We Create Our Own Reality
During the course of everyday events, we often forget the role of thoughts in the forging of our material reality. We get lost in the visible symbols, the material by-products of our imaginations, forgetting the invisible blueprints from which they, and we, emerge.
Pure energy, like money, its material equivalent, is shaped into matter and experience by thought. It can be used to lift up or smash down, to build character or destroy character, to express love or express hate, to beautify or make ugly.
The purpose, or challenge, of life is to learn how to use thought in its various forms to shape energy into a pleasing reality. The prize is a sense of satisfaction, a feeling of a job well done. And, like learning to walk or talk, it is a personal, subjective endeavor that requires creative aggression. It is a great balancing act, where one must accept falling down in the course of learning how to stand up.
Remember:
Thoughts are “things” with a reality of their own, and you, an artist. With thoughts in the forms of belief, attitude, value and expectation, you paint the landscape of your life. Create a great day!
Our own experiences demonstrate the power of ideas. An idea can make us happy or sad, loving or fearful, productive or unproductive. Like invisible blueprints, or bits of living DNA, when ideas become beliefs or conditioned thought and behavior patterns embedded in our subconscious, they automatically control our attention and direct our actions, unless we consciously override them. In other words, we are programmable. If our beliefs work for us and make us happy, what’s to worry about? However, if they do not work for us or make us happy, we must consciously act to change them or live with the consequences. Objects like clouds, people, buildings and words on a page are ideas expressed in material form but they are not the ideas themselves. These remain invisible to our physical senses.
Our redeeming quality is the self, which is our seat of power, and the moment, which is our point of power. When we stop letting established cultural beliefs and external value judgments of right and wrong, good and bad, guilt and punishment (a recipe book for behavior), control our lives, we can live as free spiritual beings creating a human reality. Freedom without responsibility creates chaos, as we all know. In other words, responsibility is the price of freedom. If we understand that Consciousness (Aware Energy) is the sum and substance of All That Is, we will know that we’re both one and separate, and that we’re not only the product of creation; we’re creation itself!
From a spiritual perspective, there is no right or wrong, good or bad, guilt or punishment; there just IS! There is what works for us, and what doesn’t, what makes us happy and what doesn’t.
If we stop and take a close look, we’ll see that, essentially, this is how we organize our lives. We all want to do what work for us and makes us happy, despite external value judgments, social demands and expectations. Don’t you agree?
When we choose to learn from our experiences instead of define ourselves by them, our powers of observation, discernment and imagination grow, and our field of awareness expands. This includes not letting others define us by our experiences as well. In a value judgment world of right and wrong, good and bad, guilt and punishment, our thinking is limited. In religious schools, many of us are told, through bibles, words and actions, that we’re bad and we can’t trust ourselves. In public schools, the unspoken message is: sit down, shut up and do as I tell you; I’m the teacher and I know what’s best for you! These religious and secular cultural beliefs are damaging if we let them stand.
Over time, grades and value judgments take their toll on many students, especially if they’re being forced to think and do things they don’t believe in or want to do. Many students who go along with the program grow up to become the new oppressors. Though many are sympathetic, well-meaning and helpful, many believers are left who insist on defining others as empty sponges, blank slates or robots to be programmed. These beliefs weaken, confuse and frighten the outer self or ego. Powerless and troubled, many become docile and dependent on outside authority while others rebel and become destructive as they struggle to survive and figure things out. This kind of treatment empowers some and dis-empowers others. Unless we refuse to believe these common cultural beliefs, we succumb to them in one way or another. What’s sad is that when we do succumb to them, we fill the roles we once abhorred, perpetuating reality as it is.
As we think, we create. Change what we think, and we change what we create!
When we do less thinking and imagining for ourselves, we do more following. Instead of examining and changing old beliefs that no longer serve us, we defend them as if they represent who we are! By creating a new framework of ideas, by redefining the way we see ourselves, and the world, we can change the world and ourselves for the better.
Institutions are great places to throw open the door to new thinking. Here’s a list of university mottos, most of which appear on school letterheads and crests (list of over 500 common mottos):
Stanford University Motto: The wind of freedom is blowing, adopted when it opened in 1896. (To learn more about its history, visit the Stanford University website and read the speech by former Stanford President, Gerhard Casper, On the Origins and History of the Stanford Motto, “Die Luft der Freiheit weht” (The wind of freedom is blowing.), which he delivered October 5, 1995.)
Harvard University: Veritas – truth to Christ and Church.
Yale University: Lux et Veritas – Light and truth.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): Mens et Manns – Mind and Hand.
California Institute of Technology (Caltech): The truth shall make you free (unused since 1990).
University of California Los Angeles (UCLA): Fiat Lux – Let there be light.
Columbia University: In Lumine Tuo videbimus – In Thy light shall we see the light (Psalms 36:9)
Brown University: In Deo Speramus (In God we Hope)
Duke University: Eruditio et Religio (Knowledge and Faith)
Howard University: Veritas et Utilitas (Truth and Service)
Think of yourself as you perform the various acts and fill the roles you’ve chosen or accepted in life: child, student, parent, teacher, secretary, business owner, writer, plumber, truck driver. Don’t you find yourself wanting to do the best job you can so you, and the people around you, will be happy? Don’t you want to make sense of life? Several years ago, I woke up with the thought on my mind: Seek the greatest understanding and serve the highest good. There it was! As soon as the words appeared in my mind, I knew they described my lifelong passion. It’s what kept me alive and made life worth living all these years. Because of my anger and disallusionment in early life, I determined it was more important for me to change myself, and the world, for the better than commit suicide or hide away somewhere. I knew that to serve the highest good, I had to seek the greatest understanding. I wanted to make sense of every experience in my life. I didn’t want to just explain those experiences that were earthbound, I wanted to explain all my experiences, including dreams. I wasn’t willing to sign off on half truthes and fairy tales. You can see Seek the greatest understanding and serve the highest good etched into the digital stone above the entrance to the student quad at Stanford University. The doctored photograph appears at the top of the page, below the title of this article.
Not only is this ideal inspirational, it is personally empowering. It serves as a moral compass and gives every individual the right to challenge any belief, no matter how sacred it is deemed to be. Many of the university mottos above speak of truth and light but remain vague and ambiguous, leaving it up to the individual to interpret. Seek the greatest understanding and serve the highest good is unambiguous. It is clear and direct. It speaks to everyone as an individual. It offers a pursuit that stirs curiosity and stimulates natural passion. It affirms and expands Joseph Campbell’s motto, “Follow your bliss.”
What is more exciting, or worth doing, than changing ourselves, and the world, for the better?
Pete – http://realtalkworld.com
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
How you define yourself, and the world around you, forms your intent, which, in turn, forms your reality. – Seth
In other words, we create our own reality from what we choose to believe about ourselves, and the world.
If we do not CONSCIOUSLY choose our beliefs, we UNCONSCIOUSLY absorb them from our surroundings.
If we must live with the consequences of our beliefs, how can we afford NOT to question them?
The more we love and understand ourselves, the better we treat ourselves, and the world.
Blessings of love and understanding be to us all.
The secrets of the universe lie hidden in the shadows of our experience. Look for them!
Change yourself, and the world, for the better with Philosophy On T-Shirts! POTS
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