You Are Not What You Think You Are! Part II

Last week, we continued our exploration of Reality by focusing on what we actually are.  If we are to take the investigations of our foremost scientists seriously, we have to conclude that all Reality is fundamentally an idea in the mind of God.  Contrary to our conventional notions, that human consciousness is derived from our brain functioning or from inert matter, we find the reverse.  In actual fact, our leading-edge physicists tell us that we are fundamentally consciousness, awareness, Beingness.

Talk about a wild and crazy idea!  But now get ready for the Ginsu announcer because, “Wait, there’s more…”

Let’s focus on our own consciousness today.  As we have seen over the last several weeks, we don’t really see reality.  We think what we perceive is the actual “stuff” that makes up the reality in and around us, but as we have seen, this “stuff” is not real in the sense that we think it is.  For example, while the chair that you’re sitting on appears to be solid matter, we know from our scientific investigations that it is actually a few units of energy rotating at extremely high speeds.  In fact, the apparently solid chair on which you are sitting is mostly empty space.

Despite this clear understanding of the chair's true nature, you still perceive it as solid, and you still trust that it will support your weight.  So, what are we actually seeing?

This is where it gets really strange.  What we are seeing 99.9% of the time is not reality, but rather our ideas about what reality is.  Psychological research has shown that we project our ideas onto the sensory data we perceive, and we then mistake our ideas for the actual reality.  Let me give you an example from my own recent experience.

I was driving north on the 101 freeway the other day, in an area I have driven countless times before.  Throughout my past experiences, there has been a rather large hole in the blacktop at a certain spot in the number one lane.  The other day, as I came down the hill, I could see what looked like a large black rectangular box ahead of me in the number one lane.  As I got closer, the box got larger and larger, and I prepared to move to the number two lane to avoid it.  As I approached this large, black object, I realized it was actually a rectangular patch that had now covered the hole I had previously seen.  From 100 yards away, from 50 yards away, from 10 yards away, I was certain it was a large black box in the middle of the road.  Why?

I expected to see the hole in its usual place, so that’s what I saw, even though it wasn’t there this time.  This time, there was a large rectangular black asphalt patch filling in the hole.  I literally did not see the patch that was actually there.  Instead, I saw my idea —a large, rectangular, black box — sitting dangerously in the middle of the number one lane.  Not only did I see the box, but I also changed my behavior to accommodate this illusion.  In brief, this is what we all do, almost all of the time.  We don’t see reality; we see our ideas about reality

I know, it doesn’t seem like that, does it?  It seems like we are functioning in a world full of objects – objects that are, for the most part, customary and familiar.  If you think about this, even a little bit, it should scare the wits out of you!  It means that we are living on a planet with 8 billion others just like ourselves, and no one is seeing what is actually there.  Instead, we are all wandering around the planet, inhabiting 8 billion different delusions!  If that doesn’t scare the bejesus out of you, I don’t know what will…

If we are not seeing reality, but instead seeing our ideas about reality, you have to wonder where this comes from.  Once again, we circle back to our understanding of the ego.  Our egos are socially constructed defense mechanisms that have enabled us to survive in this complex universe.  Why would we have evolved in this seemingly strange fashion?

Have you ever watched a toddler being scolded?  Their ego defenses are not well-formed; their defenses are flimsy, and when criticism comes their way, they are often completely devastated.  Think of what it would be like to sustain a massive attack that says you are WRONG.  While the adult intends to say, “This behavior is wrong,” the toddler often receives the message that “I myself am wrong, bad, and ineffective, and I can never be good enough.”  They take the criticism as a massive rejection of their being.  This is too painful for any of us to experience.  We have to put up defenses against this massive rejection.  As a result, our egos have erected an amazingly clever defense.

If I can’t tolerate being rejected because the hurt is too painful, what if I erect a barrier between myself and the rejection?  What if I could put up a wall so that I didn’t have to feel the pain, or at least, didn’t have to feel the pain directly?  This is what humanity has learned to do, but it comes with a terrible cost.

So we put up a wall – a wall of ideas.  That way, when criticism is directed at us, it’s not really a criticism of me, myself, but a criticism of this idea of myself that I have put up as a kind of mask between my true self and the rest of the world.  This means that I have erected a barrier between me and you, between myself and everything else.  While I am protected (kind of), I am now alone.  Sadly, loneliness is perhaps the most corrosive and destructive of all our emotions.

And while we hope our walls will protect us from the hurt of rejection, in my experience, that hurt somehow manages to slip through our guard and wound us anyway.  Despite all the effort we put into erecting and maintaining these protective barriers, they are not very effective.

So, the ‘me’ that I think I am isn’t really me.  It’s my ego, a mental construct that I built as an infant to protect myself from rejection and hurt.  My true self, and yours, lies underneath the ego and is hidden by it.  Our true self participates in the Divine.  While the ego can be characterized by fear, our true self is characterized by the limitless love of God.  It is a love, like that of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, that sees beyond the apparent ugliness and cruelty of other human beings.  It is a love that sees the hidden soul deep within, the child that God created and loves.

This is our heritage as spiritual beings.  It is a heritage that transcends belief systems and every mode of thought.  It is the heritage of our true being, a being that we share with all creation, that we are sons and daughters of the Most High.  It is a heritage of limitless love.  

It is this heritage, the birthright of every human being, that we are attempting to recover by means of our spiritual journey.

*  *  *

I think I will end our conversation here for today.  I expect that I have given you more than enough to ponder for the week!  Next week, I want to explore a topic that several of you have been asking about, namely, how we might open our hearts to love our God more fully.

Once again, I want to encourage you to meditate daily.  Meditation may be the most significant tool we have to loosen the chains that our ego has wrapped around us.  How will we step into the love which God has created for us?  We will only be able to do that as we step out of the too-narrow constraints that keep us bound and in chains.

With love,

P.S.  Several of you have expressed the desire for an online meditation class.  If there is enough interest, I will try to figure out how to hold a group class on the web.  If you have an interest, please write me at [email protected]. 

Humility as a Tool  → Letting go → Fear → Openness →  Acceptance & Growth

If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible:  The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence.👇

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