Hack Your Reality

Reality is a lie.

 

Think about this: We are all one consciousness, experiencing itself subjectively.

 

That pretty much sums up the entirety of this article. But, allow me to further elaborate.

Imagine that we are all frequencies. We are all part of the same source which emits these frequencies, and we are made up of every infinite frequency there is. Yet as humans, most of the time we get stuck on a particular frequency, rather than seeing reality as it really is - as multi-dimensional. We are stuck in, let's say, the 4th dimension. We perceive ourselves as having separate physical bodies, as existing through time, as being constructed of certain elements of personality, certain likes and dislikes, etc.

 

This is our ego, and it is an illusion.

Reality, as most people know it, is a lie. People perceive this to an extent, but they don't understand the full ramifications. Imagine living life under a blanket, and then suddenly pulling that blanket away and seeing the real world. This is the haze that most people are kept under throughout their entire lives. They never experience the real world. They never become active participants in life. They are spectators, rather than actors - responding to the reality set up for them rather than creating their own reality. They've put everyone in a box, and they're trying to keep people from seeing outside of this box.

 

This may sound strange, but think about it: Why do you think there is a war on drugs, or that LSD and other hallucinogens were so demonized during and in the aftermath of the 60's? It is because these drugs are pathways; methods for seeing past the fake world, and into the true one. There are many methods for doing this, for seeing into the beyond. Most spiritual practices aim at doing this in one way or another. Most important to remember, it's all about altering your perceptions. It is true what they say - perception is reality.

Most people perceive that there is something wrong with the world, but they just can't put their finger on what it is, exactly. The problem is, our consciousness is at a very low level of evolution. We have people out there - people who are aware of these levels of existence - and they have gained power from this knowledge. They've created brotherhoods, and tried to make this knowledge occult (or hidden), so that the masses go through their entire lives without ever knowing the truth. All pre-industrial cultures have had ways of perceiving this truth, whether it be through shamans, magic-workers, religious leaders, etc.

 

Only we westerners in our postmodern, rationalized world have been blinded to this reality. We have been cut off from the heartbeat of the world. From childhood we are subtly programmed by television, by culture and by the standardized school system - we are programmed to ignore this reality. As Bill Hicks once said, “(it is) like someone taking black spray paint to your third eye; that is what society does, and is set up to do to people.” We are being actively denied this understanding, and it is time to fight back.

How do we fight back? Through learning. Through listening to each other, and through real interaction. Most importantly, through love. To experience truth with someone else, you have to love that person in a sense. You have to accept them and essentially merge with them. We need to stop relating to each other as self-conscious egos awkwardly communicating words, and begin to understand that we are beings of pure thought experiencing concepts. Each of us has the seed of truth inside us, even if we are all on a different level of development. The entire point of life is to combine this energy with others, and to develop our own powers. Call it Buddhist theory if you will, but I personally feel that one person can help others to evolve. The more we do this, the more we are helping to transform the world, the closer we are to manifesting our desires. By doing this, we are subverting the dominant paradigm; we are teaching others new ways of seeing. Even if our words don't cause full realization in someone, they are yet another straw on the camel's back - another piece of the puzzle. Eventually, when the person is ready, and gone through enough development, the camel's back breaks and the person's perceptions alter. They "awaken."

Imagine this. At the deepest level, reality is symbolic. It is made of pure meaning. What we see as material reality is the crudest form of reality - if reality is an ocean, the everyday part that we see is like the wake that true reality leaves behind. Yet it is far too easy to become caught up in this surface appearance, believing that it is actual reality. This is why our lives have become bereft of meaning. This is why we live in despair as a culture - we are empty vessels waiting to be filled by whatever our masters program for us. This leaves us completely lost. We need to find ourselves.

How did people find themselves in the old days? They lived. They thought, they discussed passionately, they meditated, and they faced danger to the point of risking death. In the old days there was no technology, it was man and nature... and through interacting with nature, and searching inside himself, man found truth. He found inner strength. Every advance; every scientific and mystical field of study came from people who had changed their perceptions so they could see past the surface to the true world. Every culture has had mystics, and magic workers - these were the people who sought into the dark places, and brought the knowledge back for the rest of humanity. Unfortunately there is no place for the shaman in our society. Most who think on a different level are promptly pronounced insane. Do not be mistaken, I'm not saying the insane have spiritual enlightenment - most of them are created through neurosis and trauma. They are people who have faced a snag along the way, and have become caught in their own realities. Yet insanity becomes more and more common in modern society, along with the drugs professed to treat it. But, how many people are actually "cured"? To what reality are they cured to? To a material world, devoid of value and meaning? That isn't our natural state to begin with - therefore of course, such attempts at cures don't work.

We need to begin seeing that there is more than meets the eye. We need to start pursuing these methods and applying modern technological science toward advancing our consciousness; toward evolving our spiritualisms, rather than toward our physicalisms. We are all of the same consciousness, slowly evolving. We are experiencing ourselves subjectively, and though we see ourselves as separate, we are in reality one gigantic process. We need to start realizing this and evolving on a mass scale, because time is running out.

 

Massive changes lie ahead. The Aztecs and the Mayans saw the omens; the forewarning of their own doom, yet they were unable to avert it. This is what we are faced with today. Our own apocalypse may loom ahead. Each of us needs to prepare ourselves mentally and spiritually. We need to free ourselves from the "control-grid," by way of making connections with people we can trust, and who can see us through the possible hard-times ahead. Above all, we need to start waking up, rejecting the current false paradigms altogether, and begin taking back our realities.
 

Author's Note

This is an excerpt from an ongoing non-fiction essay.

Reviews

[Dan Bullock]

Interestingly I'm currently researching fiction and reality, through online gaming/gaming and even a personal study into how we create these second personae and if anything, live through them more than our own worlds.

Also, Ghaly commented that we will gradually, unfortunately, get to an understanding where everyone speaks the same language but affectively no-one has anything left to talk about or to actually understand about each other.

It's a very interesting subject, even on the brief surface of initial research there is so much to learn and take in. I'm not positive, however, in a Earth-wide response or acknowledgement of such Virtual Reality growing with our own culture to such a degree that we actually forget to exist.

Interestingly when Romantism started to die out in the early 19th century (I think that's about right) a whole mass of Realism was demanded by the populas. What I'm hoping will occur is society will suddenly realise that they don't even know themselves anymore and there will be a massive anti-technology age.

The trouble is, this might come too late for communication to ever be reconstructed completely, with far too much deconstruction of the self there is a possibility that it might have already destroyed our own existance.

(!)

[Susan S.]

Although we express the reality differently, I believe we both have become aware of the same thing. What I call the presence you call the process; what I call creating points of focus, you call getting stuck on a wave length or point of perception. The language is different but the issue is the same.

There are some worrisome items mentioned in your article. You speak of certain drugs as opening the pathways to the totality and I agree, they do. However down that road lies disaster. Drugs are simply a crutch. You can learn how to open them on your own. I believe that control is better than crutches; besides, drugs are never just one effect. It may open the pathway, but what else is it doing? How confident can you be in the purity and dosage of those drugs.

Meditation is the method to learn on your own. You can use the Buddhist "Ohm" or the Christian prayer; they both will work. My favorite is the Sufi breath practice.

Obviously I was fascinated by your information. I learned several things that I hadn't known before. Any time you'd like to talk Philosophy/Faith I'd be more than interested. Just don't start talking religion. The difference between them is that religion says, "You must..." while the faith says, "Try this...".

Well written essay. Thanks.

[Beautifully Tragic xPoe..]

I thought I commented on this familiar peice, I know it was in one of my contests and I'm reminded now how much I loved this piece. Excellent write, brilliant work, Damien.

Rayne

[Kat Fireblade]

Very literate and well written essay. I really and truly enjoyed reading this.
....can you hear the "but?"

I suppose I am not as impressed as many others who read the essay, mainly because nothing said here was new or groundbreaking to me. I have heard this particular set of theories combined in more or less this exact fashion for the last thirteen years of my life. Some of it was so familiar, in fact, that in places I found myself thinking this could have been taken complete from books I have read. Please don't take that as an insult or criticism, as there are only so many intelligent ways to teach the same idea or set of ideas. Eventually it's somewhat inevitable people start sounding the same. More impressive to me was that it was simple, literate, and easy to follow, even for those who may not be as familiar as I am with these concepts.

My only quibble with the piece is that it has a "preaching to the choir" feel. While I think it is a plus that the passion of your beliefs practically vibrates from every line, I also think the way it is worded will alienate the people I assume this was written for, that is, the "ordinary people," those who really need the wake up call.

The passion is great, but the certainty that goes with that passion, the absolute certainty that THIS way is the correct way, THIS way is the way to fix everything and make life better--well, we've all been preached to like that before, and most of us have learned disregard such promises. We hear it every day; THIS breath mint will help you get girls, THIS savior can bring you inner peace, THIS politician stands for minorities and education, THIS new medication will make you feel better. We are constantly bombarded by people offering us certainties, things they claim will make our lives better, and every day we re-confirm those certainties were never as certain as the promiser said.

Worse, we have all heard this particular tune before.

Most of us at one point or another have been on the receiving end of one of THOSE christians, the ones who have not only seen the light, but been blinded by it. They corner you, talking about how the world is a dark evil place and you are a sinner, trapped in a body that has lustful and base desires you must rise above. Then they tell you about God's plan, and all about his spiritual teachings. If you follow this plan and obey all God's rules, you are guaranteed salvation, spiritual satisfaction, and a richer, fuller, happier life. Oh, but you better do it soon, because people who don't wind up in H-E-double hockey sticks, burning eternally.

To me, I felt like I was reading something in a frighteningly similar vein. The world is a disconnected and painful place, and we are merely thought/energy beings caught in mortal shells that we must rise above. But hey, here is a set of ideas and spiritual philosophies that, if you follow them, can most definitely fix the world's problems, as well as helping you personally finding a richer, fuller, happier life. However, better do it quick because time is running out, and anyone who doesn't will be left to face a very messy and unhappy armageddon.

So, is everything postulated above true or not true?
I don't know.

There are certainly enough real truths in there that it cannot be entirely discounted. And all of it is pretty easy to swallow. Most of it is even backed up by science and psychology. As belief systems go, by and large its sort of warm and fuzzy, definitely a safe, sane, and very PC set of beliefs to have. So its truths and benefits should be immediately and glaringly apparent, even to Joe Normal off the street, right?

Is this essay/longer piece for Joe Normal, a sort of wake up call to a different way to perceive our realities? Or was it really meant as an informative piece to those already willing to listen--a sort of 101 primer to the faithful? Who is supposed to benefit from this piece?

If it is interested seekers (as opposed to ambivalent seekers who still have yet to decide if this is the path they were searching for or one worth exploring), people who like to play with ideas, or reconfirming what those who already seen these truths have learned, then there is nothing wrong here.

But if it is aimed at knocking Joe Normal out of his preconditioned mindsets, I'm not so sure it would work. I know when I was still looking for my own path, people with the certainty and passion of a tent revival preacher, people who seemed to have everything figured out and offered easy solutions...well, those people had me running rabbit in under ten seconds.

If I were Joe Normal, that guy who honestly never had anything worse happen than grandma dying when I was two, why would I care about this wake-up call? Why would I not cry "snake oil salesman" and walk away? How would it open my eyes? Being well written isn't enough--if it was, speech writers wouldn't be so hard to find.

What way would be better? Well, I don't have all the answers; I can only state how the writing in this piece struck me. Plus, again, I can't see the whole thing, so I'm a bit of an inaccurate judge.

You have probably figured this out, but I do tend to notice acutely when a piece "preaches" because it is a special pet peeve of mine. I have wondered time and again WHY the very people who struggle so hard against those who want to force mainstream views on us do this, to ourselves OR those we hope to reach. A good chunk of us walked away from some branch of christianity because, among other things, we hated the preaching and the constant threats of death and damnation. It's one of the most common complaints I hear, and top among the most common reason people started seeking to begin with.

But given half a chance, what's the first thing we do?
You go it. Pretty much everything we unwittingly learned.

Of all the perceptions I would love to see altered and all the bad habits I'd like to see us rise above, that particular vicious cycle tops the list.

[Jane Doe]

Very interesting. I've been studying Buddhism and Metaphysics, and I recognize a lot of these concepts. I especially liked the quote about the black spray paint over the third eye. People get so caught up in their own subjective realities that they don't realize there is anything else out there. There is so much going on under the surface that people don't see cuz they are too caught up in their egos and selfish desires. We must learn to see ourselves as part of the whole, not as separate entities that have no relationship to one another. And we must learn to love everyone unconditionally as we are all part of the human family, no matter what our perceived differences. We are all much more alike than we think.

Wonderful writing. I'll have to come back and read it again to absorb it all. It's going into my favorites.

[Steve Thompson]

PRECEPTION IS REALITY, YOU HIT IT ON THE HEAD, BABY. FROM YOUR DRUG THOUGHTS TO YOUR INSANITY THOUGHTS....I have looked at choas theory to quatem etc,etc, and perception is key. You create your own reality. I love this piece because it is a diffcult topic to try to tell someone, like all sciences, and you wrote it really understandable. NICE MAN, I would love to talk about this any time!!!

[TL Boehm]

INCREDIBLE. Although I cannot be as articulate, I concur whole heartedly. We do have a frontal lobe, unfortunately for most of us - it is smooth, gelationus and unwrinkled by thought. This article touches on so much, it reminds me that there are more ways than the standard, "textbook" way to learn, it reminds me that religion can be a form of thought control - whereas 'faith' can be a doorway to higher learning....higher awareness. It reminds me that what we see is not "Truth" (especially in the media) but filtered perceptions of others, and we swallow it as 'real'. Smart writing indeed. Thought provoking stuff here.

[cyanskye]

This is a very solid, well written essay. You have substantiated your points and not veered off track which I imagine would not be an easy thing to do with this type of topic.
I find the discussion of "reality" amazing. Our individual perception is influenced by so many factors. Even among families there is a huge disparity from one member to another regarding events.
I think people need to start listening to that "little voice", the one that presents you with information that you have no recolletion of learning; things that seem instinctual. It is like that "ah-ha" moment when one person connects to another for no apparent reason. As a culture we need to recognize these moments and follow through on them, that is when we will truly begin to accept and understand.
I like your discussion of Nature in this debate. I truly believe that by removing ourselves from the flow of the natural world we are losing a part of what makes us human and thus we are losing out on "reality".
We live in artificially warmed and cooled homes, eat food that used to be only available at certain times of the year. Even from my parents to my generation we have lost the need to learn how to grow and preserve food, make clothing and handle certain tools. These things used to be essential, the instruction passed from one generation to another created a bond that is lacking today.
But as you point out, it is not just the physical things but the spiritual that is also lacking. In Yoga practice, we end our sessions with "namaste" a phrase that means something like " may the spirit in myself recognize the spirit in you." It feels ackward at first to say this phrase out loud but over time it has ingrained a meaning and has become something almost instinctual. It can feel frightening to connect with another at that level but it is a bond that is nearly impossible to break.
Thanks for making me think, once again.

[alternative_be]

As a little girl I remember asking my mum where we were coming from, now this was not a question about human procreation, but a reflection I made after I had been lying on my back on our lawn, looking at the clouds and wondering about the worlds beyond them. I wondered if we were for real, what if we were part of a big dream and who could tell if what we were living was reality or not. I believe there is a higher being beyond our world that is the creator of a reality consisting of multiple dimensions.
E.g. who says we are the only intelligent form of life in the entire universe? I find this highly unlikely... Many people are searching for ways to discover the origin of our roots, our real existance. James Redfield writing his Celestine Prophecy, was looking into the Mayan and Aztec culture in order to find an answer. Steve Rother is looking into the possibility of the existance of multiple dimensions and some of his followers claim to be able to channel messages from those dimensions. He goes way beyond the 4th dimension and why shouldn't that be possible.
Many people turn to old spiritual ways in order to look for a way to explain or confirm our existance. Some of us are able to read aura's, have healing hands and choose to return to Mother Nature. Oh yes, I'm convinced that we can get in touch with each other's frequencies, by tuning in or by using what is left of our natural empathy, after going through the motion of the daily ratrace. In my view these are good ways of getting in touch with your inner selves, whether you dare to go on a solitary discovery trip, whether you choose to join a spiritual group. But... beware of sectarian organizations taking advantage of the resurection of the search for reality! (For your information, I'm glad I am not the only one not believing in the 2012 prophecy)
Thank you for sharing this excerpt of your article! I would like to read more of this!
In contrast with other articles written about the same subject, this is written in a language that is understandable for everyone, which can be a rarety among the so called spiritual writers ...

[Dan Bullock]

I've read this before, but you sent it again...just acknowledging my comment below! ;) :D Keep sending stuff though please :)

[flaneur]

"Every culture has had mystics, and magic workers - these were the people who sought into the dark places, and brought the knowledge back for the rest of humanity. Unfortunately there is no place for the shaman in our society."

I believe the writer is the shaman, reaching into the dark places of human nature and illuminating our own shadows; exposing our flaws, motives, and aspirations. The shaman's pen is hard to find in this society because it is not glamorous and marketable. There's a delicate balance between preaching our solutions, versus illustrating our problems and subtly guiding readers to "their own" conclusions. I think whoever can do the last is a good writer and a demagogue-- deserving of both admiration and contempt.

As for singular consciousness, I've mulled this philosophy before and it makes me uncomfortable. Too close to my belief in (and aversion to) nihilism. If you are just a part of me, then it doesn't matter how I treat you if I don't care about how I treat myself, and with only one "real" person in the universe it suddenly becomes a very lonely place. Could be true, but it's like pulling a scab off a wound either way.