experience - spira

The problem is that we believe that objects such as bags, CD players, stairs, people, friends etc. have a reality that is independent and separate from Consciousness. That is, we believe that they have solidity, reality and continuity of their own.

However, they do not. In other words, their apparent reality (that is, their independence, solidity, continuity in time and space etc.) is not actual or real.

However, experience is real - the experience of the bag, the stairs, the friends etc. is real, but the reality of experience does not belong to apparent objects. It belongs to Consciousness.

So it is not that our friends or anything else are not there when we are not there, but rather that they were never there to begin with in the form we imagined them to have, that is, as independent objects. However, something was ‘there,’ (in fact all experience is ‘here’) something was present, but it was not an object, not an ‘other.’ It was Being, Consciousness, ‘I,’ friend-ing, stair-ing, box-ing, CD-ing.

So experience is real, but real as Consciousness, not real as an object.

Yes, it can be shocking and even scary to realise that the reality we invested in all these apparent things and people does not belong to the objects and people. It belongs to the Consciousness ‘aspect’ of experience.

But the fear gives way to humour, happiness and love when we realise our mistake and begin to see that our own being pervades all seeming things. (In fact, more than ‘pervades.’ All seeming things are made out of Being.) We cease to take our self or others for entities and cease considering the world to be made of dead inert matter. ‘I’ and all others or objects are one Being.

We also realise that all the psychological suffering in our lives was caused by this mistaken view of experience. As soon as we view experience as it really is, everything gradually falls into place.

~Rupert Spira