What is reality

[SeekingFreedom]

If I can only access reality through my perceptions and all of me and my perceptions are a self deception, then how can I know what reality actually is? And if I ever figure it out, how will I know it’s not a self deception? 
 

[Aaron p]

5meo mate

[SeekingFreedom]

@Aaron p is that the only way to really know? 

[Javfly33]

Hahahaha

 

What is REALITY you say?

 

It's not a question of figuring it out.

 

It's a question so obvious it's painful to see that you are not seeing it 

 

Reality is whatever is happening right now.

 

In other words, and exactly as you said, the only true thing is that YOU are the common denominator of reality. Wherever you go, there is reality, along with you.

Do you still think that is a coincidence? Or maybe You and Reality is just a duality you made ?

You = Reality

Self deception is impossible because self deception is still REALITY. ???

Edited August 5, 2020 by Javfly33

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, SeekingFreedom said:

If I can only access reality through my perceptions and all of me and my perceptions are a self deception, then how can I know what reality actually is? And if I ever figure it out, how will I know it’s not a self deception? 

The mistake in your thinking is that you assume perceptions are yours. Perception is not what you think it is. Perception is Absolute Truth. So you have 100% access to what reality actually is.

Nothing is hidden.

Absolute Consciousness is beyond self-deception or falsehood.

Knowing can be wrong. Being cannot be wrong. Which is why spiritual practice is about transcending knowing to being.

[Nahm]

@SeekingFreedom

Weird way to frame it up you’re employing. How does deception feel to you?  Would you say it’s your true nature, as in it sits well with you / you’re deceptive? 

[SeekingFreedom]

I guess I’m confused. I recently came into a realisation that the mind is creating meanings out of everything I see, hear, read, thought etc and it isn’t how it  “actually” is in reality. So now my mind is wondering what is actually there in reality without all of the meanings. For eg. I look at a tree and it’s green, but how do I know it’s green really and not just how I see it. 
My mind is boggled  this looking inward stuff is difficult. 

[Artsu]

Its green because you are having the perception of greenness. Maybe green is the wrong word and you were mistaken to call it that, but the perception is what it is. It is there, in your field of representation.

Maybe there is no actual tree there. Maybe you are dreaming, or seeing an illusion/hallucination, but the experience of seeing the tree is real and cannot be rationalised away.

[SeekingFreedom]

@Artsu is it possible to become aware that the tree is an illusion/ hallucination?   

[Artsu]

16 minutes ago, SeekingFreedom said:

@Artsu is it possible to become aware that the tree is an illusion/ hallucination?   

The tree is physical reality. I think you will become aware by observing it if theres something off about it. People who are hallucinating often know they are hallucinating, there would be ways to tell. It would seem different.

[SeekingFreedom]

@Leo Gura I think I just understood what you are saying. The perception isn’t the self deception but it’s what I think about the perception which is the self deception?

[Osaid]

Reality will not lie to you

Truth = exactly what exists. Something cannot exist if it is a lie, otherwise it's not a lie and it is real.

If someone tells you Santa Clause exists, what is true is that someone told you Santa Clause exists, not that you actually witnessed Santa Clause existing in your direct experience. 

It is possible to witness Truth and turn it into delusion though, see the Santa Clause example above. You might have actually believed Santa to exist because someone told you so, even though it was never in your direct experience. Then, what is real is your delusion about Santa Clause.

38 minutes ago, SeekingFreedom said:

I think I just understood what you are saying. The perception isn’t the self deception but it’s what I think about the perception which is the self deception?

Yeah basically. Leo also has videos on Truth you can watch

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, SeekingFreedom said:

So now my mind is wondering what is actually there in reality without all of the meanings.

What's there is raw sensation, so to speak. But even to call it "sensation" is already too much. We call it Being to be more precise. Being is sensation stripped of the subject and the biological perception process which is a conceptual overly.

So when you think that "I am a human and my brain is seeing the color green because light rays are bouncing off the object and into my eye...." << that entire thing is a story you are projecting over top of the raw Being of GREEN.

Quote

For eg. I look at a tree and it’s green, but how do I know it’s green really and not just how I see it. 

You know it's really green because it is GREEN. GREEN is GREEN. You can't get any more underneath it. GREEN is the Absolute in this case. GREEN is Absolute Truth, but you're not recognizing it as such because you have a story in your mind which says something like, "Green is just a color that my brain is generating."

NO!

You must throw out that story. Leaving you with just: GREEN.

Quote

My mind is boggled  this looking inward stuff is difficult. 

Yes, exactly. This isn't a bug, this is a feature.

1 hour ago, SeekingFreedom said:

@Artsu is it possible to become aware that the tree is an illusion/ hallucination?   

Yes, of course. Every object is a hallucination. But hallucination is the same as the Absolute.

Illusion = Reality

1 hour ago, SeekingFreedom said:

@Leo Gura I think I just understood what you are saying. The perception isn’t the self deception but it’s what I think about the perception which is the self deception?

It goes much deeper than that. "Perception" is also a deception. But not in the way you think. There is nothing "true" behind the perception. Perception needs to be recontextualized as Being/Truth itself.

See my videos: What Is Perception, and Understanding Recontextualization

This is tricky stuff. Your mind will struggle to get it.

[SeekingFreedom]

Thank you everyone for your replies. It’s been mind bending reading them all and trying to understand everyone’s different perspective on the question. 
 

@Leo Gura it appears my mind has tricked me and snuck in many layers of concepts. When I think I’ve got it... nope! More sneaky concepts. Thanks for your help. I will Re watch those videos that you recommended. 
P.S I’ve been watching your videos for 6 years and I’ve watched every single one of them (not to say I understood them all) and many of them multiple times. And I’ve only just realised that they haven’t been really helping me  because I haven’t been pointing the finger at myself and looking inward. 6 effing years it’s taken to realise this!! How funny. 

[Nak Khid]

.

9 hours ago, SeekingFreedom said:

If I can only access reality through my perceptions and all of me and my perceptions are a self deception, then how can I know what reality actually is? And if I ever figure it out, how will I know it’s not a self deception? 
 

If the top statement is true, logically there is no reality, everything is imaginary.

And the only way you could be deceived about anything would be to believe that reality exists.
but I prefer to believe in reality as a matter of faith 

 

 

. 

Edited August 6, 2020 by Nak Khid

[Leo Gura]

39 minutes ago, SeekingFreedom said:

6 effing years it’s taken to realise this!!

You're doing good. Most people never realize it

If you want to understand, take a psychedelic.

[Nahm]

4 hours ago, SeekingFreedom said:

I guess I’m confused. I recently came into a realisation that the mind is creating meanings out of everything I see, hear, read, thought etc and it isn’t how it  “actually” is in reality.

So now my mind is wondering what is actually there in reality without all of the meanings. For eg. I look at a tree and it’s green, but how do I know it’s green really and not just how I see it. 
My mind is boggled  this looking inward stuff is difficult. 

When you go to sleep and have a dream at night, all meaning, seeing, hearing and thought are not actually ‘individual things’, or anything happening...but rather are one whole experience of dreaming, made of the dreamer, or, the ‘dream substance’ of your mind. As in, the actuality of ‘stuff’ in the dream is that it is mind, appearing as dream things. When you wake up in the morning, it’s pretty clear there wasn’t anyone seeing, hearing, or thinking, because that was all in and of the dream. You didn’t actually see or hear any ‘thing’, but a dream of there being ‘things’. Within seconds or minutes of waking up you can’t really even remember it. It’s the same as if it hadn’t happened at all, because it’s was you, and you’re presently you, not dreaming anymore. However, you would want to consider that the sleeping at night & the waking up in the morning could also be the dream, or mind ‘substance’ still at play. You could verify this isn’t a dream of infinite mind, by finding the actuality of separation between finite things, and the separate physical individual living in physical reality perceiving the things, who’s sleeping at night, and dreaming. 

[Call Me Whatever]

So "knowing", then, is the cause of distortion, which creates duality by overlaying experience with subjectivity?

[LastThursday]

14 hours ago, SeekingFreedom said:

how can I know what reality actually is?

By comparing it to what reality isn't. What isn't reality?