothing?", that can be also put in "How life can be actually possible after all?", is through direct experience, a territory that comes prior to mind, that is accessible in every moment in our daily life but that in most of the cases gets hidden by the prevalence of mind that feels the danger within those questions. So it gets cocky, judgmental, defensive, arrogant, violent and in most of the case it manages to discourage us in pursuing that curvy road.

The skepticism shown by the guy touched many good points: the inability to see how something could come out of nothing and how pure consciousness could be able to create anything without any additional properties: for him there must have been an already existing structure that allowed consciousness to operate. Finally he questioned how could I be so sure that consciousness is the only thing in existence and nothing else being outside It.

I cannot, through words, make anyone grasping these concepts because they do require your active interest and commitment in finding what is true about yourself and the reality you live into. I do not even want to try to convince you since it would be counterproductive: the number one rule of doing this work is that dogma and beliefs should be left out of the way otherwise we will simply hold intellectually a new ideology but behaving in the same exact way as before.

Once again, this understanding must shift from being intellectual to be your own reality, a transformation that will become evident to everyone around you in the way you live your life and the choices you make, devoid of fears and not influenced by the compelling need of survive at any cost.

But what I can do is to make these concepts a bit more accessible through metaphors, a tool that has the advantage to create tangible images in your mind that can be transpose into the reality you live. I have already created some of them ( see my posts "Your Life is A Truman Show", "Your Life Is A Night Dream", "Like Water", "Action, It Is Movie Time!"), but I am always in search for new ones to convey these insights and I recently came up with a new one that might trigger within you the interest in becoming more proactive in taking this curvy road.

It is quite simple and straightforward. I think you are familiar with the art of origami: it is a technique that allows the creation of many different shapes starting from a single piece of paper. The desired shape is created by folding the paper many times with different angles without the need to use any extra material to craft whatever you have in mind.

Imagine to have at disposal a piece of paper big enough to create different shapes within the same piece of paper. Potentially you can give life to an infinite number of forms, all different, all shaped through unique angles, all having their own traits but all sharing the same substance, the piece of paper. Each form represents a unique perspective through which the piece of paper can observe its own creation.

Initially, in its primordial unfolded structure, it is unable in participating in any activity, it can simply be a piece of paper (without knowing it). But once it starts folding itself in a particular shape, it can fall into the illusion to be that particular form and to see the remaining land of paper as the external world in which it found itself living, what might be called the Universe.

Each new form would consider to be a particular independent entity living among others and within a Universe made out of different objects all having their own independent existence. They would tell to others when they were born, they will engage in personal activities, they will share their life with other beings, they will fear others and death until they will realize that all this was illusory: their belief in being a independent individual was a misinterpretation of reality.

There never was a "me", there never were "others", there never was a "world". All there was in existence was the piece of paper, their true nature. How can they wake up to this realization? Not by looking outside them because by doing so they will only see different objects made out of different substances. The only way to awake is by looking within themselves to realize that they are made out of paper and so it is the entire Universe.

The same illusion it is happening exactly now, around you. You think to be an individual, you think to be surrounded by objects, you think to be talking with other beings, you think to be surfing an objective independent ocean. No. No. No and again no. This is true only from the limited individual point of view. This is true only from a deceived position. This is true if you look at the world from a dual perspective, a perspective that is illusory due to the power of the mind that is creating boundaries, limitations, physicality and separations within "something", Consciousness, that has no objective features.

In this sense, Consciousness is an infinite origami-designer!

To realize this astonishing truth you cannot focus outside you, you cannot trust what others say, you cannot trust what your mind say. You need to look within and find a "place" that goes beyond anything that is perceivable, anything that has a movement. You need to find That which is conscious of those movements (thoughts, feelings, emotions, bodily sensations, perceptions) and once there you need to realize that That which you are has no limits, has no boundaries, has no physicality, has no separations until mind (that is another origami form taken by Consciousness) prevails and claims its own identity in the world.

You can consider the mind the necessary tool to create the illusion of separation. Without the mind we, Consciousness, could not experience our own creation, we could not experience the illusory duality of the world with all its drama and excitements. Mind is not something to be blamed or to get rid of. It is a powerful tool and as such it is critical to learn how to use it.

All these metaphors ("Your Life is A Truman Show", "Your Life Is A Night Dream", "Like Water", "Action, It Is Movie Time!" and "Consciousness: An Infinite Origami-Designer") have a common limitation. They need the existence of something that give rise to the infinite range of shapes and forms: waves need the existence of water, the character in the movie need the screen, the characters in the dream need a dreamer, the origami forms need a piece of paper and therefore skeptical rational people might understandably reply that this position is not different from the one held by religious people that believe in the existence of a mysterious God as the creator of all reality.

At this point I have to come back to the comments the guy had in reply to my Youtube post where he asked how is possible that something could come out of nothing. Who created the water? Who created the screen? Who created the dreamer? Who created the piece of paper? Who created Consciousness? If my claim is that Consciousness is the primordial and only substance in existence, where does it come from? And then, how Consciousness could create something without any additional properties? Where does it comes from my absolute confidence?

And here is where magic comes (you can check as well my previous posts "Before The Big Bang", " Evolution is Creation", "Ceci n'est pas un sandwich").

Since we were children we have invested an enormous amount of time in discovering the world around us. We have done incredible efforts in learning a language to then label what seemed to be out there, our self included. We have learnt what was "me" and what was " not-me", we have learnt what was dangerous and what was safe. We have basically learnt how to draw distinctions within reality.

The materialist model of reality that we are so accustomed to teaches us that those objects that we see "out there" have their own independent existence, an assumptions that no one (I repeat, no one) can and will ever prove. Can you prove that the pen in front of you exists and keeps the same material and objective features when you do not perceive it? The materialistic model implies that the stars, trees, cars, others beings and anything else in existence are made out of different objective substances (wood, metal, atoms, molecules, energy, you name it) and that their existence is totally independent from each other.

This way of reasoning is the problem in facing questions like: "How something could come out of nothing?" or "How Consciousness could create something without any additional properties?". We all assume that there is something right here right now to start with. We assume that we, as humans, and the world in which we live are made out of something objective and material. But this perspective represents a distort interpretations in looking at reality, a perspective that is created by the mind in order to give the illusion to exist as an independent individual in a world made out of many objects. This is the mind's job if it wants to exist and keep surviving but it is fundamental to discover this trick to live a more conscious life as a "human".

In reality, through careful meditation and/or contemplation, we can realize that any object (our body included) that seems so solid, material and physical and having its own existence boils down to subjective faculties, that is, the ability to see, smell, touch, hear, taste, to feel emotions, to have bodily sensations. What is so material, solid, physical and objective about those activities? Going deeper, those activities are not performed by an objective and physical individual (what you call you) but they are experienced by That which is conscious of them, which is not made out of anything material, solid or physical.

That has no substance, That has no feature, That has no objective existence that can be pointed out but it still exists and it is what you and the world are. Not having any objective feature we could say that That is no-thing, that is, is not a thing. So asking how something could come out of nothing and talking about properties of reality has no sense because it implies the existence of some-thing that never existed in the first place.

Humans, trees, stars, cars, others, animals, plants and the whole reality around us (us included) are not objective things existing out there. They are simply Nothing or Consciousness that by deceiving itself through the mind thinks to be an individual made out of something living in a world made out of objects having their own personal features.

You cannot realize all this by looking for external proofs because all your mind will find are objects. Instead, you need to look within, to go beyond mind and find the no-thing that you are. After this realization, step by step, you will realize that also what others are is no-thing, that your dog is no-thing, that the entire Universe is no-thing and that what appeared before to be some-thing was a superimposition, a trick of the mind in giving to concepts and ideas the power to create boundaries and limitation in a reality that has none.

You, as Consciousness, are bounder-less and limitless but you have the incredible power to create whatever distinction you want within yourself giving literally existence to something that a moment before was no-thing. Distinction is the mechanism that gives an illusory existence to things when in reality there are no-things. By awakening you will realize that all there is you, Consciousness, and if you see something other than you, it means you are creating distinctions that brings to life something was not there.

Do you grasp the importance of such a discovery? Do you grasp the power we have, as Consciousness thinking to be humans, in the creation of our reality?

As Rupert Spira said, people do not get that the real nature of the illusory world is Consciousness, nothing else.