"When one is confronted with this crisis it is a crisis in consciousness, it is not over there outside of one. The crisis is in oneself. There is a saying: we have seen the enemy and the enemy is ourselves. The crisis is not a matter of economics, of war, the bomb, the politicians, the scientists; the crisis is within us, the crisis is in our consciousness. Until we understand very profoundly the nature of that consciousness, and question, delve deeply into it and find out for ourselves whether there can be a total mutation in that consciousness, the world will go on creating more misery, more confusion, more horror. Our responsibility is not in some kind of altruistic action outside ourselves, political, social or economic; it is to comprehend the nature of our being, to find out why we human beings who live on this beautiful earth have become like this."
- J. Krishnamurti www.kfa.org

In our everyday life at home, at work, or socializing with friends, most of us talk without much awareness. For instance, who really thinks about the true sense
of the words they use? We use the word Reality, as an example, without much thought and without considering its deeper meaning. This is true about many words and the way we use them. If, however, you dare to dip into the ocean of words
more consciously you may "come up" with a lot of new and amazing choices which could impact your entire life. For instance, what really is Reality? From all-knowing Wikipedia, we learn that Reality, in everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist". But how do we know indeed that any of the things to which Wikipedia refers “actually exist”? Scientists tell us it is with the help of our sense organs that we gain knowledge of “actual existence” of things and that we, therewith, "perceive" reality. So it appears that the only way we begin to perceive reality is through Sensation, which is a very personal experience I would think, considering how different us people are from each other.

If we took liberties with the etymology of the word Reality, we can use such unsavory, quasi-scientific activity as an example for creating reality as we go along - in the image of our own vision for the future, NOT what we are told to do, to expect, want or need.

For instance, the word, we are told, is derived from the Latin Res/realis (matter; from matter). But if we clear our mind and wipe our eyes, we might also find that it consists of two important syllabae, namely RE and AL. RE, we know, can contribute a meaning of renewal and transformation. And AL can represent anything from the utilitarian use as an article (such as our English "the") to the most sacred of all, at least for some people: Allah. Allah is probably one of the most well-known words starting with AL. So, from the profane use as an article such as "the", it is also the first syllaba in the Arabic name for God, the Most High, the Supreme Being - the ALL (!!). There are also other words containing AL and bearing similar meaning, such as Altar, a sacred place in a Christian church, in service to God. Another similar word comes from the Russian mythology tradition, namely an Alatyr-stone, which is a sacred stone meant to make connection with God.

Now, if we were to agree that everything around us is "made of God", as it says in the Bible, and considering our musings above, what might we say is Reality in a deeper sense? And what does it mean to be real? Might we not say that Reality is God, as experienced by our sense organs? But ever so quickly, we usually interpret what our sense-organs have sensed, which turns it into our personal perception. It now has been acted upon by us - so it has been changed. Or, in other words: Our own Reality is not the prime, original existence of things. It is something secondary, changed and transformed by our perceptions. While our sensory organs might be able to pick up sensation rather neutrally, we would never know so, because our minds are ever busy interpreting sensory information in accordance with their own "background of experience", or stored historical data. This means that what we in time perceive is not the original experience but a distorted copy which went through the filter of our opinions and mental concepts of the world - we receive a reflection of the mirror of our own concept of the Universe. And this reflection is also formed by our mind, or by our intellect, to be precise.

For a better understanding, we might differentiate these terms further. Mind is a part of our personality and its main function is thinking and reasoning, whereas intellect is nothing else but a tool such as computer software that the mind uses when necessary. So our mind, which is under our direct control, hand-in-hand with our intellect, which can also be developed by our own activities, take a very large part in creating and interpreting the data which becomes our Reality.

The human mind is perhaps the most powerful tool in the Universe. It is a tool which we can use when we need it or which we can "put aside" when we don’t need it, for instance during meditation. Our mind and intellect are greatly affected by programming - often indiscriminate - from our earliest childhood, a programming which usually continues on - unchallenged - throughout the course of our entire life. This programming is what we might describe as our "habitual picture of the world", which is in fact the filter which we use when receiving any new information from the outer world. Different theorists and philosophers have described this phenomenon in various ways. Let's see if we can make better sense of this idea. We do see things in accordance with our background of experience, the way we were "taught" and we continue on with these frames of reference and beliefs. Rarely does anyone challenge their own habitual ways of perceiving, which act like small windows which allow us only to see a very limited part of what might be "outside the house", so to speak. Moreover, modern science has not exactly made it easier to challenge these rigid ways of approaching what we call Reality, as if there was only one, in this case, OURS. A good example for this is how traditional scientists have decided that logico-mathematical thinking, namely that of the "straightforward intellect" is more real, and more valuable than other modes of perception.

Likewise, if something completely new to us is occurring in our environment, we usually simply screen it out or interpret it as something else for ourselves - more in keeping with what we are used to seeing and thinking, namely in keeping with OUR Reality.

Remember, for instance, the stories about the Australian aborigines when they first saw European sailing ships: they just ignored them and went right on fishing. And the South-American Indians thought their God was returning when they
saw the white sails of ships, which made it so easy to conquer them. Because ships were so far beyond their comprehension, they couldn't even imagine anything like that, so that their intellect, based on their habitual pictures of the world, didn't even register the ships for what they were. Their intellect “refused” to let them "see" these un-known forms as ships, because they were not part of their "background of experience", even though we might assume that their sensory organs did perceive them.

We have all heard it said, more or less non-chalantly: Reality is nothing but the result of a mutual consent between people who just agreed to consider certain experiences and perceptions Reality. But we seldom consider how profound this statement really is. And the other carelessly shared statement is more profound yet, if we really let it sink in: Our world is nothing more but the result of collective agreements. No news to most of us. But if we ask ourselves what that really means today, right now - especially in a world such as ours - we realize the tremendous power of choice we have, and the participation in the way we see, experience and create our world. Even our well-respected scientists, for instance physicists, did nothing more than agree amongst themselves to put names to certain things they thought they perceived, although none of them ever saw those so-called quarks, protons, electrons and neutrons. So the theories they construct and logical conclusions they make are still only based on assumptions, postulates and agreements. Certainly, we do not need to challenge their activities here. They are helpful in many ways.

But without remembering that we are really only working within - and discovering things in the context of - our own intellectual constructs, we could easily forget who we truly are and become imprisoned in just one or another habitual picture of the world. The danger of this can be quickly understood when we
look at the habitual pictures of the world which Western medicine has created for us (and we colluded right along with it) and then compare them with the pictures that, for instance, Chinese medicine created. We can see how these habitual pictures in and around us can cause quite a bit of suffering and even death, or a sense of wellness and power...

Published in full in Space of Love Magazine Issue #2 http://www.spaceoflovemagazine.com/article_2_1.htm

Author's Bio: 

I am a writer, a publisher and co-editor of Space of Love magazine http://www.spaceoflovemagazine.com/, also leading spiritual groups to sacred places to facilitate evolutionary shifts.

I was born in Russia and have been through many different spiritual teachings from Christianity to Theosophy and Agni-Yoga. I have learned something from each of them but... was not fully satisfied. In late 90th I happened to read the books of The Ringing Cedars of Russia series and got so much excited by them that decided to follow this path... In 2001 I moved to New Zealand and lived there for six years. It is very beautiful country full of amusements and kind people. There, I started my work on spreading the message about Space of Love around, I also created and set up a website named Space of Love both in English and Russian, telling a lot about Anastasia's ideas with the hope that someone may find their real Self, their true predestination on this path...

I believe that we all are co-creators of Space of Love and our planet is the place where we learn and contribute from our heart...
Recently I returned back to Russia to embody my dreams about Space of Love creation into reality.

I have started a Global Space of Love Magazine and a few more projects with relation to this and I will be happy to tell you about them if you are interested.