Reality is Whatever You Are Aware Of
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by James Rick
REALITY IS WHATEVER YOU ARE AWARE OF
Nobody ever taught you as a child to be curious – you were simply OPEN to what reality could be and because you didn’t really know – anything was possible. A young reality is a magical place.
From the time you were a child your greatest quest has been about discovering what is true. As time goes on you discovered what you considered to be ‘hard truths’ about reality – people dying, people lying and people hurting… you formed beliefs about these truths and that became your new reality. The more beliefs you established about your reality the more this became your internal reality.
After early adulthood – most early formed beliefs become like hardened concrete and change relatively little over the course of life. There are two exceptions: If the life experience shatters hardened beliefs to rubble or if a person continues to seek truth and keeps their belief structures ‘wet’ so to speak, they are always open to change.
Another word for beliefs is rules. You setup rules to help you navigate reality more effectively. For example the first time you see something drop to the floor (instead of float) you setup a rule that says IF I let go of an object, THEN it will fall. (Rules are generally framed if IF–THEN / cause-effect scenarios. IF = Cause, THEN = Effect) You setup rules for your internal reality that correspond with what you observe in your outer reality. This system is quite efficient when it comes to unchanging events such as gravity or sunsets, but what about the variables in reality?
For example if a dog bites you as a child then your brain might associate danger with ALL dogs, until you encounter enough friendly dogs to change that belief. If a man hurts you, then it will associate danger with ALL men or at least until you meet enough friendly men that help you change that belief. If someone from a religious group or foreign country commits a radical act and you don’t know much about that religion or country, your brain will associate radical acts with EVERYONE in that religion or country.
Ultimately the brain’s biggest limitation is that it cannot be in all life, in all places at all times – which is the true definition of reality. And so what does it do? It fills in a lot of blanks with beliefs about reality. The beliefs create the illusion of knowing reality without actually having had the experience of knowing reality.
HUMANS ARE COMPLEX BECAUSE OF THEIR RULES
As you can imagine creating rules for every interaction with the exterior reality (including other people) makes us very complex! If you think about it rules are the very basis of human relationships. Most of our time in communicating is spent understanding other people’s rules and expressing our own.
IF we care about them THEN we will attempt to understand and honor their rules. IF they care about us THEN they will attempt to understand and honor our rules. IF someone doesn’t honor our rules THEN we are upset.
We have rules for love:
IF he loves me, THEN he’ll tell me often
IF he loves me, THEN he’ll buy me nice things
IF she loves me, THEN she’ll call more often
We have rules for hate:
IF someone insults my family, THEN I will take revenge
IF someone kills my dog, THEN I will kill him.
IF someone is from a certain country or religious group, THEN I will hate him.
We have rules for jealousy:
IF my lover looks at another in a certain way, THEN I will feel jealous.
IF my lover gives something more attention than me, THEN I will feel jealous.
IF my lover compliments another on their beauty, THEN I will feel jealous.
We have rules for giving:
IF they aren’t missing arms and legs, THEN I won’t give them money.
IF someone has a good plan, THEN I will volunteer my time.
IF someone proves they are persistent enough, THEN I will give them my heart.
We have rules for happiness:
IF I have a million dollars in the bank, THEN I am happy.
IF I am healthy, THEN I feel good.
IF I am in control, THEN I am happy.
The list can go on. The point here is that you have established rules for nearly every cause imaginable. And they are not always the best rules. In fact some rules are self defeating. For example if you have to wait until you have million dollars in the bank before you can be happy – you have created a rule that may never be filled, or it might take having a million dollars in the bank before you realize that your rule wasn’t true. So then you will have to create a new rule for happiness – and that might be, IF I have TEN million dollars in the bank, THEN I am happy. (It’s easy to imagine rules that you cannot prove.)
Because the process of rule creation is often unconscious – it’s easy to build your own prison and live in it the rest of your life without ever having realized what happened to the magical reality you lived in as a child. Many times you adopt the rules of your parents, or your close associates, of society. You adopt the image of what success is, what beautiful is and what love is and you setup rules that say unless you are living the ideal image of success, beauty and happiness then you can never be fulfilled. The rules in your head can put happiness out of reach!
The most amazing thing is about rules is this: they are of your own creation! Yes, you may have created them unconsciously, but if you become conscious of them you also have the power to REWRITE them! Why not? Just because you may have been living with some stupid rules for a long time doesn’t mean they are permanent unless you say they are – because that would be another one of your rules! (IF I have lived a certain way long enough, THEN that must be the way things will always be.) As you begin to become more aware of the rules you’ve setup in your head you’ll discover just how complex your rule structure goes. You’ll find that you even have RULES BEHIND RULES. Like the last example – IF my rules have existed long enough, THEN they will always exist; this is a rule behind a rule.
WRITING RULES DOWN DEFINES THEM
Now until you actually put your rules into simple sentence structures like IF / THEN, they are actually not so quite easily defined, in other words most rules are at the level of emotional energies that you CANNOT consciously define. And many rules are in conflict. This is why sometimes you behave in ways that you do not understand. But when you become aware of how you’re behaving and then you finally translate that emotional energy into a sentence such as: “IF I am not getting attention, THEN I do not feel loved.” You can look at it with clarity and realize the absurdity of the rule. Now if the rule were that clear in your head to begin with you would have obviously realized it – but it wasn’t until you did the exercise of becoming aware of your rules and writing them down that you actually become aware of how absurd many of them are. As emotional energies rules will seem very real and very important. This is how in extreme cases people can kill or die for their rules! But when you finally put them down on paper in a form that your conscious mind can understand a simply written IF / THEN statement.. you then have an ‘AH-HA” moment of realization that will help you take conscious control of the rule – keep it if makes sense or discard it if it’s silly.
Now here’s the exciting part – if you want to create new rules you easily upload them into your brain. First you create IF / THEN statements you feel are much more empowering and your brain will quickly adopt them. If for example you want to be happier, create EASIER RULES for happiness. IF I am alive and breathing, I am happy. If I am smiling, I am happy.
HOW DO YOU DISCARD, KEEP OR CREATE RULES?
The very act of becoming aware of your rules is enough. You may not think you’re ‘doing anything’ just because you can’t manipulate them with your hands – but a mountain of evidence suggests that awareness alone can actually rewire the brain. Think about it – even though you read these words no physical interaction takes place between your eyes and these words. It is the conscious reflection upon these words that drives the change in your brain.
CREATE RULES THAT ARE INTERNALLY DRIVEN
The most important part about creating rules is that they MUST be internally driven. You cannot control a million dollars in your bank account – but you CAN control the work you do to create a million dollars. If the end goal is happiness, the million dollars is the outcome of something more important. IF I am serving the marketplace with a valuable product, THEN I am happy. You control what you bring to a marketplace – you don’t control how the marketplace responds.
Rules that are internally driven are easier to control. Examples of internally driven rules:
Internally Driven Rules for Love
IF I am giving unconditionally, THEN I feel love.
IF I grateful for the relationships in my life, THEN I feel love
Internally Driven Rules for Happiness
IF I do my work with integrity, THEN I am happy about who I am.
IF I do work that I choose for myself, THEN I am happy about my freedom.
IF I can bring value to a marketplace, THEN I am happy about my contribution.
Internally Driven Rules for Peace
IF I remember my breath, THEN I feel at peace
IF I remember how short life is, THEN I can let go of petty things
WHAT IS TRUTH?
Truth is what the best rules are for a given scenario. That’s what you really seek, that’s what everyone really seeks – the ‘most true’ rules for navigating reality. Contrary to what you might believe, people love rules; not rules that imprison or limit, but rules that set free. Yes, rules that create rather than inhibit freedom – these are the most sought after. What is freedom? It is unbound awareness. You, the soul as awareness want to escape the boundaries of your container and you must take control of your brain power to create the rules that enable you to escape! Set yourself free.
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