Experience may seem to be intimately integrated with the world around us, but the truth is that everything we know takes place inside our consciousness. What is sensed while touching the fingers is not something that is occurring ‘out there,’ but rather, it is something that is occurring inside our consciousness.
Table of Contents
Nothing exists except inside our consciousness
What people “see” is an interpretation of information from their senses. The interconnected complexity of the central nervous system is presumably responsible for the awareness people enjoy.
The world people perceive, the spouses they enjoy, and the beds they sleep in are all a part of the undefinable gray mist of the universe. None of them exist empirically.
When considering that it’s the same for every consciousness everywhere, that awareness is all that reality is in the first place (and that every reality is different), it is quickly realized that the universe is a collective concept. This is, of course, my opinion.
Good and Bad
People like or dislike something or somebody because of the changes that the objects’ interpretation produces within the person. Good or bad, objects of a person’s reality exist in the capacity that they exist because the mind produced them with aspects found in the observer’s consciousness.
All of the aspects of reality have to exist (to some extent) within the mind because physical experience is merely a mental reconstruction. A person defines the extent to which they can experience the states of Gandhi and Napoleon. In this way, objects and people in life represent more closely facets within a person’s mind than they do any empirical physicality.
The Shadow
This unbiased view is often hard for people to adopt because it requires that they take responsibility for their shadow, so-to-speak. Most people are not interested in exploring their own flaws, only in molding reality to reflect that they are right.
When aspects of the personality are denied, they manifest themselves physically and in negative form. When people subdue innate characteristics of themselves, often for the purpose of acting civilized, they cut themselves off from their true selves.
Repressed aspects compel people to seek those aspects in others. They compel the person because what an individual is at the deepest level does not ask for or require approval to be expressed.
The mind requires self-comprehension, and in an attempt to understand itself, it will seek to intellectualize those traits thru indirectly analyzing others, but mental incorporation cannot be achieved thru intellectualizing. The more profound the repression, the larger the manifestation in life.
Most are unaware that they have not dealt with their own problems, and in an attempt to free themselves of negative qualities, they resort to prejudice, anger, and scapegoating. This is natural; it is natural, and it always leads to an inaccurate perception of the world (for perception is both the process of receiving information and the act of interpretation of said data).
Embracing Self
All of us possess inferior traits, as they are seen, but not all are negative. When expressed properly, these aspects can unify the self and therefore become immensely powerful; repressed, the lack of focus on selected areas produces imbalance.
In the same way that a dominant arm will be stronger and better coordinated, one may decide that emotions are erratic and expend both time and energy to subdue them, a task which will never be accomplished. Another may have a higher comfort level within the confines of their mind and therefore ignore the rich diversity found in social interactions.
With the united expression of all personal aspects, the mind is able to transcend to the unified state necessary for experiential growth. People can become completely integrated only through the complete incorporation of their characteristics.
