From the Illusion Of Matter To The Reality Of Consciousness

In this post I would like to make you realize in the most scientific and rational way, that is, from your direct experience, that what we call physical matter is an invention, an illusion from which we need to wake up. Holding such a model is a huge holding back from being able to accomplish great breakthrough in our society and to grow up as individuals. Are you ready to crack the "physical" wall?

Picture Credit: Akshay Nanavati on Unsplash

"Believing in matter is like believing in the tooth fairy.

They do exist but only within mind"

-A.M-

Objective: not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts. Definition from Cambridge dictionary.

Alright.

I think it is time, being in the XXI century, to stop believing in some fantasy stories we have been told to and grow up as individuals. We need to shake some assumptions off our head and look at reality from a very different perspective. The reason why so many people find themselves in a difficult situation is due to their blind belief in something that has zero validity in our direct experience and by changing this perspective the whole reality around us will be shaped. On one side there is the education you have received at school and at Universities and on the other side you have your own experience about reality. It is up to you what to trust.

With consciousness work we are not trying to change the content that seems to exist as independent and separate, but to relate differently with the container from which the content is experienced. Only by doing so real transformation can occur. And it will occur.

We know a world made out of objects and we behave accordingly. We act as if out there physical buildings, physical human beings, physical animals, physical technologies and fancy clothes exist as independent objects having their own existence. And by believing so we have created over decades of existence patterns and behaviors that justify this way of seeing reality. By buying the best brand of clothes and technology, by aiming to get the best car or the newest kitchen's tool, by looking for material security and by attaining physical objects in general, we feel (transiently) happier and fulfilled, missing an extremely obvious and fundamental point: we are deceiving our self.

All there is about your daily experience is subjective faculties and you have never and will ever come in contact with something that is objective and made out of matter.

The contact point between what you call you and the world is represented by mind and not by physical boundaries. When I say mind, I mean thoughts, perceptions, feelings and emotions. All you know about yourself and the world are thoughts, concepts, ideas, emotions and the perceptions of seeing, hearing, tasting, hearing and touching. Nothing else is present in reality. A brain, is not an objective structure present within your skull. For most of us is mainly an idea since we have never seen one. But even if you could open your skull up and look at it, all there is are subjective perceptions of sight and rotten smell. Have you ever touched an objective tree or have you simply experienced the subjective perception of touching it? Does the nice new dress you wanna buy have objective qualities or is it made out of your inner state of mind, perceptions and ideas about it?

You will never get in contact with a physical and objective brain. And for the sake of this conversation, you will never get in contact with anything objective at all. Matter has never been proved to exist and will never be. All you know about the Universe is your own subjective and relative faculties. All you know about the Universe is how you relate to it.

In order to experience something made out of matter, such as a physical body and a physical world, we would have to find something existing outside mind, that is, something different or separate from your subjective experiences. Can you find it? If yes, let me know.

Holding reality as material is pure non-sense. It represents a profound misunderstanding of our own personal experiences and it is the main obstacle to grow as individuals since we tend to blame the external world for our suffering. This misinterpretation of reality is perpetuated and self-maintained by our culture mostly via education and science. Even though science has already adjusted the target by saying that reality is made out of energy or M-strings, we are still far from realizing what is actually happening in this precise moment.

How do scientists or you as an individual, know that what you measure and quantify is not simply a limitation of your own subjective mind and perceptions? How do you trust your own subjective faculties to claim and prove the existence of something objective? Have not you ever noticed that what you call object is simply a subjective and personal experience? Do you think that if an alien or a cat could measure the same object you have just measured, would they come up with the same numbers? Probably as much as a seeing and a blind person would. Why do you think that your measurements are indicative of an objective reality?

You, as a human, are measuring and perceiving something that is relative and limited to your subjective perceptions and making it objective. Scientists or anyone making measurements are not quantifying objective reality but the limitations of their own subjective perceptions, that is, their own mind and then they project and superimpose them into reality.

There are several reasons why this obvious truth cannot be seen. Firstly because we take for granted many assumptions and beliefs without ever questioning them and secondly because our busy mind is able to freeze the flow of perceptions making them appear as something that seems physical and solid (check my post "The Vipassana Meditation Technique").

One of the objection people might make is: "How do you justify the fact that the world in which we live is shared by many other humans and that the law of physics that scientists are finding are actually working quite well in constructing buildings and technologies? These laws of physics must be objectively true!"

As I said at the beginning, consciousness work does not challenge the content of reality, what it seems to exist, but rather how the content is interpreted and from which perspective is experienced. The laws of physics are still working even after awakening but they should be rather called the laws of mind. It is simply a re-contextualization of the content, a shift that comes naturally from your direct experience by realizing that you have never encountered in your life anything else than subjective faculties. These laws of mind are still measurable and quantifiable but they have not objective or material qualities. Once again I am not picking on science because I have something against it. I have just realized things that I cannot anymore ignore and that are helping me in my life and that I would like to share with whoever is interested.

This first shift will allow you to see matter for what it is, a misinterpretation of reality. And this realization will help you enormously in your life. The realization that there is nothing objective in life is a huge insights and, as I have already discussed in my 3 part series ("Objectivity Is Your Own Creation - Part 1","Objectivity Is Your Own Creation - Part 2","Objectivity Is Your Own Creation - Part 3"), it gives you the power of taking full authority and responsibility of your life as a human without believing to be at the mercy of external events. You will realize that fear is not something you need to face outside you but within because there is only you.

This first shift in not so difficult to make. All you have to do is to get more in contact with your own daily experiences, from drinking a coffee to watch a movie, and realize that you know nothing about a coffee or a movie but your own sensations, emotions and thoughts about these objects that seem to exist outside your subjective experiences. You need to realize that you are superimposing concepts and thoughts into reality and creating the existence of physical objects. You are constantly turning subjectivity into objectivity and believing that objects exist independently of you.

Do not try to over rationalize it, just trust your direct experience. Does the coffee still exist for you if you do not think about it or if you do not taste it? Does the world, as you know, still exist when you are in deep sleep or does it disappear? Be honest in answering these questions and allow yourself to say that you do not know. Not-knowing is the starting point from which great discoveries can be made because from this honest admission questioning can take place ("The Importance of Not-Knowing").

This first shift from material to mind is just half of the story and from this perspective still many paradoxes and questions might arise. Most of paradoxes come from the premise of the existence of a material Universe in which we stand as physical entities made out of flesh and bones and in which other physical living and non-living organisms live. We have just seen that this model is total absurdity and that, if anything at all exist, it is represented by your mind or subjective experiences. To make sense of the whole picture we need to make another step towards the realization that also mind and perceptions do not represent the ultimate reality.

Before jumping into the next necessary step to reunify the whole picture, I need to take as an example another assumption that science and most of us take as true: that the Universe was born some billions of years ago as dumb matter and that only recently consciousness has made its appearance out of it. This is to say that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of matter or its consequence. We tend to believe that consciousness is a personal feature of each individual that came to exist only with the appearance of living organisms. We hold consciousness as an objective quality owned by living organisms. And it is not the case ("Brain And Consciousness: What Comes First?"). We confuse Consciousness with mind.

The main weakness of this assumptions is: "How can scientists affirm that before the appearance of living organisms there was a world if consciousness was still not present? With which faculties they make such a claim?". Consciousness, by definition is what allows us to be conscious of the existence of something and therefore no one can prove the presence of a world without being conscious. The experiments that have been done in our days to prove the existence of a material world appeared millions of years ago simply reflect subjective measurements done in the present time measuring present events and they cannot say anything about some past events in which consciousness was not present.

Science will never solve the so called "hard problem of Consciousness" by putting matter as a starting point and then asking how that evolutionary step could occur.

To know what was present million of years ago we do not need to make any measurements. We simply need to look within us ("Look Within You", "No-Self: The First Step Towards You", "Neti-Neti: Who Am I?") and by finding what is there, that is, our true nature, we can answer from a direct experience what is the substance of all reality. What is the common factor that links together subjective experiences? What is the ground that allows thoughts, emotions, feelings and perceptions to take place? These faculties are known, they are being witnessed by something. Is it not the taste of the coffee known? Are not your inner thoughts known? Is not the sensation of a hot bath on your body known?

These experiences are known by you but you are misleading what your are for an idea of you. You are superimposing beliefs and assumptions over your true nature, that is, what allows to all these experiences to arise. Before mind and perceptions have appeared into the world, there was not a physical world or a Universe made out of objects. The world as we know it full of objects and organisms is the result of the appearance of mind that turns what has no form into something that seems to exist as an independent object. It is a creative process through the creation of distinctions that are labeled as something objective ("Evolution Is Creation").

Before mind and perceptions have appeared, the Universe was simply infinite Being, it was simply Consciousness (or God to use religious terminology) that only appears now to be finite due to the illusion given by mind that gives form to That which has no form. If this sounds far-fetched to be experienced, you are wrong. It is happening every night when you go to sleep. The world that seems to exist in its objective way disappears in deep sleep and then magically comes back when you wake up. As a result of this observation we come to the wrong conclusion that the objective and physical word was always there waiting for us. No. Before mind and perceptions re-appear, the world is literally non-objective, immaterial, formless.

What is an object, such as a sandwich or the sun, devoid of your personal and subjective faculties? Nothing. It is Pure Being that appears to be a sandwich in the moment you superimpose over it concepts and perceptions.

When in my previous post I refer to reality being Nothingness ("Before The Big Bang"), I meant that the world has no objective qualities. Nothingness means no-things. Nothingness, Consciousness, Being, Presence, Now, God are all synonymous to refer to That which is aware of everything that seems to appear. It is a term to refers to the only "thing" existing that seems to take the shape and form of many objects and living creatures through the veil of mind and perceptions. Nothingness does not refer to the absence of things or to an empty space. The Nothingness I am talking about looks exactly as reality looks right now but devoid of any ownership and objective qualities.

Mind and perceptions are itself illusory "entities" that are necessary to create the existence of something out of Nothing, forms out of That which is formless, distinctions out of Oneness. Every experience is a constant big bang where things appear out of Nothing.

The Universe was not born billion of years ago. The Universe was (only apparently) born in the moment Consciousness could (only apparently) take the form of the first perception to make a distinction within Itself. Then through "evolution" Consciousness got much more sophisticated and took (only apparently) the form of mind that is able to divided reality in infinite ways and magically human being and objects seems to appear. It is all illusory. There was, is and will be only you, infinite Consciousness.

If we want to model reality correctly, we cannot start with matter as a premise but with That which is conscious of the world, that is, Consciousness. Rupert Spira once said: "people in 500 hundreds years ahead from now would look back at us as we look back at people living in the dark ages. They will look at us with incredulity thinking that we have believed that this amazing experience all came from something dead and inert. They will not believe it".

I hope I have caused some sort of reaction in you. I hope I have shaken and cracked some of your assumptions about reality being physical. I really hope I did. If you truly have grasped what it has been said here you should be shocked about how you could hold such a wrong interpretation of reality for so many years.

To summarize you need to become directly conscious that matter is in reality mind or subjective experiences and that those are known by You. Why is this important to realize? Because what you fear is not something or someone outside you. It is you.

The world is not angry or unfair to you, you are at yourself. By cleaning your own shit you will become fearless no matter what happens outside you. This is true power. Not attaining illusory objects.

Can you "find" Yourself?

Thanks for reading.