Our ‘presence’ in this block of time and space serves as the backdrop for the contents of the Present to seemingly emerge. These contents—shapes, colors, sounds, thoughts—are all forms or appearances known through awareness.
Understanding
Context and Content: The contents define the context, which is elusive
by nature. We assign different meanings to parts and wholes; the latter is
often felt as an imagined fullness distinct from its components. For instance,
a ‘bathroom’ or ‘kitchen’ is not an entity separate from its parts—walls,
fixtures, appliances—but a concept formed by the mind.
Similarly,
we use events to construct an imaginary boundary called ‘time.’ Events like
daybreak or meals are pieced together to create a timeframe such as
‘yesterday,’ which has no independent existence.
The mind
is equipped to maintain what is not present as ‘present in absence’—not in
relation to past or future but as opposed to absent. Thus, everything absent is
kept alive in memory as if it were as real as what was once present.
The Illusion of
Presence: Places
like America or concepts of objects like our house exist in our minds as
thoughts and are considered as real as what is physically present before us.
However, both are equally unreal without our perception. For example thought of
my mother is not my mother.
Mental
forms—thoughts of the past or future—occur now to give biased meaning to
current events. The mind spins a world of objects and meanings into existence,
with most occurrences being mental rather than physical.
What we
see with our eyes are mere splashes of color forming a single frame; what we
perceive with our mind are parts assumed to be separate objects. The mind
alternates between splitting wholes into parts and combining parts into wholes
based on focus, crafting a continuous narrative from these fragments.
Perception, Reality,
and the Illusion of Continuity
Humanity
can be perceived as a whole or segmented by religion, depending on our mind set.
Both perceptions feel real yet are equally unreal; one becomes out of focus in
light of the other. Like observing a nest makes the tree blur, what we focus on
seems real while the rest fades.
The Mind’s
Fabrication: The
mind grants reality to absent things through thought forms without substance.
This is the twist in life’s game. A hole in paper is ‘in’ but not ‘of’ the
paper—it lacks texture. Yet, our memory integrates it as part of the paper,
viewing it as a whole with a hole.
Thus, our
idea of reality is full of such ‘holes’—thought forms that create an illusion
of continuity. Time and space are texture less concepts that provide a stage
for events, falsely affirming the reality of ‘me’ and separate objects.
The Maze of
Appearances: Believing
in the reality of appearances and thought forms leads to suffering—life feels
perpetually unsatisfying. To escape this maze, ‘samsara,’ one must recognize
that appearances lack true reality.
The Nature of
Reality: Reality
is the formless context of ‘knowing,’ where appearances and thoughts are
perceived, and are ‘contents’ to Knowing. It is changeless and formless
awareness itself, capable of recognizing forms, time, and space due to contrast
or changes. Change is a form of contrast, as far as memory is concerned. It’s
the contrast the fills the content, beautifully, as a continuum.
Reality
serves as a backdrop for all that appears and disappears. Forms are essentially
formless and imagine objects, seem through mental programming. Understanding
this can lead the mind to see through the illusion until what is unreal is
recognized as such.
Its not so much of what truth is supposed to
be. It is enough to know what is untrue, so that they are not processed as truth.
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