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What is the fundamental nature of reality?

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Hello 

I dream every day that's normal enough but something about last night's dream just made me think. It was so vivid and I was so immersed in it that when I woke up it felt like I was in a different universe and then I looked around and asked myself "what makes this world any different from the dream's world?". I got no answers. I kept the inquiry going and it lead me eventually to question the nature of reality.  Is reality material?  But what is "matter" really?  We are just putting labels on the stuff we found in the world. If reality is material how can dreams happen?  Dreams are very fascinating phenomenon.. Your mind literally create an entire world of matter (or at least an appearance of it) out of thin air through sheer imagination.. It is possible that this world ks I see around me was made by me using the same imagination.. It's not impossible after all I do that every single day when I dream at night lol. But then again this world is so consistent and it definitely has certain rules and limitations. I can't just jump and fly.Gravity exits etc.  So if it's my imagination why can't I imagine it any way I want?  And if it's material where did matter come from and why does it exist? 

Edited by Someone here

"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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8 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

You are imagining it the way you want. But you confuse the notion of ‘I’ with a a human body/ego-mind. You are bigger. You are infinite.

Well I think that's just a belief it's not based on my direct experience. All I see is the body and mind and the material world and nothing else.   I'm open to the possibility of me being some hidden creative power that is imagining this little me and the world just like the real me and the false me inside of a Dream. But I don't have any concrete evidence for that.  And the world does seem material and governd by certain laws which I cannot change through my imagination. Which makes me question what's the benefit of believing in something goes against direct experience?  That might prevent me from getting good results in life. 

Edited by Someone here

"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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8 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

yes. With serious inquiry you can discover that you are formless, infinite Consciousness, not a human body/mind.

Would appreciate it if you guide me through this inquiry!.


"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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2 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

Would you agree that right now you are conscious? That there is consciousness? Would you agree that that is beyond a shadow of doubt? Even if this world is just a dream, right now you are conscious, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to read these words. Agree?

Yes I agree. I would say the following are absolute facts : I exist and this world exists and I am aware of it. Which means these things are right now in direct experience they can't be doubted. The nature of experience or  anything else is open to discussion. 


"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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21 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

Right, as Consciousness. Now it’s up to you to question whether this consciousness is subject to limitations. 

The world appears, yes. But is it really Real? Are objects really Real? How can something that is impermanent be real? It has to have an unreality to it, because of its ephemeral nature. In this sense how can this world be differentiated from a dream? 

Then what is really Real?

Well I don't exist as just awareness. I'm in this body it's obvious.  The awareness definitely seem to have a limitation. I'm in this body not your body. 

What is "real"?  I don't know that's my question here.. All I can say is that this stuff here that we call the world "people cars animals etc" that is what I would call "real" but I know that it might an illusion.. That's a possibility.. But still that's the only thing to be sure of.. This stuff is just there in front of me.  Yes it's fluxes but it's "there " nevertheless.  I wouldn't call it unreal just because it changes constantly.. If i to doubt the existence of what's in front of me and the only thing that exist then the whole discussion would end.. We have to start from a ground.. And my ground is the existence of myself (my mind and body) and the world around me. Notice I didn't jump to conclusions about the nature of the world or the nature of awareness.. I just stated honestly my raw direct experience which I cannot doubt. 

Edited by Someone here

"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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12 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

Then what is really Real?

The world is both unreal and real. This understading goes beyond thinking, it is the unification of opposites, it's what you are. There is nothing that makes this world seem more real than dream, they differ only in consitency(this seems more consistent than dream) and some other stuff, but esentially the same. What was i so worried about? lol 

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6 minutes ago, Nemo28 said:

The world is both unreal and real. This understading goes beyond thinking, it is the unification of opposites, it's what you are. There is nothing that makes this world seem more real than dream, they differ only in consitency(this seems more consistent than dream) and some other stuff, but esentially the same. What was i so worried about? lol 

"Real " is reality this thing that's here around me. My question is what is the very substance of Reilly and why does it exist? 


"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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1 hour ago, Someone here said:

So if it's my imagination why can't I imagine it any way I want?

What if you are imagining it precisely the best way possible?

What if couldn't be any better?

What if THIS is what you wanted?

;)


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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11 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

What if you are imagining it precisely the best way possible?

What if couldn't be any better?

What if THIS is what you wanted?

;)

Leo, if people imagine/project the reality that they actually want, why then do these people suffer and are actually not happy with reality? 

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5 minutes ago, WHO IS said:

What if you are imagining it precisely the best way possible?

What if couldn't be any better?

What if THIS is what you wanted?

@WHO IS The key here is understanding what YOU means. I'm not talking about the ego-you. I'm talking about the God-you.

Reality is not how the ego-you wants.

Reality is how the God-you wants.

When the ego-you surrender to the God-you, you will realize that reality is precisely the best way possible.

The mistake is not with the structure of reality, the mistake is with your selfish perception of reality.

If reality ever seems wrong, it's because you're being selfish.

Reality is selfless. That's the key. The trick is accepting it.


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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When you're dreaming, you imagine the world based on the the neurotransmitters in your brain. When you're awake, you imagine the world based on the neurotransmitters in your brain and sensory input. So it's always an imagination, only the input differs. 

And the thing is that whenever you ask a "what" question, the answer is always gonna be a false belief. Because reality doesn't have "whats", it doesn't have objects. An object is a human concept, but reality is far deeper than concepts like this.

If you want to go deeper, try asking "how?" instead of "what?"

And the answer to the "how?" question is:
Exactly the way it's happening right here right now. 

It can't be explained to you, only you can explain it to yourself because you are experiencing it far deeper than words are able to describe it.

This is why masters don't ask a lot of questions from other people.

Edited by Barna

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Interesting as I had a lucid dream few nights ago. I became lucid as I looked at my hands and noticed my fingers sort of melt. I was dreaming I was in an area up the road from my home and was stunned when exploring this dreamscape at the accuracy of the environment to my everyday experience of it. I wandered around and touched walls and objects and was intrigued as they felt so solid. I looked down at my dream body and watched as I freely moved my legs to walk. I was of understanding that I had imagined this whole environment, and a self to explore it. I decided that I’d try to astral project from this dream body. So I put this dream body to sleep and astral projected out of it. And I was now in my own living room. I realised I’ve now created another body, an astral body from my dream body, and a completely new environment within the dream. Like a dream within a dream. After a bit of playing around I went back to my dream body and awoke, but awoke into the first dream I was having, then awoke again into this everyday waking reality. So basically realised that that I could imagine body after body and environment after environment in my dreams. It became so clear that as this waking state is ordinarily my top level of awareness 99% of the time, I could from this level, or when I sleep anyway imagine and create what seems like lower levels of reality i.e. dreams, or maybe not lower, maybe just different, I don’t really know,then it’s pretty obvious that this level of reality and self sort of thing, are being imagined from an even higher level of consciousness. Which I’ve actually experienced through the use of lsd, that I am imagining all of this. But as to the degree of exactly how I’m doing this I need to trip deeper. So what I feel the lucid dream done for me was give me more confirmation of the fact as Leo says, this is all imaginary

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17 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

What if you are imagining it precisely the best way possible?

What if couldn't be any better?

What if THIS is what you wanted?

;)

Show me.. How am I doing this?  It's not in my direct experience. 


"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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Delusion, self deception and forgetfulness.

Only a few lucky ones receive an Illuminating, vivid dream that re-contextualizes the waking state. Use it. Contemplate on your own questions you asked here. You already know the answers to them. The dream showed you the answers to it. Probe into the lessons and hints the dream trying to show you.

@Someone here

Edited by Preetom

''Not this...

Not this...

PLEASE...Not this...''

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1 hour ago, Someone here said:

Show me.. How am I doing this?  It's not in my direct experience. 

It’s good that you’re skeptical in life but u also need to be skeptic of your own mind.

Leo is not the first one who is talking about the same truth..

Meditate, do some self inquiry, maybe psychedelics if u want to speed the process and then u increase your possibility to direct experience what they are talking about.

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@Heaven how fascinating is that direct experience? Also how long would it take to achieve on average? 

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2 hours ago, Someone here said:

Show me.. How am I doing this?  It's not in my direct experience. 

When people are telling you that "I can't explain it, you have to do the work", that just means that they don't understand it well enough to put it into words. Sometimes I'm also guilty of this, but now I'm attempting to answer this question for you now.

You have to see the want of the ego first to see that it's not what you really want. 

The ego wants mostly two things: 

  1. avoid pain
  2. get pleasure/comfort

Notice that these two things won't help you to evolve. If you avoid pain then you won't get stronger, if you're in your comfort zone, you don't develop yourself. 
So if you love yourself, you have to accept pain and discomfort in your life because that's what keeps you growing.

But suffering is unnecessary. Suffering is not pain. Suffering is the resistance against what is. So you suffering is the want to get out of pain. And suffering is also the want to get more pleasure/comfort. So basically, every egoic want is in itself suffering.

Once you realize, that you don't want to suffer anymore, you'll start to want the present moment more than anything, simply because that's the best training ground for your self-development. The present moment is also the Truth. In spirituality, wanting the Truth is the same as wanting the present moment. It's that simple. Everything leads to this. 

Alan Watts did an amazing job explaining the nature of desires: 

 

Edited by Barna

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An exploratory dance of awakening and falling asleep..

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2 hours ago, Someone here said:

Show me.. How am I doing this?  It's not in my direct experience. 

I can't show you.

But a psychedelic can ;)


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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3 hours ago, Preetom said:

Delusion, self deception and forgetfulness.

Only a few lucky ones receive an Illuminating, vivid dream that re-contextualizes the waking state. Use it. Contemplate on your own questions you asked here. You already know the answers to them. The dream showed you the answers to it. Probe into the lessons and hints the dream trying to show you.

@Someone here

So far my contemplating led me to the following :

1- the "real world" in the waking state is no different from the dream's world in terms of the apparent phenomenon. It's just that the latter is more consistent and more logical. 

2- the substance of reality is completely unknown. Could be matter or imagination but that doesn't say anything about what it actually is!, 

3 - also whether it be this or that I still don't know why anything exists at all whether it's matter energy awareness God etc 


"life is not a problem to be solved ..its a mystery to be lived "

-Osho

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