116. The third eye: Chapter 15 - Giving up naive realism

 

The duality of objective and subjective existence only exists from our perspective, as both are constructs we have created. The perception of the objective and material world belongs to the realm of naive realism (a way of viewing reality), because it defines the structure of the world as material, composed of atoms, including the body-mind. Here, the world is seen as external to us. In the subjective view, however, the world exists inside; more precisely, in the subjective where the objective is contained, as the principle of inclusion of dualism applies. The law is not parallelism, but inclusion. The external and internal realities that we perceive are actually one, because one is contained within the other, and they do not exist separately as two different experienced worlds. For example, consider the interconnectedness of yin and yang, cold and hot, above and below, and the third element, the human, who unites them. Those who represent the external, material, and bodily world fail to ask, "Who is the one observing, perceiving, and experiencing the external or internal world?" Furthermore, they do not ask, "Is the one who perceives and experiences doing so from the perspective of the mind and individual self, or from the universal self?" Nor do they ask, "What, how, why, and when do we experience?" 

We are the experiencers, but we are not the experience itself, because experience can be internal, intuitive, or ecstatic—such as when we realize the existence of our eternal, unchanging universal self and become aware that we too are little gods, opening the possibility for self-knowledge. Our universal self is unchanging, but to experience it, we must be immersed in the changes of the life. There can also be external experience, when we experience our body-mind, or when we perceive with our five senses. As mentioned, our universal self is the constant; what changes is the body-mind and the individual self. It could also be said that consciousness is the experience of the identity of our universal self, while ignorance is the experience of our individual self. Therefore, if we identify ourselves with our body-mind or our person, we are making a mistaken identification. 

The universal self is impersonal, as the One has given a part of itself to everyone, while the personal self is connected to the individual self. Awakening, recognition, and realization mean restoring our direct, living (online) connection with the One, while simultaneously dismantling the indirect, lifeless (offline) connections we have built. If we manage to achieve this, we can declare that our existence (our being) is conscious, because we exist when we are conscious, and when we are conscious, we exist. Therefore, it is important to distinguish between life (birth and death) and existence. Those who identify with the body-mind and the individual self-support naive realism (apparent reality, reality illusion, pseudo-reality), which is essentially objective materialism—close to the sciences that emphasize the primacy of matter, based on the "I believe it when I see it" approach. The same naive realism includes methods and tools that distort universal consciousness and support ignorance and slavery, such as worldviews, material and non-material religions, and ideologies. 

Let us ask the question: What does modern science uses the objective world to understand, and what is the purpose of this understanding? It seeks to understand only the material world, from which it concludes that development, progress, and profit are necessary, because the world is material. However, according to the conscious person, the world is spiritual. The place where the two meet is when we accept that the material world is also perception and experience (thoughts, emotions, perceptions, etc.) within consciousness. In other words, we know the material world through our consciousness. Consciousness begins with the universal self, meaning that "I am the one who perceives, I am the one I perceive, and I am the way I perceive." Therefore, knowledge is independent of the physical existence of matter, because if we know the universal self, we do not need external, material, or body-mind based knowledge. The same duality applies to the self, because the self exists only if there is a "you," or the One. The self exists in the One, and the One exists in the self. This is why we are little gods. On the side of subjective knowledge, the conscious person stands, knowing that every experience is based on a previous one, because only in this way can we build a relational network of experiences, which we call consciousness. 

Since our objective world is constructed by our mind and, through it, our individual self—including our fears, anxieties, and suffering that cause alienation—our universal self's task is to dismantle these fears, anxieties, and suffering through awareness. For example, suffering arises because we do not know the one reality, and we identify with what we see, hear, and can physically touch, or we fear death. The cause of suffering is that we identify with past events, present tasks awaiting us, and future unexpected events. We are never in the NOW, in consciousness, in ecstasy. Our mind and individual self, fluctuating throughout the 24 hours of the day (creation and dissolution), constantly experience and produce new pseudo-realities. The pseudo-reality created by the objective view must be dismantled by the subjective view. 

In our childhood, we did not have an objective, individual self-based view, e.g. we had not yet accumulated experiences through our five senses and body-mind. The question is: Now that we are adults with much more experience, why do we not dismantle the pseudo-reality to experience the purity of our childhood once more? Perhaps we fear, and cling so much to the past, that we are unable to let go of naive realism—the tangible, the perceptible, the pseudo-reality of experience we can see, hear, and touch? In other words, why do we not dismantle our ignorance, and rid ourselves of fear and suffering? In Eastern philosophy, the liberation from the individual self is called moksha. In the East, knowledge liberates, while in the West, knowledge is often used as power over others. 

Since the modern, materialistic West does not recognize this liberation through inner knowledge, it is more difficult for us to accept the recognition of consciousness. In other words, the person rose in Western culture, including the Hungarian, suffers more and lives in fear more than the person raised in Eastern culture. It is also no coincidence that psychology, which focuses on the individual self—like religious Christianity—has thrived in the West, in the realm of lower culture. The more a society sinks into matter—such as the well-known American society—the more ignorance can thrive. Let us not forget that faulty psychoanalysis also began to spread in Europe only after it had made its way through America.