"Reality can neither be proved nor disproved. Within the mind you cannot, beyond the mind you need not. In the real, the question ‘what is real?’ does not arise." --Nisargadatta


Reality.

We all know what it is. We all know it when we see it.

Duh. Not much question there.

But even if weirdly, incomprehensibly, we somehow didn't know what’s real, all we’d have to do is look around and see where large numbers of other people agree. That would prove it for sure.

Or at least appear to.

Maybe reality is a numbers game.

Although... lots of folks say they see the sky. Do those numbers mean the sky is actually a real thing?

Besides, people who don’t agree with us also think they’ve got reality on their side. You only have to look at politics to see this in action. Or on Facebook, in any Enlightenment group.

So what’s the deal? I mean, things are real or they aren’t, no? Shouldn't this be un-debatable?

Well, maybe we could sort this out by noticing what we depend on to know what’s real.

Well, there’s our feelings. Our thoughts. Sensation in our fingers. Colors and shapes in our eyes. Sounds happening in our ears.

Noticing a pattern?

They're all ways to describe the true favorite for knowing what's real: Personal Experience.

Y'know, that never-biased, never wildly-skewed, always totally trustable source we can unfailingly depend on for truth.

Meanwhile, what’s the actual common denominator?

Us.

There's no way to find reality unless it passes through the Me fulcrum. Without the Me, it’s… nothing.

Uh oh.

Turns out Reality is not static, not set in stone. It's actually very variable, very person-al.

Turns out there’s no way to know anything outside one’s own senses and experience, which are limited, narrow, biased, and have absolutely no idea about "reality."

That makes everything ME-ality, not reality.  

It's not “things as they actually exist,” as Merriam-Webster defines it, but instead, “things as the ME experiences them”.

Which are not even close to being the same thing.

Now, this might seem alarming to those who like to have some certainty.

Because let’s face it, without a sure sense of what’s real, how can we tell what anything is? How can we know right, wrong, good, bad? How can we know the difference between what’s true vs a made-up cockamamie point of view?

Well, exactly.

We can't.

Which is why those questions have driven mankind crazy for thousands of years.

There’s simply no peace there.

So instead, maybe we can notice the amazingness of seeing that there’s nothing real without little ol’ us.

Existence, perception, reality, experience…

They are all us.

Experience depends on us.

Talk about powerful. Talk about important. Talk about special.

And once the mind gets over the idea that there is no solid and magical reality-land where everything is real and solid and certain and right…

There can be an immediate shift, if one is open to it.

Things can get more diffuse. Less centered, less locatable.

Ironically, the Me becomes less important, not more.

Ironically, when it’s seen that there is nothing outside of the Me experience, the sense of Me begins to dissipate.

And as it happens, that very realization is what so many lovely Mind-Tickler readers have been seeking for a very long time.

There it is.

Right there, in our own fingertips.

Right there- our own world. Our own viewpoint. Our own rules.

I mean…

Who needs more reality than that?


"People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do."  
--Isaac Asimov


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