Excerpts About Objective Reality
Facets of Unity, p. 206 • discuss »
Facets of Unity, p. 246 • discuss »
Facets of Unity, p. 255 • discuss »
The Unfolding Now, p. 202 • discuss »
Diamond Heart Book V, p. 172 • discuss »
The realization and understanding of space is necessary for the perception of objective reality—what we will call objective perception. Objective perception means perceiving reality, all that confronts our awareness, as it is. It is a matter of seeing things as they are, rather than seeing them from a certain point of view or position. So by objective we do not mean the scientific positivist sense, in which objective means what exists physically outside us rather than in the mind. We also do not mean objective in the sense of not being emotional, or not being experiential. We mean seeing things, seeing internal or external things, as they are, instead of subjectively. Subjective is the antithesis; it means according to our positions, feelings, filters, beliefs and attitudes. So objective perception means pure perception, free from all positions, bias, filters, conflicts, intentions, etc. It is perceiving whatever it is without any obscuration or intermediacy, so we see it just the way it is in itself.
The Void, p. 151 • discuss »
Our only hope of really seeing things as they are is to suspend the mind, to go through the mind. And, as we have seen today, to go through the mind means to suspend what we believe we know about the world, about ourselves, about reality, about everything. That is usually scary, and it will not be easy. It is quite a jump, but that is what we want to work on. Only when we can do this can we perceive what is called objective reality—what truly exists, what truly is. Only then do we know in a deep sense, in a real sense what we are, what the world is, and what’s really happening. This is the beginning of a real world, a real universe, a true living from the moment, from the now. Then true life happens. True existence is lived. In a sense, what we are talking about today is something that cannot be talked about. How can you talk about something if you don’t use concepts? When you are completely experiencing reality without concepts, you can’t even say that something exists—existence is a concept. Ultimately, “experience” is a concept. We have tried to live according to these concepts; we have tried to know the world through them and fit our experience into them. What will happen if we don’t do it that way? What will happen if our knowing is one hundred percent spontaneous?
Diamond Heart Book IV, p. 240 • discuss »
This understanding of the relationship between logos, teaching, method, and reality has another important implication. As a methodology is practiced within the logos of a particular teaching, objective reality will reveal itself in forms relevant for the journey of self-realization undertaken through that teaching. In other words, a profound and fundamental manifestation of reality characteristic of one teaching may never arise for followers of a different teaching, because each teaching orients to reality through a different logos. One way of understanding this is that because each teaching traverses different terrain in its unfolding journey, the same underlying reality will be revealed in different forms along the way. Consider, for example, that the Inuit people of the Arctic Circle recognize more than twenty forms of snow and ice. These are true forms of physical reality never recognized by someone living in temperate latitudes, because the climate and the demands of the environment are different. In a similar way, followers of a spiritual teaching will encounter distinct experiences of objective reality that are appropriate to the journey of the soul addressed by that teaching.
Spacecruiser Inquiry, p. xii • discuss »
For instance, our knowledge patterns our experience to the extent that we actually experience a physical reality. We end up believing that there is such a thing as physical reality and physical matter. In fact, we are completely convinced that physical reality is a fundamental truth. In objective reality, there is no such thing as the physical world that we know. If we experience our body without the filter of ordinary knowledge, we will not experience a physical body, we will experience a fluid patterning of luminosity. Our experience is so conditioned and determined, that not only do we believe we have and are a body, we believe in something more basic that underlies this belief: that the body is the body as we take it to be. For most people, this is absolutely true: The body is physical matter that is born and hurts and dies. From that point of view, how can we possibly think of it as a fluid patterning of luminosity? This is just an example, maybe a little extreme, to tell us how far the patterning of ordinary knowledge goes.
Spacecruiser Inquiry, p. 70 • discuss »
But if we want our experience to impact our life, it will have to become something more than a lollipop. Experience will have to be approached as nourishment that will lead to actual growth, actual development, actual evolution. What we need is an education about how to be a human being. We might not have any idea what it means to be a human being. Being human does not simply mean being human in isolation from Essence, in isolation from God or Truth. Being human also means knowing how we are related to other realms. So we need the knowledge of the soul, of Essence, and of objective reality to learn how to be a human being. But what is needed more than anything else is an education that will transform our approach to experience in general. Whether we’re experiencing other people, or daily life, whether we’re experiencing emotions, essential states, or realizations, we need to approach our experiences in a mature way. The experience will have to impact us in a certain situation, in a certain circumstance, in connection with other facts and elements for it to transform our consciousness into a consciousness that can relate to experience with more maturity. Otherwise, our experience is wasted. It’s a lollipop that tastes good or tastes terrible, and then we have to start all over again. We could learn to approach our experiences, whether negative or positive, whether profane or sublime, with balance, maturity, and sensitivity.
Diamond Heart Book V, p. 335 • discuss »